Faculty Profiles
Hundreds of faculty have stepped forward over the 20 years of the Haas Center’s history to teach courses that connect traditional classroom activities and readings with a service component. Most service is the result of relationship-building between the faculty member and staff at community, school or government agencies.The faculty profiled on this site all agree about the importance of their commitment to enhancing the student’s educational experience while providing quality service to the community. The extra time and effort needed to venture into service-learning is encouraged and financially supported by the Haas Center through publicizing of the quarterly course list, networking and mentoring, the lunchtime Faculty Forum in Public Service Education series, and the work of the Faculty Steering Committee. Financial backing has been provided in collaboration with the Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education for the creation of new courses with community-based research components, or in the addition of service components to existing courses.
Courses funded by the Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education in 2007:
Teresa LaFromboise (Education)
Seminar in Counseling Theories and Interventions from a Multicultural Perspective
About Prof. LaFromboise
Dr. LaFromboise is concerned with helping ethnic minority students survive acculturation pressure, cultural adjustment, discrimination, major life transitions and other stresses that are so typical--and so often neglected--in children and adolescents. As a counseling psychologist with clinical and teaching experience in a wide variety of university and American Indian reservation settings, Dr. LaFromboise is well-equipped to guide new professionals in school and community based counseling interventions. She is the developer of the American Indian Life Skills Development Curriculum of problem-based lessons aimed at increasing social emotional competence and reducing the risk of suicide among American Indian adolescents. Proven successful with high school students, this curriculum is being extended to younger students and evaluated in a multi-site effectiveness study. She is also investigating cultural, social, and psychological indicators of adolescent risk behavior.
About the Class
Students engage in an ongoing mentoring relationship with an adolescent from a youth-serving organization. The impact of culture on mentoring. Intervention with children and adolescents, forming positive connections, demonstrating empathy, learning culturally specific caring norms, participating in activities promoting positive youth development. Students are expected to maintain this relationship for at least one additional quarter.
Quarter 2 topics include: developmental psychology and service learning; collaborating with the community; psychological research on altruism and prosocial behavior; volunteers' motivations; attributions about poverty, and the problem of prejudice.
Paula England (Sociology)
Tutoring and Research in a Low Income Community offered 07-8
About Prof. England
Paula England, Professor of Sociology and a Faculty Research Affiliate of the Institute for Research on Women and Gender at Stanford University, focuses on gender issues. Her research deals with the pay gap between men and women and how this is affected by women's involvement in the work of caring for people in their families and for pay. She is also studying dynamics in married and cohabiting couples and how they are affected by power, gender norms, and emotional skills. England tries to foster dialogue between sociologists, economists, demographers, and feminists.
About the Class
Stanford students would receive training in tutoring grade school students having difficulty with reading. They would serve as a regular tutor to one student. In the process of doing this, they would make a story book "starring" the tutee, based in part on things the tutee told them about his or her life. The research component of the class would have the Stanford students using informal discussions with the students being tutored about their families and lives, combined with observations in the school, to reflect on the social environment in which these less privileged children are growing up. They would write a "case study" of the student, drawing on what they learn and relating it to some carefully selected readings on the sociology of low income families and communities. Students would be evaluated on their a) tutoring (following suggested procedures), b) making the book to be given to the tutee, and c) ethnographic field and interview notes turned in on their case study of the student and his/her family, community, and school environment.
Doug McAdam (Urban Studies)
Preparation for Senior Project
About Prof. McAdam
Prior to becoming Director, Doug McAdam, a sociologist, had been on the faculties of University of Arizona and Stanford University, returning to Stanford in 2005. He is a renowned expert on social movements and contentious politics. He is the author or co-author of eight books and more than 50 articles; among his best known works are Political Process and the Development of Black Insurgency, 1930-1970; Freedom Summer; and Dynamics of Contention, with Sid Tarrow and Charles Tilly. He was elected to membership in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2003.
Dr. McAdam pursues a vigorous research agenda. Current projects include a study of crime and social disorganization in Chicago, a longitudinal analysis of protest events and Congressional responsiveness to protestors' interests, an examination of recent church burnings in the American South, and a study of the effects of participation in the national service program Teach for America.
About the Class
First part of capstone experience for Urban Studies majors pursuing an internship-based project. Individually arranged internship beginning in Winter Quarter, minimum 5 hours per week. Prospective students must consult with instructor early in Autumn Quarter to plan placement. Reflections and assignments culminate in a research proposal. Internship normally continues in Spring Quarter; research proposed in the final assignment may be carried out in Spring or Summer Quarter; consent required for Autumn Quarter research.
Drew Nelson (Mechanical Engineering)
Perspectives in Assistive Technology
About Prof. Nelson
I received a PhD in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford, have six years of industrial experience (mainly as an engineer with GE) and have been a faculty member for over twenty years. I teach a project-based mechanical design course, a lab course (experimental mechanics) and a course on computational methods for predicting the life of mechanical components. In the design course, I've worked with teams of students on quarter long projects, some of which have involved medical devices, test set-ups for such devices, equipment to assist genomics experimentation, and rehabilitation engineering.
Much of my research has involved development of improved computational methods for predicting the life of mechanical devices that experience time varying (e.g.,cyclic) stresses and strains. More recently, my research has included development of new experimental techniques, such as an optical fiber sensor for measuring temperature and strains simultaneously and the use of holographic interferometry to determine stresses in materials. Both projects required learning about optics, a subject foreign to most mechanical engineers. In both research and design, I enjoy the challenge of learning and making use of knowledge from fields different than my own.
About the Course
The purpose of this course is to learn about engineering design by engaging in it. Projects are done with faculty and experienced local engineers serving as design coaches. The goal of each project is to produce a "first-cut" prototype to demonstrate feasibility of a design concept. Results from the projects are documented in a design proposal and midway and final reports.
In the past few years, the ME113 course has incorporated public service projects related to assistive technology and design for people with disabilities. The projects are often the most popular in the course, and students gain both technical and social insight from their work and interactions with the partner organizations and project "users."
Carol Boggs (Biological Sciences)
Conservation Biology
About Prof. Boggs
Carol Boggs obtained her PhD from the University of Texas at Austin , and did post-doctoral work at Stanford University. She is Professor (Teaching) of Biological Sciences and Director of the Program in Human Biology at Stanford University. Gothic Mountain and Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory, Colorado. Using Lepidoptera, Dr. Boggs' research focuses on how environmental variation in various forms affects life history traits, population structure and dynamics, and species interactions over ecological and evolutionary time. The aim is to better understand the effects of both natural and anthropogenic environmental changes.
Dr. Boggs' professional service includes current service on the editorial boards of Functional Ecology and the Journal of Insect Conservation, and previous service on the editorial boards of Evolution and Ecological Applications. She is on the advisory boards of several environmental and educational organizations, including President of the Board of Trustees of the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory.
Dr. Boggs is a Fellow of the California Academy of Sciences and of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
About the Class
Bulletin description: Principles and application of the science of preserving biological diversity. Topics include sources of endangerment of diversity; the Endangered Species Act; conservation concepts and techniques at the population, community, and landscape levels; reserve design and management; conflict mediation.
This course has been offered for more than 10 years and is likely to continue to be offered on a yearly basis. It has traditionally incorporated local field trips to help students understand the applications of the material they are learning. For this year, the instructors are interested in developing service-learning activities with the organizations that they have previously visited, as well as with other local organizations to which they have professional ties. The optional service-learning component will earn an additional unit for students.
Chris Gardner (Biological Sciences)
Human Nutrition
About Prof. Gardner
Research interests: The role of nutrition and preventive medicine, with particular interests in: plant-based diets and phytochemicals; cardiovascular disease and cancer prevention; clinical trials and epidemiology.
About the Class
The study of food, and the nutrients and substances therein. Their action, interaction, and balance in relation to health and disease. Emphasis is on the biological, chemical, and physiological processes by which humans ingest, digest, absorb, transport, utilize, and excrete food. Dietary composition and individual choices are discussed in relationship to the food supply, and to population and cultural, race, ethnic, religious, and social economic diversity. The relationships between nutrition and disease; eating disorders; ethnic diets; vegetarianism; nutritional deficiencies; nutritional supplementation; phytochemicals; and food safety. Prerequisite: Human Biology core or consent of instructor.
Al Camarillo (History)
Introduction to Public History and Public Service
About Prof. Camarillo
Al Camarillo was born and raised in the South Central Los Angeles community of Compton. After attending the Compton public schools, he entered the University of California at Los Angeles as a freshman in 1966. He continued his education at UCLA in the Ph.D. program in U.S. History where he received his doctorate in 1975 and where his dissertation was nominated that year as one of the best Ph.D. theses in the nation in American history. Camarillo was appointed to the Faculty in the Department of History at Stanford University in 1975, a position he still holds. He has published seven books and over three dozen articles and essays dealing with the experiences of Mexican Americans and other racial and immigrant groups in American cities. Camarillo is widely regarded as one of the founding scholars of the field of Mexican American history and Chicano Studies.
Over the course of his career, Camarillo has received many awards and fellowships. Awards for research and writing include a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship and a Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship; he was also a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences and at the Stanford Humanities Center. His awards for teaching are also numerous. He is the only Faculty member in the history of Stanford University to receive the three highest awards for excellence in teaching and service to undergraduate education. At Stanford's Commencement in 1988 and in 1994 respectively, he received the Lloyd W. Dinkelspiel Award for Outstanding Service to Undergraduate Education and the Walter J. Gores Award for Excellence in Teaching. In 1997, he was awarded the Bing Teaching Fellowship Award for Excellence and Innovation in Undergraduate Teaching. Most recently, Camarillo was awarded the Miriam Roland Prize for Volunteer Service for 2005, an award that recognizes a Stanford Faculty member who "over and above their normal academic duties engage and involve students in integrating academic scholarship with significant volunteer service to society."
About the Class
This undergraduate colloquium will provide students with broad exposure to the types of public history practice in various venues and will provide perspectives on public service in general. The course will introduce students to a variety of issues and topics involving the uses of public history and the intersections of public history with public service. HIST201 is also the gateway course for the new Public History/Public Service interdisciplinary history major, designed for students who wish to include in their course of studies the application of historical study in public settings such as museums and heritage sites, national and state parks, public agencies, and private foundations, and public service settings in non-profit organizations, government agencies, and educational institutions. Students will be exposed to several guest speakers and a visit to a public history site will be arranged.
Tom Robinson (Medicine)
Promoting Behavior Change
About Prof. Robinson
Dr. Robinson focuses on "solution-oriented" research, developing and evaluating effective health promotion and disease prevention interventions for children and adolescents and their families. His research is largely experimental, conducting school-, family- and community-based randomized controlled trials to test the efficacy and/or effectiveness of theory-driven behavioral, social and environmental interventions to prevent and treat obesity and eating disorders, improve nutrition, increase physical activity and decrease inactivity, reduce smoking, reduce aggression, reduce children's television and media use, and to demonstrate causal relationships between hypothesized risk factors and health outcomes. Robinson's research is grounded in social cognitive models of human behavior, uses rigorous methods, and is performed in generalizable settings with diverse populations, making the results even more relevant for informing clinical and public health practice and policy.
About the Class
Students will learn to apply principles of behavior change to a real world public health problem: climate change and environmental sustainability. They will accomplish this by creating an intervention of their own, together in groups and as a class (e.g., a series of 30-minute lessons/activities), to help high school students reduce their environmental footprint by altering their personal behaviors. Students will learn principles of behavior change by surveying and then applying theory, research, and practice from a variety of relevant academic perspectives, including psychology, media/communication, sociology, education, marketing, and public health. We will emphasize traits of effective and ineffective interventions and how they are applied to real world contexts. The course includes a required service learning component, in which students perform formative research in local high schools as part of the process of developing their interventions. Students will learn to use the scientific literature, interviews, focus groups, and pilot-testing to develop the form and content of interventions that will be feasible, acceptable, and effective. Students will not be delivering and evaluating their completed intervention in high schools as part of this course, but there may be an opportunity for a subgroup of interested students to do so during the following summer and/or fall.
2007-08:
SL courses funded 2006-2007
Al Camarillo (History) $4,250................................. Status: Course offered Winter 2007
HIST 201:Introduction to Public History and Public Service
Al Camarillo (History) $900.................................... Status: Course offered Spring 2007
HIST 260: Race and Ethnicity and the American Metropolis
Christopher Gardner (Medicine/ HumBio) $5,000......... Status: Course offered Spring 2007
HUMBIO 130: Human Nutrition
Carol Boggs and Alan Launer (HumBio) $5,000.............Status: Course offered Winter 2007
HUMBIO 112: Conservation Biology
Drew Nelson (Mechanical Engineering) $5,000 ............Status: Course offered Winter 2007
ME 110/210: Perspectives in Assistive Technology
Tom Robinson (Medicine/ HumBio) $3,500...................Status: Course offered Spring 2007
HUMBIO/ EARTHSYS 165: Promoting Behavior Change