NEWSBRIEFS

MENDOTA STUDENTS RECEIVE KUDOS FOR NATIONAL COMPETITION WIN
Four students from McCabe Middle School in the farming community of Mendota won first place in the MESA National Engineering Design Competition in August. They received special in-person congratulations from Jack O’Connell, California Superintendent of Public Instruction, who traveled to the town to participate in a special awards ceremony. Adelmo Alvarado, Angel Hernandez, Edgar Juarez, Francisco Torres claimed gold for their far-flinging trebuchet at the Maryland contest, beating teams from six other states. MESA advisor David Sackrinson and CSU Fresno MESA pre-college director Louie Lopez led the team to victory.

SJ STATE STUDENTS FEATURED IN INDUSTRY NEWSLETTER
A dozen San Jose State University MESA students toured a major global defense corporation and gained international fame by appearing in the company’s weekly e-newsletter. MESA students visited the BAE Systems Santa Clara site in November to explore the Combat Systems Integration Lab and the Human Factors Engineering Lab. They were fea tured as the top story in the following week’s Santa Clara Weekly News Bulletin that is distributed to BAE’s 45,000 employees in countries including the United States, United Kingdom, Sweden, Israel and South Africa.

STUDENTS TOUR GOOGLE CAMPUS
MESA students shadowed engineers at Google’s headquarters in Mountain View to experience the inner workings of the corporate giant and meet Google staff. Twenty MESA high school, community college and university-level students were chosen to participate in separate Google Shadow Days. Students were selected based on a high grade point average, strong interest in computer science or engineering and expected completion of UC and CSU entrance requirements. This is the second year Google has offered these events to MESA students.

MESA NOW ON SOCIAL NETWORKS
Now MESA students and alumni can connect through some of the Web’s most popular social and career networking sites. MESA is now on Facebook, LinkedIn and NuResume. Statewide staff member Justin Ilumin, who manages the MESA networking pages, said this move keeps MESA current with the way young people communicate and stay plugged in with friends and potential employers. Facebook, which is geared toward the teen and twenties population, has gained about 120 million users worldwide since its inception in 2004. LinkedIn, used mainly for professional networking, was founded in 2002 and has more than 30 million registered users. NuResume is a start-up company that allows students to post interactive-multimedia resumes.

MESA STUDENTS, EXECUTIVES APPEAR AT CONFERENCES
During a Bayer sponsored forum, MESA Executive Director Oscar F. Porter appeared on a panel about secondary education solutions to creating a diverse workforce pipeline. The event, “Bridging the Diversity Gap: Introducing STEM Industries to K–12 Best Practice Programs” highlighted the most successful K–12 programs that help under-represented populations achieve in technical fields. MESA Marketing and Resource Development Director Michael Tomasello, co-moderated and participated in a panel about revitalizing California’s technical workforce.

Two MESA students gave a presentation at the California STEM Education Roundtable sponsored by Chevron and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in December. Jose Serrano from Manual Arts High School and Stacy Flores from South Gate High School discussed the STEM activities they were involved in and explained how being involved in MESA convinced them to pursue engineering degrees. The event focused on the importance of technical education and ways to strengthen the technical workforce in California.

AT&T HOSTS MESA TEACHER CONFERENCE
MESA advisors acquired new teaching methods and tools at the annual MESA Academy for Science and Mathematics Educators (MASME) in August. The conference, which was held at the AT&T western regional headquarters in San Ramon, featured workshops, a teaching activities exhibition and an awards banquet for 270 MESA math and science teachers from across the state. As most MESA teachers work at the lowest-performing schools in California, MASME focused on providing innovative teaching ideas that are effective yet inexpensive. The majority of teachers at MASME had been MESA advisors for less than 4 years but several educators present had given more than 30 years of service to MESA. Yno Gonzalez, MESA board member and senior vice president of AT&T Network Operations Planning and Care Transformation, was present to applaud the teachers for their continuing dedication and commitment.

# # #