SACNAS Club update

I would like to thank you all very much for attending the first SACNAS meeting at San Jose City College.

I have created a website along with this Blog site for all of us to have a forum by which we could communicate. For those of you who may not be familiar with Blogs, I will be more than happy to arrange a training session; please let me know.

For those of you who could not attend, below are the minutes to our first meeting.

Introduction- Dr. Jose Antonio Cabrera (Facilitator), Dr. Madeline Adamczeski (Professor of chemistry SJCC), Dr. Kim Nguyen (Professor of Chemistry SJCC).

1. SACNAS Video- Introduction of what SACNAS is all about.

- It is possible to succeed on your own, but SACNAS aims to improve
your chances of success in science.

- 1999 Dr. JA Cabrera attended a SACNAS conference in Washington DC.

- With a SACNAS Chapter at SJCC we faculty and staff at SJCC would
like to provide you (the students) with tools and opportunities
necessary to succeed in science.

2. Jesus Benitez (former student of Professor M. Adamczeski) spoke about the
research he performed while participating in the ACCESS propgram at UC Santa
Cruz this past summer.

3. Jesus Benitez also spoke about his experience at the SACNAS conference in El
Paso Texas, this past September. Jesus was provided with the opportunity to
present his work at the SACNAS national conference; congratulations Jesus!!

At the SACNAS conference Jesus learned about internship opportunities that he
will disseminate to club members.

4. The next SACNAS conference will take place in Anaheim CA.

5. Professor Madeline Adamczeski presented Peer-Led Team Learning to the students.
PLTL is a data-proven method to effectively engage students in learning. In
brief, PLTL provides an effective active learning environment for students,
creates a leadership role for students, and engages faculty in a creative new
dimension of instruction. If you would like to know more about PLTL, please
direct your questions to Dr. Adamczeski; she is the Director of the Western
Regional Center for Peer-Led Team Learning.

6. Members Comments: What activities would you be interested in:

- Dr. C is working with publishers to provide a few copies of textbooks for
club members.

- Provide advanced students with opportunities to mentor new students to campus
resources and provide them with tools to be successful.

- Mentors (faculty and students) PLTL students work closely with instructors

- Professional tutors: SACNAS Club members could be trained as tutors.

- Science Counselors: The idea of a SACNAS Chapter at SJCC grew out of a
discussion with Fabio Gonzalez (EOP&S Counselor).

- Field Trips: Forensic Lab, NASA Ames Research Center, SETI Institute,
Stranford, UC Santa Cruz Research Labs, SACNAS Club camping.

- Serving on campus wide commitees: Accreditation, Scheduling, Finance

7. Nominations were started for SACNAS officers. Please see a description for each the governing positions in the official website of the SACNAS SJCC Student Chapter: http://sites.google.com/site/sjccsacnas/

Below are the nominations: Please continue with the nominations. Those who are nominated please write a one paragraph statement of why you should feel you should be elected. Nominations will close November 27, 2009. All statements will be published on our club website for all members to carefully read prior to voting.

Please inform club members of any changes via the club Blog page:

-President: John Tran
Beatriz Camacho
Jesus Benitez

-Vice President: Chris Bravo
Alyssa Diaz
Anshul Kumar

Treasurer: Leon Le
Jerzi Moreno
Heriberto Ceja

Secretary: Bessy Reyes
Vincent Velasquez
Desiree Carillo
Ayden Nathan

National Liason: Karen Brard

SACNAS SJCC Student Chapter webmaster: Ayden Nathan