Opportunity for Scholars and Others

If you are in the Scholars Program, an honors contract is available for Mass Comm 101. One option toward fulfilling the Honors Contract is to enter the essay competition described below. For other Mass Comm 101 students, you can enter this competition for extra credit.

Follow this link for more information about the essay competition.

Transfer Workshops

Your Humble Blogger received the following email yesterday from Transfer Center Director Dr. Kevin Meza. You can earn two extra credit points by attending one of these workshops. Be sure to receive validation that you attended.

Hello GCC,

We are in our main transfer month and we need to make sure students get the help they need to be more competitive in the admissions process. We have our application and personal statement (now called Personal Insight) workshops for the UCs, CSUs, and USC on the link below. This revised flyer also includes some room changes, so please update your records. Even though we send this information directly to students through our Transfer Center Bulletin it helps to remind them in your class or office that we offer these services.

Workshops: https://www.glendale.edu/home/showdocument?id=35080

We will also hold CSU application open labs so students can work on their applications with help from our counselors. These will be held in both the Career and Transfer Centers on:

Wednesday November 8 from 12pm - 2pm

Thursday November 9 from 1pm - 3pm

Tuesday November 14 from 12pm - 2pm

Thursday November 16 from 4pm - 6pm

Thank you for for supporting our Transfer Center efforts.

Kevin A. Meza, PhD
Transfer Center Coordinator/Counselor
Academic Senator
Chair, Region 7 Transfer Center Directors

Fake news -- Real Extra Credit

MC101 student William Melikian (who brought Vrej Agajanian to campus) is organizing an academic conference devoted to Fake News. MC101 students are encouraged to submit their term papers to the address on the flyer above and to attend the conference. For those looking for extra credit, Your Humble Blogger is making the following offer:

•All MC101s can attend the conference for field trip credit.

•MC101s who submit and present a paper on the conference topic will receive double field trip credit.

Please note the the location of the conference has not been announced yet, although it will certainly be on the GCC campus. The room number will be posted here when it becomes known.

On-Campus Field Trip, Tuesday April 25

Vrej Agajanian, local Armenian language broadcaster and Glendale City Councilman, will speak to Mass Comm 101 students on Tuesday, April 25 in LB220 from 12:30-1:30. MC101 students can earn field trip credit for this special event if they do the following:

1. The student attends the lecture (a roll sheet will go around), and

2. The student completes a short written assignment. Details are below:

Write a 200-300 word essay answering the following questions based on Vrej Agajanian's talk

a. Why does television cover so many bad things, and what are the psychological effects of bad news on humans?

b. Can television be used as a positive media tool? In what ways?

c. What are the psychological effects of positive or otherwise beneficial television programming?

The written assignment should be turned on paper no later than 2 pm on Tuesday, May 2.

Extra Credit Opportunity, March 23

Occasionally, there is a special lecture on campus that so neatly fits into the subject matter of Mass Comm 101 that it makes sense to offer it as an on-campus field trip. One of those occasions has just presented itself. Next Thursday's Humanities-Social Science Lecture featuring recently-retired GCC Professor Michael Moreau is available for field trip credit (5 points) if you do the following...

1. Attend the lecture and sign one of the attendance forms that will circulate through the crowd. Write next to your name that you are one of my students (Eberts).

2. Write a 200-300 word essay on the following questions about the lecture: (a) According to the speaker, what is "Alt-News" or "fake news"? (b) According to the speaker, why has this type of news become a bigger problem recently? (c) What can be done about this type of news, either by the individual or the larger society?

3. Turn in your essay no later than 2 pm on Thursday, March 30. Either turn it in at the end of class, or drop it off at my office (SG315).

Extra Credit Opportunity

Your Humble Blogger will make participation in this research study available for two points of extra credit, the same as a Workshop or SI session. Below is a message from the graduate students (one of them a former MC101 SI leader) conducting this study:

Hello All,

We are a group of grad students currently attending CSULA and we would like to ask for your help in a Communication research study. You will be asked to read a short news story and fill out a questionnaire after it. The whole study will take about 20-30 minutes.

Your instructor has agreed to provide you with extra credit once you have completed the survey. Please make sure you provide your information on the last page of the survey so that your instructor can make sure to give you your credit.

Your participation is completely voluntary. All of your information will remain confidential and password protected. The study will be available for participation from now to Friday, November 18, 2016. Please use the link below to take this study.

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/VZNWWYP

If you have any questions on this study, please feel free to contact us directly. We really appreciate your participation and we thank you in advance.

Sincerely,
Melissa Flores, Paulina Lainez, Nancy Meza, and Jennifer Oliva
CSULA Communication Studies

Questions? Contact plainez@calstatela.edu