INDEX
2005
September 27, 2005
(Vol. 26, No. 2)
NEWS
NEWS IN BRIEF
NEW LEADER: Judy Olian, dean of the Smeal College of Business Administration at Penn-sylvania State University, will succeed Dean Bruce Willison at the Anderson School of Management beginning Jan. 1, 2006.... SALARY PLAN: The Board of Regents will discuss in November whether the salaries of UC faculty and staff should be brought up to competitive market levels over time.... GET RE-CARDED: All active UCLA staff, faculty and students will need to turn in their BruinCards for new ones that have been encoded with updated security features and other enhancements....
VREDEVOE TO RETIRE: Vice Chancellor Donna Vredevoe recently announced her decision to retire next year, effective July 1, 2006.
UCLA MEDICAL CENTER 50TH ANNIVERSARY PHOTOS
CARNESALE TO STEP DOWN
In the past, when Chancellor Albert Carnesale thought about how long he should stay at the helm at UCLA, a decade always sounded about right to him. But this month, he announced his decision to step down one year earlier than planned. At the end of this academic year, June 30, 2006, Carnesale will return to his field of international affairs and national security policy. Visiting Washington recently and participating in seminars at the Aspen Institute on international terrorism, the rising power of China, and U.S. public diplomacy in the Middle East convinced him that it was the right time to re-focus his expertise in the global arena.
CAMPUS OFFERS HELP TO HURRICANE'S HOMELESS
One of the worst storms in U.S. history is bringing out the best in UCLA faculty, staff, students and alumni. Ask Coleman Payne, a Tulane University junior who bounced from place to place, looking for a university to take him in. He finally drove across the country, sleeping in his car and lugging a suitcase, after he heard UCLA might take him.
NEWS 2
A STEM CELL WINNER
UCLA’s new Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Medicine has received the largest grant in the first round of state funding awarded to 16 research institutions Sept. 9 by the California Institute of Regenerative Medicine. The state agency was founded to jump-start stem cell research in California after voters in November 2004 overwhelmingly passed Proposition 71.
BECERRA TO HEAD NEW UC TASK FORCE ON FACULTY DIVERSITY
University of California President Robert C. Dynes launched a task force on faculty diversity Sept. 16 in an effort to boost racial, ethnic and gender diversity among UC faculty. The 11-member task force, headed by UCLA Associate Vice Chancellor Rosina Becerra, will review efforts to hire and retain tenured and tenure-track faculty across the 10 UC campuses, except in the schools of medicine, dentistry and nursing.
FACULTY, STAFF PARTNER WITH L.A. COMMUNITY GROUPS
Tapping into the power of partnership, faculty and staff members are collaborating with community organizations over the coming year on projects ranging from innovations in adolescent suicide prevention to a media project involving homeless immigrant children.
DID YOU KNOW?
The recent opening of two new residence halls, Hedrick Summit and Rieber Vista, adds 1,356 more beds to UCLA’s housing stock for undergraduates. Both nine-story buildings are located in the northwest campus along DeNeve Drive.
PEOPLE
SHE'S IN THE FIGHT OF HER LIFE
At a crowded press conference held Aug. 23 in the lobby of the new Neuroscience Research Building, California’s “big guns” from both political parties defended stem cell research from a new threat.Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) shared the podium with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Rep. David Dreier (R-San Dimas) and Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa to oppose legislation in Congress that would ban human cloning but also stop stem cell research in its tracks.
APPLAUSE
Mary D. Nichols.... Mark Schuster.... Victor Narro.... Amir Dan Rubin..
In Memoriam: William F. Friedman.... Leonard M. Linde.
OUT & ABOUT
MIDDLE EASTERN FETISHES AMUSE, CHALLENGE, SHOCK
The Grateful Dead entitled one of their albums “Blues for Allah” — even though music is taboo in Islam. A recent Hollywood film, “Team America,” has this disparaging refrain about Islam’s prophet: “Mohammed ... Mohammed ... jihad.” In 2003, a paperback was marketed as a thriller about “the Taliban, driven from Afghanistan, now preying on an oil-rich Central Asian nation.”
FIFTY YEARS OF SERVICE AND SAVING LIVES
PARTY WITH A PURPOSE
Behind all the revelry at the Sept. 15 party on the top level of the CHS parking lot was a serious intent: to thank employees for 50 years of dedication and service at the UCLA Medical Center. Roughly 4,000 medical center employees — from housekeeping staff to surgeons — dropped by to eat, drink and play games such as “Malpractice” (a giant version of “Operation”).
BITS AND PIECES
VOICES
CIA'S FAILINGS ARE SYSTEMIC
Four years after 9/11, the CIA has finally finished its highly classified review of what went wrong. Employing stunning powers of analysis, it has apparently concluded that its biggest problem was a handful of former officials: Director George Tenet, clandestine service chief Jim Pavitt and Counterterrorist Center head Cofer Black.
INTELLIGENT DESIGN IS PSEUDOSCIENCE
Should the University of California be required to accept, as appropriate preparation for a UC education, high school biology courses that teach creationism instead of evolution? This is one of the issues at stake in a federal lawsuit filed last month against the UC. Although the suit alleges anti-Christian discrimination, it is, in this respect, atypical of the recent nationwide barrage of lawsuits and legislative initiatives aimed at legitimizing alternatives to evolution in K-12 education.
ISRAEL'S GAZA GAMBLE IS AN OPPORTUNITY FOR PALESTINIANS
After 38 years of a direct military presence in the Gaza Strip, Israel’s wrenching yet historic leave-taking has deep, long-term implications. Despite its “unilateral disengagement,” Middle Eastern realities caution that disentangling itself from Gaza may be one thing for Israel; separation from the Palestinians is quite another.
CARTOON BY SANDY SIEGEL
CAMPUS
FREE YOURSELF FROM GAS PRICES
Like the typical Angeleno, UCLA staffer Avni Khatri needs wheels to get around. She attends twice-weekly classes at Cal Poly Pomona, visits an aunt in Pasadena and has errands to run. At today’s pump prices, all that mileage can add up. But for the past few months, Khatri’s total gasoline bill has been zero — as in zip, nada, zilch. She pays nothing for auto insurance or maintenance, either.
UCLA TEAM PREPS FOR $2M RACE ACROSS DESERT
In the rugged Mojave Desert east of Palmdale, a 3/4-ton pickup truck dodges creosote bushes and boulders as it lumbers along a trail made muddy by a summer cloudburst. With an amber emergency light on the roof and laser radars mounted on the front grille, the truck looks like something out of a Mad Max film, minus the revenge-seeking road warrior behind the wheel. In fact, nobody is driving the truck at all.
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