 |
||||
|
||||
NHU and Harvard
Co-Host Examination of California High School Exit Exam
|
||||
|
||||
 |
Late August, NHU joined the Civil Rights Project at Harvard and twelve other sponsors to offer education and civil rights leaders from throughout California an opportunity to take a careful look at the probable impact that California’s high school exit examination will have on Hispanic and other educationally disenfranchised students in the State. Though the exit examination has been administered for the past three years, the high school senior class of 2006 will be the first for whom the test will determine which students will graduate. Reports from participants indicated that the administration of the exit exam in California for the past three years has already contributed to an increased Hispanic dropout rate. |
|
Attendees at the day-long conference learned that administration of the California High School Exit Examination (CAHSEE) is not governed by provisions of the federal No Child Left Behind Act, which requires that students with special needs (such as lack of familiarity with the English language) receive accommodations that give them a realistic chance of having their examination results reflect their true abilities. Stanford researcher and former president of the American Educational Research Association Linda Darling Hammond told the attendees that using multiple measures of attainment is a much fairer and accurate way to determine what a student knows than is a single make-or-break test. |
|
Adriana
Ayala Named Interim Provost
|
||||
| On July 19th, 2005 Dr. Lopez announced that Professor Adriana Ayala would serve as the new Interim Provost of NHU. Professor Ayala will oversee the Academic Programs and Student Services. Before taking this position, Professor Ayala was the Chair of the Liberal Studies Department and taught History and Ethnic Studies courses at NHU. She holds a B.A. in history with a minor in ethnic studies at the University of California at Berkeley and her M.A. in history from the University of Texas at Austin, where she is currently finishing her Ph.D. in History. |
The goals for the Office of the
Provost are to improve the overall quality of academic programs,
institute systematic faculty evaluations and portfolio reviews, establish
articulation agreements with San Jose State University and surrounding
colleges, and follow through on WASC recommendations. |
|||
NHU
and LCPA Faculty Begin Research Programs With Stanford’s
Assistance
|
||||
A currently held view of many high tech CEO’s in the region is that nanoscience and nanotechnology will sustain Silicon Valley in the future. Therefore, NHU and LCPA science faculty made a major decision last school year to move toward a research-based science curriculum focus on nano-scale exploration. The first step toward the goal of integrating this kind of research into teaching was for faculty members to begin their own research programs. Accordingly, Dixie Sinkovits and Alfonso Garcia from LCPA and William Cruz from NHU undertook research fellowships at Stanford over the summer. The three worked at Stanford’s Nanofabrication Facility. |
After this experience, Sinkovits, Cruz and Garcia are now seeking funding to continue their research on the NHU/LCPA campus. They are looking for the basic equipment needed to carry out research at the nano-scale and to continue their research relationship with colleagues at Stanford. Stanford faculty and graduate students have offered
to continue interacting with NHU and LCPA in a number of ways including
presenting a lecture series on cutting edge topics in science, mentoring
students, and arranging student tours of research facilities at Stanford. The
group looks on the summer experience as the beginning of a long-term
relationship between NHU/LCPA and Stanford. |
|||