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©2004
The Regents of the University of California
 

 
VOL. 24. NO.10 FEBRUARY 24, 2004

names and faces

HUZZAH

The School of Nursing appointed its first faculty research chairs endowed by the Audrienne H. Moseley estate: Nursing Professor Deborah Koniak-Griffin was named the first Audrienne H. Moseley Chair in Women’s Health Research in recognition of her research in promoting healthy lifestyles, parenting skills and sexual-risk reduction among low-income Latino teen parents, and Adeline Nyamathi, nursing professor and associate dean of academic affairs, was named the first Audrienne H. Moseley Chair in Community Health Research for her efforts in disease prevention and intervention among homeless and impoverished adults.... As director of Community Design Associates, Architecture and Urban Design Professor Dana Cuff was part of the team that won the Rudy Bruner Award for Urban Excellence Gold Medal for the Camino Nuevo Charter Academy in Los Angeles.... The Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences has named Education Professor Peter McLaren’s “Life in Schools: An Introduction to Critical Pedagogy in the Foundations of Education” (Allyn and Bacon) one of the 12 most significant writings by foreign authors in educational theory, policy and practice.

CELEBRATE

Dance Professor and UCLA Center for Intercultural Performance Director Judy Mitoma received the Asian Cultural Council’s 2003 John D. Rockefeller 3rd Award for her contributions as an educator, artist, scholar, producer and arts advocate.... Among the 65 newly elected members of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies are four UCLA faculty: Lillian Gelberg, George F. Kneller Professor of Family Medicine; Gail G. Harrison, professor and chair of community health sciences; Owen Witte, professor and David Saxon Presidential Chair in Developmental Immunology; and Shelley E. Taylor, psychology professor.... UCLA’s women’s track and field head coach Jeanette Bolden received the U.S. Sports Academy’s 2004 C. Vivian Stringer Coaching Award. In her 11th year as head coach and 13th year on the staff, she has established the Bruins as one of the nation’s elite indoor and outdoor collegiate women’s track and field programs.... Associate Professor of Plastic Surgery James P. Bradley is the first holder of the newly established Bernard G. Sarnat, M.D., Endowed Chair in Craniofacial Biology at the David Geffen School of Medicine. The Sarnat chair provides research leadership in craniofacial biology, with an emphasis in the cause and prevention of severe birth deformities.

IN MEMORIAM

Rokuro “Rocky” Muki, a UCLA civil engineering professor emeritus and an authority in the field of elasticity, died Feb. 10 at his home in West Los Angeles, following a long battle with cancer. He was 75.

Muki is best known for his seminal work on elasticity, entitled “Asymmetric Problems of the Theory of Elasticity for a Semi-infinite Solid and a Thick Plate.” It appeared in the first volume of Progress in Solid Mechanics in 1960.

Muki became a member of the faculty at the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science in 1967, joining what was then called the Division of Applied Mechanics of the department of engineering. He retired from the school’s department of civil and environmental engineering in 1993.

Muki completed his graduate studies in mechanical engineering at Keio University in Tokyo and was awarded a Ph.D. degree in 1959.

In 1958 Muki came to the United States as a postdoctoral scholar for renowned elastician Eli Sternberg at Brown University in Providence, R.I. Muki then returned to Japan, where he was an associate professor at his alma mater, Keio University. When Sternberg moved from Brown to the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, Muki joined him, moving his family to the United States in 1965. Muki remained as a visiting associate professor until joining UCLA in 1967.

Muki was a member of several professional societies, including the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, the Society of Industrial and Applied Mathematics, and the Society of the Sigma Xi; he was a fellow of the American Academy of Mechanics.

After his retirement in 1993, he began a collaboration with professors Y. Miyano and M. Nakada of the Kanazawa Institute of Technology in Japan. Almost annually, Muki traveled to Japan to participate in a series of projects involving the prediction of the strength and life of carbon fiber-reinforced plastics structures under various loading and temperature environments.

Muki is survived by his wife, daughter, son, daughter-in-law, granddaughter and great-granddaughter. The family asks that in lieu of flowers, donations be made to the Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center/Ted Mann Family Resource Center at UCLA.

Harold Price, a businessman whose philanthropy benefited the Price Center for Entrepreneurial Studies at the UCLA Anderson School of Management, died after a series of strokes on Jan. 27. He was 95.

After graduating from the Wharton School in 1928 with a bachelor’s degree in economics, Price, a New York City native, went to work for his father, Louis, who was a co-founder of Joe Lowe Corp., a bakery and ice cream supply business.

By 1938, Price had formed a successful subsidiary called Cottage Donuts, which at its peak sold 100,000 dozen doughnuts a day produced at 19 plants across the country.

During World War II he served on the War Productions Board in Washington and adminstered a national program for the conservation of honey. After the war, he returned to Lowe and helped it acquire several other food companies. In 1965 he negotiated a merger with Consolidated Foods Corp. and ran the Joe Lowe division for several years before Consolidated became Sara Lee Corp.

After his retirement in the late 1960s, Price “made it his life’s mission to change the way business education is done in the university system,” said Bonnie Vitti, his granddaughter. In 1979 Price founded the Price Institute for Entrepreneurial Studies, which is dedicated to enhancing the recognition and development of entrepreneurship.

According to Timothy Jones, president of the Louis & Harold Price Foundation, Price donated more than $15.5 million to entrepreneurship education over the years.

At UCLA, the first beneficiary, the grants have meant courses for graduate students in such areas as venture initiation and small-business management.

In addition to Vitti, Price is survived by his wife of 69 years, Pauline; a daughter, Linda; another granddaughter, Lisa; and five great-grandsons.

His family asks that memorial donations be sent to organizations that he established for the purpose of providing access to medical care for the needy. They are: the Pauline and Harold Price Scholarship Fund, c/o Mitch Orlick, director of development, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, P.O. Box 48750, Room 2416, Los Angeles, CA 90048; and Mount Sinai Hospital, c/o Stefanie Steel, 1 Gustave L. Levy Place, Box 1049, New York, NY 10029.