Daily Business Report-June 9, 2020
SDSU Flex
SDSU to offer in-person
virtual courses for fall 2020
San Diego State University students will have access to more than 200 unique in-person courses and the university is preparing to house up to 3,500 students on campus during the fall 2020.
In a campus update, SDSU President Adela de la Torrea nnounced that the California State University system has approved the campus-wide academic plan for the fall.
“I have a high level of confidence that, through our plan, we will offer an exceptional education and experience for our students, no matter their physical location,” de la Torre said.
The university also launched a SDSU Flex website to provide information and updates. The site, now live, includes information about campus repopulation plans, course offerings, and the university’s plans to offer a meaningful student experience, no matter where they are physically located.
“I know this information will be helpful to every single member of our community, including our incoming students and their parents and families, as we all prepare for Fall 2020,” de la Torre said.
SDSU does not have enough classrooms to offer all classes in person while providing for sufficient physical distancing. For that reason, the university identified more than 200 courses for in-person, focusing on those that have critical in-person elements. All other courses will be offered virtually.
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Professor Joel Conte named to Eric and Joanna
Reissner chair for structural engineering
Structural engineering professor Joel Conte was named to the Eric and Johanna Reissner Chair in the Department of Structural Engineering at UC San Diego.
Conte is the principal investigator for the operation and maintenance of the world’s largest outdoor shake table located at the UC San Diego Englekirk Structural Engineering Center on campus.
The facility, which is also the second largest shake table in the world overall, is currently undergoing a major upgrade funded by the National Science Foundation. Once upgraded, the shake table will be able to reproduce all six components of ground motions experienced during earthquakes. Conte is the principal investigator on the $16.3 million upgrade grant.
“We will be able to reproduce actual earthquake ground motions with the most accuracy of any large shake table in the world,” Conte said.
“We will be able to reproduce actual earthquake ground motions with the most accuracy of any large shake table in the world,” Conte said. “This will accelerate the discovery of the knowledge engineers need to design new buildings, bridges, power plants, dams, levees, telecommunication towers, wind turbines, retaining walls, tunnels, and to retrofit older structures vulnerable to earthquakes. It will enhance the resiliency of our communities.”
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Report: New visa restrictions will make
the U.S. economic downturn worse
The Trump administration is expected to set limits on a popular program that allows international students to work in the U.S. after graduation while remaining on their student visas. The restrictions on the Optional Practical Training (OPT) program are designed to help American graduates seeking jobs during the pandemic-fueled economic downturn; however, the move is likely to further hurt the economy, according to new University of California San Diego research on immigrant rights.
In a new research paper, economists find that immigrant rights enhance the lives and livelihoods of native-born workers in many ways. Drawing from a sweeping collection of studies on the U.S. labor market over the past century, the paper is the first of its kind to look at how legal protections for immigrants affect domestic workers of immigrant-receiving countries in terms of generating income, innovation, reducing crime and increasing tax revenues.
One in eight persons living in the United States was born in a different country. Therefore understanding the impact of migrant worker rights on receiving economies is crucial to immigration policymaking, especially with the White House’s immigration policies growing more exclusionary during the COVID-19 pandemic.
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Bank of Southern California names
Mariam Siryana senior managing director
Bank of Southern California N.A., a community business bank headquartered in San Diego, announced the expansion of its business banking group in the Los Angeles market with the hiring of a seasoned managing director to support the company’s continued growth in the Southern California region.
Mariam Siryani has joined Bank of Southern California as senior managing director. She brings more than 17 years of industry experience, with a strong focus on branch management and business banking. A highly regarded banker with a proven history of results-driven success, Siryani has achieved numerous honors and distinctions for her outstanding performance and leadership. Most recently, she served as vice president, branch manager for Citibank in Westlake Village.
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Students poised to tackle environmental
challenges in ‘Hacking for the Oceans’ course
A new course offering at UC San Diego is providing students with tools and training to tackle real-world problems facing the ocean environment. Launched in the spring of 2020, Hacking for the Oceans is a solutions-focused class led by marine scientists Eric Terrill and Sophia Merrifield at Scripps Institution of Oceanography and collaborator Steve Weinstein, a lecturer at UC Berkeley and Stanford.
In the course, of which the development was co-funded by the National Philanthropic Trust, interdisciplinary teams of students work closely with outside sponsors to develop rapid prototypes and innovative solutions to ocean-related challenges (think: ocean pollution, illegal fishing, real-time monitoring). Students are challenged to develop feasible solutions that are not only scientifically or technically possible but also have high potential to be adopted by end-users and a revenue-generating strategy.
Each team receives weekly guidance from their sponsor as well as an entrepreneurial mentor, further exposing students to the possibilities of a career outside academia. Sponsors range from local, state, and federal agencies to industry and non-governmental organizations.
