INDEX 1997

JANUARY 17, 1997 (Vol. 17, No. 9)

This index page is for reference only; stories in this issue are not available online. Print editions may be found in the periodicals stacks of the Charles Young Research Library.

 

AROUND CAMPUS - Three faculty members were recently named Fulbright scholars to lecture, consult or conduct research abroad during 1997. Jacqueline Leavitt, professor of urban planning will be studying in New Zealand; Richard N. Rosecrance, professor of political science, and Arthur I. Rosett, professor of law, will be going to Italy. . . .Business consultant and UCLA alumnus Roy H. Aaron has become president of The UCLA Foundation Board of Trustees after serving on the board since 1986. . . . Public Health - Jonathan Fielding, professor of public health and pediatrics, has been appointed interim health officer for Los Angeles County to join the management team overseeing a major overhaul of the county's ailing hospital and health-services system. . . . Education - Freshmen entering college last fall are the most community-service-minded class in the 31-year history of UCLA's nationwide survey of college freshmen.

 

UCLA OFFERS PLANS FOR CAMPUS, SM HOSPITALS - UCLA on Wednesday unveiled a plan to rebuild its health sciences center, which sustained significant damage during the 1994 Northridge earthquake. The proposal includes construction of new facilities on the Westwood campus and at Santa Monica-UCLA Medical Center, which also suffered considerable damage in the earthquake. The 12-year proposal, presented to the UC Board of Regents, calls for a multiphased building program.

 

ANDERSON PROFS AMONG VERY BEST IN BUSINESS ED - Remember the 1973 film "The Paper Chase" in which John Houseman as the tyrannical Prof. Kingsfield blustered and bullied his timorous first-year students at Harvard Law School? "I think that movie would be a fair depiction of my class," said William M. Cockrum, an adjunct professor in the Anderson Graduate School of Management. Houseman's performance in the movie won him the Oscar for best supporting actor, and Cockrum's performance in the classroom has earned him the laurel as the nation's top professor of entrepreneurship from Business Week magazine. Cockrum was not the only UCLA professor cited by the magazine; Adjunct Professor William Yost, who has taught at UCLA since 1986, was named No. 11 in the nation. The only other business school to have two faculty on the Top 12 list was the University of Chicago, which ranked fourth and sixth.

 

STUNNING ACHIEVEMENTS MARK PAST YEAR - Before tossing 1996 into the bottom drawer of our consciousness like last year's dog-earred desk calendar, it's worthwhile to flip through the pages once more for a backward glance at the year gone by. For UCLA, 1996 was in many ways the Year of Superlatives: Records were broken and milestone markers bypassed in the classroom, laboratory and on the athletic field. But the year also presented UCLA with somber moments of reflection with the announcement by Charles E. Young that he would retire in June after 28 years as chancellor. The campus community also was shaken by the deeply felt losses of former graduate student and literature scholar Constance Coiner on TWA Flight 800, visionary architect Franklin D. Israel and well-respected Central Ticket Office employee Kevin Jeske. Here's a recap of other 1996 highlights:

 

NEWS IN BRIEF – Prop. 209 Blocked - A preliminary injunction issued by a federal judge has temporarily blocked the implementation of Proposition 209, but does not affect UC's obligation to continue to apply SP-1 and SP-2, adopted by the regents in July 1995, according to UC President Richard C. Atkinson. . . . Senate Tribute - The Academic Senate is honoring retiring Chancellor Charles E. Young with two upcoming events. . . .Grand Theft Charged - A preliminary hearing on charges of grand theft and embezzlement is set for today for Joseph Castano, former manager of the School of Dentistry's Faculty Group Dental Practice. . . .Appointment Abroad - Faculty are invited to apply for two-year directorship positions in the University Education Abroad Program for 1997 and 1998.

 

DISTINGUISHED FACULTY LAUDED BY PEERS - Faculty members whose academic achievements and intellectual creativity have earned them national awards or election to distinguished organizations received the applause of colleagues and senior administrators at a reception hosted by Chancellor Charles E. Young and his wife, Sue.

 

WILSON PLAN NARROWS GAP ON FACULTY PAY - Gov. Pete Wilson's proposed state budget provides funding to keep general student fees at the same level for the fourth straight year, narrows the gap between UC faculty salaries and those of comparable institutions, increases staff salaries and matches federal funding for earthquake repairs at the Center for Health Sciences with $21.7 million in state funds.

 

DID YOU KNOW? – The fitness-conscious make more than 1 million visits annually to the Wooden Recreation Center. One out of every five UCLA employees holds a UCLA RecCard, which entitles them to use 60 pieces of cardiovascular equipment, including five new treadmills, cycles, stairclimbers and rowing machines. In addition, more than 4,000 on campus purchase fitness passes to join drop-in workouts morning, noon and evening.

 

ORGANIST WORKS TO REVIVE ROYCE'S 'VOICE' – Amidst broken buildings and millions of dollars in damage, the silence of a musical instrument might easily go unnoticed. But when the Northridge temblor toppled and bent many of the more than 5,000 pipes of Royce Hall's '30s-era orchestral organ, the campus lost more than a glorious sound. It lost beloved traditions that date back to UCLA's early days when majestic organ music reverberated throughout Royce Hall, thrilling audiences at commencements, convocations and concerts. Perhaps no one on campus has felt that loss more than Thomas Harmon, who as the university's organist sat at the instrument's console over the last 27 years.

 

NAMES AND FACES – Notables – Ronald W. Busuttil, Ivan Szelenyi, and Paul Butler. . . .Honors – Alexander Astin, Irene Bierman, Kathleen Dracup, Doran Ross, Roger Detels, Gail Harrison, David Lopez, John Dracup, Vickie M. Mays, and Marc Nuwer. . . .In Memoriam – David Frederic Martin.

 

FRIEND TO WOMEN IN NEED - Ady Nyamathi is constantly surprised by the willingness of the homeless and impoverished women she works with to change their risky behavior. Despite their battles with overwhelming problems such as drug addiction, splintered families and poverty, the women take notice when Nyamathi and her colleagues in the School of Nursing try to teach them about HIV prevention and ways to lift their self esteem and improve their ability to cope.

 

WHO'S NEW – Richard Steinberg

 

HEALTH WATCH – Forewarning - Dentists can identify patients who are at risk of a stroke by reviewing dental X-rays, according to a new Veterans Affairs Medical Center/School of Dentistry study. . . .Building Bone - Researchers participating in the Postmenopausal Estrogen/Progestin Interventions (PEPI) clinical trial -- the largest and longest study of its kind -- have concluded that hormone replacement therapy significantly increases bone mass in postmenopausal women and that combined estrogen-progestin therapy is not profoundly more effective than estrogen-only treatment. . . . Study Clinches It - Workers who wear girdle-like back supports can reduce the number of low-back injuries by about one-third, according to findings of a study by researchers in the School of Public Health. . . . Training Funds - The UCLA Dental Research Institute has been given a $1.2 million grant by the National Institute of Dental Research to launch a biomedical research training program. . . .Cancer Network – A major Bakersfield clinic joined forces with UCLA's Cancer Center to offer residents the advantages of the West's leading cancer center without having to travel to Los Angeles.

 

STUDENTS CREATE HEALTH-CARE FORUM TO FILL GAP - It was on a field trip to County-USC Medical Center as part of a course on national health policy that second-year medical students Amal Trivedi, David Feldman and Francis Chang had their eyes opened to the very real challenges faced by doctors and others attempting to deliver quality care to all segments of society. "On the ride home, we discussed the fact that the basic social and economic underpinnings of our medical system were not being addressed in our medical curriculum," Trivedi said. "So we decided to do something about it."

 

The result was the launch of the UCLA Health Care Symposium, a forum for national experts in public-health policy, health-care economics and health-care delivery to educate students about these vital matters.

 

SCIENTISTS HELP MENTALLY ILL PIECE BACK LIVES - It started out with a small grant supporting a couple of studies and a commitment to helping people with the most difficult of all psychiatric disorders. Now nearly 20 years later, UCLA's Clinical Research Center for the Study of Schizophrenia has grown into a highly regarded research program that is helping to improve the lives of people who suffer from schizophrenia and other mental illnesses.

 

DON'T LET LANGUAGE LIMIT OUR FUTURE –

 

ENCORE FOR A JOYFUL DANCER – Several years ago, in a period I loosely refer to now as "my youth," I spent a great deal of energy trying to decide whether I wanted to be a reporter or a jazz dancer. I was living in San Francisco, and in the day I'd go interview playwrights or Chinese immigrants or homeless people or whomever I happened to be writing about. Then at night I'd race across the Bay Bridge to the Shawl Anderson Dance Studio in Oakland, where I'd spend the next 90 minutes in total bliss.

 

LANGUAGE IS A MIRROR OF CULTURE, IDENTITY – NOT GENETICS - After enduring what I hope is the last in a string of tasteless jokes about the Oakland School District's approval of a language-education policy for African-American students, I now realize that linguists and educators have failed to inform Americans about varieties of English used throughout the country, and the link between these dialects and culture, social class, geographic region and identity. Linguists have been a part of language and education debates around African American English (AAE) since the late 1970's. Then, the Ann Arbor School District received a court order to train teachers on aspects of AAE so that they could properly teach children in their care. Unlike the late 1970's, however, the public response to Oakland's proposal, like Jay Leno's skit "The Ebonic Plague" and Newsweek's proclamation that it is now OK to joke about African-American speech, ridicules the African-American speech community.

 

VOICES RECAP SUCCESSES OF UCLA LEADER - The era of Chancellor Charles E. Young spans four decades with one consistent theme: strong leadership. From the moment he was inaugurated on May 23, 1969, amid the tumult of Vietnam and civil rights unrest, Young made it his goal to steer UCLA into the ranks of the nation's most elite universities. UCLA Today will illuminate his work toward that ideal in a series of stories tracing Young's watch, which ends June 30. Here, a look at the breadth of his achievements as chancellor, through the voices of some who've watched him closely along the way: