INDEX
2005
February 23,
2005 (Vol. 25, No. 10)
NEWS
BUREAU
BRIEFS
UCLA COLLEGE: Members of the Academic Senate’s
Legislative Assembly voted Feb. 8 to endorse a new degree designation
for students in the UCLA College: the Bachelor’s of Arts and
Science..... STUDENT AFFAIRS: A new resource center
that’s dedicated to helping graduate students reach their
academic and professional goals with a one-stop shopping approach
to information-gathering will hold an open house Feb. 24 at B11
Student Activities Center.... UCLA COLLEGE: More
than 130 UCLA undergraduates are co-authors on a new paper providing
evidence that thousands of genes are likely to interact to play
a role in eye development in the widely studied fruit fly, Drosophila.
STABLE
FUNDING ALLOWS RETURN TO STRATEGIC PLAN
After three years of painful budget cuts, it appears
that UCLA won’t be required to take more major reductions
in 2005-06, Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost Daniel Neuman
told the Legislative Assembly of the Academic Senate Feb. 8.
CRYSTALS MAY
HOLD CANCER KEY
UCLA nanotechnologists and cancer researchers are partnering
on the promise of qdots — nano-sized crystals that may one
day be used to diagnose and treat cancers. The new technology may
enable researchers to locate a tumor, determine at the molecular
level what type of cancer it is and arm the qdots with toxic therapies
to kill the disease.
NEWS 2
CAMPUS
BRIEFS
THE VALUE OF GREEN TEA: A UCLA study on bladder
cancer cell lines showed that green tea extract has potential as
an anti-cancer agent, proving for the first time that it is able
to target cancer cells while leaving healthy cells alone.....
EMPLOYEE COLLAPSES: A 33-year-old Parking Services employee
collapsed outside of Murphy Hall around 7:42 a.m. Feb. 15 while
collecting change from parking meters..... LATINO ACCESS
TO HIGHER EDUCATION: UC President Robert C. Dynes told
several hundred Latino educators and students Feb. 8 that UC academic
preparation programs and community partnerships are critical to
improving Latino students’ access to higher education....
LABOR NEGOTIATIONS: The UC has been in negotiations
with the Coalition of University Employees (CUE) since July 2003,
including formal mediation and impasse (“fact-finding”)
proceedings with a state-appointed mediator, in an attempt to reach
an agreement regarding 2003-04 wages for UC clerical employees and
other issues.
BUDGET PLAN
STILL FAILS TO COVER NEEDS
Although Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s 2005-06 budget plan
offers a 3% increase in state funding for the University of California
— enough to provide merit and salary range adjustments for
faculty and staff, as well as funding for an additional 5,000 full-time
students — there is still a growing gap between state funds
that UC receives and the estimated amount it needs to operate, said
UCLA’s budget chief.
DID YOU KNOW?
UC operates the second-largest physicians’ practice
in the state (next to Kaiser Permanente) and trains 60% of California’s
doctors.
YESTERDAY,
TODAY & TOMORROW
LIBRARY MEETS CHALLENGE: A closing gift
from the Ahmanson Foundation has enabled the UCLA Library to complete
a three-year challenge launched by a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon
Foundation to establish an endowment for preservation and conservation
.... KILLER IN DISGUISE: Camouflaging an impotent
AIDS virus in new “clothes” enables it to hunt down
metastasized melanoma cells in living mice, reports a UCLA AIDS
Institute study in the Feb. 13 online edition of Nature Medicine....
UC ADVOCATES IN SACRAMENTO: More than 300 UC alums
and friends convened in Sacramento Feb. 15 for the annual UC Day.
Organized by the Alumni Associations of the University of California
(AAUC), the event drew advocates from UC’s 10 campuses for
meetings with more than 80 legislators to stress the university’s
myriad contributions to the state.
PEOPLE
SCHOLAR BRINGS HISTORY
TO LIFE
As a child, Brenda Stevenson traveled every summer to the South
Carolina plantation where her great-grandmother was sold into slavery
— and sexual brutality — at 15.
15 SECONDS
JORGE CHERBOSQUE: Co-director and psychologist, UCLA
Staff and Faculty Counseling Center.
NAMES AND FACES
Accolades: Marco
A. Firebaugh....Yuri Kochiyama.
Congrats: Jason L. Speyer....
Ann Philbin.... Katrina Dipple.
CAMPUS
LECTURES BUILD
BRIDGES AMONG SCIENTISTS
Robijn Bruinsma is a theoretical physicist who delves into
molecular biology, one of a growing number of UCLA scientists whose
reach has extended way beyond the traditional boundaries that once
divided the sciences.
ANDERSON ACES KNOW
WHEN TO HOLD' EM AND FOLD' EM
Here’s a business school ranking you can bet on: The
Anderson School of Management is home to the new national M.B.A.
poker champs.
UCLA TO STAGE
WORLD PREMIERE OPERA
On March 17-20, audiences at the Freud Playhouse will be treated
to what is a rare event on any stage — the world premiere
of a new, full-length opera.
RECOVERY
SLOW FOR ORPHANS OF TSUNAMI
Decades of martial law are complicating humanitarian relief efforts
and are likely to prolong the emotional suffering of orphans and
other tsunami survivors in Indonesia, according to experts gathered
at Korn Convocation Hall Feb. 11.
GRAD STUDENTS
ENTER DEBATE
It’s the Friday before Super Bowl XXXIX, and pro football
is the talk of the nation. In a room atop City Hall in downtown
Los Angeles, 15 graduate students of the School of Public Affairs
are grappling with officials and politicians over a contentious
question: Should Los Angeles give public subsidies to a football
stadium?
TO YOUR HEALTH
TIPS FOR THE L.A. MARATHON AND A HEALTHY HEART ...
AFFAIRS OF THE HEART ...
VOICES
PREFERENCES
HURT BLACK LAW STUDENTS ...
Debates about affirmative action in higher education typically revolve
around abstract ideas of justice: Opponents believe racial preferences
are an immoral form of discrimination, while supporters contend
that preferences provide essential redress to equalize competition
and correct past injustices. Pragmatic questions about the size,
effectiveness and costs of preferences tend to be shunted aside,
partly because good data has been hard to come by.
... OR DO THEY?
STUDIES SHOW OTHERWISE
Professor Richard Sander’s recent Stanford Law Review
article claims to empirically prove that because affirmative action
places black law students in institutions where they cannot compete,
they earn lower grades and have higher dropout and bar failure rates.
Without affirmative action, blacks would be better off in institutions
where they are not academically “mismatched” with their
white classmates. How wrong he is. Let us count the ways:
WHAT'S ON
MY MIND: WATCHING A MEXICAN DIVA UNFOLD, LOTUSLIKE
From across the plaza she waves, arm extended in the air. It’s
a pleasant December afternoon in Mexico City, and I’m waiting
to interview Mexican rock star Ely Guerra. She lives just blocks
away from the central plaza in Coyoacan, the “place of the
coyotes” long favored by artists, intellectuals and writers.
OUR WORLD: BY CAROLE
CABLE
CLOSE UP
PUTTING HOSPITALS BACK
ON TRACK
In a presentation to the UC Regents’ Committee on Health
Services last month, David Callender, associate vice chancellor
of the UCLA Hospital System, talked about the hospitals’
current financial problems. More recently, he spoke with UCLA
Today’s senior editor Wendy Soderburg about these and other
medical center-related issues.
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