Fresno Pacific University, a private Christian university in southeast Fresno, has had to tighten its belt in recent years through budget-balancing measures that included faculty layoffs. But the university also has been boosting its efforts at fundraising, and those efforts are reaping success.

The university announced this week it got a $3 million gift from a family that wants to remain anonymous, which is a shame because School Zone suspects that a lot of students at the private Christian university in southeast Fresno would want to send them a thank-you note.

The gift will be used establish a laptop lending program, giving all students reliable devices that they might not be able to afford on their own; renovate four classrooms with cutting-edge technology and updated furniture; and provide more space for the revitalized College Hour chapel program being moved to the Special Events Center.

The gift will help fund new seating and a video screen in the Special Events Center, which will benefit worship services, student life activities, and athletics.

A portion of the gift will pay for solar panels atop the Warkentine Culture and Arts Center, which the university estimates will cut at least $70,000 from annual energy costs.

The gift moves Fresno Pacific closer to its goal of $3.5 million in unrestricted gifts and provides support for operations.

Student body President Sariya Flores said in a news release that students will greatly benefit from the laptop lending library and improvements in the Special Events Center: “This will create a space where students can connect not only with their faith but also with each other.”

Fresno State Prof Gets CSU Excellence Award

Dr. Kimberly Stillmaker, an associate professor of civil engineering at Fresno State, is one of five recipients of the California State University Wang Family Excellence Award.

It seems somewhat appropriate that Stillmaker, whose award is for Outstanding Faculty Innovator in Student Success, should receive a family-related award. According to the university’s news release, her greatest inspiration to teach engineering is her father, a Vietnam veteran and Fresno State grad who persevered despite financial challenges and was encouraged by an English professor not to give up.

“Through my father’s story, I saw how impactful a teacher’s actions can be, and how transformational a college degree can be for the trajectory of a family, and it really inspires me to be able to hopefully have that kind of impact on other people’s families and the story that they’re going to tell,” Stillmaker said in a news release.

She’s director of the Lyles College of Engineering’s Foundation for Success Program, which focuses on improving academic outcomes for first- and second-year students pursuing engineering degrees. Thus far more than 1,000 students have gone through the program, and the result has been a significant increase in the number of those students continuing in their engineering studies.

Stillmaker also coordinates the Central California Engineering Design Competition for first-year engineering students at Fresno State and students from area community colleges. And she’s co-principal investigator on a National Science Foundation-funded grant to establish a CSU networking and mentoring program to foster diversity and equity among engineering faculty.

The Wang Family Excellence Award annually recognizes four faculty members and one staff member from the 23 CSU campuses for outstanding commitment to student achievement and contributions in their fields. Each winner receives a $20,000 award.

Central Unified Elementary Celebrates Wellness Center

How to be healthier? Wellness centers might be the answer, especially in communities where access to healthcare and social services can be limited.

On Tuesday there was a ribbon-cutting and grand opening of the new All4Youth Wellness Center at Biola-Pershing Elementary School west of Fresno. It’s the first such wellness center for a Central Unified school, and the sixth school-connected wellness center in Fresno County.

The wellness centers provide services such as helping families find resources for food, shelter, and clothing; apply for college or a driver’s license; apply for Medi-Cal insurance; find a doctor; and coordinate with mental health professionals.

All4Youth is a partnership program between the Fresno County Department of Behavioral Health and Fresno County Superintendent of Schools for children and youth ages 0-22 years old who are experiencing difficulties that affect them at school and home.

In addition to wellness centers, the program sends mobile vans out into rural communities to provide services.

All4Youth received state funding to develop 13 wellness centers on campuses across the county. In addition to Biola-Pershing, there are wellness centers at Tarpey and San Joaquin elementary schools, Fowler and Riverdale high schools, and Violet Heintz Education Academy, according to the Fresno County Office of the Superintendent of Schools’ website.

Scoring the Academic Decathlon

The Fresno County Office of Education updated the final medal winners and standings of Saturday’s Academic Decathlon, which caused Design Science High School to climb from fifth to fourth place in the overall standings.

Related Story: Hallmark Academy Wins Fresno County Academic Decathlon Championship

For School Zone, it was a little bit of deja vu. Way back in School Zone’s early days as a cub education reporter, she was assigned to travel with Florida’s team to the national Academic Decathlon at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. (Those were the days when newspapers could afford to fly a reporter from one coast to the other to cover an academic competition. Those were also the days when the same high school from Jacksonville seemingly had a lock on the state championship, hence the Jacksonville paper felt obliged to spring for airfare, hotel, and per diem.)

School Zone remembers being a bit stumped about finding an angle for her first day’s story since the participants were taking all their tests on a variety of subjects such as math, history, music, and science behind closed doors — only the Super Quiz is a public event. When the first-day scores were posted, the Florida team was dumbstruck and heartbroken at how low their team score was. They investigated and discovered that because another team had fielded only eight students, it had put a crimp in the database. One of the Florida team member’s scores had mistakenly been moved to the other state’s tally.

The Florida team went to bed that night not knowing where they stood among the other teams, so there was still some anxiety at breakfast and when they boarded their van to head back to Loyola Marymount. By the time of the awards ceremony, Florida’s team score had been revised to include the entire team. But alas — they didn’t have the horsepower to come out on top. That honor, as School Zone recalls, went to the California state champion.