A hydrogen-fueled Toyota Prius arrives at Humboldt State University.

The station, now in its test phase, will be California’s first rural facility in a breakthrough initiative called the “Hydrogen Highway,” whose importance is soaring in concert with world oil and gasoline prices.

Provided by the California Air Resources Board to encourage alternative transportation fuels, the Prius will be shared by HSU and other public agencies that have jointly supported the station project. The car was converted by Quantum Technologies of Irvine, CA., to run on hydrogen gas.

HSU’s hydrogen fueling station will be the northernmost link in California’s emerging Hydrogen Highway, a network of such stations that eventually will allow hydrogen-powered vehicles to travel throughout the state as global demand intensifies for alternative sources of energy.

The station is nearly complete and is undergoing final testing. It will produce enough hydrogen fuel to maintain a fleet of three or four hydrogen-powered cars. The Schatz Energy Research Center (SERC) is pursuing funding and vehicle suppliers to build a planned hydrogen car fleet.

Project Manager Greg Chapman at the installation of the canopy for Humboldt State University’s Hydrogen Fueling Station, which is in its test phase.

A public dedication ceremony for the fueling station and car will take place at HSU on Thursday, September 4.

SERC has played an historic role in HSU’s decades-old reputation for green technology leadership. It promotes the use of clean and renewable energy, conducting research and development of new technology; designing, building, operating, and demonstrating clean and renewable energy systems; providing training for professionals; and educating the public about a sustainable energy future.

SERC’s close affiliation with HSU’s premier Environmental Resources Engineering program provides rare opportunities for undergraduate and graduate engineering students to acquire hands-on experience with cutting-edge energy technologies.

The Center also provides exceptional scientific and educational opportunities to local youth. Under SERC’s auspices, Arcata High School became one of the first institutions to participate in a hydrogen energy curriculum project in 2006, enabling chemistry students to learn about the chemistry of hydrogen and fuel cells. Arcata High students also assembled
and tested their own miniature hydrogen systems.

SERC is a national leader in introducing secondary students to the fuel cells and related devices that will be an integral part of their adult lives.

Born in Pasadena, educated in Glendora in the San Gabriel Valley, Bazard fondly recalls childhood rock and mineral hunts in the desert, his earth science teacher serving as a formative boyhood hero.

And rock hounding with his grandparents—that was a key influence as well.

Another was a coastal vacation trip at age 12 with his older sister and a friend, including a stop at Humboldt State University. Bazard fell for the landscapes of northern California and on graduating from high school in 1976, he headed straight to Arcata.

That was the year the Tangshan earthquake obliterated Tangshan, China, killing almost 243,000 people. But Bazard arrived at HSU with forestry on his mind, not faults and quakes. He put in two years, including a couple of summers in forestry work, mainly timber production. Gradually, he realized it wasn’t holding his interest.

“One day, a friend in the Geology Department told me how great it was there, and I wandered over and talked with Don Garlick,” a much-admired professor at HSU from 1969 to 2000, and now a columnist with one of Arcata’s weekly newspapers, the North Coast Journal.

“What impressed me was that Don spent 45 minutes one-on-one, asking me question after question about whether I really wanted to be a geology major,” Bazard remembers. “It was very obvious that he was interested in student needs and his personal touch impressed me. Later I discovered that was true of the many other excellent faculty in the department.”

After earning his geology degree, Bazard gained invaluable experience in the private sector. He put in several years as a staff geologist with a San Francisco geologic engineering company. It had a major impact on his teaching style at nearby College of the Redwoods, where he joined the faculty in 1995, and as an adjunct professor at Humboldt State. In the classroom, Bazard instills the importance of critical thinking and excellent writing when working for a commercial company. A working geologist, he says, must be able to write scientific reports in clear, understandable prose, as well as speak articulately and persuasively.

These skills are highly sought after in the job market, he emphasizes, and they are equally important in the field. Accurate note taking, often under harsh conditions, is essential. “HSU got me ready for that. We went out rain or shine. Sometimes it was pouring or there were heavy winds on the beach, but HSU professors went out anyway. They gave me a can-do attitude to succeed in this kind of job. And that isn’t just gathering information accurately, it’s all the logistics—travel arrangements, map reading, navigation, collecting samples, and being on the alert for the risks that tough field conditions can present.”

Bent on teaching, Bazard left private industry to earn a master’s in geology/geophysics from Western Washington University, and then a doctorate in the same subject from the University of Arizona. At both schools, he taught as a graduate research assistant or assistant professor. Upon completion of his doctorate, he became an associate professor in geology at the University of Mississippi, Oxford, in the northern part of the state.

In addition to his post at College of the Redwoods, Dr. Dave Bazard is also an adjunct professor at Humboldt State University and visiting assistant professor with University of Arizona.

He enjoyed his four-year stay there, teaching being his first love. His literary interests also flourished. He is a fan of William Faulkner (1897-1962), the Nobel prize-winning author whose novels of rural northern Mississippi were among the greats of 20th century American literature. Bazard enjoys the subject, a liking he acquired at HSU while taking a minor (emphasis phase) in modern lit, and developed further during his teaching and research in Mississippi.

A man of the earth in every sense, Bazard made a point of visiting Faulkner’s grave in Oxford, reflecting the love of fine writing he seeks to imbue in his students at Humboldt State and at College of the Redwoods, where the Academic Senate named him Faculty of the Year in 2007.

His efforts at HSU include talks, field trips and a partnership with College of the Redwoods and Friends of the Pleistocene, a geologic society devoted to studying earth processes that occurred 10,000 years to 1.8 million years ago. Trips have taken them to western Nevada and the Sierra Nevada in California. He teaches students to evaluate scientific findings critically, based on close observation. They also take part in local investigations, like the erosion of McKinleyville’s Mad River Bluffs or remediation of Eureka’s Balloon Track (or Tract, depending on personal preference.)

What does Bazard enjoy most about teaching? “Helping my students develop a more complete view of the natural world,” he replies. “Sometimes they haven’t thought much about the earth around them. We go to the beaches at Trinidad and often they’ve been there for recreation, but they haven’t really looked at the rocks there, or the layering or what they are made of, the different rock types and the different structures within them, their geologic origins. They haven’t thought about these things and now you see this new awareness coming over them. Or we’ll tour the hills around here, Humboldt Hill, Fickle Hill, and the students will say, ‘Gosh, I never thought about why there are hills in Arcata.’ They catch on to the folding and faulting that created them. The geologic record is an eye-opener for students.”

Bazard’s teaching hinges on personal mentoring and field experience, a long-time HSU tradition. He discovered the depth of it when he took his first post right after wrapping up his bachelor’s degree in 1982. “When I went to work for this fairly large consulting company in San Francisco, one of the senior geologists found out I attended HSU, and he burst out, ‘Hey! That’s one of the best undergrad programs in the country! You get lots of hands-on experience up there and that’s what this company needs, and what we all need, in the working world.”

This is the mission of the 2008 Humboldt Film Festival Staff and, according to the event’s co-directors, it’s adding up to be one of the best festivals in memory.

The energy making all this possible is due, in part, to the festival’s return to the place it all started, namely, the John Van Duzer Theatre. As recently as last year the festival was held at Arcata’s Minor Theatre but the staff behind event felt it was time for a return to campus.

As it turns out that return has yielded plenty of benefits. “Not only will you get a better movie experience than last year because of our projector and sound system,” says faculty adviser for the festival, David Scheerer, “but also the quality of the entries this year are much higher. We only had 63 entries last year, we had 265 this year.”

Thanks to a grant from the Arcata Foundation, secured by festival co-director Eric Hedstrom, prices have been cut to $5 for general admission, while the festival is free for all students, HSU or otherwise, who hold a current student identification card. The idea is to return the festival to its true owners — the students. “We’re very excited about the festival. All the sudden it felt right to bring it back to campus and to make it available to students,” adds Scheerer.

With the number of film entires quadrupled, it was up to the students of Theater, Film and Dance 394 to trim that number down to a manageable 47, which will be shown during the festival.

Festival co-director Benjamin Bettenhausen, who runs the festival class, undauntedly found a way to fit four times more content into the two semester class. “I did the math about half way through the semester and I was like ‘uh oh, we’re not going to finish,’” Bettenhausen says.

“So I had to develop — very mathematically — a rate of entry submission. If this rate continues until next month, we will have this many, and we’ll have to lengthen the classes, double up during the week and the students were really flexible with that.”

The festival class is open to all majors, although it requires faculty approval before registering. The 28 students who make up this year’s class are the lifeblood behind the festival. “I’d say half the class are film makers but the other half are ordinary students who just like watching films and I’m so thankful for that statistical balance. I really wanted these films to geared toward the average film viewer not just the film-making film viewer,” says Bettenhausen.

Aimee Hennessy, the third of the festival’s three student co-directors, was charged with the task of securing a panel of judges. After much searching, the panel Hennessy put together is a diverse lineup of film makers, each with their own unique biographies.

Starting the week off on Wednesday, March 26, is Ry Russo-Young, a young up-and-coming film maker, who will be judging the experimental film and animation night.

On Thursday night, adjudicating duties fall on Joaquin Alvarado, founding director of the Institute for Next Generation Internet at San Francisco State University. Alvarado, who will judge documentary films, is an award-winning Chicano film maker.

Lastly, Lori Petty, an artist of many flavors, will judge the narrative films on Friday night as well as emcee the awards night on Saturday, March 29. An accomplished actress in her own right, Petty recently began directing films and also includes visual arts and clothing design on her resume.

At 1 p.m. on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday of the festival, each of the judges will present a workshop on their area of expertise. These workshops are free and open to the public.

In all, the 41st annual Humboldt Film Festival promises to be one of the best. Carrying on the tradition HSU students started in 1967 is a task with big responsibilities, after all, this is the oldest student-run festival of its kind.

Now that admission is free to all students the festival can look forward to a renewed energy from campus, but the real energy comes from the films themselves. David Scheerer explains: “I’ve been a film maker 20 years now — I was apart of the Sundance Film Festival when it was still the U.S. Film & Video Festival in the mid 80s — I’ve been a little bit around the block and I have to say that the quality of the films, the production values of the films that the audience will come see this year, will blow them away.”

For more information, including complete festival schedule and more, visit the Humboldt Film Festival .

“Yeah, well, Bono may have been drinking when he said that,” admits Tony Potts, Humboldt State journalism grad (’87) and Access Hollywood weekend co-anchor.

For the past 20 years Tony Potts has earned his keep as a broadcast journalist — starting as a college intern at KVIQ Channel 6 in Eureka (“It was one of the best jobs of my life. I got to do everything there. I learned so much,” says Potts) and working his way up to his current position at Access Hollywood. Along the way, he’s won an Emmy Award for feature reporting, two Associated Press Awards and one Society of Professional Journalists Award.

Potts’ newsbeat runs the gamut—he’s done the red carpet deal at the Academy Awards, Golden Globes and Emmys. He’s covered the Sundance, Venice and Cannes Film Festivals. He’s performed the play-by-play for the Super Bowl, World Series and the NBA Finals. He’s also a regular contributor to NBC’s Today show.

A single week in Potts’ life can find him covering the Grammy’s in Los Angeles, appearing on Larry King Live in Miami, chasing down a story in the Bahamas and playing in the NBA All Star Celebrity game in Las Vegas (where he, incidentally, earned Most Valuable Player honors).

Potts leads life at breakneck speed and yet somewhere between all the red-eye flights and interviews, he also finds the time to run his own production company, act (his credits include CSI Miami and the Mel Gibson movie Ransom), and balance the hectic Hollywood schedule with the daily rigors of being a husband and father—diaper changes, soccer games, parent-teacher conferences… the whole paternal enchilada.

How does he manage it all?

“I have two things working for me: I have a wonderful wife who’s also a senior producer in this business, so she understands the demands of the job; and I have a boss who has kids, so he understands my need for family time. That helps me balance things. I also try to un-plug from work every day, otherwise it’s just all-consuming. We have a five-minute rule at home—you can talk about work for five minutes and that’s it. That rule, right there, could save a lot of marriages.”

Though Potts’ Hollywood life seems far removed from his beginnings at Humboldt State, he remembers his time at HSU fondly. “The thing I remember best about Humboldt State is the professors. Their doors were always open: that’s one of the reasons I went to Humboldt. I’d been looking at the University of Washington, but there were something like 45,000 kids there. Classes with 300 other kids? How do you connect with your professors in that kind of environment?”

The learning curve, Potts admits, was steep. “The professors were very good. Mark Larson, Pete Wilson and Maclyn McClary? Those guys were tough, old bastards—and it was exactly what I needed. I remember my first paper came back and it looked like Jason from Friday the 13th had stabbed it to death, there were so many red marks on it. I thought, ‘‘Oh lord, I need to go into some other field because I suck as a writer. But through my professors’ guidance and their understanding of how a writer needs to evolve, I learned to get to the core of me—to really express what I was thinking.”

Students board the 3:59 bus at Library Circle. Photo Credit: Jarad Petroske / Marketing & Communications

At Humboldt State, it’s 10:07 a.m. and the bus has just let off at Library Circle. Heading down to HSU’s other main stop, at 14th and B streets, already cars are lined up 15-deep waiting to get into the parking lot. The four-way stop is busy and, by the looks of it, so will parking enforcement personnel be as they hand out the 900-plus parking citations they write each month.

Looking at aerial video of HSU it becomes clear how few parking spaces are on campus. For the 7,550 students at HSU, a well-known quote from emeritus Journalism professor Maclyn McClary is undeniable: “It’s not a parking permit, it’s a hunting license for a rare and elusive beast.”

And how elusive that beast is. According to Parking And Commuting Services, in June, 2007, there were 2086 total parking spaces on campus, with 70% of those for student use. At 5.2 students for each parking spot, even the most car pool-friendly students will have trouble finding five people to share a ride with. Bicycling and walking are great alternatives, but as the weather turns gray, people like the conveniences of cars. With Humboldt State’s student population growing each year numbers like these had to add up to a big change.

The line waits to board the bus at library circle. Photo Credit: Jarad Petroske / Marketing & Communications

Students find a solution
Parking is an issue at any college campus. Beyond parking your vehicle are the issues of paying for gas, ozone emissions and reliance on limited energy supplies. Perhaps most salient, is the fact that, as HSU’s transportation club points out, for many of us transportation is the second greatest expense after housing costs. In 2004 a movement began on campus when Wildlife graduate student Chris Rall sought to alleviate this and started on the path toward the Jack Pass.

Rall, and Green Wheels (then known as the Alternative Transportation Club), had seen the University of Washington’s universal bus pass system keep parking demand stable even when the university had grown by 19%. Clearly students, staff and faculty were using the bus passes — and now Rall and the club were determined to bring a similar pass to HSU.

Fast forward three years through meetings, committees, trips to the Chancellor’s office and student votes, and by the 2007 fall semester, a county-wide bus pass was in place. Money comes in through the Instructionally Related Activities fee, with $15 of each student’s money going to the Jack Pass program.

Already, a marked increase in ridership has been noticed, at least anecdotally. According to Green Wheels’ newsletter, Community Wheel, parking permit sales are down and in October of 2007, the Redwood Transit Service announced a 30% overall increase in ridership over the year before. Since existing data doesn’t account for HSU ridership, there is no baseline for more accurately judging the increase, but to the passengers riding the standing-room only bus home at 5 p.m, the boost in ridership is clear.

From an environmental protection standpoint, the fact that more people are riding the bus couldn’t be better news. If Parking Services sold 1165 parking passes last year and it’s assumed, for the sake of illustration, that at least half of those permits were to people commuting about 15 miles a day, then HSU has 582 people driving 8730 miles to get here. Anyone can use Parking Services Commuter Savings Calculator to compute that nixing those 15-mile round trips adds up to a yearly savings of over 1400 pounds of C02 per car, not to mention other startling figures that show up.

And while riders are feeling packed in, some riders can’t wait to get their own Jack Pass. College of the Redwoods student, and Arcata resident, Hannah Earhart wants to transfer to Humboldt State to study business once she’s done with general education. For Hannah, spending $50 a month on bus tickets to CR adds up. “That’s $50 for rent or for food or for books. That’s $50 I don’t have.”

Catching the bus at the 12:11 Bay Shore Mall stop, it’s relatively sparse. Twenty-three people and one bike make up the bus’ cargo and the bus is making good time. New fare boxes were installed last Monday and some riders are having trouble with the Coke machine-like dollar bill slot. This has been making the bus a little late, but not for people with the Jack Pass. This bus is mostly HSU students on their way to class and they’ve cruised past the driver with a show of their student I.D. and a nod of the head. By the time the bus is back on the 101 north a few people are standing in the back and the bus’ bike racks are full.

These riders have discovered something that UPD Police Chief Tom Dewey likes to point out, most recently in the Lumberjack’s article on the parking crunch: With the Jack Pass in place, the whole county is becoming a giant park and ride. The Jack Pass is in its infancy and there will be scheduling adjustments and buses added until things run as smoothly as possible. Until then, ridership is up, CO2 is down and, perhaps most importantly, for Jack Pass users getting to class in time doesn’t mean circling the parking lot for the umpteenth time before finally giving up and parking next to Safeway.

Jacobson, an associate professor in the Environmental Resources Engineering department and an alumnus of Humboldt State, himself, is developing testing protocols that help people in Kenya and Sub-Saharan Africa transition to sustainable energy products.

Millions of Africans who live off the “electrical grid” currently rely on kerosene fuel lamps to light their homes. Kerosene is not only expensive, but also poses significant health and environmental hazards when used indoors.

White light-emitting diodes, known as WLEDs or LEDs are commonly found on headlamps and bicycles in the United States, and are ideal for the developing world because they are portable, bright and run on batteries—ideal for off-grid locations. When charged by solar power, a plentiful resource in sub-Saharan Africa, they emit no pollution or greenhouse gases.

Prof. Arne Jacobson evaluates a flashlight with a Kenyan Citizen during Jacboson’s work with the Off Grid Lighting Project. Photo Credit: Evan Mills, the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

While many people in countries such as Kenya would like to replace their kerosene lamps with solar-powered products or imported LED flashlights and lamps, several barriers have, historically, made that transition difficult.

For starters, new alternative lighting and solar products are quite expensive to the average Kenyan. In addition, very little information exists to help consumers in Kenya and Sub-Saharan Africa determine which of the many imported products are reliable and which are the ones that perform poorly. Making that transition away from kerosene can be, in essence, a gamble in which a sizeable chunk of a family’s income is at stake.

“To most Americans,” explains Jacobson, “an eight dollar LED reading lamp is not a serious investment. If we bought one that didn’t work, we’d just return it to the store and get a new one. It often doesn’t work that way in Africa. Many countries simply don’t have the kind of consumer protection programs that we take for granted. For a family that’s making, say, the equivalent of $1,500 a year, an eight-dollar lamp is a considerable expense. If they buy one that doesn’t work, they can’t just return it and get a new one. It’s an absolute loss.”

Enter Jacobson and his Off Grid Lighting project. Jacobson and partners at UC Berkeley are developing product-testing protocols that can be used to filter out the worthy products from the cheap imitations. It’s important work that could help millions of people in developing countries make the move to sustainable lighting products.

“Professor Jacobson’s work is truly inspiring,” notes Dr. Jená Burges, Humboldt State’s Vice Provost for Academic Programs and Undergraduate Studies. Dr. Burges also serves as Humboldt State’s Accreditation Liaison Officer and was one of the HSU staff members who created the Making a Difference contest—a competition designed to highlight the key goals of Humboldt State’s accreditation efforts.

“Arne is a great example of someone who’s using their education to pursue social justice and environmental responsibility, which our campus community identified as one of the key outcomes of a Humboldt State education. More than anything, though, I’m pleased to see that the Making a Difference contest has helped give a personal dimension to the WASC process. It’s helped people connect the WASC themes directly to their work as faculty, students, staff and graduates of this university.”

Dr. Greg Crawford, Chair of Humboldt State’s Oceanography Department and the Chair of HSU’s WASC Steering Committee, agrees. “That’s it exactly. Re-accreditation takes a long time to complete. At times, it might feel like we’re just going through a process for the sake of the process itself, but that’s not true at all. This is an opportunity for our campus to nail down its goals, evaluate how well it’s meeting those goals, and figure out how we can do an even better job. Seeing these stories of how our co-workers and students are actually out there in the world, making a difference with their education … it brings it all home. What we do here is important and meaningful.”

For his part, Jacobson was surprised when he was notified that he’d been named the winner of the Making a Difference contest. “Well, it’s gratifying to have your work recognized and valued. Of course, the Off-Grid Lighting project isn’t a solo effort. This is definitely a team effort that involves HSU students and my collaborators at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. I was surprised when I got the call from President Richmond telling me about the contest. It feels great.”

Writer Paul Tolme also contributed to this feature.

An Associate Professor of Environmental and Natural Resource Sciences at HSU since 2003, Dr. Ward teaches environmental interpretation and lives her department’s commitment to “connecting people with natural resources.”

She has trained many of the individuals who work on the Redwood Coast and prepare the interpretive cultural signage that everyone depends on for information and education in the region’s national and state parks.

In the last two years, Professor Ward and her students teamed up with area Tribal leaders to create signage that provides information about the history and culture of local Native American Tribes. These signs now grace the 15 new kiosks that have been placed around the HSU campus to guide the campus community and its countless visitors.

Carolyn Ward’s teaching philosophy is as plain as day. “Imagine,” she says, “a guide who leads you down an unfamiliar trail in a foreign environment. The guide leads you, but the footsteps are your own.”

She considers herself “a leader down the trail of a particular topic, but it is the student, the learner, who must walk the path. The teacher can help to interpret, reveal and direct, but mostly make the trail so enticing that the student wants to traverse its length. Eventually, the student forges a new trail in a different direction. To make explorers out of followers—that is my ultimate goal as a teacher.”

Professor Ward weaves hands-on projects, such as interpretive signage, all through her teaching to equip her students with personal and practical experience. “Students truly come to know and understand something when they apply it,” she emphasizes. “Knowledge and understanding are not static. I do not want learning to stop after my class or lecture, but to keep occurring. I want students to question, to wonder, to examine. It is through the application of knowledge that students truly begin to appreciate the power of learning, experimentation and professional growth. The use of hands-on projects promotes life-long learning and not just learning in my class.”

She quotes the famed 19th century French writer Anatole France (1844-1924), who said, “Do not try to satisfy your vanity by teaching a great many things. Awaken people’s curiosity. It is enough to open minds; do not overload them.”

Dr. Ward conducts extensive research in the field, mentors graduate students and is Editor of the Journal of Interpretation Research. She co-authored a textbook about environmental interpretation. She earned her doctorate in Outdoor Recreation in 1998 from the Department of Forestry at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, Va.

Some international students jumped at the opportunity to see the country beyond Humboldt and took planes, trains and automobiles to places like San Francisco and New York. Others spent the week with their mentor families – locals who have volunteered to house an international student, while those without mentor families were paired with HSU faculty and staff to share in the holiday feast.

Nozomi Miya and others in Humboldt State’s International Programs Office worked this year, as they do every year, to place these students, who come from as far away as the Japan, Finland and China, with Humboldt State families to share their Turkey-Day traditions.

Nick DeRuyter, of Information and Technical Services, and his wife Diane, are one such couple that welcomed international students into their home for the Holiday.

The DeRuyters served the traditional Thanksgiving spread, sharing it with Hiroyuki Kajino, from Japan, and Luc Lusamba of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

With little over 20 percent of Humboldt State’s student population reportedly belonging to traditionally underrepresented ethnic groups, the infusion of so many international students can be a welcome addition for people like the DeRuyters.

“My wife and I really enjoyed our interactions with different cultures. Other places we lived have had much more diversity,” said DeRuyter.

“We hosted a pair of Japanese exchange students three different summers when our children were young. We have very fond memories of those times,” DeRuyter added.

New faces and a new program at HSU
This year, in addition to the 42 international students attending HSU on exchange programs, there are 16 students from Xi’an China here for Humboldt’s first year in the Sino-American 1-2-1 Dual Degree Program.

The program offers Chinese students from the Xi’an International Studies University (XISU) a chance to take American-style academic courses for a year in their native country then spend two years studying at HSU and then return to XISU to finish their schooling. By the time they graduate, the students will have earned bachelor degrees from both Humboldt State and their home institutions.

The involvement of Humboldt State in the dual degree program is a boost to all International Programs on campus. In addition to bringing more students to Humboldt State with diverse cultural and academic backgrounds, it also bolsters enrollment gains seen in 2006 and 2007. Dr. Guy-Alain Amoussou, director of International Programs at HSU, is ready to boost the dual-degree program to 60 students in the Fall 2008 semester and foresees raising the enrollment limit as the program matures.

All told, the 58 international students currently on campus bring with them much more than a desire to learn English and study in America. Already, the housing department has taken notice of the richness of culture and experience the international students bring with them. To this end, residential students are offered a chance to live in what’s known as the International Living Community, located in the Creekview residence halls. Students from abroad live side-by-side with American students in an environment intended to benefit both sides.

Dr. Amoussou stresses the importance of exposure to a culturally diverse student body. “You can have people of different race, people of different color, people of different origins living together with out really being diverse. The way they think is monocultural, it’s not multicultural. So for Humboldt State to gain, as higher education institution, that aspect is critical in order to create diversity of the mind.”

“We can’t send all Humboldt State students abroad to study, but we can bring more international students here to create that ambience,” Dr. Amoussou said.

Humboldt State is home to many departments and groups that cater to the needs of its international students. While the World Languages and Cultures department might provide a cultural foothold for newly arriving students, offices like the International English Language Institute (IELI) work to improve the student’s language skills and ease them into American culture.

“An activity and housing program is key to student retention. We help them find out what you do here. We try to introduce them to healthy ways of enjoying Humboldt,” said Nicola Maria-Moloney, Administrative Support Coordinator for the IELI.

In the IELI’s Home Stay Program local families agree to house international students. For a relatively affordable price, the students get food, a place to sleep and, perhaps most importantly, a healthy dose of new surroundings.

“We specialize in culture shock,” adds Maria-Moloney.

The IELI is prepared for the influx of dual-degree students from China when the number of students jumps almost four-fold to 60. And at any moment, who knows, Humboldt State might just become the number one study-abroad destination for Qatar or Ghana, like in Fall of 2005 when no less than 24 Japanese students came to Humboldt when other countries were sending 1 or 2.

Maria-Moloney chalks it up to the dedication her program, and others like it, have for making students feel at home. “We have seen growth due word-of-mouth and I think its this sense of being in this together that really helps.”

Now entering its third year, Economic Fuel is the brainchild of Rob Arkley, a long-time Humboldt County resident and local businessman. The contest is sponsored by the Eureka Reporter, College of the Redwoods and Humboldt State University. The contest is open to students from College of the Redwoods, Humboldt State University, and recent college graduates who reside in Humboldt County.

“I read about other business plan competitions and I was inspired,” says Arkley. “I believed that we could and needed to do that here. The capital we provide to our aspiring entrepreneurs helps to jumpstart their business ventures. We made sure when we created the eligibility criteria and entry guidelines that we focused on fueling the local economy by requiring that new business ventures maintain their principal place of business in Humboldt County and base a majority of their employees here, as well. Having the competition focused on our local economy is what makes Economic Fuel unique when compared to other competitions out there.”

Patrick Wiley was researching a cost-effective biodiesel when we discovered algae makes a great fertilizer.

“Humboldt County is the perfect place for a competition like Economic Fuel,” says HSU School of Business lecturer and Economic Fuel advisor, Nancy Vizenor. “Small businesses fuel our economy. We all know that the timber and fishing industries aren’t what they used to be—Humboldt County’s future depends on getting alternative industries to take root here.”

BUSINESS MEETS BIOLOGY
Hemenway and Wiley, both recent HSU graduates, are an excellent example of Economic Fuel’s power to bring talented people together over great ideas. Patrick is the lead scientist in the project and has spent the last two years conducting graduate research on chlorella—a microscopic, single-cell algae that accumulate in waste-water treatment ponds.

Hemenway brings business acumen and marketing savvy to the table. He’s a School of Business grad with a passion for proving that big business and big profits don’t have to come at the expense of our environment.

Wiley’s research initially centered on asking whether or not he could make cost-effective biodiesel out of the algae. The short answer was “no,” but Wiley did learn that all that green stuff floating in the Arcata Marsh could be made into a wonder fertilizer; an affordable, all-natural additive that leaves soil healthier than conventional, synthetic fertilizers. An added benefit? Producing this algae-based fertilizer doesn’t require using heaps of fossil fuels—a definite advantage over synthetic fertilizers. When Brandon heard about Wiley’s work, he knew the two had a project with real potential.

Like many other Economic Fuel contestants, Hemenway and Wiley benefited from on-campus expertise, enlisting the aid of several Humboldt State professors in drafting their business plan. Several professors from Humboldt State’s applied technology, engineering, fisheries and forestry departments helped AlgaRythms fine tune the technology behind their business plan.

“That’s one of Economic Fuel’s greatest benefits,” says Vizenor. “There is tremendous talent and expertise here in Humboldt County. This contest gets experienced people to pool their resources and work together. The ripple effects of that kind of collaboration are huge.”

In the end, the brilliant idea and extra brain power helped AlgaRhythms advance to the finalist round where the team received an Honorable Mention award of $1,000. While some contestants might be discouraged if they didn’t bring home one of Economic Fuel’s $25,000 grand prizes, Brandon and Patrick are more determined than ever to make their business succeed. The pair has brought in additional partners and is tweaking their manufacturing process. They also plan on entering the upcoming 2008 Economic Fuel contest.

“We came away from last year’s competition a much stronger company,” says Hemenway. “Economic Fuel gave us a real bird’s eye view of our market. We had to look beyond just the marketing or engineering or accounting side of things and consider every aspect of the business. Once we did that, we realized where our potential roadblocks were. We may not have won the grand prize, but what we learned is just as valuable to us. And,” he says with a smile, “there’s always this year’s contest.”

To learn more about the Economic Fuel business competition, visit http://www.economicfuel.org

Made from a soup can, the device emits a smoky, flickering flame and noxious fumes when lit. Jacobson collected the lamp during one of his more than a dozen trips to Kenya. “I get a headache whenever I use one,” says the Humboldt State assistant professor of environmental resources engineering. “So you can imagine what it’s like for a child trying to do schoolwork. They complain about feeling dizzy and sick.”

Americans take lighting for granted. Flick a switch and night turns to day. But for rural Kenyans and an estimated 1.6 billion people worldwide who live in areas with no electrical grid, creating light means igniting a kerosene or fuel lamp. This fuel-based lighting harms the environment and human health, stifles education and economic development. It is also expensive, costing $40 billion worldwide.

Jacobson is working on a solution. His Off-Grid Lighting project is helping to develop clean, efficient and affordable lights suitable for Kenya and other impoverished regions of the globe. White light-emitting diodes, known as WLEDs or LEDs, hold the most promise. Used on headlamps and bicycles in the United States, WLEDs are ideal for the developing world because they are portable, bright and run on batteries—ideal for off-grid locations. When charged by solar power, a plentiful resource in sub-Saharan Africa, they emit no pollution or greenhouse gases.

This array of lights, ranging from light-emitting diode varieties to kerosene powered lamps, is undergoing testing for use in Professor Arne Jacobson’s Off Grid Lighting Project. Photo Credit: HSU Marketing and Communications

Jacobson, a participant in HSU’s Schatz Energy Research Center, spent much of last summer in Kenya, where he evaluated WLED devices with children, teachers, parents and night-market street vendors. He heard stories of children unable to study because their families ran out of kerosene. Some Kenyans teased him, saying that he should stop researching the lights and start selling them. But Jacobson’s role is quality assurance. “We’re sort of like Consumer Reports.”

In his campus office, Jacobson and four researchers (graduate students Stephen Kullmann, Ranjit Deshmukh and Kristen Radecsky, and undergraduate Kyle Palmer) test the longevity and durability of WLED lamps available in Kenya. “We figure out which products are good and which are bad, and we send our information to the manufacturers,” Jacobson says. It’s important work. There are no consumer protection laws in Kenya, and people who buy poorly designed products are stuck.

Jacobson lifts a solar-powered flashlight. The U.S.-based designer is remaking the light to address flaws discovered by Jacobson and his team. Mark Bent, CEO of Sun Night Solar, which makes the product, calls Jacobson an “invaluable” resource. “I always like Arne’s reports, read them, use them, share them with my factory design engineers and find them of great value.”

Hoping that a Kenyan university will take over this product evaluation, Jacobson designed the testing protocols so they can be easily replicated with simple equipment. “Arne is a real treasure for HSU,” says Evan Mills, an energy efficiency researcher at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory who traveled with Jacobson in Kenya last summer. “He has a great grasp of the social and technical and economic issues of efficient lighting.”

Jacobson is now providing advice about Kenya’s lighting needs to a groundbreaking venture: Lighting Africa, a World Bank-financed project to bring off-the-grid lights to 250 million impoverished Africans. It is a project with global environmental significance. Fuel-based lighting worldwide emits 200 million tons of greenhouse gases per year—the equivalent of about 30 million U.S. cars.

For Jacobson, providing efficient light to the poor is a humanitarian issue. While lighting costs Americans a tiny fraction of their income, people in the developing world often spend 10 percent of their money on kerosene and other fuels for illumination. Worse yet, Jacobson says, these people get little bang for their lighting buck. Fuel lamps account for 17 percent of global lighting costs, but because of their inefficiency they provide less than one-tenth of one percent of global light output. “The poorest people,” Jacobson says, “pay the most per unit of light.”

Jacobson first visited Kenya in 1999 while a doctoral student at Berkeley. “I was interested in studying solar technologies in a place where it was being used widely.” Kenya was ideal. Per capita, the country has one of the world’s highest rates of solar power use. More than 200,000 Kenyan households have solar systems, albeit small ones costing about $200. The reason is simple: Kenyans want their MTV. “Television drives the solar market in rural Kenya,” Jacobson says. Solar panels charge car batteries that power small black and white TV sets.

Jacobson has a deep affection for Kenya, where he is well-known among electricians and rural solar system installers because of his column, “AJ’s Technical Tips,” that runs in an African renewable energy magazine. Jacobson took a job at HSU in 2004 because he wanted to work at a school with a “hands-on renewable energy dimension. HSU is one of the best programs in the country for that.”

Now he is using that hands-on approach to help some of the planet’s poorest people. Westerners have an obligation to provide clean and efficient light and power to the world’s poor, he says. “We have to find solutions that help them move forward. This work is a small part of the solution.”