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NEWS in brief

Champions of fairness 

The Academic Senate’s Committee on Diversity and Equal Opportunity is currently accepting nominations for the Fair & Open Academic Environment Award, which is presented every other year to two or three individuals — students, faculty, administrators or staff — who have been highly successful in furthering a fair, open and diverse academic environment at UCLA. Awards of roughly $2,000 each will be given out, primarily based on contributions made during 2003-04 and 2004-05. Nominations may come from anyone in the campus community, including student groups. Due date for nominations is May 8. For details, go to: www.senate.ucla.edu/committee/codeo/FairOpenAward-2005-06.pdf. Contact Tom Nykiel at (310) 206-2470 for more information.

Staff adviser to the regents

All eligible UC staff and non-Senate academic employees who are interested in serving as the 2006-07 staff adviser to the regents have until 5 p.m. Feb. 15 to apply. The two-year pilot program, approved by the Board of Regents and instituted this academic year, is intended to allow the regents to benefit from hearing the views of staff and non-Senate academic employees on relevant matters that come before regents’ committees and the board. Further information is available at www.ucop.edu/staffadvisor/.

Repercussions of disasters

Having seen the devastation caused by the Indian Ocean tsunami, followed months later by Hurricane Katrina, more college freshmen across the nation are feeling a stronger commitment to social and civic responsibility, according to UCLA’s annual nationwide student survey. That’s what UCLA researchers believe might account for some of the more eye-opening results of a fall 2005 survey of 263,710 students attending 385 of the nation’s four-year colleges and universities. Two out of three entering freshmen (66.3%) said it is essential or very important to help others who are in difficulty. That percentage was the highest response to this question in the past 25 years. Now in its 40th year, the annual survey is part of the Cooperative Institutional Research Project conducted by the Higher Education Research Institute at UCLA’s Graduate School of Education & Information Studies. To see a summary of the survey results, visit www.gseis.ucla.edu/heri/heri.html.

Adventures in learning

Students who excel in math and science can spend four weeks in residence at a UC campus this summer learning about astronomy, marine mammal biology, robotics, earthquake engineering, advanced mathematics and other fields. The California State Summer School for Mathematics & Science is a residential program for talented, motivated students who are completing grades 8-12. The application deadline is March 16. Programs will be offered at UC Davis, Irvine, Santa Cruz and San Diego and will run from July 9 through Aug. 5. Each site, except San Diego, will accept 150 top students; San Diego will enroll 120 students in its inaugural summer program. Applications are screened by faculty who teach the course clusters, and admission is competitive. The application and financial aid forms and links to the program sites are available now at: www.ucop.edu/cosmos.

Did you know?

In the 1920s when the campus was still on Vermont Avenue, Jumbo, a Barnum & Bailey Circus elephant, suddenly became ill and died as the circus was about to end its visit to Los Angeles. When circus officials asked both UCLA and USC if they wanted Jumbo’s carcass as a biology class specimen, both universities replied yes. To find out how this weighty dilemma was resolved, go to www.uclahistoryproject.ucla.edu and click “Bruin Stories.” The Jumbo incident is one of many colorful anecdotes that the UCLA History Project is collecting for posterity.