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From films to counseling — how California is spending $90 million to fight hate
Cal Matters
Sept. 13, 2023
California recently awarded $91 million in grants to local organizations that help prevent hate crimes or support survivors, part of an unprecedented effort to combat hate in a state that saw a 20% increase in such crimes in 2022.
Despite its progressive reputation, California last year reported steep increases in hate crimes against transgender people (up 55%), Muslims (up 39%) and Black people (up 27%), according to the Attorney General’s office.
That growth outpaced similar hate growth trends in 42 major cities, according to a soon to be released study by Cal State San Bernardino’s Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism.
“We are very concerned about an increase next year,” said Brian Levin, author of the study and member of the 9-month-old Commission on the State of Hate. He told fellow commissioners last month: “Mainstream politics has gotten not only more tribal, but also more bigoted.”
Levin said in an interview with CalMatters that hate crimes historically rise in response to political speech and current events. But in recent years such spikes have lasted longer, such as when anti-Black crimes remained elevated months after 2020’s Black Lives Matter protests.
As all eyes are fixated on Pennsylvania manhunt, a DC murder suspect is on the run and off the radar
The Associated Press
Sept. 13, 2023
Brian Levin, a criminal justice professor at California State University San Bernardino, was interviewed about the attention paid to two escaped prisoners: Danelo Souza Cavalcante in Pennsylvania, who attracted national news coverage, and Christopher Haynes in Washington, D.C., whose escape has fallen off the news media radar.
Levin believes the difference in public attention and media coverage comes down to a number of factors. For starters, there’s the viral video of Cavalcante’s innovative escape from Chester County Prison as he braced himself between two walls and performed a sort of vertical crab-walk up and out of sight.
“There were all these aspects that were Hollywood-esque,” Levin said. “The video of that crab-walk up the wall looked like something out of a movie.”
Haynes also staged a dramatic-sounding escape, according to the Metropolitan Police Department. However, no video of that escape has yet emerged.
Levin said the Cavalcante manhunt also featured a steady trickle of new developments that increased public interest as the hunt dragged on. There were repeated Cavalcante sightings, along with reports that he had shaved his facial hair and stolen a van and at one point stole a rifle and was shot at by an area resident.
“There was a new twist with virtually every news cycle. There were so many new twists that the public became fixated on what’s coming next,” Levin said. “Whereas with this D.C. fellow, there haven’t been any new details where the stakes and intensity would grow with each news cycle.”
CSUSB Palm Desert Campus Nursing Street Medicine program receives significant grant from Houston Family Foundation
Desert Charity News
The Houston Family Foundation has awarded a $160,000 grant to the Nursing Street Medicine program at Cal State San Bernardino’s Palm Desert Campus.
The funding will play a pivotal role in allowing the program to continue providing free healthcare services to unsheltered, sheltered and vulnerable populations in the Coachella Valley, and in partnership with other organizations, continue providing behavioral health assessments, testing and medication administration.
“We are so honored to be chosen by the Houston Family Foundation once again to expand behavioral health services in the Coachella Valley, working with the Desert Healthcare District, the Coachella Valley Association of Governments, the Coachella Valley Volunteers in Medicine and other organizations,” said CSUSB nursing instructor Diane Vines, who leads the program. “We will continue to educate our future valley nurses on how to work with these vulnerable populations with empathy and skill.”
CSUSB Palm Desert Campus nursing instructor honored with special proclamation by city of Palm Desert
Desert Charity News
The city of Palm Desert has declared Aug. 24 as “Dr. Diane Vines Day” to honor CSUSB nursing instructor Diane Vines for her leadership and service to the community. Vines was honored by the city of Palm Desert at a City Council meeting on Aug. 24.
According to the proclamation, “Dr. Vines’ leadership will have positive ripples of influence in the delivery of medical services and caregiving offered by her students for years to come.”
Vines has only been teaching at Cal State San Bernardino’s Palm Desert Campus for seven years, but has a lifetime of experience both inside and outside the classroom, and has been working to help people of all populations for decades.
Besides teaching multiple nursing courses at the CSUSB Palm Desert Campus, Vines is also the director of the CSUSB Nursing Street Medicine program, which she helped create in 2018.
Michelle Russen (marketing/hospitality management, Palm Desert Campus), published a chapter in The Routledge Handbook of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Management in the Hospitality Industry, titled “Gender Diversity in Hospitality Leadership.” The purpose was to explain how there are still issues with gender discrimination in hospitality leadership, explain the role of gender outside the binary, and provide recommendations for both hospitality leaders and academics to continue moving forward toward equality of opportunity.
Defining and establishing a restaurant wine culture
International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management
Michelle Russen (marketing/hospitality management, Palm Desert Campus), published a paper in the International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, titled “Defining and Establishing a Restaurant Wine Culture.” The goal of the study was to investigate what restaurant leaders do to communicate with guests that they should “order wine here.”
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