SMC Newsmakers

Outreach Coordinator Esther Hugo has been elected president of the Western Association for College Admission Counseling, an organization of more than 1,300 secondary and college counselors in California and Nevada.

Business professor Fran Chandler is a grandmother for the fifth time with the birth of Logan Leif Petersen, son of Chandler’s daughter Stacey Petersen and her husband Michael, on Feb. 18 in Pasadena.

Adjunct sociology professor Elham Gheytanchi is the author of an essay, “Accented Businessman,” published in a book produced in conjunction with an art show called “Project Misplaced: The Rise and Fall of Simon Ordoubadi,” exhibited last month at Architectural Gallery in Los Angeles. The book and exhibit deal with the Iranian immigrant experience in the United States.

English professor Mario Padilla has recently won three awards for poetry and fiction. His poem “Once, I Wanted to be Ritchie Valens” was a finalist in the North American Review’s Fourth Annual James Hearst Poetry Prize and will appear in the publication’s March-April issue. His short story “Scales” was one of four finalists in the 2004 Third Coast Fiction Award and a finalist in Glimmer Train’s fiction competition last fall.

Adam Philipson, Madison Project special projects coordinator, and his wife Alma had their first child, Amanda Paige, born Jan. 7 in Santa Monica.