News and Announcements
English Department WriterSpeak Event
Faith Healers. Super Heroes, Monster Movies, and the Beatles.
Those are the subjects of Lysley Tenorio’s amazing short story collection, Monstress (HarperCollins / 2012).
On Thursday, May 17 Lysley Tenorio will visit Cal Poly for the final WriterSpeak event of the year. His stories have appeared in The Atlantic, Zoetrope: All-Story, Ploughshares, and, The Chicago Tribune. A former Stegner Fellow at Stanford University, he is a recipient of a Whiting Writer’s Award, the Nelson Algren Award for Short Fiction, a National Magazine Award nomination, and has received fellowships from the the University of Wisconsin, the MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, and the National Endowment for the Arts. Born in the Philippines, he currently lives in San Francisco, and is an Associate Professor at Saint Mary’s College of California.
The event starts at 8:00 p.m. in Building 8, Room 123.
Admission is free and open to the public.
Generously sponsored by Cal Poly Arts and the Department of English.
Robots, Privacy, and Society Lecture Scheduled for May 23
http://ethics.calpoly.edu/pr_050812.htmlSixth Annual Poetry Slam, “The Anthem,” Comes to Cal Poly
Cal Poly's sixth annual poetry slam, "The Anthem", is set for 7 to 10 p.m. May 18th at Chumash Auditorium on campus. 
The event seeks to inspire those in attendance to use the power of their voice and their words to make a difference.
The Anthem, sponsored by the Cal Poly English Department and the College of Liberal Arts, is a “slam” style competition involving five poets who will perform pieces about the uniqueness of individuals and the cultures from which they come. They perform on issues such as race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, identity, class, religion, life, and love while being judged by audience members chosen at random on the day of the event.
As the poets vocalize these topics, audience members can gain a sense of respect for themselves and others, in turn building a sense of community throughout the Cal Poly campus.
Prentice Powell, winner of the 2006 San Francisco Grand Slam Championship and National Grand Slam finalist, will be the master of ceremonies. Five of the nation’s top spoken word poets will compete this year. Returning to the stage are Rudy Francisco, who came for Another Type of Groove in April, 2011; and Buddy Wakefield, who toured through Cal Poly in the Nite Kite Revival tour in September, 2010. First-time participants include Tatyana Brown, Josh Healey, and Nash Quest.
For additional details about the event, contact Mark Lerner at (310) 480-4835 or visit the event FACEBOOK page.
For more on the Cal Poly English Department, call 805-756-2596 or log on to their website.
Sociology Students experience Learn-By-Picking
http://www.kcoy.com/story/18151824/students-pick-strawberries-for-a-dayPhilosophy Professor Discusses Ethical and Legal Problems in Cybergound.
http://www.csoonline.com/article/print/705888The Trayvon Martin Tragedy and the Psychology of Being Black
William E. Cross, Jr., PhD., a professor in the Department of Educational and Clinical Studies and the Coordinator of both Counselor Education and CEP Graduate Studies at the University of Las Vegas, Nevada (UNLV) will give a talk entitle "The Trayvon Martin Tragedy and the Psychology of Being Black" on Tuesday, May 22, 2012 at 11 a.m. in Chumash Auditorium.
Previous to this appointment, Dr. Cross was Professor and Head of the Doctoral Program in Social-Personality Psychology and coordinator of African American Studies at the Graduate 
Center, City University of New York. He is the author of Shades of Black, considered a classic and one of the most frequently referenced texts on Black identity. His model conceptualizing the stages of Black identity development has generated an ever-expanding number of essays, commentaries, and empirical studies. In addition, his ideas have stimulated the growth of identity development models for application to a wide range of groups, including gays and lesbians, Hispanic/Latinos, Asian Americans, feminists, and White European Americans. Dr. Cross is the recipient of the 2009 Annual Social Justice Action Award bestowed by the Teachers College, Columbia University. In addition, Georgia Southern University has established the Dr. William Cross Jr. Distinguished Lecture Series as part of GSU-linked annual conference on Cross-Cultural Issues in Counseling and Education held each year in Savannah, GA. Dr. Cross has been selected to receive the Distinguished Elder Award at the 2013 National Multicultural Conference and Summit in Houston, Texas. Dr. Cross earned his Ph.D. from Princeton University and has held positions in Psychology and Africana Studies at Cornell University, Penn State University, and the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
The event is sponsored by the Psychology & Child Development Department, the Ethnic Studies Department, the College of Liberal Arts, the Black Faculty & Staff Association and Student Life and Leadership.
The event is free and open to the public.
IEP Offering Extended Field Trip to Ghana
Internationa Education and Programs will be offering and extended field trip to Ghana from November 18-25, 2012.
During the eight day trip, students will participate in numerous activies including: 
- Visiting the historic slave forts at Elmina and Cape Coast
- Kakum National Park
- Tour the colonial and present-day capital, Accra
- Attend a program at the W.E.B. Dubois Centre for Pan African Culture
- Workshop with Global Mamas, a non-profit, micro-financing fair traid organization that develops business programs for small, women-owned businesses in Africa
- Visit a literature class at the University of Ghana-Legon
Students interested in participating in the field trip must plan on taking the following courses in Fall 2012: 
- ES 242 Survey of Africana Studies (fulfills GE D3 and USCP)
- HIST 216 History of Social Movements (fulfills GE D#3)
If interested, or for more information please contact Dr. Evlira Pulitano, Ethnic Studies Department or Dr. Thomas Trice, History Department.
Some funding will be made available for selected students, made possible by the Office of the President, Cal Poly.
Ross Sears, Music Dept. 1951-2012
http://www.calpoly.edu/~mu/Barbara L. R. Mori, 1945-2012, Professor and Former Chair, Social Sciences
Barbara L. R. Mori, Social Sciences professor and former chair, passed away from leukemia on Monday, February 12, 2012, in a Las Vegas hospital.
Mori earned her Ph.D. in Sociology in 1988 from the University of Hawaii (UH). She previously earned an M.A. in Sociology and an M.A. in Asian Studies, also at the UH. She came to Cal Poly in September 1986. During her tenure at Cal Poly, Mori also was active in the development of the Women’s and Gender Studies Department.
Among Mori’s many accomplishments were chairing the Social Sciences Department from 2006 to 2007 and a number of research publications and presentations in two areas of interest: Japanese traditional arts and the ritual serving of food and drink in Japan. She also served as a lecturer at several colleges and universities in Japan, China, and the United States.
In 1995 Mori established art competitions for women in the art of calligraphy at Northwestern University in Xi’an and at the Shaanxi University of Technology in Hanzhong, Shaanzi Province.
A strong proponent of international education, Mori once said in reference to the art competitions, “They comprise an important recognition of these women as artists in a tradition honored by their culture.”
There will be a Buddhist Ceremony in honor of Barbara Mori at the Pine Mountain Buddhist Temple, 942 Lockwood Valley Road in Maricopa at noon, March 10. A potluck will follow. For more information contact Judy Saltzman-Saveker.
Mori is survived by a brother, sister and a son.
Link to her obituary in the San Luis Tribune.
Journalism Professor Organizes Ethics Forum in Bhutan
Cal Poly Journalism Professor Teresa Allen is the co-organizer of an April 2012 media ethics conference conducted by the Center for International Media Ethics (CIME) and the Bhutan Media Institute.
Titled “A New Era of Socio-Economic Responsibility for Journalists in Bhutan and Beyond,” the conference will bring together journalists from India, Nepal, Pakistan and the U.S. who will join their Bhutanese colleagues in the capital city of Thimphu for panel discussions and training on ethical issues. Allen, an advisory board member of CIME, will lead a post-conference training seminar for local journalists on media writing and reporting online.
Since Bhutan’s move to democracy in 2008, the country’s media outlets have grown to nine newspapers, five magazines, a television station (with others planned), five private FM radio stations, and a growing film industry. Additional media outlets are expected to quickly emerge under the new freedom.
“Today Bhutanese journalists, similar to media members around the world, face both new and sometimes overwhelming challenges -- especially with regard to ethical decision- making -- as they grapple with the impact of the Internet on journalism and the speed in which information travels the globe,” Allen said. “The conference will address this issue.”
Allen has helped arrange sponsorships to support the conference. SAGE Publications Inc. contributed $5,000 to help cover the costs of bringing speakers and reporters to that remote corner of the world, bordered by India, China and Nepal. Dow Jones-Asia provided advertising space valued at more than $13,000 to publicize the conference in The Wall Street Journal and its Asia affiliates. Members of the Cal Poly Journalism Department Advisory Board have also contributed to the conference.
“It’s a very worthy cause, and we’re happy to contribute,” said Tracey A. Ozmina, executive vice president of SAGE Publications. “This conference aligns with SAGE's commitment to the dissemination of teaching and research on a global scale, and we are pleased to support the efforts of CIME and Professor Allen in Bhutan.”
Harvey Levenson, interim chair of Cal Poly’s Journalism Department, said, “What Professor Allen did is the type of outreach that places Cal Poly on the map as an international player in the journalism profession. The conference will help develop a world view on the important topic of ethics.”
For more information, contact Professor Teresa Allen.
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About The Center for International Media Ethics
CIME is an independent, international, nonprofit organization founded on the premise that journalists should take a pro-active role in affirming a tacit code of ethics within the profession. CIME seeks to provide journalists -- both beginning and veterans of the profession -- with classes, forums and other resources devoted to ethical training and decision-making.
About Cal Poly’s Journalism Department
The department offers a professional program leading to a Bachelor of Science degree in journalism with emphases in broadcasting, multimedia, news-editorial and public relations. Journalism majors serve as staff members of departmental communications media, including the Mustang Daily, the student newspaper; CCPR, the student-run public relations firm; KCPR, the FM-stereo radio station; and the news and programming operations of CPTV, Cal Poly’s TV station. The department also sponsors student chapters of the Society of Professional Journalists, Radio-Television News Directors Association, and the Public Relations Student Society of America. The department has thousands of alumni, many of whom hold important positions in print, broadcast, and public relations journalism for state and national organizations.
Drone-Ethics Briefing: What Cal Poly Philosophy Professor Patrick Lin told the CIA
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/12/drone-ethics-briefing-what-a-leading-robot-expert-told-the-cia/250060/Endowment Established for Late Journalism Professor George Ramos
http://calpolynews.calpoly.edu/news_releases/2012/February/ramos.htmlEthnic Studies and Women’s & Gender Studies Departments sponsor talk on Contraceptives
UC Riverside Professor to Discuss Biopolitics of Contraceptives Feb. 8 at Cal Poly
Chikako Takeshita, professor of women’s studies at UC Riverside, will present “How Science Constructs Women and Their Bodies -- Half a Century of IUD Development,” at 4 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 8, in Room 215 in the Science North Building at Cal Poly.
In its more than five decades of use, the intrauterine device (IUD) has been regarded as a means for women's reproductive autonomy and a convenient form of birth control as well as a coercive tool of state-imposed population control and threat to women's health, according to Takeshita.
In her talk, she will explore the possibility that the IUD is both empowering and oppressive at the same time. She will discuss how the IUD functions as a "politically versatile technology," adaptable to both feminist and non-feminist reproductive politics. In particular, she will focus on the particular ways in which social interests and assumptions about race, class and female sexuality guide scientific inquiries and technological development. She will also examine what counts as an appropriate mechanism to manage women's fertility in the developing and developed world.
Takeshita’s work demonstrates that various social interests, including the desire to restrict global population, the threat of medical malpractice litigations, attacks from parties opposed to abortion, and women's aspiration for better reproductive control have all played a significant role in directing scientific research on the device.
Her new book, The Biopolitics of Contraceptive Development: Population, Women's Bodies, and the IUD, traces the development of the intrauterine device from the 1960s to the present.
The talk is free and open to the public. It is sponsored by Cal Poly’s College of Liberal Arts Lottery Funds, Gender Equity Center, and the Ethnic Studies and Women's & Gender Studies departments. For more information, contact the Women’s & Gender Studies Department at 805-756‐1525 or wgs@calpoly.edu.
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Ethics + Emerging Sciences Group announces book
he Ethics + Emerging Sciences Group at Cal Poly today announced its new book, “Robot Ethics: The Ethical and Social Implications of Robotics.” Published by MIT Press this winter, this edited volume is the first to bring together many of the most respected experts in robotics and technology ethics to explain a full range of issues arising from current and future robots.
In the highly respected journal Nature, the book already received a positive review. Brad Allenby, Lincoln Professor of Engineering and Ethics at Arizona State University, wrote, “Robot Ethics succeeds as a standalone text, with its varied contributors striving for objectivity and avoiding hyperbole. The broad spread of applications discussed is key because the ethics differ depending on the use. Military robots, for instance, must be designed to obey the laws that govern warfare. Career robots must be capable of interacting with patients, who may give them trust and even affection.”
The new book quickly drew notice in the broader media as well, such as “Harvard Business Review,” “Wall Street Journal,” “PC World,” and more. Locally, the book was featured in the cover story of San Luis Obispo’s New Times, which also discussed other robot-ethics work at Cal Poly.
One such work is the high-visibility role Cal Poly is playing with policymakers on the subject. Dr. Patrick Lin, director of the ethics group and lead editor of the MIT Press book, was recently invited to give a briefing to the US intelligence community —including the CIA, NSA FBI, Dept. of Defense, State Dept., and others—on ethical and policy surprises related to robotics. That briefing was circulated widely after it appeared in “The Atlantic,” a popular literary and cultural commentary magazine known for publishing essays by Martin Luther King Jr., Mark Twain, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Oliver Wendell Holmes, and other notables. Dr. Lin also gave invited briefings this summer at a UNESCO workshop on informational warfare and a DARPA/National Academies of Sciences meeting on the social implications of emerging military technologies.
Dr. Lin is also an assistant philosophy professor at Cal Poly. His co-editors on Robot Ethics are Keith Abney, senior lecturer in philosophy, and Prof. George Bekey, professor emeritus at USC and now a research scholar at Cal Poly. The trio also is known for their work on the 2008 report “Autonomous Military Robotics: Risk, Ethics, and Design”, funded by C3RP/Office of Naval Research, which also received international media, academic, and policy attention.
For the group’s ongoing Technology, Policy & Ethics lecture series at Cal Poly, Dr. Lin expects to host a talk by Ryan Calo — a director at Stanford Law School’s Center for Internet and Society — on the increasing use of surveillance drones and their impact on privacy. More details, including timing, will be posted as they are finalized.
For more information about the MIT Press book, please contact Dr. Lin at palin@calpoly.edu.
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ABOUT ETHICS + EMERGING SCIENCES GROUP
Based at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, the Ethics + Emerging Sciences Group is a non-partisan research and educational organization focused on the risk, ethical, and social impacts of emerging technologies. Current projects and interests are related to issues in robotics, human enhancement, nanotechnology, geoengineering, space development, and other areas.
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Media Contact:
Director, Ethics + Emerging Sciences Group
WGS establishes new honor society
Women’s and Gender Studies formed a new honor society: Iota, Iota, Iota (Triota). Membership is open to majors, minors, and any student who has shown interest in WGS by:
- Completing 8 units of WGS courses
- Completing 20 hours of service, work or training/education related to WGS
- Pursuing/planning to pursue research via senior project or master’s project promoting understanding of genders and sexualities
- All members must have and maintain a 3.0 cumulative GPA.
For more information, contact the society at Triota.