INDEX 1997

FEBRUARY 28, 1997 (Vol. 17, No. 12)

 

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 – Jeffrey A. Seymour '73, M.P.A. '77, has been selected as the president-elect of the UCLA Alumni Association. Seymour, a partner at Morey/Seymour & Associates, a governmental relations firm headquartered in Santa Monica, will begin a five-year term July 1, beginning with one year as president-elect, two years as president and two years as immediate past president and member of the Board of Regents. . . .The Anderson Graduate School of Management and the School of Public Health have established the UCLA Center for Health Services Management in response to the need for the most advanced techniques for health-care management in California. . . . Arts and Architecture - The Pew Charitable Trusts have awarded a $1.5-million grant to UCLA's Center for Intercultural Performance, part of the Department of World Arts and Cultures, for the UCLA National Dance/Media Project, a national dance documentation and preservation leadership and training program. . . . Engineering – Professor Chih-Ming Ho of the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering has been elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering.

 

DRAFT G.E. PLAN MOST AMBITIOUS EVER OFFERED – UCLA has launched what may be the most ambitious effort ever by a research university to transform how undergraduates learn and live on a college campus. "We have radically reshaped general education to reflect the needs of UCLA undergraduates in the 21st century," said Ed Berenson, professor of history and chair of general education. "Our goal is to create a general-education curriculum that not only serves UCLA students, but also becomes a model for other public research universities."

 

$25M OVITZ GIFT TO BENEFIT REBUILDING OF MED COMPLEX – Entertainment executive Michael Ovitz and his wife, Judy, have pledged $25 million to support the capital campaign for UCLA's medical sciences complex, Chancellor Charles E. Young announced last week. The gift, made through the Ovitz Family Foundation, is the second-largest philanthropic contribution in UCLA history.

 

CIVIC CELEBRATION OF YOUNG LEGACY – Civic and corporate leaders in Los Angeles joined UCLA at a gala dinner Wednesday celebrating the achievements of Chancellor Charles E. Young that have elevated this university to the ranks of the best public educational institutions in the country and helped Los Angeles evolve into a cultural and intellectual center.

 

NEWS IN BRIEF – Private Eyes - The evolution of the black detective fiction, largely unnoticed by mainstream mystery buffs, is emerging into the light in a program sponsored by the UCLA Library Committee on Diversity. Moderated by Professor Richard Yarborough of English, a panel of mystery writers will explore the genre March 4 from 3-5 p.m. at the Powell Library Rotunda. . . . Record Breaker - Coach Al Scats continues to break his own records with each win and last week he reached another plateau by recording his 900th victory in a match at USC. . . .Among the Best - The Gourman Report, which recently ranked UCLA's undergraduate film and television program as the best in the nation, selected the theater undergraduate program as second best in the U.S. out of 401 programs in drama/theater. . . . Fassbinder on Film - The UCLA Film and Television Archive will honor one of Europe's most important post-war directors and a prolific front-runner of the 1970s New German Cinema movement Rainer Werner Fassbinder.

 

CONSTRUCTION TO START IN CENTRAL CAMPUS – Preliminary work is beginning in preparation for a series of building projects that will take place over the course of two years around the Wooden and Morgan Centers and site of the soon-to-be-dismantled Towell building.

 

DID YOU KNOW? – The Geffen Playhouse was built in 1929 as the UCLA Masonic Temple. The two-story structure's Mediterranean architecture was designed to be compatible with the earliest buildings on campus. In 1973, Kirsten and Donald Combs bought and transformed the space into a cultural center that incorporated an import store, a restaurant, a photo gallery and a 498-seat performance space. The venue opened in 1975 as the Westwood Playhouse and hosted more than 100 productions. The playhouse was renamed in 1995 in honor of a gift from music entrepreneur David Geffen.

 

LINKING CULTURES THROUGH LEARNING – Although it's been 12 years since she has set foot on the campus of the American University of Beirut, Ann Zwicker Kerr -- a lifelong ambassador for international education -- has worked from halfway around the world to keep its classrooms open despite political upheaval and the highest personal cost. It was in Beirut at the height of the Lebanese civil war that her husband, Malcolm Kerr, a UCLA professor for 20 years before becoming president of American University, was assassinated by terrorists in January 1984.

 

NAMES AND FACES – Notables – Larry Simpson, Jay Gershen, and Arthur M. Geoffrion. . . .Honors – Charles Sawyers, Sherie Morrison, and No-Hee Park. . . .Awards – Donna L. Washington, William Cunningham, Kenneth B. Wells, and Arlene Russel.

 

HEARTFELT BOOKS INTRIGUE PROF – It's hard to consider any part of the body other than the brain as being central to our sense of self. But as Associate Professor of English Eric Jager points out, there was a time when the mind was imagined as a book. "During the Middle Ages, the idea of the self as a book was a metaphor taken from one of the main technologies of the time -- the manuscript book produced by scribes," Jager said. "This idea still persists in our psychological vocabulary, with words such as 'impression' and 'character' and expressions such as 'reading someone's mind' and 'turning over a new leaf.'" Through four years of research, Jager found that the medieval model of the inner self as a book tended to focus on the heart, rather than on the brain.

 

WHO'S NEW – Dick Corrales

 

BRIGHT IDEAS – Pediatric AIDS Funding - UCLA AIDS researchers Dr. Yvonne J. Bryson and Dr. E. Richard Stiehm will use a recently awarded four-year grant totaling approximately $5 million from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) to continue the work of the Los Angeles Pediatric AIDS Clinical Trials Group (ACTG). . . . What's Cool – UCLA's Technological Web site has been selected out of 100,000-plus Internet competitors as a Top Site in Citizen 1 HIT (Healthcare Internet Tool) by a software company that helps health-care professionals access relevant information on the Internet. . . . Lecturers Sought - The California Wellness Foundation and the UC Office of the President are inviting UC faculty, senate and non-senate members, to submit an abstract and application to prepare and present an hour-long lecture to the awardee's campus community in October. . . . Chaotic Beat - Researchers from the School of Medicine have demonstrated for the first time that the erratic beating that strikes the heart during the serious disorder known as fibrillation is not random, but follows the complex mathematical pattern known as chaos.

 

UNDERGRADS SHINE IN ENVIRONMENT OF DISCOVERY – She won't receive her bachelor's degree in microbiology and molecular genetics until June, yet Christine Diane Hardy says she already considers herself a part of the scientific community.

 

The UCLA senior fell in love with lab work as an undergraduate, sequencing genomes first through the Student Research Program and later through independent study. Hardy's research work, gathering information from the DNA of a variety of bacteria that thrives at the boiling point of water, helped her settle on a career path. The hands-on opportunity also has given her learning experiences unavailable to many of her peers at other colleges and universities.

 

FACULTY FIND ROLE FOR STUDENTS IN RESEARCH – UCLA professors integrate research with undergraduate teaching in many ways. Hundreds of faculty members bring student volunteers onto their project teams through venues such as UCLA's Student Research Program and independent-studies (199) courses. Many also incorporate research concepts into their undergraduate classes. Following are four examples of faculty who are going the extra mile to ensure that undergraduates will have the opportunity to cash in on UCLA's standing as a premier research campus.

 

DO THE WRITE THING FOR STUDENTS – The applicants who are admitted as freshmen to UCLA look very good on paper. They have high SATs, astronomical GPAs, heady Achievement Test scores. But there's a significant problem we often don't discover until after they're admitted: Many of them CAN'T WRITE! It is only after the students are let in that we give them the Subject A exam, and more than 25% flunk that test of basic writing skills. That's 40 or so courses in remedial English. So why don't we give them the writing exam before we make our admissions decision?

 

MAY THE FORCE BE WITH US – Maybe it was because for many of us "Star Wars" and its sequels were the first movies we ever saw that their impact was so strong and so enduring. The fire that the films ignited -- like the explosive galactic clashes between the forces of good and evil that played out for us on the big screen -- was endlessly fueled by the stream of toys, models and bedsheets that permeated our young lives. We wore "Star Wars" clothes, ate off "Star Wars" plates and went to "Star Wars" camp. For the three of us, the awe over George Lucas' cinematic vision -- so detailed, so exact that it's possible to become completely lost in his world -- has endured beyond our childhoods. His mythic vision of a time "long ago in a galaxy far, far away" has inspired our dreams as we set off down our own roads as filmmakers.

 

IT'S NOT CLEAR WHAT COST WILL BE TO ENACT WELFARE REFORM -On Aug. 22, 1996, President Clinton signed The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996, acting on his pledge to "end welfare as we know it." Clearly, the new law's dramatic devolution of responsibility from Washington, D.C., to the state and local level, and the accompanying structural changes to Aid to Families with Dependent Children and other programs represent a fundamental shift in public-assistance programs that affect millions of poor and needy Californians.

 

COMMITMENT TO SERVING THE COMMUNITY - UCLA's commitment to public service, one-third of the trifold university mission, has deepened under the stewardship of Chancellor Charles E. Young. The Young years have seen UCLA broaden its community involvement through health care, outreach and volunteer programs; expand its research of issues of vital importance to Southern California; and develop its role as a leading provider of higher education in Los Angeles. In this second in a series of stories reflecting on Young's tenure, we offer a snapshot of the chancellor's public service role.