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July 27, 2010
Next Information Sessions at the Graduate Center: July 29, August 3, and August 7
Upcoming Events:
August 3: Special MS-HE and MS-HRD event
August 9: Interdepartmental Medical Science program starts
August 12: Special Reception for MS-IS faculty, current students, and prospective students
August 18: Young Professionals Regional Summit at Drexel
August 25: Reception for new University President John Fry
August 27-28: Orientation/Classes begin for the Executive MPH program
Save the Dates:
September 1: "Experience Drexel" party at the Graduate Center
September 15: Convocation and New Student Orientation
October 10: Eagles vs. 49ers game in San Francisco
In this issue of Dragonfire:
- Special Event for Higher Ed and Human Resource Development Programs on August 3
- MS-IS Students Host Wine and Cheese for Prospective Students, 5-6 p.m. on August 12
- Information Sessions – SO Packed, More Have Been Added!
- Drexel's New President to Visit Sacramento Campus in August
- Public Health Students Dine with Their Dean
- Two-Day GMAT Prep Session: "Exhausting" but "Great!"
- Promoted! MS-HRD Student Becomes Chief of Workforce Development at CA State Agency...and Credits Drexel!
- iSchool Master's Students Earn Course Credit for Workplace Experience
- Business Law, Real-World Style
- Library and Information Science's Six Concentrations
- EdD Students Begin the Path to Dissertations
- City Special Projects Manager Elected President of Drexel Student Body
- Executive MPH Student Helps Provide Emergency Resources for Vietnamese Fishing Community in Gulf Coast
- Urban Outfitters Founder and Chairman to Be August Conversation Guest
- Dragon Dodgeball?
To read articles from past editions about your degree program, visit the Dragonfire archives.
Special Event for Higher Ed and Human Resource Development Programs on August 3
The Goodwin College School of Education is pleased to announce a special Meet and Greet session for prospective students interested in the master of science programs in Higher Education and Human Resource Development on Tuesday, August 3 at 5:15 p.m. After meeting our faculty — who will give a general introduction to the School of Education — there will be a breakout session for each program that will focus on career opportunities in higher education and human resource development within the Sacramento region. The breakout sessions will feature panel discussions with practitioners from institutions of higher education and professionals within the human resource sector. The evening will begin at 5:15 p.m. with food and refreshments, followed by the presentation at 6:00 p.m. To RSVP send an email to sacramento@drexel.edu or call 916-325-4600. Come meet your future classmates, current students, and faculty and see why Drexel's master's programs are exactly what you need to take that next big step up in your career.
MS-IS Students Host Wine and Cheese for Prospective Students, 5-6 p.m. on August 12
If you are a computing professional who is looking to advance your career and obtain the skills to leverage information and create solutions to problems through accessible, usable, and structurally sound information systems, then Drexel's MS-IS program is for you. Our MS-IS students and faculty are getting together for dinner the night of August 12, and they have decided to hold a pre-dinner wine and cheese with you! Come meet and talk with your future classmates and teachers, starting at 5 p.m. at the Graduate Center, then stay for the Information Session, from 6-7 p.m. Call to RSVP at 916-325-4600 or email us at sacramento@drexel.edu so we have enough of the good stuff to go around!
Information Sessions – SO Packed, More Have Been Added!
By the time prospective students come to Drexel's high-tech Graduate Center, they've already explored our website, checked out the curricula and the faculty, and read the stories about Drexel's history since 1891 and what Drexel's done since coming to Sacramento in 2009. What they're coming to see (as one told the dean at the last session) is "whether all the hype is really true… and it is!" A typical Information Session will include professionals interested in most of our seven graduate degrees. They will come from more than a dozen different lines of work, with a wide range in their undergraduate degrees, ages, backgrounds, and career aspirations. What they see is that Drexel's style of pedagogy is "experiential" — that is, we draw on the life and career experiences of our students to inform the classroom discussions in all of our degree programs — and that the technology used to access and present experts and knowledge in their classes is "amazing." Current Drexel students talk about how they manage to pursue rigorous academic programs while juggling their families and careers, and how Drexel's focus on community engagement has already benefitted them. With classes starting in less than two months (end of August for the MPH), the Info Sessions are filling up; so it would be smart to sign up and reserve your place now. Parking and food are provided. Come meet your future teachers and classmates.
Drexel's New President to Visit Sacramento Campus in August
He hasn't even yet arrived at his desk in Philadelphia — home to 7,000 graduate students and 12,000 undergraduates — but incoming Drexel University President John Fry has already signaled the importance he places on Sacramento. After taking office on August 2, he will come to Sacramento just a few weeks later to meet our students, alumni, faculty, and staff. Everyone who has been admitted to a program starting this fall will be invited to the reception on August 25. Would you like to meet him? Complete your application, get accepted, and you'll be invited!
Public Health Students Dine with Their Dean
In our last edition, we reported that Marla Gold, MD, dean of Drexel's School of Public Health and a national figure in the field of public health, came to Sacramento in early July to meet with a variety of county and state public health officials as well as members of the funder community. They discussed the health challenges the region will be facing in the coming years — from obesity and nutrition issues, to drugs, STDs, and gun violence, to handling outbreaks like H1N1 and whooping cough. We neglected to mention that the tightly packed day of high-level meetings ended with a dinner at Ten22 in Old Sacramento with Drexel's MPH students. The MPH program is taught in an "executive" format, which means that they get together for three two-day (Friday/Saturday) sessions every quarter and work in the field and online during the intervening weeks. These students began the program in August 2009 as the inaugural cohort, so the dean's visit gave them a chance to meet socially and discuss how the program is going and what lies in store for their final 10 months. If you are concerned about the quality of life in your community and have had at least three years' experience in public health or a related field, you may be interested in Drexel's Executive Master of Public Health. Come to an Information Session; but act quickly! The MPH program is only offered once a year and starts August 27!
Two-Day GMAT Prep Session: "Exhausting" but "Great!"
It began at 8 a.m. on Saturday, July 17 and did not end until the next afternoon. The 37 students and their teacher — back by popular demand and flown in from Boston for the weekend — had a lot to cover, and only took a few breaks. But at the end, it was a confident group of potential MBA students who left the Graduate Center. "I'm ready," said one as she left. "Let's do it!" The last time any of them had taken a standardized test was many years ago — some not since high school. But if you want to get admitted to Drexel's LEAD MBA program, you need to take the GMAT — and the better you do on that test, the greater the amount of tuition support you will receive from Drexel's Sacramento Leadership Fellowship program. But there's even more to it than that: preparing for the GMAT is a warm-up for the analytical analysis that our MBA students will be utilizing every week as they become masters. If you are ready to take the next step up in your career with the MBA program recognized as being #1 in program content among part-time programs, then contact Nancy Thompson, our director of recruitment, or Dave Stewart, Drexel's MBA program director in Sacramento. The fourth cohort is filling up quickly and will start in mid-September (and we did record the GMAT prep session!).
Promoted! MS-HRD Student Becomes Chief of Workforce Development at CA State Agency...and Credits Drexel!
Mike O'Docharty, a student in Drexel's Master of Human Resource Development program, has been promoted! He explains, "It is uncanny how everything I am learning at Drexel applies directly to my daily challenges at work. I am able to transfer so much in both directions between work and school."
After just 30 months at the California Department of Toxic Substances Control, Mike was promoted to chief of workforce development. What caused the change? Hard work, intelligence, and commitment, to be sure; but he credits Drexel: "I've applied what I've learned at Drexel to make the Department a better learning organization where knowledge is shared, transferred, and retained."
Like all of our students, Mike's a professional with a demanding life outside of school. He lives in Roseville with his wife, Sachiko Kibe; has two daughters, Lea and Maura, devotes his spare time as a Big Brother (pictured here with his Little Brother, Colton, at a Sacramento Kings game), and serves as secretary for the local chapter of the Navy League. And he's obviously doing great in class!
HRD is not about HR. It's about human resource development. And Drexel has one of the very few MS-HRD programs in the nation that emphasizes a true human resources development curriculum with experiential and online features. Recruitment is under way for the next HRD cohort, which begins in September. Register for the next Information Session. Those with questions should contact Dr. Salvatore Falletta or call him at the Graduate Center at 916-213-8773.
Pictured above: Mike O'Docharty and his Little Brother, Colton, at a King's game also enjoy Drexel's great seats at the River Cats games!
iSchool Master's Students Earn Course Credit for Workplace Experience
Keeping in line with Drexel University's long tradition of experiential learning, the iSchool at Drexel is proud to offer a Practicum to all our graduate students taking either the MS Information Systems or MS Library and Information Science here in Sacramento. Practicum provides the opportunity for students to gain credit for work experience along with associated academic coursework. The course enables a student to use his or her current job or to obtain a job/internship in their field of study to earn 3 elective credits. The course requires 120 hours of work over the 10-week quarter, along with online class participation. Students are responsible for obtaining their own practicum jobs. Learn more about how iSchool graduate students can gain credit for work experience on the iSchool's Practicum page.
Business Law, Real-World Style
"Here's a copy of the complaint that has just been filed against you and your company," said Sacramento attorney Jordan Peters to a packed classroom one Saturday morning. "We're going to talk about how you got into this mess, and how you are going to avoid doing that again." It's one thing to understand the principles and best practices of business administration — whether it's as a human relations professional (in our Human Resource Development master's program), a leader of a college or university (MS Higher Education, EdD in Educational Leadership and Management) or a business or nonprofit (MBA), or a member of the knowledge management team that supports them all (MS Library and Information Science, MS Information Systems). It's quite another to know where the landmines and pitfalls are from a legal perspective — the kinds of missteps you can make managing people and signing contracts. We don't offer a law degree here in Sacramento, but our students recently got together and organized a day of training in what business leaders need to know about the law. It was a terrific event, and shows how students here at Drexel are playing an active role in determining the extracurricular activities offered at our Graduate Center.
Library and Information Science's Six Concentrations
We wrote an article in an earlier Dragonfire about "What, Exactly, Is MS-LIS?" It demonstrated how important the MS-LIS education is going to be for successful area businesses, government agencies, and nonprofits. The fact is, opportunities already abound in the field of library and information science in corporations, government, academia, law firms, and beyond. The iSchool at Drexel's Master of Science in Library and Information Science curriculum is designed to offer you the freedom to build a degree that fits your career aspirations, while also providing you with structured opportunities to specialize your degree focus through our optional concentrations. Like all of the iSchool's programs, these concentrations are developed and updated to meet the ever-changing needs of society, the information field, and our students. Six concentrations are available through the MS-LIS:
Competitive Intelligence and Knowledge Management- This concentration focuses on information needs and knowledge management in corporate, special library, and other organizational settings.
Digital Libraries- This concentration is for those who are interested in the digital management of information and covers a range of topics in digital resources, collections, and services. It can serve as a bridging concentration accessible to MS-IS students, and several courses are a part of the MS-IS curriculum.
Archival Studies- Ideal for those planning archival careers in government agencies, libraries, historical societies, corporations, not-for-profit organizations, museums, and religious institutions, this concentration focuses on the practice and theory of managing collections of records in a variety of archival settings.
Library and Information Services- Ideal for those planning careers in traditional librarianship in academic or public settings and beyond; this concentration includes courses addressing key professional skills and an orientation work setting.
School Library Media- This concentration is for those who wish to work in K–12 school library programs in both public and private schools.
Youth Services- This concentration meets the interests of those planning public library careers with courses that focus on youth populations.
EdD Students Start Down the Path to Dissertations
At a joint cohort meeting during the June 25–26 executive weekend, doctoral students learned specifics of the dissertation format and intentions. While they won't be eligible to complete the dissertation until after passing their competency exams, the process begins early in the EdD. Focus on a topic and dialogues with faculty begin during the first year in keeping with the goal of completing the dissertation by the end of the third year.
Rather than a theoretical research piece, the EdD dissertation is both problem and placed based. Students identify a vexing problem facing a complex organization, a problem based in their place of employment or field of study. With carefully chosen research methods, they seek and propose a solution that can be implemented under their leadership. While the dissertation is practical in nature, the development processes are academic in nature. Completing the dissertation enables students to fulfill one of the program's Keystones: "EdD graduates exemplify the curiosity, inquiry skills, and scholarly competencies needed to investigate an idea and transform it into meaningful action."
Those with questions should contact EdD program director Dr. Ed Bureau web28@drexel.edu or call the Graduate Center at 916-325-4600.
City Special Projects Manager Elected President of Drexel Student Body
By day, she is a special projects manager in the Office of the Sacramento City Manager. By night she's pursuing her doctorate at Drexel's Graduate Center. And as of July 6, she is the president of the Sacramento Graduate Student Association — responsible for leading a student body that is currently at 255 and which will surge to over 400 by mid-September. She is Michelle Heppner, a student in the second EdD cohort which began in March 2010. As she told her fellow students, "My position with the city requires me to be actively involved in the business community and with the public; and therefore I believe that I have good insight into a number of activities that would be appropriate for graduate and doctorate students. Additionally, as our economy begins to turn around and the city starts hiring again in the future, I'd like to be in a position to recommend talented students I've worked with at Drexel University for future positions with the city." It's clear she gets it: Drexel is all about the connections you will make with other Drexel students and with the community at large. Over the past 119 years, we've drawn our strength and national reputation from the close ties we have with the businesses, government agencies, and nonprofits in our region. We offer a top-ranked education that is intensely practical — "not just good, but good for something," as our founder Anthony J. Drexel said in 1891 when he endowed the University.
Executive MPH Student Helps Provide Emergency Resources for Vietnamese Fishing Community in Gulf Coast
The precise extent and consequences of the oil gusher in the Gulf of Mexico remain unknown. As government officials and researchers work to quantify the potential long-term economic, environmental, and health impacts associated with the estimated 130 million gallons of crude oil that have been infused into the world's oceans, the immediate impacts are readily apparent to residents of towns along the Gulf Coast.
Among this population is a large community of Vietnamese-American immigrants who make their living fishing and trolling in the gulf. In addition to the direct economic impacts that have resulted from fishing moratoriums, cultural intricacies and linguistic barriers have hindered the effectiveness of response and recovery efforts for these communities.
Jonathan Purtle, an Executive MPH student and researcher at the Center for Health Equality at the School of Public Health, spoke with Daniel Le of the nongovernmental organization Boat People S.O.S. (BPSOS) in the gulf region to learn more about their efforts and issues specific to Vietnamese communities that could potentially be overlooked by relief plans.
Purtle and others at the National Resource Center on Advancing Emergency Preparedness for Culturally Diverse Communities, developed by Drexel's School of Public Health, have provided a clearinghouse of information for the Vietnamese-American fishing community and related service providers to help them with their emergency preparedness needs.
As Mr. Le explained, BPSOS is no stranger to the cultural, linguistic, and political complexities that often complicate disaster relief efforts. BPSOS was extremely active in providing legal assistance, translation services and advocacy, as well as mobilizing communities following Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005.
BPSOS has served as a liaison between British Petroleum (BP) workers providing recovery assistance and Vietnamese-Americans with limited English proficiency and little familiarity with bureaucratic processes. Cultural and linguistic isolation have also posed barriers.
While the provision of cash assistance is a pragmatic strategy for meeting immediate needs—such as money for food, housing, and boat payments—it is in stark contrast to the virtues of Vietnamese culture.
"Working is a way of life for the Vietnamese...they are very prideful. They will accept handouts if necessary, but only as a last resort," said Mr. Le.
According to Mr. Le, there is also a cultural aversion to publically airing grievances and "rocking the boat" among the Vietnamese.
Urban Outfitters Founder/Chairman to Be August Conversation Guest
Richard Hayne opened his first store in 1970 and called it Free People's. Today, he is the Chairman and President of a company that operates more than 140 locations in the United States, Canada, the Republic of Ireland, Denmark, Sweden, Germany, Belgium, and the United Kingdom, and its wholesale division manufactures and distributes clothing under the Free People label to approximately 1,500 specialty stores worldwide. The URBN brand is rounded out by fashion-forward Anthropologie and new home and garden store Terrain. Hayne is also the vice chairman of the Drexel University Board of Trustees. On August 24, he will be our guest at the Graduate Center, talking about "what it means to lead" as part of our monthly speakers series. As all the Conversations do, this will offer our students a unique opportunity to talk with one of the most successful retail entrepreneurs in the country on a very personal level, asking him for advice about the decisions that have to be made on the way up towards leadership. These programs are attended by students from all of our graduate programs, because the "life lessons" that our speakers share are so personal and universal that they are meaningful regardless of career or economic sector. Anyone who has enrolled in Drexel for the programs starting this fall is invited to come to the pizza reception that starts at 5:15 p.m. and participate in the Conversation that starts at 6:00 p.m.
Drexel encourages all of its students to get involved in Metro EDGE, the young professionals program of the Sacramento Metro Chamber, because we believe it is an excellent way for our students to meet other up-and-coming leaders of the greater Sacramento region and to participate with them in worthy public service projects. (We also do that with Roseville Ignite and sponsor both Chambers' Leadership programs.) Metro EDGE recently hosted "A Day On The EDGE" — a dodgeball tournament that was not just fun, but was also a way to raise money to benefit the Sacramento State Educational Opportunity Program, which provides college scholarships to underprivileged youth. Fifteen Drexel students entered the tourney as Team Dragon — two EdDs and 13 MBAs — and while none was left standing at the end, it was a wonderful event. The Metro Chamber will announce soon how much it raised for Sac State, but for our students, it was a great event.
PS: If you like sports but dodgeball isn't your thing, Drexel has a summer and winter softball team and an ever-enlarging gaggle of runners entering charitable races — not to mention season tickets to the River Cats for armchair athletes!
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