Fresno State NEWS Briefs

Ramping Up Research

Research and innovation continue to grow at Fresno State. For the fourth consecutive year, the University received a record amount in research grants and contracts to fund projects across campus: from Alzheimer’s research to energy innovations, from public health needs to the support of dairy businesses.

Fresno State received 418 grants or contracts for a total of $54.7 million during the 2021-22 academic year. That’s a 13.4% increase in funding over the previous year, when the total was $48.2 million.

“The phenomenal growth and success of research grants on our campus reflect the synergy between faculty, staff, administrators and our grant managers in the Office of Research and Sponsored Programs,” says Dr. Joy Goto, interim dean of the Division of Research and Graduate Studies. “The sustainability of Fresno State research relies on a comprehensively supported plan at all levels of pre-awards, post-awards and facility resources. This growth and sustainability benefit our graduate and undergraduate students, along with the community, the region and beyond.”

Here is a look at some notable grants and contracts from the past year:

$5 million from the California Energy Commission to Helle Petersen of the Water, Energy and Technology Center for The BlueTechValley: Central Valley Regional Innovation Cluster. The initiative aims to spur entrepreneurship in the areas of water and energy management.
$1.8 million from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to Dr. Carmen Licon in the Jordan College of Agricultural Sciences and Technology, to create a “Pacific Coast Coalition” in support of dairy businesses in California, Oregon and Washington in the development, production, marketing and distribution of dairy products.
$576,114 from the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory to Dr. Peter Kinman in the Lyles College of Engineering to support communication networks for spacecraft missions.
$557,014 from the National Institutes of Health to chemistry professor Dr. Santanu Maitra for research in the discovery of Alzheimer’s disease drugs.
$1.5 million contract from the California Department of Public Health to Donna DeRoo, assistant director for the Central California Center for Health and Human Services. The project, San Joaquin Valley Public Health Consortium Equitable Response and Recovery, will analyze racial/ethnic health equity issues in the San Joaquin Valley.

— Charles Radke

Ingredients to Transform the Economy

California’s vast Central Valley has long been globally recognized for its distinctive agricultural economy, one that produces hundreds of commodities valued at billions of dollars every year. The five-county region puts food on the nation’s tables, growing more than half its fruits and nuts and one-third its vegetables.

Still, the Valley is a slow-growth economy with many residents living below the poverty line, experiencing food hardship and racial inequity in an area with some of the biggest air and water challenges in the nation.

Changing these conditions is the focus of the Fresno-Merced Future of Food Innovation Coalition, or F3, which was recently awarded $65.1 million in federal funding. F3 was the largest grant awarded under the $1 billion Build Back Better Regional Challenge, funded by President Joe Biden’s American Rescue Plan and administered by the Commerce Department’s Economic Development Administration.

It is also the largest federal grant ever awarded to the Central Valley. The EDA received 529 applications from all 50 states and five territories, with 21 coalitions selected from 60 finalists.

Fresno State is one of almost two dozen coalition partners and will play a key role in the initiative that aims to rebuild the regional economy, promote inclusive and equitable recovery and create good paying jobs in “industries of the future, such as clean energy, next-generation manufacturing and biotechnology.”

“We have world-leading institutions, we have university partners, we have community college partners, we have industry at the table, we have small farms at the table, we have workers at the table,” says Ashley Swearengin, former Fresno mayor and president and CEO of the Central Valley Community Foundation.

“In my 25 years of doing community and economic development work, I never thought we would get to this moment, the moment where we have all the ingredients to transform our economy.”

F3 operates under the Fresno DRIVE initiative (Developing the Region’s Inclusive and Vibrant Economy), a 10-year community investment plan.

Over the next four years, F3 aims to attract $250 million in private investment and create and/or fill more than 10,000 quality jobs.

The flagship project is the Innovation Center for Research and Entrepreneurship in Ag Food Technology and Engineering (iCREATE), which is where Fresno State will focus its resources.

“iCREATE is a vision to foster research and development of new products and services meant to support industry and help farmers innovate,” says Dr. Ram Nunna, dean of the Lyles College of Engineering at Fresno State. “iCREATE aims to integrate the Central Valley’s ag and food manufacturing resources and commercialize climate-smart food and agricultural technology.”

— Charles Radke

Student Spotlight

A Mentor Inspires

When Samantha Patricia Navarro was a senior in high school, there wasn’t much talk around the house about her going to college. Her parents, who worked in the cherry and almond orchards in and around Modesto, were surprised when she brought it up.

“They had planned on me working and helping out with the bills,” Navarro said. And why not? That’s what they had done, much earlier in their lives, in fact. Navarro’s father made it through sixth grade before he quit school to earn money; her mother dropped out of high school to work.

“It was kind of an understanding that my parents wouldn’t be able to give me much guidance,” Navarro says. “I had to step up and seek out information and look for a mentor.”

She was in junior high when she first met Aaron Sanchez, a guidance counselor and tutor in her school’s
TRiO program, a federal student services outreach designed to identify and provide services for individuals from disadvantaged backgrounds. Sanchez, Navarro said, supported her with advice and tutoring all the way through her graduation from Modesto Junior College.

“Aaron was my mentor for years,” Navarro says. “I saw how he helped me, and I knew I wanted to do that, too.”

Now, Navarro is a second-year graduate student at Fresno State, where she majors in experimental psychology and maintains a 4.0 graduate-level GPA. Her research on human judgment will soon be published in an academic journal.

She was also one of 23 students chosen by the California State University (one from each campus) to receive the 2022 CSU Trustees’ Award for Outstanding Achievement, the CSU system’s highest recognition of student achievement. As Fresno State’s awardee, she is the Trustee Emeritus Peter Mehas Scholar.

After graduating in spring 2023, Navarro plans to pursue a doctorate in cognitive psychology and become a professor in the CSU system so she can support underrepresented students in higher education.

And though it took them a while to say it, Navarro’s parents have recently told her how proud they are. “They can see how important [education] is now,” Navarro says.

— Charles Radke

Around the Fountain

75% of Valley Teachers

With the second-largest educator preparation program in the California State University system, Fresno State prepares three out of every four teachers in the San Joaquin Valley. And now, Fresno State is the first in the CSU system to earn recognition from a new national accrediting body, the Association for Advancing Quality in Educator Preparation.

Ms. World America

Fresno State alumna Chantea (Fleming) McIntyre, a former Bulldogs women’s basketball standout, was crowned Ms. World America in August after four days of competition in Miami. The small business owner, yoga instructor and mother is married to Mike McIntyre, a former Bulldogs men’s basketball player.

Juan Felipe Herrera Elementary

The community gathered at Juan Felipe Herrera Elementary School on Church and Willow avenues in Southeast Fresno to dedicate the new dual immersion school bearing the name of the U.S. poet laureate emeritus. Herrera is a Fresno State professor emeritus and coordinator for the Laureate Lab Visual Wordist Studio at the campus library.

Closing the Digital Divide

Thanks to a partnership with Apple in an effort to close the digital divide and remove barriers to student success, Fresno State distributed iPads and Apple Smart Keyboards to incoming freshmen and transfer students at the beginning of the fall semester. Devices are loaned to students at no cost and are returned once the students graduate.

Improving Living Conditions

As both Fresno State and Fresno Housing are committed to improving the living conditions of Valley residents, Fresno State President Saúl Jiménez-Sandoval and Fresno Housing CEO Tyrone Roderick Williams signed a memorandum of understanding to strengthen opportunities for academic and programmatic cooperation through education, affordable housing and community empowerment. Since 1940, Fresno Housing has worked to increase the availability of quality housing for low-income families in the area.

Donor Impact

Introducing the Meyers Champions Circle

The Marvin and Tish Meyers Champions Circle launched in July as a philanthropic giving society designed to maximize resources for Bulldogs student-athletes and improve the landscape of Fresno State athletics.

The Meyers Champions Circle is designed to honor donors whose major gift commitments are directed toward capital projects, scholarship endowments or sport-specific funds for excellence.

Marvin and Tish Meyers’ generosity will continue to impact generations of Bulldogs. Before Marvin’s passing in 2019, he and Tish were instrumental in the creation of the Meyers Family Sports Medicine Center, and they contributed to numerous other projects.

“The Meyers family’s example continues to articulate the impact that philanthropy has on our student-athletes,” says Terry Tumey, Fresno State’s director of athletics. “The strength of a united Red Wave can propel us toward our goals to raise the necessary funds to ensure our athletics success in the Mountain West and nationally. This initiative will help us honor and recognize those who make the commitments to position the ’Dogs for sustained success.”

Membership in the Meyers Champions Circle requires a major gift of at least $25,000 or more over a five-year period (for example $5,000 annually for five years). To become a Bulldog Foundation member or learn more about the Meyers Champions Circle, call 559.278.7160 or visit bulldogfoundation.org.

— Stephen Trembley

Happy 30th Craig School

Fresno State celebrated the 30th anniversary in September of the major gift that named the Craig School of Business in 1992.

Sid Craig, the president and CEO of Jenny Craig International, pledged $10 million to Fresno State for the School of Business and Administrative Sciences. In recognition of the donation, the school was renamed the Sid Craig School of Business.

Sid Craig was born in 1932 in Vancouver, British Columbia. He graduated from Alhambra High School in June 1950 and then attended Mt. San Antonio College in Pomona for two years. He transferred to Fresno State in the fall of 1952 to major in business and psychology.

He helped pay his way by teaching ballroom dancing in the evenings at an Arthur Murray dance studio. He went on to acquire five Arthur Murray franchises. In 1970, he sold his franchises and bought a half interest in Body Contour Inc. Figure Salons.

A bright young lady by the name of Genevieve “Jenny” Bourcq received a job at Body Contour in Louisiana. Over the years their business relationship led to marriage in 1979. This couple eventually built a multi-million dollar company by the name of Jenny Craig International.

Donor Impact

A Picture-perfect Example of Philanthropy

When Derek Carr and Davante Adams were Fresno State student-athletes, they spent three hours one day signing autographs and talking to students at the Diamond Learning Center in Clovis.

At the end of the visit, the football stars, who are now teammates for the Las Vegas Raiders, posed for a group photo that still hangs in the center. When the Diamond Learning Center students see the NFL stars on television today, they still remember what it felt like to have the athletes spend time with them, says owner and founder Jami Hamel-De La Cerda.

The center serves adult learners with intellectual disabilities who range in age from 18 to 67 and is an internship site for Fresno State students.

Hamel-De La Cerda is a longtime supporter of Fresno State, from the internships she offers to gifts she has given to support the club bowling team that brought her from Vancouver, British Columbia home to the university where she earned a bachelor’s degree in anthropology.

This past year, she gave a $100,000 gift to start four scholarship endowments through the Bulldog Foundation, each in honor of someone or something close to her heart.

“I like that it’s truly going to help another person be all they can be and maybe more than they thought they can be,” says Hamel-De La Cerda, a Fresno State alumna and adjunct professor in special education. “In the same way, it allows me the opportunity to embrace the important people in my life.”

The scholarships will be made in honor of Hamel-De La Cerda’s mother, whom she lost to suicide at a young age; her three sons, one of whom has Down syndrome; the Diamond Learning Center; and in honor of Jeffery Roberson, a past Fresno State track athlete who showed kindness to her when she came to Fresno State.

Through thoughtful donors like Hamel-De La Cerda, gifts to the University during the 2021-22 academic year totaled about $28.2 million — $21.7 million for academics and $6.5 million for athletics.

Gifts were made to all areas of the University this past year, helping to enhance student success.

Here’s a look at some of the noteworthy gifts from the past year:

$1 million from the late Dr. Virginia Stammer Eaton to establish the Dr. Virginia Stammer Eaton Chair in Genetics and Molecular Biology in the College of Science and Mathematics.
$50,000 from James Parker, III to the Institute for Family Business and Micro-Internship Program in the Craig School of Business.
$25,000 from Edison International to the Lyles College of Engineering for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education.
$50,000 from The James Irvine Foundation to the President’s Circle for Excellence, an annual leadership giving program that recognizes dedicated donors who support the mission and vision of the university through unrestricted annual gifts of $1,000 or more.
$35,000 from the James McClatchy Foundation to the Institute for Media and Public Trust.

— BoNhia Lee

PRIDE AND TRADITION

Two of Fresno State’s eight schools and colleges are celebrating major milestones this year — the 100th anniversary of agriculture and engineering courses being offered on campus.

Lyles College of Engineering

Engineering education first began at Fresno State in 1922, when professor Herbert Wheaton was hired to begin instruction in civil engineering. The program started with 35 students and a smattering of equipment.

The 1990s saw the completion of a new 52,217- square-foot building representing a major milestone of accomplishment for the College of Engineering. The College presently has over 100,000 square feet of classrooms, teaching and research laboratories.

In 2008, the College of Engineering took a major step forward in educating more students in the Central Valley for careers in engineering and construction management thanks to a $10 million gift from Dr. William Lyles, president and CEO of Lyles Diversified Inc., along with his family and company. The Lyles family are long time supporters of Fresno State and the family name also graces the Lyles Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, which leverages resources from the community to assist innovators and entrepreneurs in the development of their ideas into businesses.

Today, the Lyles College houses the departments of architectural studies, civil engineering, electrical and computer engineering, construction management, geomatics engineering and mechanical engineering.

— Yesenia Fuentes

Jordan College of Agricultural Sciences and Technology

Celebrating its 100th anniversary as an official agricultural academic program, courses were taught on campus even earlier going back to 1914. Emphasis in specialized courses back then was similar to today and included agricultural education, animal husbandry, farm equipment and crop, orchard and vegetable production.

The first of nine deans (Eugene Egan) was hired in 1947 with a group of nine faculty who have left indelible marks still felt on campus today. The campus farm lab, now known as the Fresno State Farm, moved to its current location in 1954 from its former location at the Hammer Air Force Field (which was acquired in 1947-48, and now is home to the Fresno Yosemite International Airport and National Guard base).

In 1997, Fresno State opened the nation’s first commercially-bonded winery on a college campus.

In 2009, Fresno State received the largest cash gift in university history, a $29.4 million investment on behalf of the Jordan family: Hanabul “Bud” Jordan, his wife, Dee, and his brother, Lowell. The Jordan College of Agricultural Sciences and Technology was named in their honor.

In 2013, the new, 4,800-square-foot Rue and Gwen Gibson Farm Market opened on campus, featuring student-produced goods like fruit, vegetables, nuts, wine, meat and dairy products.

In 2016, the 30,000 square-foot Jordan Agricultural Research Center opened on campus featuring research laboratories, flexible space and meeting rooms for students and faculty to conduct advanced studies on agriculture, food and water.

Today, the Jordan College houses the departments of agricultural business, animal sciences and agricultural education, food science and nutrition, industrial technology, plant science and viticulture and enology.

— Geoff Thurner