INDEX 1997

JANUARY 31, 1997 (Vol. 17, No. 10)

 

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 – The UCLA Medal, the university's highest tribute, will be presented Feb. 13 to Hans-Dietrich Genscher, former foreign minister of Germany, who played a crucial role in the negotiation of German reunification, overturning decades of political and philosophical division. . . .A coalition of 60 national environmental, nonprofit, government and business organizations has chosen UCLA as a winner of the Seventh Annual Renew America National Award for Environmental Sustainability. . . . School of Law – Law Professor and former California Supreme Court Justice Cruz Reynoso has been selected to receive the American Bar Association's Spirit of Excellence Award, given annually to a lawyer who has contributed significantly to the advancement of minorities in the legal profession. . . . The College - The UCLA Ocean Discovery Center at the Santa Monica Pier, which opened its doors to the public last September, welcomed its 5,000th K-12 student to hands-on-learning center.

 

YOUNG SEES PROMISING SIGNS FOR UNIVERSITY – In a speech filled with hope for the future, Chancellor Charles E. Young told members of the Academic Senate last week that the sometimes rocky relations between the UC and Board of Regents are on the mend, public confidence in the university is on the rise and UCLA is well positioned to launch the largest campaign for any public university in the U.S.

 

STEEP DROP IN ADMISSIONS FOR MINORITIES PREDICTED - The number of underrepresented minorities that would normally be admitted to UCLA as entering freshmen could drop 50-70% in fall 1998 when SP-1 is slated to take full effect, UCLA's admissions director told Academic Senate members.

 

MYSTERIES ABOUND IN LOST-AND-FOUND – Kristen Smith, manager of UCLA's Lost and Found, said that the strangest call she ever got was from someone asking about a lost red-tailed parrot named Chocko. "The person calling didn't know whether or not we'd found the bird, but he was trying to cover all his bases," Smith recalled with a smile. Lost and Found didn't have Chocko, but they do have about 500 other items in storage at the UCLA Police Station, waiting to be claimed. Among the most common items turned in are clothing, organizers, wallets, umbrellas, keys and glasses.

 

NEWS IN BRIEF – Global Educator - The first International Education Leadership Award was presented last week to Chancellor Charles E. Young by the Coalition for International Education, an organization representing 26 major educational associations. . . . Sentence Set - The former administrator of the Department of Radiological Sciences, was sentenced Jan. 23 to 33 months in federal prison and ordered to pay $300,000 in restitution for organizing a scheme that defrauded the university out of more than $500,000. James Campbell pleaded guilty in September to conspiracy, theft of UCLA funds, mail fraud and charges related to filing of a false 1992 tax return. . . . New Director - Visiting Assistant Professor of Education Linda J. Sax has been appointed director of UCLA's Cooperative Institutional Research Program, best known for its annual nationwide survey of entering college freshmen. . . . Rule Change - The Internal Revenue Service rule limiting 403(b) transactions to one change per year has been lifted. The regents ratified changes at their Jan. 17 meeting to allow eligible employees to change the amount they contribute to the 403(b) plan as often as they wish.

 

FACULTY PATENT HOLDERS GARNER PRAISE – UCLA faculty members whose research resulted in a patent issued during the last fiscal year were honored at a special ceremony and reception hosted by Vice Chancellor of Research Kumar Patel and Academic Senate Chair Aimee Dorr.

 

DID YOU KNOW? - With links all over the world, UCLA maintains a global reach with nearly 500 faculty members teaching courses with international or foreign-area themes. Nearly 100 foreign languages are taught at UCLA -- from Swahili, Armenian, Tagalog and Vietnamese to Hindi, Zulu and Quechua, the language of the Incas. UCLA has nearly 120 research and exchange agreements with universities and research institutions in 34 countries -- from Australia to Tunisia.

 

ATHLETE/SCHOLAR RANKS ACADEMICS FIRST - If the NCAA ever initiated a program to inspire athletes to excel both in the classroom and in their sport, they would have a tough time coming up with a better model than Annette Salmeen. She is the quintessential student-athlete. The Olympic gold medalist will attend England's Oxford University on a Rhodes Scholarship in the fall, where she will study for her doctorate in biochemistry. She is UCLA's first recipient of the prestigious award in more than 20 years and the first Bruin female athlete ever to be so honored.

 

NAMES AND FACES – Honors – William Pierskalla, Thomas Klitzner, and Linda Sarna. . . .Notables – Linda G. Baum, Joel Kopple, Patrick K. Turley, David I. Meyer, Amy Stuart Wells, and Roslyn Trezevant Haley. . . .In Memoriam – Sanford B. Roberts.

 

SEEING LIGHTER SIDE OF LAW - Law school Professor Kenneth Graham is known in the classroom as "the god of evidence." He has written eight treatises on what arguably is one of the most arcane subjects in the curriculum. But the silver-haired, pony-tailed scholar is perhaps better known for his irreverent tributes to law school and the legal profession in the annual law school musicals he has written and produced for nearly two decades.

 

WHO'S NEW – Peter C. Whybrow

 

'ROUND AND ABOUT – Fine Dining – "Dining in" took on a whole new cachet recently when Rieber Hall opened a revamped dining facility that fuses haute cuisine, fun food and high-energy ambiance in an environment that looks and feels like a fine restaurant. Students sit clustered around five cooking stations where chefs saute, broil and stir-fry popular foods, such as ahi tuna, burgers, Portobello mushrooms, pizzas and international cuisine. . . . Industry Awards - The School of Engineering and Applied Science presented awards for excellence in teaching and research. The TRW Excellence in Teaching Award was presented to Professor Robert M'Closkey, who worked to develop a new undergraduate laboratory course in mechanical control. . . . Mystery Blasts - UCLA astronomers reported at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society that gamma-ray bursts -- intense flashes of energy that occur randomly in space -- may originate in other galaxies and not in the Milky Way, as previously thought. . . . Eye To Eye - A campus audience met face to face with director Milos Forman Jan. 21 in a Q&A that was beamed live via satellite to 16 other campuses across the country in the first of the Master Director Series, produced by the Network Event Theater.

 

ECLECTIC THINKERS TRADE VIEWS ON LIFE'S ORIGINS - Carl Sagan's been there. So have Ray Bradbury, Bella Abzug and Betty Friedan. Not long after his headline-grabbing report indicating possible life on Mars, David McKay made plans to drop in. Darwin biographical novelist Irving Stone was a regular until his death; his wife and editor, Jean Stone, continues to attend. Visitors from out of state and abroad rearrange their travel schedules or make special trips to be among the 50-plus who pack the fifth-floor Geology Building conference room where, every Wednesday night during the academic year, the Center for the Study of Evolution and the Origin of Life (CSEOL) convenes for a dinner and discussion-heavy seminar.

 

INSURANCE REFORMS DON'T TRANSLATE TO ACCESS - Despite reforms aimed at making coverage more accessible and affordable, California's health-insurance system still needs fixing, according to a comprehensive study by researchers from UCLA and UC Berkeley. The study found that the number of the state's residents without health insurance continues to increase and California workers are less likely than other Americans to have job-based coverage.

 

HELPING HANDS – Site For Sore Eyes - . . .L.A. By Water - . . .Over the Top - . . .Beyond Work - . . .West Coast Debut -

 

PRE-MEDS TEACH SENIORS STROKE PREVENTION - Undergraduate Pejman Katiraei had a life-saving message for the senior citizens assembled at the Freda Morh Senior Center on Fairfax Avenue. "It's absolutely vital to recognize signs of stroke as soon as they occur and take immediate action," said Katiraei. "We now know brain cells can be saved ... every second counts." For the past six months, UCLA medical students have been teaching seniors how to recognize the signs of a stroke -- numbness on one side of the body; weakness or paralysis of the face, arm or leg; difficulty speaking or understanding simple statements; sudden blurred or decreased vision in one or both eyes; dizziness, loss of balance or loss of coordination; and sudden severe, unexplainable headache -- and what to do if one occurs.

 

PROF STIRS YOUTHS' EXCITEMENT ABOUT SCIENCE - Science education, it seems, is a lot like the weather. Everyone talks about how lousy it is, but nobody does anything about it. Until now. "Science is not being taught in the elementary schools in a way that is fun and meaningful to students," laments Mark Goorsky, associate professor in the School of Engineering and Applied Science's Department of Materials Science. As a consequence, science is perceived as a chore or too difficult, discouraging many students from pursuing research careers. To combat this growing apathy among students, Goorsky and a group of graduate students founded the Grassroots Science Program, an outreach effort to promote hands-on science learning in grades K-12.

 

READY REMEDIES FOR RACIAL INJUSTICE - Our national commitment to racial equality was dealt a body blow by the passage of Proposition 209. And while implementation of this measure to eliminate affirmative-action programs may be held up by the courts for some time, we all face unfinished business. I, for one, abhor quotas, set asides and other unfair procedures of the type targeted by the measure, but I opposed Proposition 209. Why? Because the racial and gender injustices that preferential treatment was designed to combat are more odious than this defective cure. But if affirmative action is an ethically flawed remedy, then powerful alternatives to reverse the consequences of racism have to be put in place.

 

CONFESSIONS OF A SHOPAHOLIC - I love to shop. I've been known to spend an entire day at the mall. Four hours at Macy's. Three in a bookstore. Two hours in a supermarket! You get the idea. So you can imagine the thrill that rippled through me when I learned of the reopening of the renovated UCLA Store in Ackerman Union with the addition of a Clinique counter and a Calvin Klein section. I just had to see it for myself. The extra 8,500 square feet that's been added to B-Level Ackerman is put to good use, if for no other reason than to make the Store infinitely more spacious than it used to be. I remember going to the Halloween sale at Towell in October and being nearly trampled. The old Ackerman store was hardly better with its narrow, crowded aisles.

 

TV'S IMPACT ON KIDS DESERVES CAREFUL MONITORING - Television has made such an impact on American society and the world that we are always creating metaphors to describe it. While it's correct to view television as a "window to the world," a more fitting metaphor might be that of an audio-visual tapestry on which is woven a complex and ever-changing set of images and messages. TV's social messages are so ubiquitous and complex that the role they play in helping children learn about themselves and about people, places and events are not fully understood. It's no wonder, then, that television has received such critical attention over the last 40 years; ours is a society that rallies around any new institutional-like phenomenon that can potentially compete with the traditional agencies of socialization such as the home or family, the school and religious organizations.

 

RESEARCH TASKS TEACH TRUE LIFE LESSONS - In the past half-century, American research universities have blossomed into hotbeds of discovery. But critics have maintained that along the way, a key group has failed to reap the rewards: Undergraduates, they argue, have gained little from the riches in their midst. At UCLA, arguably more than at any other comparably sized research university, that case can no longer be made. The Student Research Program (SRP), which invites undergraduates to participate in faculty research projects on a voluntary basis, was instituted in 1985 with 90 students; more than a decade later, some 1,400 students were fulfilling more than 2,000 quarterly contracts during the year (many students stay with a professor for more than one quarter), gaining a notation on their transcript -- and, in many cases, an invaluable experience.