The SDSU Student Success Fee is dedicated to enhancing student success through expanded Academic Related Programs (ARPs). ARPs are defined as those activities and programs which extend the formal learning experience in a course or academic program. They provide an opportunity for students to become engaged and involved in their education outside of academic courses to enrich their overall educational experience. ARPs involve a faculty, staff, or campus administrator in a support role to the students working on specific projects. Examples of ARPs include but are not limited to student colloquia, lecture series, seminars, student projects, student competitions, student forums, student exhibitions, student productions, student performances, and participation at professional conferences.
Below we illustrate successful proposals of four students who received the Student Success Fee:
Monica Angeles, Second Year Health Management and Policy Student
Monica Angeles is a second-year Master of Public Health, Health Management and Policy student at SDSU. She received her Bachelor of Science in Public Health from the University of California, San Diego. Monica was awarded $14,000 for her proposal titled, Getting Started with Healthcare Research. With the support of her advisor, Dr. Melody Schiaffino, Monica hopes to enhance interdisciplinary and systems thinking among public health students by offering training in how to manage and visualize “Big Data” using SAS Programming. While at SDSU, Monica has assisted in research and started working at Rady Children’s Hospital as a Project Specialist. During her undergraduate studies, she helped plan and deliver free health screenings for underserved minority populations, served as a Spanish Medical Interpreter for Palomar Hospital to help bridge the communication gap between Latino patients and their providers, and has assisted in conducting a program evaluation for Scripps Memorial Hospital. Coupling her interest in analytics with her passion to continue serving minority pediatric populations, she hopes to use data to help improve health equity and disease management for the county’s most disadvantaged children.
Kathy Vu, Undergraduate Student
Kathy Vu is an undergraduate student majoring in Public Health. She was drawn to public health because of the health disparities she experienced first-hand growing up. Kathy recalls being the interpreter between her family members and their physicians as a little girl, without knowing that hospitals that receive government funding are required to provide interpretation services. Kathy did some research and found an article that featured Dr. Schiaffino, and her take on language barriers in healthcare. Kathy was able to connect with Dr. Schiaffino through the help of another SPH Faculty, Dr. Kristen Emory. Dr. Schiaffino and Kathy quickly bonded through their interest in language barriers and shared a goal to improve and decrease language gaps in healthcare by starting a Legacy Speakers Project. The Legacy Speakers Project focuses on modernizing the way research and clinical trials are conducted by training research assistants who are legacy speakers in order to bridge overcoming language barriers and increase inclusion of individuals with limited English proficiency (LEP). Kathy emphasizes the importance of minority representation in research. She explains that by building upon already existing bilingual skills of research assistants and other healthcare personnel, we can decrease language barriers and improve study findings with a more accurate representation– this can result in recruitment of more bilingual participants and will help encourage people who speak other languages to take part in research studies.
Nikki Phan and Sandhya Muthuramalingam, Undergraduate Students
Sandhya Muthuramalingam and Nikki Phan are both undergraduate public health students at SDSU. They serve as executive board members for the Students 4 Public Health (S4PH) organization. Their first funded student success fee proposal is called “Pursuing Greatness: Empowering Your Academic Journey”, which is a project that focuses on career development and professional growth in public health. “Empowering Your Future” is S4PH’s largest event that seeks to prepare and empower students through exposure to resources that will help students successfully transition into the workforce. S4PH will partner with SDSU public health faculty and staff to lead workshops on topics such as resume building, professional networking, and planning a career roadmap. Student attendees will also have the opportunity to learn about different resources, departments, and programs in the community. Several SDSU and local off-campus organizations will be tabling at this event. Additionally, S4PH will be hosting a Q&A Health Career Panel event featuring panelists working in medicine and public health. Finally, S4PH has also invited an emergency room physician to speak about imposter syndrome and ways to build resilience at our “Unmasking Imposter Syndrome” talk.
Nikki and Sandhya’s second funded proposal is called “Art 4 Healing: Your Mind Matters”, and will be focused on mental health and self-care through creative outlets. Their events will include an art therapy workshop, succulent-making workshop, and yoga class. With these events, they hope to encourage expressive forms of self-care as well as promote student mental health and wellness across campus.
SDSU School of Public Health Graduate Student Council
The SDSU School of Public Health Student Council was awarded the Student Success Fee for a three-event Spring Speaker Series that will focus on the impact of COVID-19 on different sectors of public health. Please keep your eye out for more information about the Spring Speaker Series that will take place in March 2022!