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Lifeguards and others seated in the Shark Workshop audience

LONG BEACH, Calif. (Feb. 15, 2019) – Lifeguards and other first responders serving California communities ranging from the Central Coast to the Mexican border gathered Friday at Long Beach State University to learn about new developments helping their efforts to keep beachgoers safe from sharks.

Long Beach State marine biologist Chris Lowe, director of the campus’ Shark Lab, hosted the responders who met for the 2019 Southern California Shark Workshop. Experts led discussions on such topics as providing first aid to shark bite victims, beach safety education, and using technology to monitor shark activity and reduce the probability of shark incidents.

The population of white sharks living near California has rebounded in recent years, and the ocean waters near Southern California are nursery habitat for the animals. That means beachgoers and lifeguards need to prepare for possible shark encounters.

“This increases the likelihood of interactions,” Lowe said. “It doesn’t have to be a negative interaction.”

Lowe and other Shark Lab researchers have employed such devices as acoustic buoys and aerial drones to track white sharks near the California coastline. The lab has recently acquired an unmanned submersible drone that expands its capability to monitor the underwater environment and record video of sharks and other marine life.

The submersible is named in recognition of Assemblyman Patrick O’Donnell, an alumnus and Shark Lab supporter. State government appropriated $3.75 million in the current state budget to help lab researchers study white shark activity and contribute to public safety efforts.

“The Southern California Shark Workshop is the result of the hard work and strong partnerships of the CSU Long Beach Shark Lab and lifeguards up and down California’s southern coast,” O’Donnell said. “I thank Dr. Lowe for organizing this workshop to ensure that our first responders have the information they need to protect beachgoers.”

Although shark bites are rare events off California, shark encounters have increased in recent years, and the population of white sharks swimming near the state’s coastline has rebounded. Lifeguards anticipate the animals are here to stay.

“In 2014, white shark sightings increased significantly within California waterways. Current data indicates the white shark population may continue to utilize coastal waterways for nursery habitat and feeding on a more frequent basis,” according to Brian Ketterer, southern field division chief for California State Parks, and Encinitas Marine Safety Capt. Larry Giles.

The Shark Lab’s planned educational outreach includes distributing a shark safety comic book to school children, presenting safety information at beachside “Shark Shacks” and the lab’s annual on-campus event “Sharks @ the Beach,” scheduled for July. Programming for this year’s Sharks @ the Beach will include lessons designed to help people who fish from California’s piers avoid catching or attracting sharks.

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About the campus:
Long Beach State University is a teaching-intensive, research-driven university committed to providing highly valued undergraduate and graduate degrees critical for success in the globally minded 21st century. Annually ranked among the best universities in the West and among the best values in the entire nation, the university’s eight colleges serve more than 37,500 students. The campus values and is recognized for rich educational opportunities provided by excellent faculty and staff, exceptional degree programs, diversity of its student body, fiduciary and administrative responsibility and the positive contributions faculty, staff, students and more than 300,000 alumni make on society.

About the Shark Lab:
The mission of the Shark Lab is to study the physiological and behavioral ecology of marine animals, emphasizing the effect of human activity on the ocean; to utilize and develop innovative technology to answer challenging questions important for the conservation and restoration of depleted populations; and to train the next generation of marine biologists.

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Holding hands

LONG BEACH, Calif. (Jan. 2, 2019) – A decades-long commitment at Long Beach State University, which helps older adults to learn and live healthier lives, will continue with the campus as a new member of the Age-Friendly University Global Network.

The Long Beach campus’ membership signifies global recognition of its age-friendly policies and programs, such as its  Gerontology Program, Center for Successful Aging and the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute.

The Center for Successful Aging researches issues related to aging in partnership with Long Beach-area service providers. The Osher Lifelong Learning Institute provides classes on variety subjects to adults who are at least 50 years old.

The Age-Friendly University Taskforce, composed of faculty, students and community members, has catalogued additional campus strengths, and will now continue working to identify opportunities and implement steps to further improve services for older adults on campus and within the neighboring community.

“We discovered several ways in which the university already offers services that help older students,” Gerontology Program Director Maria Claver said. “At this time, members of the Age-Friendly University Network are working on assessment instruments that members can use to more formally measure the success of existing services in meeting older students’ needs and the needs of the older adult community.”

The campus also endorses the 10 Principles for an Age-Friendly University, which emphasize core areas where the university can enhance the lives of older adults in their communities.

“Long Beach State’s Center for Successful Aging and collaborative partnerships with SCAN Health Plan and the Archstone Foundation, whose mission is to meet the needs of an aging population, strongly resonate with Age-Friendly University members and will bring an added richness to the AFU Global Network,” said Brian MacCraith, president of the Age-Friendly University network.

SCAN Health Plan is a Long Beach-based nonprofit provider of Medicare Advantage plans and other services. Archstone Foundation is a Long Beach-based nonprofit focused on the needs of older adults. The organizations are among the Center for Successful Aging's supporters. American Gold Star Manor, the nonprofit operator of a Long Beach housing complex for the parents of fallen service members and other seniors, also supports the Center.

 

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About the campus:
Long Beach State University is a teaching-intensive, research-driven university committed to providing highly valued undergraduate and graduate degrees critical for success in the globally minded 21st century. Annually ranked among the best universities in the West and among the best values in the entire nation, the university’s eight colleges serve more than 37,500 students. The campus values and is recognized for rich educational opportunities provided by excellent faculty and staff, exceptional degree programs, diversity of its student body, fiduciary and administrative responsibility and the positive contributions faculty, staff, students and more than 300,000 alumni make on society.

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President Jane Close Conoley

RE: DHS Docket No. USCIS-2010-0012, RIN 1615-AA22, Comments in Response to Proposed Rulemaking: Inadmissibility on Public Charge Grounds

To whom it may concern:

Please accept my comment letter in opposition to the proposed Public Charge order.

The proposed rule would discourage both immigrant youth and U.S. citizen youth with non-citizen parents from pursuing a college education, which is proven to promote self-sufficiency. It is estimated about 41 percent of the roughly 18 million immigrant families who received benefits between 2014 and 2016 live in either California or New York.

Long Beach State University is located in the city of Long Beach and sits on the border of Los Angeles and Orange counties in California. These counties drive much of the state’s economy, which is highly dependent on an educated citizenry – including people who work within the information, manufacturing, entertainment, health and hospitality sectors. Sixty-five percent of Long Beach State’s 320,000 alumni live and work within 50 miles of the campus. Their collective contributions to society are too vast to count, including the positive impacts of our alumni of immigrant backgrounds.

The annual mid-career salary of our alumni exceeds $98,000, freeing graduates – both immigrant and non-immigrant – from long-term dependence upon government programs. On the path to graduation, 71 percent of our undergraduate students rely on some financial aid, including 57 percent who receive a Pell Grant. Even with financial aid, students and families face significant hurdles just to pay for housing and food. According to a recent study commissioned by the California State University’s Chancellor’s Office, 1 in 10 students in the California State University system is homeless, and 1 in 5 does not have steady access to food. Students are skipping meals because they lack the income to meet these basic needs. In short, numerous studies show hungry and homeless students face significant barriers to college completion. Research also shows, when these same students gain even small amounts of financial assistance, they are more likely to achieve their higher education goals in a timely fashion. Unfortunately, the proposed rule would have a chilling effect on these efforts and/or penalize students and their families who seek help.

As one of the most ethnically diverse cities in the United States, the city of Long Beach is rich in diversity and cultural exchanges. Nearly half the population is Latino. It is home to the largest Cambodian population outside of Cambodia, and it has a sizeable African American community. Raising the education attainment rates within these communities is a top priority in for the campus and a key opportunity for the region. Challenging us is the reality that 68 percent of the 81,000 school children in the Long Beach Unified School District are considered socio-economically disadvantaged. But we are making progress, and our efforts to reverse the poverty paradigm are reflected in CollegeNET’s Social Mobility Index, ranking Long Beach State University sixth in the nation for fostering upward mobility for economically disadvantaged individuals.

Legal immigrants, and U.S. citizens born to non-citizen parents are, and will continue to be, a strong part of the fabric of Southern California and our campus community. The proposed Public Charge rule would erect unnecessary barriers to individuals who are seeking to improve their lives – and all our lives – through higher learning. By reducing opportunities for long-term self-reliance, the proposed rule would cause hardships not only for our students, but also for their extended families, exacerbating financial instability. The result would be a toll further exacted on already distressed communities.

Again, we respectfully oppose the proposed Public Charge order. The order would result in profound and negative effects for Long Beach and the Southern California region. It would impede the campus’ progress in fostering social mobility and a stronger economy. It also would reverse some of the gains we have already made, harming our well-being.

Sincerely,

Jane Close Conoley, Ph.D.
President

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Campus President Jane Close Conoley at her desk

By Jane Close Conoley

Dear Beach Community,

And that is why I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. —Elie Wiesel

What words are left in our shared and different languages to describe the killing of 11 and wounding of six more at the Tree of Life Synagogue? What phrases have we not used already when faced with the horror of mass shootings in the United States? I am at a loss to find appropriate terms to express my deep sympathy for the victims and their families and my revulsion at the crime.

Our campus is home to Jewish students, faculty and staff, and home to many additional thousands who are devastated by this hateful violation. I believe I speak for all when I reaffirm our campus’ commitment to the excellence of diversity, equitable opportunities, and safety for every person whatever their personal attributes or beliefs.

This may be a time to reflect on any tendencies we have to simplify people into a label—Jew, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, liberal, conservative, socialist, capitalist, Democrat, Republican, gay, lesbian, transgender, straight, black, white, brown, and so on. The people we gloss with labels are also grandmothers, grandfathers, mothers, fathers, daughters, sons, friends, workers, volunteers, readers, thinkers, and most importantly complex human beings. Each has an equal right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. No exceptions exist to those foundational rights guaranteed by the social contract that is our nation. We can be successful as a species only if we resist any tendencies to separate some people into “the other.” There is no other. There is only us.

Several of the Pittsburgh victims were elders in their congregation. They had contributed to their community for decades, only to be killed by an anti-Semite in the United States. Can we let that sink in as we reflect on what may be the deadliest attack on Jews in U.S. history? This terror follows other recent attacks in the U.S. on people because of their sexuality, their color, their beliefs, or their mere existence and vulnerability.

It’s an easy rationale to say that all these attackers are mentally unstable. While not dismissing compromised behavioral health as a variable, I think we also have to look at our society’s health when some among us openly assert that they will “not be replaced” by the “other.” We have to reject beliefs that direct us to cast out those who are different. We must eschew building our identities by denigrating others. Superiority of any human group compared to another is a myth born out of fear and/or insidious needs for power. An attack on any group is an attack on every group.

Sincerely,

Jane Close Conoley, Ph.D.

President

I urge any member of the Beach community who feels particularly affected by these events and needs support to call Counseling and Psychological Services at 562-985-4001.

Jane Close Conoley is president of California State University, Long Beach. She has previously held academic positions as professor of counseling, clinical and school psychology; dean and professor of educational psychology; and associate dean for research. Conoley is the author or editor of 21 books and more than 100 chapters, refereed journal articles and technical reports. Her areas of primary interest are interventions with children with disabilities—especially serious emotional disturbance and aggressive children and youth—and family intervention. Her most recent work investigates the application of the science of positive psychology to educational settings.

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A mural depicting filmmakers

LONG BEACH, Calif. (Oct. 26, 2018) – Long Beach State University filmmakers who produced the documentary “For Vivian” won multiple prizes at the California State University Media Arts Festival this month.

The highly-personal work, which chronicles director Samantha Hernandez’s relationship with her aunt Vivian and other family members, was named “Best in Show” for this year’s festival.

“She’s such a sweet and lovely soul, and I wanted to share that with the audience,” Hernandez, who graduated this May, said.

“For Vivian” also won the festival’s “Audience Choice” award and took first place in the Documentary category.

“We were deeply moved by the response to the film. We just feel incredibly grateful for all the love and support we received,” Hernandez said.

“For Vivian” is the product of work that took place over much of the 2017-18 school year. Students who worked on that documentary and other projects spent the spring term on production and post-production, and members of different project crews shared feedback with each other as each production approached completion.

“The award is a validation of the process, but the learning happens in the process,” said associate professor Helen Hood Scheer, who teaches courses in documentary filmmaking.

“For Vivian” and other projects from Long Beach State filmmakers earned six of the eight first place awards handed out at this year’s festival, which took place Oct. 16 at Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles.

Additional Long Beach State honorees:

  • First Place in Animation – Casey White for “The Undergrounders”
  • First Place in Experimental – Gabriela Menegus for “Some Things We Do”
  • First Place in Television format – Quynh Ong for “Spotlight: Emotional Support Animals”

Anne D’Zmura, interim chair of the Department of Film & Electronic Arts, thanked faculty and staff members working for the department, as well as the animation program within the School of Art, for preparing students for success.

“As a result of the training, the students have the skills and passion to craft timely stories that are reflective of their strikingly unique and vital voices,” D’Zmura said. “We are deeply grateful for Hollywood Foreign Press Association’s continued philanthropic generosity as these funds are essential in providing our students the opportunity to share their important stories through the art of filmmaking.”

The Hollywood Foreign Press Association, which co-produces the Golden Globes, has provided more than $760,000 worth of support to Film & Electronic Arts since the 2005-06 school year. Those dollars have supported scholarships for student projects like “For Vivian” and “The Sound of Love,” an earlier student project from Long Beach State that won “Best in Show” and other prizes at the 2017 California State University Media Arts Festival.

About the campus: Long Beach State University is a teaching-intensive, research-driven university committed to providing highly valued undergraduate and graduate degrees critical for success in the globally minded 21st century. Annually ranked among the best universities in the West and among the best values in the entire nation, the university’s eight colleges serve more than 37,500 students. The campus values and is recognized for rich educational opportunities provided by excellent faculty and staff, exceptional degree programs, diversity of its student body, fiduciary and administrative responsibility and the positive contributions faculty, staff, students and more than 300,000 alumni make on society.

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 Video game controllers

LONG BEACH, Calif. (Oct. 25, 2018) – From the frontier camps of 19th Century America to the battle lines of 20th Century Europe, video game designers have often looked to history for inspiration. Now, Long Beach State University historians are taking critical looks at how video games use polygons and interactive narratives to interpret historical events.

History lecturers Jeffrey Lawler and Sean Smith established the CSULB Center for the History of Video Games and Critical Play as a place to examine how electronic entertainment and board games can shape players’ views of the past. The Center is a physical place to play and study games, and also has an online presence allowing its founders to post their thoughts on the intersection of gaming and history.

“Using all these types of games in the class can be very interesting, because it allows for a lot of questions and discourse about how games are using and talking about different forms of history,” Lawler said.

Lawler teaches courses in California history and the American West, a fictionalized version of which is the focus of Rockstar Games’ new Red Dead Redemption 2. Its predecessor drew heavily upon cinematic depictions of western outlaws and the end of frontier days. Trailers for the new game hint at similarly bloody imaginings of a lawless world.

“I teach a class on the American West, and pretty much to a person, everybody that takes that class comes in with the idea of gunslingers, saloons, and brothels. It’s if they just walked away from playing ‘Call of Juarez’ or ‘Red Dead Redemption,’” Lawler said. “And after a few weeks, they start to get the idea that their idea of the West itself has been mythologized. This really gets to the point where games inform a lot of our cultural understandings about the past and therefore, reading them critically becomes important.”

Smith teaches a course on early U.S. history, as well as a class called “Playing the Past,” which focuses on the way games represent history.

Popular franchises like “Assassin’s Creed” and “Call of Duty,” not to mention the classroom classic “The Oregon Trail,” draw upon imaginings of long-ago times. Students taking Smith’s class are themselves challenged to not only consider how games’ narratives may influence popular understandings of history, but also to design their own game with the intention of teaching a historical concept to players. Students design their works on Twine, an open-source game engine employing hypertext, a la a digital reinterpretation of the format “Choose Your Own Adventure” books made famous.

“It’s a real necessity to have a kind of lab space for them to come play games and have some experience so that they can develop that vocabulary and game literacy,” Smith said. “The hope of the class is kind of twofold: One, where we can encourage the study of video games as primary sources and as cultural objects for study. The second is teaching our students that alternative forms of history and historical narrative are important pedagogical tools, are important tools for learning history.”

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About the campus:
Long Beach State University is a teaching-intensive, research-driven university committed to providing highly valued undergraduate and graduate degrees critical for success in the globally minded 21st century. Annually ranked among the best universities in the West and among the best values in the entire nation, the university’s eight colleges serve more than 37,500 students. The campus values and is recognized for rich educational opportunities provided by excellent faculty and staff, exceptional degree programs, diversity of its student body, fiduciary and administrative responsibility and the positive contributions faculty, staff, students and more than 300,000 alumni make on society.

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Students prepare to walk on stage during graduation in 2016.

LONG BEACH, Calif. (Oct. 24, 2018) Long Beach State University scored among the best universities in the nation, ranking sixth in the annual Social Mobility Index, which examines how well colleges and universities advance their low-income students into high wage jobs.

“We are a proven driver of upward social mobility, and this ranking underscores our university’s commitment to improving the lives of our graduates,” said President Jane Close Conoley. “We also are helping stoke economic growth in Southern California and the social well-being of residents in the region. This is testament to the hard work of our faculty and staff to helping our students thrive on campus.”

The CollegeNET assessment of 1,083 higher education institutions aims at redirecting the notion of prestige toward campuses that are working to address major civic issues like advancing disadvantaged students into well-paying jobs. Long Beach State University dropped one spot in the ranking when compared with 2017, when the university was fifth in the nation. In 2016, LBSU ranked 11th.

“At CSULB we center our campus on three core tenets: intellectual achievement, inclusive excellence and public good to serve our students, community and the region,” said Brian Jersky, provost and senior vice president of Academic Affairs at Long Beach State University.

“When rankings like this reflect back that our main values have been successful, I am thrilled that we are positively affecting student’s lives,” Jersky said. “I know this change not only benefits a student’s life, but also their families and surrounding communities. This remains a true testament to why education is so important.”

The five criteria that were analyzed in the CollegeNET ranking included tuition, economic background of students, graduation rates, early career salary and endowment, with endowment being the least sensitive of the variables considered in the analysis. Tuition and economic makeup of the student body were the most heavily weighed criteria used in the assessment from CollegeNET.

Campuses in the California State University and University of California systems made up half of the top 20 spots in the index.

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About the campus: Long Beach State University is a teaching-intensive, research-driven university committed to providing highly valued undergraduate and graduate degrees critical for success in the globally minded 21st century. Annually ranked among the best universities in the West and among the best values in the entire nation, the university’s eight colleges serve more than 37,500 students. The campus values and is recognized for rich educational opportunities provided by excellent faculty and staff, exceptional degree programs, diversity of its student body, fiduciary and administrative responsibility and the positive contributions faculty, staff, students and more than 300,000 alumni make on society.

About the Social Mobility Index: Now in its fifth year, the nationally recognized Social Mobility Index is a data-driven analysis that examines 1,083 universities and colleges on the basis of how well each institution graduates low income students into well-paying jobs. CollegeNET, a provider of web-based technologies for higher education institutions, organizes the index.

 

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LONG BEACH, Calif. (Oct. 23, 2018) – About 200 demonstrators on Tuesday night protested at an event held by a political group at Long Beach State University.

The event was sponsored by the local student group Turning Point and held from 7 to 9 p.m. at the University Student Union on campus.

No injuries or arrests were reported during the demonstration. No property was reported damaged.

Campus police ensured the safety of students, faculty, protesters and the event’s speakers by closing one parking lot on campus and the first floor of the student union beginning that afternoon; deploying multiple K-9 teams; engaging with other CSU campuses through the Critical Response Unit; notifying faculty teaching evening classes of the event; and sending out campuswide alerts among several other measures.

Campus police protected First Amendment rights of all parties involved while simultaneously ensuring the physical well-being of everyone on campus.

University police began preparations for the event weeks in advance.

“Long Beach State police understands the importance of respecting everyone’s First Amendment rights,” said University Police Chief Fernando Solorzano. “In general, we plan for every contingency. If a venue involves topics that can be deemed controversial or provocative we make every effort to insure that the event goes smoothly for all parties involved. Moreover, we work with our local law enforcement partners to ensure a safe and successful event.”

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About the campus:
Long Beach State University is a teaching-intensive, research-driven university committed to providing highly valued undergraduate and graduate degrees critical for success in the globally minded 21st century. Annually ranked among the best universities in the West and among the best values in the entire nation, the university’s eight colleges serve more than 37,500 students. The campus values and is recognized for rich educational opportunities provided by excellent faculty and staff, exceptional degree programs, diversity of its student body, fiduciary and administrative responsibility and the positive contributions faculty, staff, students and more than 300,000 alumni make on society.
 

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A person using a computer

LONG BEACH, Calif. (Oct. 15, 2018) – Long Beach State University faculty and information technology experts are assessing the results of a phishing simulation campaign designed to improve the campus community’s abilities to protect sensitive data.

“Our goal is to promote the awareness of various types of cyber-attacks on our email and information systems, and to help our students, faculty and staff recognize threats and learn how to reduce the risk of becoming a victim,” Vice President and Chief Information Officer Min Yao said. “Additionally, we also seek assistance from our campus community to create and maintain a safer learning and working environment for students, faculty and staff.”

Phishing involves trickery, often perpetrated over email, intended to entice a target into clicking on a malicious link or to provide sensitive data to an unauthorized recipient. Faculty from the Department of Information Systems worked with members of the Division of Information Technology to design the simulation campaign, which took place in late September with approval from the campus Institutional Review Board. The first-of-its-kind operation was designed to see if a false promise of reward (theme park tickets) or fear (an emailed threat) would be more effective at deceiving someone into clicking on a provided link or submitting data.

“With our combined efforts, the campus will be able to create more effective training materials on phishing awareness,” campus information security officer, Aysu Spruill, said.

An early look at the results show the promise of reward was more likely to provoke a bad decision. Nonetheless, nearly 90 percent of recipients did not click the link nor provided information. Those who did will receive anti-phishing training so they don’t fall victim to an actual cybercrime.

“Phishing is certainly a negative experience that comes with many consequences including financial and institutional damage,” said Mohamed Abdelhamid, assistant professor of information systems. “Phishing simulation is method that helps employees learn through experience without the negative consequences that come with it."

The FBI tallied more than 25,000 cases of phishing and similar crimes known to have been nationally committed in 2017.

“Recent advances in technology allow cybercriminals to launch phishing campaigns effortlessly and cost-efficiently. Even a relatively low response rate of 1 to 2 percent can yield significant returns for cybercriminals, especially considering that criminals can send thousands of such emails per day,” said Spiro Samonas, an assistant professor of information systems.

The phishing simulation followed the campus’ establishment of an interdisciplinary cybersecurity minor. The program includes coursework offered through the departments of Computer Engineering and Computer Science, Information Systems and Journalism and Public Relations to teach lessons on such subjects as network security and Internet politics.

VIDEO: Assistant professor Mehrdad Aliasgari, Department of Computer Engineering and Computer Science, on keeping digital information secure.

October is National Cybersecurity Awareness Month. Reporters interested in covering Long Beach State’s simulation campaign or other cybersecurity topics may contact Andrew Edwards to speak with campus experts.

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About the campus: Long Beach State University is a teaching-intensive, research-driven university committed to providing highly valued undergraduate and graduate degrees critical for success in the globally minded 21st century. Annually ranked among the best universities in the West and among the best values in the entire nation, the university’s eight colleges serve more than 37,500 students. The campus values and is recognized for rich educational opportunities provided by excellent faculty and staff, exceptional degree programs, diversity of its student body, fiduciary and administrative responsibility and the positive contributions faculty, staff, students and more than 300,000 alumni make on society.

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students walking on campus

LONG BEACH, Calif. (Oct. 15, 2018) –A panel of four formerly incarcerated female students will discuss the unique traumas and challenges they face as women in a first-ever event from Rising Scholars, a Long Beach State University student group devoted to the needs of formerly incarcerated students.

“What I understand from talking with our students and being their mentor and advisor is that victimization and trauma among women who have been incarcerated is very high, much higher than it is for men,” said criminal justice professor and lawyer James Binnall.

Binnall, who acts as lead faculty advisor for Rising Scholars and has experience with incarceration, will moderate the panel.

“You have this co-occurring PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) where there are the issues that come with the psychological impacts that come with having been victimized/brutalized at some point in their lives,” Binnall said. “It’s a different dynamic.”

The event titled My Sister’s Keeper will be held on Oct. 15in the University Student Union Ballroom and feature student panelists from Long Beach State University and Cal State Dominguez Hills. The Department of Sociology, School of Criminology, Criminal Justice and Emergency Management and Rising Scholars will sponsor the event.

Rising Scholars was founded in the spring of 2016. This year it has about 25 student participants whose lives have been touched by either having a close relative or friends imprisoned or because they have served time in prison themselves.

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About the campus:
Long Beach State University is a teaching-intensive, research-driven university committed to providing highly valued undergraduate and graduate degrees critical for success in the globally minded 21st century. Annually ranked among the best universities in the West and among the best values in the entire nation, the university’s eight colleges serve more than 37,500 students. The campus values and is recognized for rich educational opportunities provided by excellent faculty and staff, exceptional degree programs, diversity of its student body, fiduciary and administrative responsibility and the positive contributions faculty, staff, students and more than 300,000 alumni make on society.
 

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Behind the Screens flyer

LONG BEACH, Calif. (Oct. 9, 2018) –In an effort to keep students, faculty and staff safe and informed, a four-hour symposium on technology and domestic violence will be held on the campus of Long Beach State University later this month.

The “Behind the Screens” symposium is the first of its kind for the campus and will include expert panels that will comment on how emerging technologies are being used to further abuse. Attendees will also hear from survivors and participate in a design sprint to brainstorm solutions to the issue of domestic violence and technology.

Many forms of domestic violence through technology are common, like strings of text messages back-to-back or what is known as “coercive texting” when someone is with a family members or at work but feels forced to respond, said Long Beach State University communications expert Ebony Utley. Similarly, leaving someone’s text messages unread can be a form of manipulation.

A new form of domestic violence is emerging with the Internet of Things in which an abuser with the passwords to smart devices in a home can turn the temperature up, turn lights on in the middle of the night or blast music to gaslight an intended target. These forms of domestic violence do not yet have precedent in the court system and laws protecting victims from these forms of abuse have not been established, Utley said.

“The courts haven’t caught up with these new forms of technology,” Utley said.

In other ways, technology can foster healthier forms of communication and connection, according to Utley. Platforms like Circle of 6 allow for instant connection and location sharing when a user feels unsafe. Other platforms provide a space where parents in contentious custody battles can communicate, and the court instantly receives all text messages exchanged between feuding parents or romantic partners.

“Abusers like to isolate,” Utley said. “Social media allows for connection.”

Attendees at the symposium will hear testimony from survivors of domestic violence through technology. Should any attendees feel uncomfortable or revisit their own traumas, counselors will be present at the event as will the campus’ sexual assault advocate.

Media interested in attending the event is respectfully asked not to film or photograph audience members.

The free event on Oct. 17 will be held from 4 to 8 p.m. at the Karl Anatol Center and is sponsored by the CSULB Institute for Innovation & Entrepreneurship, The Center for First Amendment Studies and Not Alone @ The Beach among other campus groups. It is open to community members over the age of 14. Those interested in attending can register online. A light dinner will be provided.

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About the campus:
Long Beach State University is a teaching-intensive, research-driven university committed to providing highly valued undergraduate and graduate degrees critical for success in the globally minded 21st century. Annually ranked among the best universities in the West and among the best values in the entire nation, the university’s eight colleges serve more than 37,500 students. The campus values and is recognized for rich educational opportunities provided by excellent faculty and staff, exceptional degree programs, diversity of its student body, fiduciary and administrative responsibility and the positive contributions faculty, staff, students and more than 300,000 alumni make on society.