Teachers attending the first Design Your Future Teaching Institute studied the engineering design process by designing and constructing simple machine displays to convey physics principles to children visiting the Discovery Museum, directed by Jennifer Taylor.

In conjunction with North Coast Engineering Academies, Hoopa High School will offer the Humboldt State University course ENGR 215, Introduction to Design, for college credit this fall semester. Hoopa High School students will receive ENGR 215 course content online and complete course work at their Hoopa campus. This model is also used at CSU Sacramento and CSU Northridge. Fortuna High School plans to offer a similar course in Fall, 2009.

This co-curricular class is one way North Coast Engineering Academies is encouraging high school students to study the field. In addition, the academies will foster partnerships between engineers and K-12 teachers. From these partnerships, teachers will have more external support to teach engineering concepts.

The public is invited to the Discovery Museum unveiling on the corner of 3rd and F Streets in Eureka. Information about the Design Your Future Teaching Institute and the North Coast Engineering Academies is at http://www.humboldt.edu/~dyf and from HSU Professor Dr. Beth Eschenbach, Ph.D. at Beth.Eschenbach@humboldt.edu.

Huynh was about 5’ 4” tall, weighed 110 pounds, and had short black hair and dark eyes.

A multi-agency probe is under way as authorities seek witnesses who may have seen the victim jogging early Sunday morning. Investigators believe Huynh left Creekview Residence Hall between 6:30 and 7:00 a.m. for his customary hour-long jog. He is believed to have been running alone and no one to date has been able to give a complete description of the route he took.

Police investigators obtained one statement suggesting Huynh was seen running west on Granite Avenue toward L.K. Wood Boulevard around 7:25 a.m. However, no conclusive information or evidence has emerged as to Huynh’s exact route or what happened to him in the 90 minutes between his departure from Creekview and his return to the residence hall at about 8:30 a.m., a key timeline disclosed from examination of electronic door records.

Huynh apparently suffered unspecified but serious injuries. The gravest appears to have been internal bleeding in the skull. Despite questioning by his roommates, the HSU senior gave no explanation for his injuries Sunday. When his condition worsened, roommates drove him to Mad River Community Hospital where Emergency Room staff began immediate treatment. Huynh was still unable to give a statement about events or his injuries. He lost consciousness, never to regain it, leaving investigators with little to go on. He was subsequently airlifted to Redding, where he died.

The same morning Huynh was injured, UPD recovered an abandoned and damaged bicycle near the base of the steep Creekview roadway, about 500 feet below Huynh’s residence hall room, first observed by Creekview staff at approximately the same time he was believed to have gone jogging. After collecting the bike, ascertaining the damage to it and picking up other physical evidence found at the scene, police now believe an unreported bicycling accident may have occurred at the base of Creekview hill. Investigators are actively probing if Huynh somehow sustained his injuries in connection with this evidence.

Investigators remain open to other explanations, ranging from an undiagnosed medical condition, causing Huynh to fall, to injuries suffered at another, still unknown location. The UPD investigative team is actively seeking witness information and the public’s help in reconstructing, to the extent possible, his route on Sunday morning. The authorities have issued a plea for assistance and information, specifically seeking contact with anyone who saw Huynh anywhere Sunday morning.

The deceased is described as having worn a long-sleeved green sweatshirt and green sweatpants without ornamentation. He was about 5’ 4” tall, weighed 110 pounds, and had short black hair and dark eyes.

“There is someone out there who saw him running, or maybe even gave him a lift home after he was injured,” said UPD Chief Thomas Dewey. “Any piece of information, no matter how seemingly small, might be the key to understanding exactly where Huynh went and how he was injured.”

UPD is leading the investigation, assisted by Department of Justice criminologists, the California Bureau of Investigation, California Highway Patrol, the Humboldt County District Attorney’s Office, the Arcata and Redding Police Departments and the coroner’s offices in both Humboldt and Shasta Counties.

A multi-agency team will gather in Redding early next week for an autopsy, further examination of physical evidence and analysis of the deceased’s medical records.

Anyone with information is urged to call UPD at (707) 826-5555 or email the department at HSUPD@humboldt.edu

Summer 2008 CAIC students are joined by their HSU professors and mentors.

Justin Holz, a transfer student from Golden West College, Huntington Beach, was introduced for the first time this summer to his native Cherokee language through the Coalition for American Indians in Computing (CAIC—pronounced ‘cake’), a summer program hosted by Humboldt State University. Holz is a self-taught computer maven with his own “virtual” online business. He praises CAIC’s merger of cultural study and technological prowess. He plans to major in computer science at HSU.

A CAIC mentor and Humboldt State senior, Marcelino Guel, says, “Regardless of how young you are and how much your life has been influenced by pop culture, you can still retain your own native culture. When I was 11, I was an MTV kid, but our indigenous stories come from an oral tradition and they’re not just stories. They contain historical and moral and ethical values, the precepts you need to govern your life, which you can’t get from technology. But you can pass them on with technology and you can apply the language with computers and keep it vibrant.”

Among other things, this summer’s CAIC students were introduced to an open source software package conceived by Southern Oregon University named ACORNS—Acquisition of Restored Native Speech. The acronym is fitting because the acorn was sacred to the tribes of northern California and southern Oregon.

ACORNS is expressly designed to handle linguistic data. It enables both students and instructors to make and execute files that carry language lessons. “It’s a very well-written program,” Holz says. “I’ve tried to write my own programs, so I know how difficult that can be. It allowed me to begin learning my native [Cherokee] language.”

McKinleyville resident Melitta Jackson, who will be a senior this fall at Arcata High School, likes the fact that ACORNS not only allows Native American students to record their languages, but also to distribute them on Web sites so that others can become acquainted with different linguistic traditions. A former Hoopa student, Jackson is in the arts program at Arcata High. The CAIC Photoshop training she received will give her a head start when she starts fall classes.

Jackson lauds CAIC in broad terms. “I made so many connections, gained a valuable experience and made new friends from all over—mostly the West Coast, but also one girl from Mississippi,” she smiles. Students from New Mexico and Washington state also attended.

One of the program’s guest lecturers is Melodie George-Moore, a veteran K-12 teacher and HSU alum who instructs a high school class in the Hupa language at Klamath-Trinity Joint Unified School District. She sees the practical advantages of cultural preservation for young people who will live the whole of their adult lives in a 21st century that may confront them with new uncertainties. If health care becomes a scarce resource, she suggests, her Native American students may have to recover their tribal knowledge of native plants for medicinal purposes. “Just consider the growing immune resistance to antibiotics,” George-Moore points out. “Through language preservation, students can find native stories about medicinal uses for plants that might have been considered weeds before.”

Funded by the National Science Foundation, CAIC is run by two computer science faculty, Professors Guy-Alain Amoussou and Ann Burroughs. Students explained the high importance they attach to culture and languages, and Amoussou and Burroughs decided to link that interest to information technology. They visited tribal offices to gain first-hand knowledge of how tribal enterprises make use of information technology. They realized that students could pick up a set of skills highly useful in many domains while satisfying their hunger for preserving their heritage.

CAIC is a summer experience for high school and community college students who are not attending Humboldt State. The program’s purpose is to encourage them to consider careers in computing, with an emphasis on cultural integration: retention of cultural identity while working in the information technology field. CAIC introduces them to the academic aspects of the profession: programming, networking, design, graphical information systems and problem solving. The training includes college preparation workshops on financial aid, scholarship applications, study and test-taking skills, stress management and Humboldt State’s Educational Opportunity Program.

Participants receive career planning, including tips about the information technology opportunities available in tribal communities. Youngsters learn the needs of tribal administrators for info-tech professionals.

“We are very interested in getting more students from our local community to participate next year,” Dr. Amoussou said. “We would like to partner with schools, tribal education directors, tribal enterprises and tribal and community leaders.”

CAIC students say they pick up valuable lessons about education from the project. Holz, who has two years of community college behind him and is some years older than his counterparts, found himself taking up the role of informal mentor, teaching while learning. He realized his mother had been right. “My mother is a teacher and she always says, ‘The best way to learn something is to teach it to someone else.’”

Holz underscored the strong interpersonal relationships CAIC fosters. “Through this program you really get an opportunity to know people better than you normally would because you have a common background. There are strengthened friendships here. Going the extra mile to learn about people is a nice thing.”

Guel, the HSU senior whose degree emphasis is American Indian education, echoes Holz’s sentiment. He compares the CAIC class to a miniature United Nations that brings together students from various tribal nations to focus on a common interest, cultural and language preservation via computer. “As a matter of fact,” he muses, “we are all in a way indigenous peoples around the world. Once upon a time, we all at one point had the same fire, drank the same water, resided on the same land and breathed the same air.”

In including Humboldt State as one of 81 “Great Schools with Outstanding Community Involvement,” the review noted “Social responsibility is a current that runs through the coursework at HSU.” A student is quoted as saying that “one overarching lesson HSU graduates bring to the world at large is a strong commitment to social justice no matter the discipline they choose to study.”

The review says “Students rave about the ‘personal connections’ with ‘dedicated professors’ who are ‘easy to get a hold of.’ ” Other students commented that HSU fosters “the skills for lifelong learning, community and political awareness,” and said that the student body “prides itself on community respect and social diversity.” HSU, students said, is “all about equality in diversity” and is a “tight community.”

In developing its rankings, the Princeton Review compiles student opinion on issues from accessibility of their professors to the quality of campus food, and incorporates institutional data compiled by the organization.

The full 2009 Best Colleges report can be viewed at The Princeton Review’s Web site.

“KHSU is the most listened to radio station on the North Coast and I know Elizabeth’s many colleagues and supporters join me in expressing our appreciation for her efforts on behalf of HSU and KHSU,” Dr. Gunsalus said.

Called Competitive Intelligence, the pilot year of the program will be anchored by Adrienne Harling, a regional research consultant with a master’s degree in Library and Information Science. She founded the Klamath Salmon Natural History Library in Orleans in 2002, securing a $14,000 grant and supplying a strategic plan and budget blueprint.

Competitive Intelligence is information about a company’s rivals, customers, markets and industries that can equip it with a competitive edge. Businesses learn a great deal about their potential customers and their competitors’ performance in attracting them.

Active support of local, growth-oriented companies with high caliber research is a crucial component of a successful economic development strategy for communities that emphasize building their own entrepreneurial talent, instead of recruiting industry from out of the area. This strategy is called “economic gardening.”

In her new role with the OECD, Harling will assist Redwood Coast businesses with customized research in six industry sectors that have been identified as having the highest potential economic impact in the region: diversified health care, niche manufacturing, specialty agriculture, management and innovation services, investment services, and building and systems construction and maintenance.

“I’ll help our local businesses grow using reliable strategic information,” said Harling, who for five years has been providing natural resources research to agencies, tribes and other organizations in the Klamath River basin. “Our Competitive Intelligence Research Service will strengthen local economic development, helping our entrepreneurs to make informed, critical decisions about their businesses. The research will be customized, concise and actionable so that businesses can address specific issues efficiently. This kind of research is very expensive on the open market, so it’s a wonderful start-up opportunity that HSU is able to provide these services for free this year, and at a reduced cost in future years.”

Financing comes from a $66,000 start-up grant from the Headwaters Fund of Humboldt County, in cooperation with the North Coast Small Business Development Center. Harling will operate out of Humboldt State’s OECD at 707/826-3924.

Maggie Gainer, OECD’s Director, said, “I am thrilled that this new C.I. research service and Adrienne’s expertise will apply the tremendous information resources, databases and research tools at the University to help local firms expand and compete in national and global markets. It’s a perfect role for HSU in the region’s economic development.”

Visit Growing Local Economies for additional information about Competitive Intelligence.

Campus access north of Harpst on B Street will be channeled through the Library parking lot entry, via Plaza Avenue to Laurel Drive.

Artist’s rendering of landscape design around Harry Griffith Hall. The landscaping is part of the proposed access upgrade project.

A 24-7 detour for emergency vehicles will be located at the corner of Harpst and B Streets, in concert with the Arcata Fire Department and the University Police Department.

The work marks the final project portion of the year-long remodel of Harry Griffith Hall that includes better access for the disabled, a new elevator, new fire alarm and refurbished finishes. Financing comes from capital renewal funds and campus deferred-maintenance accounts.

The new Eureka Waterfront Litigation Collection is available to researchers and the public at . It comprises upwards of 1,000 documents, maps, charts, photographs and newspaper clippings.

The records were compiled by the legal firm that represented the City of Eureka from 1968 to 1981. The case had a complex history rooted in federal swamp lands and state tideland law and cases. The collection includes historical maps, comtemporary aerial photographs and archaelogical findings. The city donated it to Humboldt State in 1984.

The website has a finding aid that serves as an “index” to the contents. It also has a slide show that extends the physical exhibit and places the collection in context. Scanned images show some of the maps and photographs.

HSU students were directly involved with the project as part of their studies. Suzanne Guerra, in the master’s program in Environment and Community, has been engaged with the issues posed by the collection for a number of years in her work as a cultural resources consultant. She conceptualized and designed the exhibit and prepared an online version for the collection website. Jacqualine Faria, who is completing her bachelor’s in English and preparing to seek a master’s degree in Library and Archives Management, cleaned and inventoried the many parts of the collection. She researched the context for a paper for her history research methods class.

HSU Library Special Collections staff Joan Berman and Edie Butler guided the many aspects of the project to its fruition.

A grant from the Tracy Memorial Trust Fund, under the Humboldt Area Foundation, supported the processing of the collection and the preparation of the exhibit.

Other HSU Library Humboldt Room resources recently introduced to the public include the Northwestern California Forest Communities project in January 2007 and An Arcata Ago, an exhibit in several venues this year as part of the celebration of Arcata’s 150th anniversary. It features photographs from HSU’s Ericson and Shuster Collections and will be presented in the Library Lobby in the fall.

Hansen celebrates her wedding anniversary in August and has already “hinted” to her husband that the perfect gift would be a ladder—with a paint tray!

An aspiring science illustrator, Hansen laughs when asked if she believes her anniversary wish will come true. “There’s a good chance,” she says knowingly.

Her husband served as Man Friday, helping Hansen with the precise measurements and surface preparation necessary to create an imposing mural of dark brown silhouettes that portray, among others, a nine-feet tall wooly mammoth, a flightless, non-flying “terror bird” (diatryma), a rhino and bats with wingspans of three to four feet.

“The whole idea is to convey size, to show how big these prehistoric creatures really were,” says Museum Director Melissa Zielinski.

While pursuing a concentration in science illustration, Hansen learned about the Natural History Museum’s highly valued internships from Art Professor Teresa Stanley. It took Hansen six weeks to complete the mural drawings when Zielinski commissioned the project in August, 2007. Committee approval was completed last January, but inclement weather and final exams prevented Hansen from brandishing her paint roller until the closing days of May.

She completed the mural in a month, based on spaces she had mapped out for each silhouette. The creatures chosen for illustration were not a foregone conclusion. Size, impact and visual recognition were key criteria. For example, Hansen and Zielinski considered using a prehistoric whale, but realized it would look as if it were flying, not swimming, on a background of uniform color.

Hansen’s drawings measured one foot by four feet, inscribed on engineering graph paper. After nightfall, she and her husband used an overhead projector to shine the images on the museum’s north wall. Wielding a long piece of floor trim as a stick, they marked off one foot increments up to 10 feet. This ensured that the scales remained accurate as they copied the drawings from the overhead transparencies onto the wall. The projector enabled her to trace the outlines with a graphite pencil onto the surface in the dark, then return in the day time to paint the figures.

Hansen says one of her biggest “lessons learned” is that a large-scale mural is definitely a team effort. Heretofore, she labored solo as an artist, but murals require shared effort. The museum project gave her “a whole new respect for the murals I see around town here and in Eureka. To work outdoors on that scale and achieve the color, the depth and the detail—and then cope with North Coast weather!—well, it’s just phenomenal.”

Hansen is ready to have at it again, as long as she has a mentor. “There must be specific tricks they use, working with giant grids and traversing a scaffold. I don’t have the experience or know-how to take something like that on by myself,” she says.

Delighted with the compliments she has received from the first young observers of her new mural, Hansen smiles as she recalls two girls, about fourth or fifth grade, who confided to her in the gravest, hushed tones, “You know, this is what they really look like,” they declared. “That’s the size they really are!”

Hansen is uncertain what she will do when she completes her degree in another year—she has a great deal of teaching experience—but she is already at work on illustrations for the museum’s bee exhibits. It is clear her success with the mural is an inspiration to her as well as the museum’s visitors.

On Monday, July 7, friends, family, and supporters will join Powell as he crosses the Golden Gate Bridge at 7:00 p.m. People will begin gathering for the bridge crossing at 4:00 p.m. Powell is scheduled to speak, before the bridge crossing, at the amphitheater between the Fort Point Mine Depot and the West Bluff Picnic Area in Golden Gate.

Powell says “walking up the California Coast provides the perfect opportunity to slowly shift my life from San Diego to the forests of Humboldt. One step, one breath at a time.”

“This is my service,” Powell adds. “This pilgrimage affirms my dedication to help heal the wounds of humanity and mend our relationship to the earth.”

Powell draws the inspiration for his journey from John Francis’s book “Planetwalker: How to Change your World One Step at a Time,” a gift Powell received for high school graduation.
After reading about Francis’s 22-year walk around the Americas, Powell realized he had talked enough and now “needed to walk the walk.” After a few conversations with Francis he felt ready to hoof it to Humboldt State. The two have plans to meet in Point Reyes and spend a few days walking up the coast together.

Powell embarked on May 23 and spent his first day walking with his father, Allen Ray Powell. “Seth is inspiring me,” says his father.

Once at Humboldt State, the 20-year-old transfer student will begin his academic adventure – creating his own major that combines environmental science with deep ecology – a branch of philosophy that looks at humankind’s relationship with the natural environment.

Along the way Powell has found support. He says, “My big pack and I seem to attract some attention, so I have been meeting some friendly folks.” A man in a grocery store recognized Powell as “the guy walking up the coast.” A family from Idaho invited him into its campsite for dinner. So far, Powell’s found, “people see something in me that sparks a seed in them.” Change starts with individuals and it grows to groups and communities, he says.

Staying in homes, campsites and hotels along the way, Powell says he is trying not to ask for things like food, shelter, or rides but instead stay open to the possibilities.

“This is my own pilgrimage and I’ve got to do what feels right for me. So I’m going to attempt to travel leaving as light an imprint as I can – without killing myself.”

To find out more about Powell’s Pilgrimage visit http://www.mindfulroots.com or http://www.mindfulroots.blogspot.com. For more information about the July 7 Golden Gate Bridge Crossing contact Allen Ray Powell (925) 977-1865, arpowell@holy-flame.net.