Infectious Diseases on Campus
Task: Feature article
Professor Karen Carberry-Goh is the energizer bunny. She just keeps going and going.
With a single goal in mind, Carberry-Goh doesn’t worry about time passing. She only focuses on achieving that goal.
Eighteen years of college, two years of travel, and years of work and internships prove this.
Yes, it may have taken her until she was 50 years old to reach her dream, but, unlike some people, Carberry-Goh can honestly say, “I love my job.”
Carberry-Goh works as a biology professor at Sacramento City College. And, her infectious diseases course allows Carberry-Goh to share the information she has learned over years of study and hands-on experience.
Carberry-Goh says that the people of the United States are becoming more aware of their vulnerability to infectious diseases, but still do not know all of the facts and details behind these, sometimes fatal, diseases. Her biology courses give Carberry-Goh the opportunity to teach this information, as well as learn from students’ experiences with infectious diseases.
“My students rock,” says Carberry-Goh. “They provide so much interesting input in the class that I find myself constantly learning still.”
After mentioning how challenging Carberry-Goh’s Infectious Diseases class was, Garrett Verissimo, a former student of Carberry-Goh says, “I found myself working extra hard anyways because she made the class so much fun and interesting.”
With a great passion for learning, Carberry-Goh holds a bachelor’s degree in veterinary medicine, a combined doctor of veterinary medicine and master of preventive veterinary medicine degree from U.C. Davis, and a doctor of philosophy degree from Cornell University. And, with so much knowledge and scholastic experience, Carberry-Goh still remains a very humble woman.
Professor Ken Naganuma comments, “You would think someone with that kind of caliber and experience would be arrogant but we met her and we absolutely love having her presence on campus. She is an amazing woman.”
Carberry-Goh says that the more information she learned each year that she attended school, the more she learned that she really didn’t know anything.
“Information in studies is constantly changing,” she says.
But, this did not deter Carberry-Goh from continuing her education.
“I became desperate to learn more,” she says.
And, finally in 2006, she managed to snag her dream job, teaching full-time biology and disease transmission from animals to humans.
As a child, Carberry-Goh wanted to be a veterinarian or a farmer because she has always had a love for animals. During her college studies at UC Davis, she became interested in disease transmission between humans and animals, also known as zoonosis. Carberry-Goh decided to continue her studies in this area further.
Carberry-Goh worked at an agricultural field station in Malaysia, one of the developing nations filled with infectious diseases. She also attended veterinary school for one summer there. But, trying to raise a family, continue her education and work in a foreign country would have been too overwhelming for her.
In the end, she realized that she can accomplish her dream job of working with infectious diseases right at home in Sacramento.
While most people wish they had traveled more before settling down with a career and family, Carberry-Goh has already done all of that.
“It took me a long time to get here,” says Carberry-Goh. “But, there were so many opportunities that made it so worth it.”
She jokes that as her colleagues were ready to retire, she was just beginning her career.
“They’re burnt out and I’m ready to go,” she says.
The Working Machine and Epitome of Persistence
Task: Feature piece (under 1,000 words)
At 32 years old, Ryan Sanchez of Davis has done it all. With a three-page resume of jobs, ranging from cake decorating to truck driving to substitute teaching, Sanchez now works as the lead of an engineering team at Genentech.
Sanchez got his working start at eight years old scrubbing tomato buckets for ten cents a bucket.
Growing up in a one-bedroom house, attached to his grandfather’s home in Merced, Sanchez lived a very cramped life with his mom and his four brothers.
Some nights, the family went without dinner, some days without food at all.
After watching his friends at school with their lunchboxes, cool toys, and average-sized homes, Sanchez decided, “I was going to have that, all of that.”
And, that’s how it began. He immediately decided he was going to go to college and achieve his vision of success.
Following his high school graduation, Sanchez was accepted to University of Davis. He spent a year and a half working two jobs as a dishwasher and server at a café and a restaurant, while attending Merced Community College to gain some general education units.
Once at UC Davis, Sanchez worked at the Davis Enterprise selling newspapers, worked as a dental assistant in Sacramento, and got his Class A license to drive tomato trucks for Morning Star Trucking Company, all while attending school full-time.
He maintained a good standing at UC Davis, and continued to work three jobs, including lab work at different biology companies, during his off-school hours.
“You would never have guessed how busy he was,” said 21-year-old Lara Hose, a fellow student and friend of Sanchez. “He always had all of the in-class homework done before class even started, which would take the rest of us all four hours of class to complete.”
A couple months upon his graduation in 2001 with a Bachelor of Science degree in neurology, physiology, and behavior biology, Sanchez snagged a job with Genentech in the antibody purification process department, making medicine.
“I was getting the compensation I never thought I could so early in my life,” Sanchez said.
Sanchez developed The Leadership Forum, a one-year training program, including all aspects of business practices, for all lower-level leaders. The program has since involved training for upper-level leaders, just below vice president.
“He likes to be a leader. He takes things to heart and is very responsible, showing up to everything on time and coming to every business meeting,” said Omar Craviotto, a bio-process technician at Genentech.
Sanchez even created a Genentech team to help work a Habitat for Humanity build in Woodland, which he, singularly, continues to volunteer for throughout the year.
After completing the process of The Leadership Forum, Sanchez decided to attend business school at California State University Sacramento. With the help of Genentech, his schooling was paid for, and he was able to complete his master’s degree in a little less than two years.
Sanchez said his vision of success came while he was shopping at Safeway one day, and was able to buy everything in the store that he wanted. “I wanted that bag of chips, so I bought that bag of chips.”
He enjoyed a business law class he took for his master’s program, and Sanchez has since decided he wants to attend law school to get involved in business law, dealing with public interest cases.
“I have always thought of myself as an advocate of others, through the form of putting myself into conversations I shouldn’t be in, picking a side, and arguing what I thought was right. I felt I could drive change,” Sanchez said.
He is currently awaiting acceptance from several law schools throughout the United States, preferably one in California.
Meanwhile, Sanchez is enjoying his relief from juggling school and work, and is using his time after work to spend with his seven-year-old daughter, Jenna, who recently discovered the exciting game console, Wii.
“I try to give her the things I never had growing up,” Sanchez said.
Living in the cramped one-bedroom home in Merced was all he knew- "That was life," Sanchez said. "But, now, I have everything my friends had and more."
“I believe anyone can do anything," Sanchez said. "You just have to go for it, take the leap, and not be afraid to make goals and decisions."
Welcome to the Dark Side, Eileen Carr
Task: Event press release (250-500 words)
Romantic suspense author, Eileen Carr charmed fans at Borders Bookstore in Davis Tuesday evening during her speech and book reading to introduce her newest novel, Hold Back the Dark.
Eileen Carr is formerly known as Eileen Rendahl for her four published chick lit novels. Hold Back the Dark is only the beginning of her new genre of romantic suspense.
“I was constantly being told to lighten up my chick lit,” Carr stated after being questioned the change in genre of her writing. “Who knew homicidal maniac was not considered to be chick lit?”
Carr’s clinical psychologist friend gave her the idea for the plot of the book during their routine Sunday bike ride. Carr said she wanted to try writing something “different,” and her friend decided she should write a psychological thriller type story, using her as Carr’s resource.
Hold Back the Dark is about uncovering a murder mystery, as well as the mystery of a catatonic teenage girl, who becomes the suspect of the murder. Aimee Gannon, the young girl’s psychologist is the key to unlocking the secret, as well as becoming the new love interest of the murder detective.
Carr may have opened up a new path of imagination for herself, but she also broadened her range of audience members. Both women and men shuffled into their seats at Borders, browsing through Carr’s new novel, awaiting her speech.
One of Carr’s family friends, Jose Guaderas commented on her new edge. “I’ve known Eileen for a few years now. She can never stick to just one thing. But, then again, here’s a book that I’m finally interested in.”
“It wasn’t an easy transition,” said Carr. “And, my agent told me no more genres!”
“I can’t wait to read her new book,” said Laurie Beltrami, a member of the reading club Carr attends. “We’re always reading Eileen’s books in the group, and she always has such interesting feedback for us.”
Eileen Carr’s second suspense novel, Don’t Kill the Messenger will be hitting shelves in April, 2010.
Nancy with a "Y"
Task: Feature piece (1,000-1,200 words)
Between working five days a week, going to college two nights a week, and caring for a newborn baby, Nancy Kincaid, who is now the Director of Communications for Prison Health Care Services, felt like her college dream was so far away.
That is, until she won $60,000 on the game show $25,000 Pyramid only ten days after her only child, Allison Kincaid was born.
Kincaid recalls her husband running onto stage to congratulate her. She says she told him, “I’m quitting work to go to school fulltime.” “And, I did,” says Kincaid.
She says she was ecstatic to win. “It just always seemed like cool stuff like that always happens to others, not me and my family.”
It took her nine years to receive a bachelor’s degree in Communications and Public Relations and a master’s degree in Communications in Government and Corporate Advocacy, but she says she is the first woman in her family to receive a college degree.
Since then, she has lived her life, asking “Why” to governmental and business management policies.
Kincaid began questioning policy during her junior year of high school, when a school counselor told her, “You’re not going to go to college.”
The counselor placed Kincaid in a secretary training course directly after her high school graduation.
She didn’t like the program, didn’t want to be in secretarial work and decided to, instead, follow her mother’s advice, “Education is your freedom.”
Money was tight for Kincaid’s family. Her mother worked two to three jobs as a single mom, raising seven children.
So, Kincaid had to work a variety of jobs while attending college.
At 21 years old, she made her first public relations debut. During the banking crisis of the 1980s, she worked as the operations director for the Bank of Irvine in southern California, and put out a message of hope to the public to solve the dispute among the media of the high interest rates in the banks.
From there, Kincaid went on to work at City National Bank to continue to question policy and fix issues among the business. She was even assigned to fly back and forth between Sacramento and San Diego some days, the same days as she had school, she says.
Kincaid says it was sometimes tough to balance work and school, but she continues, “I loved that feeling of being able to manage a crisis.”
She attended junior college, California State University Fullerton and California State University Sacramento.
Dr. Marlene vonFriederichs-Fitzwater, Director of University of Davis’ Cancer Centers Outreach and Research Program remembers meeting Kincaid, crying outside of her office at Sac State. At the time, Kincaid was an incoming student who couldn’t get any of her classes.
“Dr. Fitzwater is like a second mom to me,” she says. “She took me under her wing when I was a new student at Sac State.”
Kincaid enrolled in one of Fitzwater’s PR social marketing courses, and joined her thesis committee in graduate school, as well.
“It may have been a tough beginning,” says Fitzwater, “But, Nancy has such a passion for learning and dedication to what she does, and a perseverance through rough times.”
Kincaid has over 25 years of experience in public relations. She has worked in broadcast television for KCRA Channel 3, radio production for Clear Channel Communications, as well as the Calif. Earthquake Authority, Department of Insurance, Department of Mental Health, the Railroad Museum, and the Calif. Highway Patrol.
Kincaid says her biggest influence for her love of PR is her grandfather. He was the first television announcer in Los Angeles for KTLA-5.
She used to watch him at work, and was fascinated by the people he talked to and events he did. She says watching him made her decide she wanted to work in the media as well.
“It runs in my blood,” she says.
Kincaid currently works for Receiver Clark Kelso for the Prison Health Care Services, and as a communications and public relations professor at her former university, Sac State.
She was hired at the Prison Health Care Services to create an internal communications plan to fix the issue among the government that prisons are too overcrowded, which burdens on the amount of access inmates have to health care and mental health care services. Her plan is to build more access and reduce the inmate population.
Nancy’s daughter, 25-year-old Allison Kincaid says her mom is calm and not quick to anger, which “helps balance out [our] disagreements…She thinks clearly in stressful situations.”
When Nancy started work at the Earthquake Authority, the business was losing 1,000 insurance customers per week. Nancy stepped in to create a marketing program, which she says, was, “a huge success.”
The program helped raise clientele for earthquake insurers, and won the American Marketing Association Company of the Year Award.
Kincaid’s family, friends, and co-workers agree, it is Kincaid’s enthusiasm that makes her so successful.
A former student and employee of Kincaid’s, Jennifer Turner, Public Informations Officer for the Department of Mental Health says, “Nancy brings a lot of energy and expertise to the job.”
Elaine Bush, Chief Deputy Receiver for Calif. Prison Health Care Services, who has worked with Kincaid on and off for nine years, says she remembers the first day Nancy came in for an interview for an assistant press position at the Department of Insurance.
Bush says her two executives came into her office saying, “Oh my gosh, you have to meet this woman. "She is unbelievable! We think she could do our jobs better then we can!”
Living under a rented roof with her mother and six siblings, Kincaid grew up not having much, except a dream to get a good education and be successful.
“Anything I do, I go all the way,” she says.
With a license plate that reads, “Will Brake for Starbucks,” Kincaid stops at a local Starbucks to grab her Venti iced coffee with two Splenda and one half-and-half to begin her day of challenging policies and asking companies, “Why?”
Calling is "so yesterday"
Task: Feature piece on tech controversy (950-1,250 words)
Teenagers do it almost five times as much as their parents, and everywhere they go.
Between the ages of 13 and 17, teens averaged 2,779 texts a month during April, 2009 and March, 2010, compared to the 675 texts a month sent and received by adults, 35 to 54 years old, according to the media research firm, Nielsen Telecom.
That number among teens jumped almost 20 percent during the most recent period of research, April, 2010 to June, 2010 and has nearly doubled since its meager 1,742 texts a month in 2008. Teens now send and receive a whopping 3,339 texts each month.
And, the numbers of texts from people between 45 and 54 years old remains around the same, currently at 323 a month from its 236 texts in 2008.
“Youth are more quick to adapt. They have grown up in a world of technology,” said Kevin Wehr, Associate Professor of Sociology at CSU Sacramento.
Even the Fox network’s reality television show, American Idol, joined the texting craze. In 2003, AT&T Mobile sponsored the show to help the contestants gain votes through getting viewers to text in their top picks.
In 2008, American Idol had 28 million viewers, between the ages of 18 and 49. And, the show received 178 million text messages of votes that season, according to AT&T.
AT&T said the average American Idol viewer texted the show 38 times in April, 2008 to place a vote.
Not surprisingly, Nielsen found the primary reason among teens to get a mobile phone is for text messaging.
“It provides an additional avenue of communication, which is quite convenient. Texting is more immediate than, say, short email, since everyone always has their phone on them,” Wehr said.
According to a survey done in 2008 by CTIA Wireless Trade Association, 2,000 teens nationwide think that cell phones are a “vital part of their identities.”
The survey also found that 47 percent of teens believe their lives would end without the texting feature.
Kim Sanders, 15 of Davis, said the one thing she would want with her if she was deserted on an island in the middle of nowhere is “my cell phone, for sure.”
Nearly four out of five teens own a cell, according to the Pew Internet and American Life Project. This number has risen 45 percent since 2004.
Now children, ages 8 to 12 are jumping on this bandwagon. CTIA found that almost half of this population in the U.S. own cell phones.
“Texting has allowed teens to develop a sense of teen peer culture,” said Rich Ling, researcher for the European telecom company Telenor and professor at IT University in Copenhagen. “It allows them to develop internal types of slang that bond the group together.”
According to a Synovate survey from AT&T Wireless, 73 percent of parents are finding that by texting, they can reach their children easier and faster. The survey found teens are more responsive to their parents through text.
Helen Grietz, 51 said “My kids have always been good at informing me and my husband of their whereabouts,” but, she continued, “Now that I know how to text, my kids talk to me more than my husband.” Helen has two teenagers, 13 and 17, who text her at least twice a day. “It’s either to complain about their day, or to brag about their day.”
Greitz said with a laugh, “Girls love to talk and texting gives them a chance to talk when they normally couldn’t.”
Some parents feel they have to place restrictions on their children’s phone usage. And, no one knows that “girls love to talk” more than Greg Hardesty, general assignment reporter for the Orange County Register.
Hardesty had to put limits on his youngest daughter, Reina’s cell phone. Reina, now 14 years old, racked up a shockingly 14,528 text messages in one month when she was only 12.
Hardesty and his wife placed a limit of 7,000 text messages per month on Reina’s phone, and she is not allowed to text between the hours of 9 p.m. and 6 a.m. on weekdays.
“She usually runs out of texts before the month is over,” Hardesty said.
For Hardesty, “Texting has become my preferred method of communication. He said he usually texts his children when they’re not home. “It’s a useful tool to touch base with them.”
According to Pew, 31 percent of teens send 100 texts per day, but 58 percent only make one to five phone calls a day. And, three percent of teens never make any phone calls.
“It is an excuse to not talk to someone,” Hardesty said. “I find myself not talking as much to people.”
Hardesty believes the main issue with texting growing among teens is the ability to get a message across to multiple people at once and immediately. “This leads to drama, especially with girls,” Hardesty said.
“If someone texts gossip, such as so-and-so slept with so-and-so, it can be sent around the whole school within just a few minutes.” Hardesty continued, “This can be very damaging to a person’s reputation.”
Drama can erupt through even just a misinterpreted text message. “Texting is limited to its complexity,” Wehr said.
It’s easy to misread the context of a text message because the amount of words a person may use in a single text is limited to 160 characters for all wireless providers. “It’s difficult to explain situations, and, even the tone of voice and gestures a person gets from in-person interaction is missing,” Wehr said.
With the controversy of people losing communication skills because of new technology, teachers are complaining that the quality of their students’ papers is dwindling. Research is showing that the amount of texting teens do may be the result of this.
Texting usually consists of eliminating capitalization and punctuation. With only 160 characters to write in a single text message, most people resort to abbreviating what they want to say. Text messaging is originally known as SMS messaging, which stands for “short message service.” However, the “short message” type of speech is beginning to filter into our everyday English language. Thanks to the increasingly popular text message, “LOL,” which stands for “laugh out loud,” and “OMG,” which means “oh my God,” are now officially part of Webster’s Dictionary.
According to a 2008 survey by Pew, two-thirds of middle and high school students have turned in assignments using text lingo. And, believe it or not, 25 percent of this population has used emoticons, such as smiley faces made out of punctuation marks, in their work assignments, Pew said.
“Texting stimulates social interaction, but can take attention away from co-present interactions,” Ling said.
