The funding from the California Energy Commission enables the Schatz Center to continue its partnership with start-up company Renewable Fuel Technologies (RFT), San Mateo, which has developed and is now testing a pilot-scale, one ton per day torrefier. An emerging technology, the torrefier produces bio-coal from timber waste by heating biomass to 300C in the absence of air. Bio-coal can be co-fired in a power plant with standard fuels such as coal or wood chips to generate renewable electricity.

RFT has worked with the Schatz Lab for three years to operate a demonstration-scale, prototype torrefier for research, experiments and evaluations. The latest $95,000 grant supports continuation of that work, aimed at carefully measuring the energy and mass balances in RFT’s new pilot-scale unit. The measurements will aid in designing the torrefier for mobile, stand-alone operation and optimizing the technology for commercial use.

The focus on mobility is considered crucial if torrefier technology is to become commercially viable. A good deal of forest debris lies in many remote locations that are difficult to reach, generating high logistics overhead. By making biomass three times as energy dense, the mobile torrefier would provide a far more economical approach as well as a major incentive to commercial conversion of timber waste into very-low-carbon renewable energy.

“Biomass from timber industry waste and forest fuel reduction is a substantial resource for producing very-low-carbon energy,” says Schatz Center founding director Peter Lehman. “Portability is key. Mobile torrefaction would be a big leap over the obstacles to gathering, transporting, and co-firing biomass. A torrefier could be put on a trailer and taken into the woods where utility services are not available.”

In that connection, Professor Han-Sup Han and his students from Humboldt State’s Department of Forestry are modeling the deployment of portable torrefaction equipment for use in Humboldt County demonstration projects.

“Humboldt County, with its focus on sustainability, intends to be the leading renewable energy county in California,” says RFT’s Mark Wechsler. “Together with Schatz, we are planning to develop the engineering processes and forest management practices to transform mobile torrefaction technology into an economical production system.”

The two sites set out to find post-secondary educators who had been recognized for excellence in the classroom, on campus and in the community.

Cass has served as an assistant professor in the Department of Oceanography since 2011. Her research focuses on changes in West Coast zooplankton brought about by seasonal variations.

Cass joins professors from Stanford, UC Berkeley and Loyola Marymount in earning the distinction.

StateStats.org is a non-profit organization that increases accessibility to education and information through the use of new technologies. OnlineSchoolsCalifornia.com provides Californians with information about alternative post-secondary education options, as well as career advice.

The Humboldt State Oceanography Department offers a Bachelor of Science degree in oceanography. Students get hands-on experience at the Telonicher Marine Lab in Trinidad and aboard the R.V. Coral Sea.

More than 80 percent of graduates accept jobs related to oceanography or directly enter masters or Ph.D. programs.

For details, visit humboldt.edu/oceanography.

The old printing press that produced the Sempervirens yearbook, among other things, is seen in this 1958 photo. The yearbook was published through the end of the 1960s when campus attitudes changed. At this same time the final fraternities on campus dissolved and the campus began selling beer and wine.

Lucky Logger rides in a Chevrolet Corvette convertible during the 1962 homecoming parade. That year also saw the end of Humboldt State College’s junior college program, the start up of Arcata’s metro bus service, and the completion of the forestry building. In state matters, the California State Colleges Board of Trustees predicted Humboldt would have 12,000 students by 1990.

Founders Hall is seen from the library in this 1973 photo.

The tennis team poses for this undated photo in the old tennis courts. Humboldt State fielded men’s and women’s tennis teams from the 1930s through the 1960s.

This undated photos shows an entrance to the COOP, the campus’s former supply store and soda fountain.

This undated photo shows a College Lyceum fieldtrip to Santa Rosa. Humboldt’s Lyceum, named for the public spaces of Classical Greece, traveled throughout northern California to present musical and dramatic performances while also recruiting new students. The group was later known as the Collegians.

Delgado served as co-director of the Campus Center for Appropriate Technology and recently accepted a 3-month internship at National Geographic in Washington D.C., where he will be researching, fact-checking and editing articles on environmental news, science, and sustainability.

“It’s the perfect opportunity for me to use the skills I’ve learned as a geography major here at HSU,” Delgado says.

The National Geographic’s prestigious internship program offers real-world experience in mapping, magazine writing, photography, education and research. Delgado was selected out of scores of applicants to intern for National Geographic Global Media, composed of its magazine, book publishing, television, film, music, radio, digital media and maps units.

Delgado credits Geography Department chair Steve Cunha and faculty members Mary Beth Cunha and Matthew Derrick for helping refine his application. “They educated me about the application process and mentored me along the way,” he says.

The southern California native attended Cypress College in Orange County before transferring to Humboldt State.

“I’ve always loved the environment and knew I wanted to go to a school that would allow me to be outdoors,” Delgado explains. It wasn’t until he saw a photo of HSU students conducting field research in the Redwood forest that he fell in love.

For his final project, Delgado mapped the transformation of local marshlands from indigenous Wiyot times to the present. His poster took first place at the 75th Association of Pacific Coast Geographers meeting in Olympia, Wash.

After his three-month stint in Washington, D.C., Delgado will return to the west coast, where he plans to pursue a graduate degree in geography at San Diego State University. He will continue his research on indigenous cultures and also join a team of students mapping access to fresh produce in minority communities across the U.S.

Delgado says the geography education he gained at HSU and his work with CCAT have opened a lot of doors. “It’s given me the skills and experience I need to be succesful,” he says.

Earlier this year, Delgado and three other students were named 2012-13 Outstanding Students by HSU President Rollin Richmond. For the full article, click here.

Governor Brown’s May Revision of the 2013-2014 state budget continues to propose an additional $125.1 million in state funding for the California State University and also maintains reinstating $125 million that was cut from last year’s budget and was due to be reimbursed in this year’s budget following the successful passage of Proposition 30. The proposal also states that the administration will work with the colleges and universities, legislature and other stakeholders on a framework that would link future budget augmentations to performance-related measures.

“The funding proposed for public higher education in the Governor’s May Revise is a critical investment in the future of California,” said CSU Chancellor Timothy P. White. “We look forward to working with the Governor and legislature to invest these educational resources while ensuring the accountability of our universities and the success of our students in a way that upholds the mission of the California State University.”

Overall, the proposed increase in state support for the CSU would bring state funding levels to $2.3 billion for the support of university programs and operations. At their March board meeting, CSU Trustees reviewed an expenditure plan based on the proposed funding that addresses three major areas of need – student access and success, faculty and staff compensation and mandatory costs. Trustees will discuss additional details of this expenditure plan and the revised budget proposal at the upcoming May board meeting.

The grant finances a Center-led project, Aligning Forces Humboldt, in its final phase. Actions include quality improvement programs in doctors’ offices and hospitals and new payment methods to promote high-quality care.

“This grant allows us to continue to collaborate with community leaders, patients, doctors, nurses, employers and insurers so everyone in Humboldt County can receive the right care at the right time,” said Melissa Jones, Project Director of Aligning Forces Humboldt. “We are committed to finding new ways to improve our health care system so we can have a healthier community. This grant will accelerate our work while we strive for sustainable progress in meeting the goals of a reformed health care system: better value, greater transparency and improved care coordination.”

Partners of the California Center for Rural Policy in Aligning Forces Humboldt are the Humboldt Del Norte Independent Practice Association and St. Joseph Health – Humboldt County.

Aligning Forces Humboldt alliance is one of 16 organizations nationwide and it has been participating in the initiative since 2008.

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation was established in 1968 on the death of industrialist and philanthropist Robert Wood Johnson II of Johnson & Johnson. The foundation launched its Aligning Forces for Quality program in 2006.

Details are available at aligningforceshumboldt.org. Project director Melissa Jones can be reached at 707/445-2806 ×5 and melissa@aligningforceshumboldt.org.

Stephens and three of her undergrads took a look at 150,000 tweets that used racist, homophobic or anti-disabled slurs from June 2012 to April 2013. What they found is a high concentration of hate speech—like the n-word and the f-word—in isolated areas.

Here’s a round-up of some of the media coverage:

Gawker — Map of Twitter Racism Shows Twitter is Racist Everywhere

Mashable — ‘Geography of Hate’ Maps Racist, Homophobic, Ableist Tweets

Huffington Post — Twitter Hate Speech Map Pinpoints Racist, Homophobic Hotspots Across U.S.

Atlantic Cities — Where Americans Tweet Messages of Hate

The Guardian — Mapping Hate Speech

Die Zeit — Hate Map Twitter

The Daily Mail — The racist map of America

The two-week event will feature eight public concerts in the Behavioral and Social Sciences Building and the Arcata Playhouse. Musical styles will include classical, jazz, blues, Latin and other international music. Sixty musicians from around the world—from Greece to Japan—are expected to participate.

There will also be workshops, master classes by HSU faculty and a tour of Arcata-based marimba manufacturer Marimba One, which is co-hosting the festival.

For more information on Marimba One, visit marimbaone.com.

Fore more information on the festival, visit zmf.us.

Students recently used a Humboldt Energy Independence Fund grant to conduct a lighting inventory of all academic buildings on campus.

They recorded the wattage, number and type of light fixtures used in lecture halls, faculty space and academic service buildings. They also documented the amount of time that fixtures remained on throughout the week.

“The information can be used in a number of ways but one of our main goals was to help the university identify potential cost and energy savings,” says Grant Goddard (’14, Environmental Resources Engineering) who conducted the survey with Jocelyn Gwynn (‘14, Energy & Climate) and Ryan Kaplan (‘14, Environmental Resources Engineering).

The Humboldt Energy Independence Fund (HEIF) is a student-led fund that supports projects to reduce the university’s environmental impact and energy consumption.

Among the biggest offenders of energy use: Gist Hall, the Green and Gold Room in Founders Hall and the ceramics lab, the report found. “These were all areas that were over lit based on their square footage,” Kaplan explains.

Other areas, like custodial rooms and mechanical spaces, rated poorly due to old or incandescent bulbs from the 1960s.

The inventory found that in some buildings, installing photosensors to utilize existing natural lighting would result significant cost and energy savings. Other buildings would benefit from occupancy sensors. “There are a bunch of rooms in Gist where lights are on even though no one is there,” Goddard says.

The full report will be used by Plant Operations and Facilities Management. It will also be available for the public by emailing heif@humboldt.edu. “Our hope is that it will be used as a resource for the university and HEIF proposals moving forward,” Gwynn says.

For more information on HEIF, visit humboldt.edu/heif. For HEIF’s 2012-13 annual report, click here.

OLLI will host:

• Kayak Oyster Tours with Dave Fuller & David LaFever – Dune ecology and oyster farming in the Mad River Slough, Sunday, June 9, noon-3 p.m. $85

• Trinidad Head Lighthouse & Granite Cross Walking Tour with Patti Fleschner – Lighthouse history, shipwrecks, Spanish mariner accounts, Friday, June 14, 2-4 p.m. $30

• Redwood & Rails with Ray Hillman – Railroading in Humboldt County from its beginnings; ride the rails of former lumber company speeders at Samoa. Friday, June 14 & 21, Sat., June 22 (Fri.: 6-8:30 p.m.; Sat.: 9 a.m.-4 p.m.), Humboldt Bay Aquatic Center, $70

• Beginning Birdwatching with Louise Bacon-Ogden – Lecture and field work. Saturday, June 15, 10 a.m.-2 p.m., Garberville Civic Club, $30

• OLLI van tour of the historic Bald Hills with Jerry and Gisela Rohde and Jim Wheeler; oak woodlands and prairies once home to the Chilula Indians, Saturday June 15, 8:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m. $75

• OLLI out at the ball game, Humboldt Crabs Baseball with Randy Robertson – A behind-the-scenes look at ballpark operations and an opportunity to meet players and coaches. Lunch provided by the HSU Alumni Association. Free ticket to the 1:30 p.m. game on Sunday, June 23, 10 a.m.-3 p.m. $40

• Restoration and Renewal in Redwood National & State Parks with Jim Wheeler – OLLI van trip to Redwood National and State Parks. Observe watershed and forest restoration and prescribed fire featured in brown-bag discussion series. Saturday, July 13, 9 a.m.-5 p.m. $75

• Forest Within A City with Ray Hillman – Lecture and extensive walking tour of Sequoia Park and the Zoo. Saturday, August 3, 9:30 a.m.-2 p.m. $50

OLLI registration and memberships are available at 707.826.5880 or by visiting humboldt.edu/olli.