This Month in Academic Affairs | August 2026
Dear Academic Affairs Colleagues,
The photo in the banner is from last month’s Summer Healthcare Careers Exploration Academy here on campus! We welcomed high school students to connect with our faculty and community organizations through hands-on activities. Special thanks to the Schools of STB and ECES, NorCal Career Pathways, the Redwood Coast K-16 Education Collaborative, and many others.
We’ll introduce six new faculty members at Convocation this Friday. Then, I hope you stick around campus for the Back-to-School Cookout and college meetings. Classes start on Monday, so it’s got to be August in Academic Affairs.
Here’s a quick peek at our incoming undergraduates:
Nearly a quarter of these undergraduates are participating in Jump Start, which started today!
Academic Affairs’ Jump Start program gives incoming first-year students early opportunities to connect with peer mentors, academic tutoring, library support, and faculty as they develop strategies for academic success. The program is rich with faculty panels, interactive activities, and skills-based workshops. Thanks to our outstanding staff and faculty contributors.
Check out the SSU Energy Sustainability Dashboard.
Our colleagues and students in Electrical Engineering developed this dashboard and made improvements this summer to track campus electricity use and selected HVAC thermal energy. It provides students with meaningful, real world service-learning experience while highlighting SSU’s sustainability efforts. The team is now exploring expansion to additional buildings and campus solar-production data.
I humbly recommend starting with the student tutorial, which explains how to explore the SSU Energy Sustainability Dashboard and interpret its graphs.
Preview the concept rendering for the planned mural revisions on September 4 @ 1:30pm
Sonoma State University will once again welcome artist Johanna Poethig on Friday, September 4, from 1:30–2:30 p.m. via Zoom. [Add to Google Calendar]
Poethig is the original artist of Tiene la Lumbre Adentro / He Has the Fire Within: SSU César E. Chávez Memorial, currently displayed in the University Library. She will share how she has incorporated our community’s perspectives into the evolving work and present a concept rendering for the planned full-scale mural revision.
Fireside Chat with the Provost on September 11 @ 1pm
Drop in and chat with colleagues and me in a relaxed setting with no set agenda. We’ll be near the fireplace in the Living Room of the Student Center (first floor) on September 11 at 1 p.m. [Add to Calendar]
The smell of new school supplies is in the air.
Cheers to a fresh academic year,
Stacey