UCLA Today: archive050119

BUREAU BRIEFS
FACILITIES MANAGEMENT: To reduce energy consumption at times when use of campus facilities is at a minimum, the campuswide Energy Conservation Task Group has recommended — and Chancellor Albert Carnesale has agreed — that the campus reduce air conditioning in non-laboratory buildings on Sundays during the summer as well as during the Fourth of July and Labor Day three-day weekends.... EXTERNAL AFFAIRS: UCLA ranked 10th in the nation for 2004 fund-raising results in a survey of public and private U.S. colleges and universities done by the Council for Aid to Education at the RAND Corporation.... UCLA COLLEGE: The Faculty Committee on Educational Technology has selected three recipients of the 2005 Copenhaver Award for Innovation in Teaching with Technology.

UNLOCKING SECRETS OF STEM CELLS
Building on the faculty’s longstanding success at working collaboratively across disciplines on major science initiatives, UCLA is launching a $20-million stem cell institute that may someday lead the way to new therapies for treating cancer, HIV and neurological diseases.

UC LOBBIES TO SHIELD WORKERS' PENSION PLAN
With public-employee pensions under assault in Sacramento, the UC is mounting a hard fight to protect the university’s defined benefit retirement system.

CAMPUS BRIEFS
ANDERSON SCHOOL: At best, the economy in California can be expected to maintain slow growth over the next few years as the weak housing sector saps off strength created in other parts of the state’s recovering economy, said UCLA Anderson senior economist Christopher Thornberg in the latest UCLA Anderson Forecast.... THE IMPORTANCE OF VIGILANCE: John Slatlery, a graduate student in the School of Theater, Film, and Television, received a UCPD award March 8 for alerting patrol officers to a suspicious person suspected of burgling a vehicle in a campus parking structure last November.... PUTTING OUT THE WELCOME MAT: Next month, the UCLA College will host Welcome Days, programs that will provide admitted applicants with a personal introduction to the university and the offerings of its largest unit.... SETTING IT STRAIGHT: In the Feb. 8, 2005, issue, Professor Emeritus Alexander Astin was identified as the Allan M. Cartter Professor of Higher Education.

UCLA PROGRAM HELPS BRING REFORMS TO STRUGGLING K-12 SCHOOLS
For the last 12 years, a group of educational professionals, who regard themselves as “UCLA’s best-kept secret,” has been helping under-performing K-12 schools all over the state shake up their traditional power structures and faulty belief systems to help their students learn.

L.A.'S MAYORAL RACE
The March 8 election in Los Angeles pits incumbent Mayor James Hahn against his political rival, Antonio Villaraigosa once again, but don’t expect a replay of the battle they waged four years ago for mayor, said political experts on a post-election panel March 10 on campus.

STATE TO FACE SHORTAGE OF HEALTH PROFESSIONALS
California will not have enough physicians to care for its aging and expanding population unless something is done to fix the problem, according to a UC analysis of the state’s health-care needs.

DID YOU KNOW?
The No. 1-ranked UCLA men’s volleyball team defeated fourth-ranked Penn State on March 8 in Pauley Pavilion to give Coach Al Scates his 1,100th career victory. Scates, whose overall record is 1,100 wins and 196 losses (.848), has guided UCLA to 18 NCAA titles and 24 conference championships in his 43 years as the Bruins’ head coach.

YESTERDAY, TODAY & TOMORROW
NEW WEAPONS IN WAR ON AIDS: Researchers at the UCLA AIDS Institute have discovered that two chemical compounds may help the immune systems of HIV-infected persons fight the disease without invasive gene therapy.... IMPASSE IN TALKS: On March 11, the University of California began formal impasse (“fact-finding”) proceedings with representatives from the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees union in an effort to reach an agreement on a new contract for UC service workers.... STUDENT DEBT: UC Provost M.R.C. Greenwood told the Board of Regents at UCLA on March 16 that the UC’s financial aid policies are helping to keep the university affordable to students and parents of all financial backgrounds.

KNIGHTHOOD FOR A TIRELESS ADVOCATE
It’s been a little more than 60 years since Elwin Svenson first stepped onto the UCLA campus. And if he keeps up the jet-setting pace he’s had here over all those years, it may well be another 60 before he decides to move on.

NAMES AND FACES
Honored: Barbara Nelson ... Michael Lu ... Ali Sayed.
Congrats: Maureen Mahon ... Daniel Kaufman.
In Memoriam: Robert J. Brown ... Henry J. Bruman ... Harry Handler ... Robert "Buzz" Pauley ... Jeremy Swan ... S.V. Venkateswaran.

MEET RONI THE ROBOT
The newest employee on the seventh story of the UCLA Medical Center whirs softly across the floor of the intensive care unit as nurses bustle around patients’ partitions decked with high-tech monitors and the latest in electronic medical equipment.

QUIXOTE'S APPEAL: AS EPIC AS THE NOVEL
In early April 1605, an impoverished and addled Spanish nobleman set out on horseback in pursuit of the kind of adventures he had read about in chivalric romances.

UNITED WAY: NARROWING THE GAP IN THE COMMUNITY
Los Angeles is home to the fabulously rich, yet 42% of its residents are poor and 1.7 million people lack health insurance. Some of the world’s top universities are located here, but 30% of the adults in Los Angeles county lack high school diplomas and 66% of its third-graders cannot read.

WEB WATCH
Do you know which celebrity said on national TV from Pauley Pavilion, "We are here at UCLA, where normally it takes four years to graduate, but five years if you park in Lot 32?" To find the answer, take a fun interactive quiz on Bruin trivia recently posted at the UCLA History Project site, www.uclahistoryproject.ucla.edu/fun/Quiz.asp. Also new to the site is a section on the colorful history of UCLA's most rousing fight songs.

LET A MILLION CONTROVERSIES BLOOM
At Harvard, the university president, a former high-profile member of the Clinton administration, raises the possibility that genetic gender differences, in part, account for the performance disparity of men and women in math and science — and all hell breaks loose.

RECURRING 'TSUNAMIS' DEVASTATE SRI LANKA
True idealists and apolitical pacifists often convince themselves that the corrupt world of politics exists in a vacuum detached from pure humanitarian work. But in my ancestral homeland of Sri Lanka, where I recently spent three weeks, wretched politics pervades every action and interaction, entrenches every perception and prejudice, and is inextricably linked to the tsunami relief efforts underway across the island nation.

AYN RAND: STILL ADOLESCENT AFTER ALL THESE YEARS
On March 6, Ayn Rand, the author of popular books like “The Fountainhead” and “Atlas Shrugged,” would have turned 100 years old. Despite the passage of time, it’s remarkable that her “philosophy” remains essentially adolescent. Like Nietzsche and Sartre, Rand captures that precious moment when youngsters step forward as themselves by globally consigning the values of their parents and culture to the rubbish heap. Adolescents do this, of course, in the name of nothing other than their need to be unique individuals. Having rejected the values they grew up with, they can value nothing — in their moment of rebellion — except their individual selves.

CLOSE UP

AND THE WINNERS ARE...
Someone once said that teaching at UCLA is its own reward. True or not, recognition from one’s professional peers is certainly nice, as is a tidy honorarium.