As many of you have heard or read, tragedy struck our community on Friday, February 27, when the young child of one of our graduate students died of injuries from an accident near the Clark Kerr campus. The Daily Californian, among others, has reported what is known.
Our heartfelt sympathies have been conveyed to Frank Cruz, a doctoral student in the Department of English, his wife Jodie, and all of their family. Their son Zachary had been enrolled in our campus’s various child care programs for most of his almost-six years; he was well known and loved by many student families.
The Cruz family has established a website — zacharymichaelcruz.com — dedicated to Zach’s memory. The site accepts donations to help the family defray the costs of the funeral to be held near their home town in Southern California. The Graduate Division is pitching in to help, of course, but I want to encourage everyone to consider making a donation, whether or not you know the Cruz family personally. Even very small contributions send a tangible message of support from the collection of individuals who, together, make our campus a compassionate and caring community. The emotional comfort offered by such gestures outweighs and outlasts financial need.
A public memorial service will be held on campus Sunday, March 15 at 3 p.m. on the Campanile Esplanade.
I also want to be sure that everyone knows that, for any crisis or concern, University Health Services’ counselors are available to assist those experiencing grief or other stresses. The staff of CARE Services can be contacted at 642-9494 for students and 643-7754 for employees.
Take care, and take care of one another.
Andrew J. Szeri
Dean of the Graduate Division
Research
- Sutardja Dai Hall, the new research headquarters of CITRIS
Financial Aid Office
- Tips on FAFSA, appeals or requests, and summer loans
Graduate Funding
- A wide menu of possibilities to help fund your graduate education
- J-student Rhyen Coombs’ photos of a foreclosed home win her the Lange Fellowship
Graduate Support
- How your story makes a difference
GSI Center / Academic Services
- Workshops on Teaching
Housing
- When should you look for housing?
University Police Department
- Join UCPD on bSpace and watch Shots Fired
Graduate Assembly
- Participate in the Lower Sproul redevelopment project
UCTV
- David M. Kennedy interview with Berkeley’s Harry Kreisler
Recognition
- Recent honors (and an appearance) for Berkeley-connected physicists
- Toasting Searle’s half-century here
- A cross-cultural honor in Berkeley for a native San Franciscan
Texture
- A grad-student artist documents the ageless and preserves the temporary
- CRP student has “harsh” thoughts about government aid
- Berkeley grad students’ “The Nano Song” is going viral
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Cathy Cockrell of the campus NewsCenter said it quite well in her soon-after-the-event dispatch:
“Ceremonial ribbon-cuttings by definition offer pomp, but seldom the circumstances for amazement. Friday’s dedication of Sutardja Dai Hall, however, had it all: distinguished speakers, guided tours, and demos of socially useful, occasionally jaw-dropping inventions — from smart thermostats to a life-saving firefighting system to an ingenious kit for diagnosing disease in remote areas.”
The new facility on Northside offers 141,000 future-oriented square feet that include two large cleanrooms with some of the world’s most advance semiconductor-fabrication equipment, distance-learning classrooms, a 149-seat auditorium, a technology museum, and a cybercafé.
It’s the new campus home of the Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society, more commonly known as CITRIS, as well as the Banatao Institute (more formally the Banatao Institute@CITRIS Berkeley).
The center’s director, Paul Wright, faced the large dedication crowd (estimates ranged from 600 to over a thousand) and offered a prediction: “In these walls, brilliant, well-trained minds will take a delicate prototype, and then, with robust engineering, create a more vital, proven concept” from which a start-up company and eventually a whole industries can grow. Such a process, at this time of economic crisis, he indicated, can help reignite the economy in California and beyond.
The building’s name, Sutardja Dai Hall, comes from a trio of Berkeley engineering alumni who, as cornerstone donors in fundraising parlance, made construction possible. The three — the Sutardja brothers, Sehat and Pantas, and Weili Dai, who is married to Sehat — co-founded Marvell Technology Group, a Santa Clara-based international semiconductor company.
Seven stories above ground with two basement levels, the facility will accommodate 50 CITRIS faculty affiliates and hundreds of students in addition to the CITRIS administrative staff.
CITRIS is one of four institutes the state established in 2001 in collaboration with UC and leading-edge businesses as an investment in the state’s economic future, and to maintain California’s reputation for fostering groundbreaking discoveries. Highly multidisciplinary, CITRIS combines the skills and talents of more than 300 faculty researchers and thousands of students from four UC campuses — Berkeley, Davis, Merced and Santa Cruz — with industrial partners from more than 60 corporations. According to director Wright, it “shortens the pipeline between world-class laboratory research in science and engineering and the creation of startups, companies and whole industries.” To facilitate the development of new ideas and companies, CITRIS-developed technologies will be made available through a royalty-free license.
Listed chronologically by deadline date.
Resources provided by the Graduate Services: Fellowships office
This is a well-funded program that’s aggressively seeking applications from students studying computer science or computer engineering, who are juniors or seniors in college, or pursuing a master’s degree or PhD. Individual scholarships are for $10,000. Selected students will be invited to an all-expenses paid trip to the Google Headquarters in California in spring 2010.
Eligibility requirements:
Benefits of the program include
More information and application are available onllne. Questions? Email Auri Duarte.
The application deadline is March 15th, 2009.
The town of Crested Butte, Colorado, is seeking an intern for a full-time non-benefitted position to begin in June 2009. The main work will be performing municipal research and analysis on an entry-level professional basis, while serving as a regular staff member, at the direction of the town manager or a delegated department head. The position provides hands-on experience in the daily operations of municipal government on all levels, enhancing the intern’s skills for a future profession in government. Required qualifications include a bachelor’s degree, plus completion of course work for a master’s degree in public or business administration, political science, planning, or a closely-related field. More information is available at the Crested Butte website (PDF). The deadline for applications is March 15, 2009.
Indicorps — a nonpartisan, nonreligious, nonprofit organization that encourages Indians around the world to participate actively in India’s progress — presents over 30 competitive new projects for the August 2009 Indicorps Diaspora Fellowship. Indicorps intends to foster the next generation of young Indian leaders who are willing to challenge themselves and “be the change.” Tackle real issues in education, microfinance, social entrepreneurship, environmental conservation, public health, urban infrastructure, and much more. Live simply and dig deep to learn about real India and yourself; projects span across India from Kanpur to Pondicherry, Gujarat to Madhya Pradesh. Indicorps selects for commitment, perseverance, and drive. These are grassroots public service fellowships to implement sustainable development projects with community-based organizations. As a total-immersion leadership program, Indicorps will encourage you to explore your role as a catalyst of change. Fellowship projects promote both personal growth and collective action towards a secular India that is inclusive, peaceful, and participatory. The program requires a minimum commitment of one year. Learn more online. The application deadline is March 15, 2009.
The deadline for applications for each of these three programs is Friday, March 20, 2009.
Awards will be announced in May. Fellowship recipients must be advanced to candidacy or the equivalent by September 1, 2009. More information on the IIS and its support for UC Berkeley graduate students is available online or from Jessica Owen, IIS fellowship coordinator, by phone (642-7747); email, or conventional mail (215 Moses Hall #2308; Berkeley, CA 94720-2308).
Doctoral candidates researching lifelong or later-life learning are invited to apply for the Elderhostel K. Patricia Cross Doctoral Research Grant. This $5,000 grant is awarded annually. It can be used to aid the completion or publication of the recipient’s dissertation research and results. Applicants may come from various disciplines including, but not limited to, psychology, education, gerontology, cognitive studies, neuroscience, leisure studies, aging, and social work. Because the selection committee requires an abstract and description of your current research, you must already be engaged in your dissertation research.
The application deadline is Tuesday, March 31, 2009.
The Elderhostel K. Patricia Cross Doctoral Research Grant recipient will be determined by a selection committee consisting of professors, practitioners and other leaders in the field of lifelong learning. The recipient will be announced in June 2009.
For further information, including requirements and the online application, please see the Elderhostel website. Please email questions to grants@elderhostel.org.
Founded in 1975, Elderhostel is a not-for-profit organization providing educational opportunities through travel for older adults across the United States and in 90 countries around the world. This doctoral research grant was created to support future leaders in the field of lifelong learning.
Each year, the Dan David Prize, a joint international enterprise endowed by the Dan David Foundation, awards 20 scholarships (10 to students from all over the world and 10 to students from Tel Aviv University, where the foundation is headquartered). The scholarship amount is $15,000. Advanced doctoral and postdoctoral students of excellent achievement and promise studying topics related to the fields chosen for this year are invited to apply for scholarships for 2009. The fields are broken into three time dimensions. For the Past category, the field is Astrophysics – History of the Universe; for the Present category, Leadership; and for the Future category, Global Public Health. The application deadline for the scholarships is March 31, 2009. More information is available online.
Dan David is a Romanian-born businessman and philanthropist. He immigrated to Israel in 1960 and the next year, with a $200,000 loan from a cousin, secured the franchise for Photo Me automated photo booths in a number of countries, and eventually took over the company. He is now the sole owner of PhoMat, the company that manufactures the photo booth machines, and in 2000 he created the Dan David Fund and Foundation with a $100 million endowment to recognize outstanding contributions in science, technology, culture, and social welfare, and to assist young scholar-researchers. (One of this year’s winners of the Dan David Prize is UC Berkeley physicist Paul Richards, who earned his Ph.D. here in 1960. See Recognition, below.) 
The Greater Good Science Center, an interdisciplinary research center devoted to expanding social well-being in individuals, relationships, and communities, will award a fellowship of $12,000 for the 2009-2010 academic year. The fellowship program aims to attract scholars from across a broad spectrum of academic disciplines, with a particular focus on the social and behavioral sciences.
Research themes:
Application and detailed information may be found on the center’s website. The application deadline is April 6, 2009, at noon.
What makes people leave behind what they once deemed worth hoarding, even treasuring?
(Photo: Rhyen Coombs)
Photographs of possessions left in a Vallejo, California, home following foreclosure, an all-too-familiar contemporary event across the nation, have earned journalism student Rhyen Coombs the University of California, Berkeley’s 2009 Dorothea Lange Fellowship.
Lange Fellowship winner Rhyen Coombs (Photo: Steve McConnell/NewsCenter).
From 2001 on, all but one of the Lange Fellowship winners have been graduate students, and the last five have all been seeking journalism degrees. Coombs’ emphasis in the J-school is new media. In addition to working as a reporter and editor for magazines in Portland, Oregon (and as a legal secretary for tax attorneys), she was site architect for a social networking site. In the Bay Area, she has contributed to the Bay Guardian and worked for the Knight Digital Media Center, a partnership of the journalism schools at Berkeley and USC.
The annual award sponsored by UC Berkeley’s Office of Public Affairs is issued in the memory of Lange, one of the 20th century’s finest documentary photographers. She became famous for her federal Farm Security Administration collaboration with her husband, the late UC Berkeley economist Paul Taylor, to photographically document the exodus of desperate farm families migrating West in search of work during another era of economic distress, the Great Depression.
The Lange award is issued annually to a UC Berkeley faculty member, graduate student or senior accepted for graduate study who shows promise in documentary photography and a creative plan for future work. It is aimed at encouraging the use of black-and-white or color photography in scholarly work.
The portfolio submitted by Coombs, a student at the Graduate School of Journalism, included vivid and haunting color photos of an immigrant family’s abandoned home in a working-class neighborhood in Vallejo, a city northeast of San Francisco. She plans to use the fellowship’s $4,000 grant to complete a photo project that will include a book and audio-slideshow documenting the personal values and tough choices facing families experiencing foreclosure in California.
- Kathleen Maclay, Media Relations
Vallejo, CA: An immigrant family recently lived in this working-class neighborhood. (Photo: Rhyen Coombs)
Migrant Mother — This is Dorothea Lange’s iconic photograph of Florence Owens Thompson, who was then 32 years old, living in a pea-pickers’ camp, and had just sold the tires from her car to buy food. 
Dorothea Lange herself was rarely photographed. Here, in the mid-1930s, she was on the road for the federal Resettlement Administration (which became the Farm Security Administration), and was holding her bulky camera, not an accordion. It was a Graflex 4x5 single lens reflex camera, which took sheet film and previewed the image upside-down and backward. (This picture was taken by Rondal Partridge, who apprenticed with Lange and Ansel Adams. Partridge is the son of Imogen Cunningham, another of America’s best-known photographers.)
Paul Schuster Taylor M.A. 20, Ph.D. ’22, an agricultural economist and professor at Berkeley for four decades, recruited Lange to visually document the migration of farm families westward in search of work, while he interviewed workers and employers. He became her second husband, and they remained partners until her death in 1965. Taylor established the Lange Fellowship in 1981 to encourage photography in academic projects in any discipline, particularly on social-science themes that have been overlooked by commercial mass media.Nearly three quarters of graduate students benefit from private funding at some point during their time at Berkeley.
Some of it’s obvious, in the form of a fellowship named for the donor. Some of it’s much less evident, derived from pooled donations from many people over many years, earning interest which can be used to help graduate students.
Who are these sources? Some are big foundations you may have heard of, like the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. More are smaller foundations, often set up by individuals or families, for many reasons but sharing a common purpose: to help graduate students — not graduate education in the abstract, but specific people seeking learning, each with a unique story. Like you.
The donors, or the trustees of their foundations, tend to be quite interested in exactly how what they’ve given is helping people. They like to keep track, to hear progress, to connect. There is one family of trustees that throws a party to read profiles aloud written by the students whom a fund their grandparents created continues to support today.
If you’ve received a request to submit your profile from UC’s Rose Villani or Karyn Krause, it means that the donors of your specific award have expressed interest in you and your experiences as a graduate student at Berkeley. It only takes a few minutes to think and respond. Your story makes a difference.
TopA professional development series for GSIs, these Workshops on Teaching are presented by the GSI Teaching and Resource Center. They cover a wide variety of topics related to university teaching and the GSI experience. The purpose of the series is to offer GSIs, and other graduate students interested in teaching, opportunities for hands-on learning and practical discussion about pedagogy.
MARCH 17 (Tuesday)
Noon to 1:30 p.m., 370 Dwinelle Hall
Digital Communication and GSI/Student Boundaries: A Panel Discussion
Sarah Macdonald, Teaching Consultant, GSI Teaching & Resource Center
Panelists to be announced
Email, course management sites, online discussion forums, social networking sites and other forms of digital communication allow GSIs and students to be in contact faster and more frequently than ever before. This workshop will explore the benefits and challenges of digital communication for GSIs and students. GSI and undergraduate student panelists will discuss strategies for maintaining appropriate boundaries between GSIs and students as well as the effectiveness of various forms of digital communication. The workshop will also feature a Q&A session, so come with your questions, concerns, and insights about digital communication and GSI/student boundaries.
APRIL 1, 8, 15, and 22 (Wednesdays)
2 to 4 p.m., 370 Dwinelle Hall
Syllabus and Course Design Workshop Series for GSIs
The GSI Teaching and Resource Center presents its annual Syllabus and Course Design workshop series. This series is intended for GSIs who may need to prepare a syllabus for Summer Session courses, for a future semester, or for the academic job search. Session topics will include:
Participants are expected to attend all four sessions, complete all assignments, and submit a course syllabus at the end of the series. Pre-registration is required by March 23. To register, please go to the Syllabus and Course Design Workshop page on the GSI Center website. If you have questions, please contact the GSI Teaching and Resource Center at gsi@berkeley.edu or 642-4456. Wheelchair accessible.
APRIL 2 (Thursday)
Noon to 1:30 p.m., 370 Dwinelle Hall
Teaching a Large Lecture Course
Kevis Goodman, Associate Professor, English
Martha Olney, Adjunct Professor, Economics
Alex Filippenko, Professor, Astronomy
Berkeley graduate students do not often have opportunities to teach large lecture courses as GSIs. However, many classes are taught on this scale in higher education, and many of us will be called on as professors and lecturers to fill this role. Participants in this workshop will learn from three award-winning Berkeley faculty members what issues are particular to the large lecture course as well as strategies for addressing them. As always, rich resource materials will also be provided.
Kevis Goodman, Martha Olney (Photos: Photos Peg Skorpinski), Alex Filippenko (Photo: Steve McConnell)
APRIL 13 (Monday)
Noon to 1:30 p.m., 370 Dwinelle Hall
Teaching and the Academic Job Search
Andrew Green, Ph.D., Ph.D. Counselor, Career Center, with Ph.D. candidates (to be announced)
The discussion will draw on the experience of graduate students and postdoctoral fellows who have accepted academic positions for the coming year and the insights of Andrew Green, Ph.D. Counselor at Berkeley’s Career Center. In speaking about the role of teaching in applying for academic positions, panelists will address questions such as:
Registration for each event is encouraged; however, those who have not pre-registered are also welcome. Preregister online. If you would like to request that a workshop on a particular topic be held during a semester, please email the GSI Center.
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Between showers: Looking east from Barrows Hall toward LBNL and the Big C. March came in like the proverbial lion,
making life soggy hereabouts, but perhaps easing the drought a bit. (Photo: Dick Cortén)
Graduate Division Calendar
Campus Events Calendar
Denotes Graduate Division sponsored event
THROUGH MARCH 31
Mark Twain at Play
10 a.m. to 4 p.m., weekdays, gallery of the Bancroft Library
How did Mark Twain spend his time when the “bread-and-butter element” was put aside and he was free to relax and amuse himself? His leisure pursuits, from amateur theatricals to yachting—and how his “play” influenced his “work”—are the subject of this exhibition, which brings together manuscripts and documents, notebooks, albums, vintage photographs, and other rare artifacts from the Mark Twain Papers archive of The Bancroft Library. (The Bancroft is back in its usual location after three years in temporary exile off campus while its building was seismically retrofitted and renovated. The Twain exhibit is in the new rotunda gallery, right inside the front entrance.)
THROUGH APRIL 19
Pacific Film Archive Theater, 2575 Bancroft Way (between Telegraph and Bowditch)
The Way of the Termite: The Essay in Cinema
An expansive, opinionated selection of essay films, from D. W. Griffith to Chris Marker, from Russia’s Dziga Vertov to France’s Dziga Vertov Group. Curated by Jean-Pierre Gorin, filmmaker and collaborator with Jean-Luc Godard in the 1970s. Tickets are available by calling (510) 642-5249 or online. More information is available online.
John R. Perry
MARCH 11 (Wednesday)
Howison Lecture in Philosophy
4:10 p.m., Toll Room, Alumni House (just north of Zellerbach Playhouse)
“Thinking and Talking About the Self”
John R. Perry, Professor of Philosophy, Stanford University
MARCH 17 (Tuesday)
Lecture: “Sex Differences in Aggression: Evidence from Simulated War Games”
12:30 p.m., 223 Moses Hall
Rose McDermott, Professor of Political Science, Brown University; and Fellow, Center for Advanced Studies in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University
Overconfidence has long been noted by historians and political scientists as a major cause of war. However, the origins of such overconfidence, and sources for its variation, remain poorly understood. Testosterone has been proposed as a proximate mediator, given its role in promoting dominance and challenge behavior, particularly in men. Few studies have attempted to link overconfidence, decisions about war, gender, and testosterone. Professor McDermott will discuss how her research has shown that in experimental war games: (i) people are overconfident about their expectations of success; (ii) those who are more overconfident are more likely to attack; (iii) overconfidence and attacks are more pronounced among males than females; and (iv) testosterone is related to expectations of success, but not within gender, so its influence on overconfidence cannot be distinguished from any other gender specific factor.
Sponsored by the Institute of International Studies. Lunch will be served. RSVP by email Jessica Owen at the IIS.
Neil Shubin
MARCH 18 and 19 (Wednesday and Thursday)
Charles M. and Martha Hitchcock Lectures
4:10 p.m., International House Auditorium, 2299 Piedmont Avenue
Wednesday: “The Great Transitions in Evolution: Finding Fossils, Studying Genes, and Bridging Gaps”
Thursday: “Wings, Legs, and Fins: How Do New Organs Arise in Evolution?”
Neil H. Shubin, Associate Dean, Biological Sciences Division, University of Chicago
MARCH 18 (Wednesday)
4 p.m., Seaborg Room, Berkeley Faculty Club (Map)
Panel Discussion: “Understanding Islamist Politics: Internal Debates and Electoral Opposition”
Nathan Brown, Professor of Political Science and International Affairs; Director, Institute for Middle East Studies, George Washington University; Nonresident Senior Associate, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Mohammed Hafez, Professor of National Security Affairs, Naval Postgraduate School; author of Why Muslims Rebel: Repression and Resistance in the Islamic World (2003)
Islamist political parties are flourishing across the Arab world, and their increasingly mainstream influence appears unlikely to diminish in the near future. To explore the myriad dimensions of Islamist politics, professors Brown and Hafez will discuss these influential religio-political movements. Professor Brown will examine Islamist movements in the Arab world and how the decision to participate in the electoral process affects them organizationally and ideologically, and Professor Hafez will discuss takfir (excommunication in Islam) and the internal debates over Muslim against Muslim violence.
Sponsored by the Religion, Politics and Globalization Program. RSVPs are appreciated but not required: by phone (510-642-7747) or email.
MARCH 23 or 31
Deadlines for Bears Breaking Boundaries idea competitions
Big Ideas @ Berkeley and the ASUC are holding their fourth annual campus-wide contest for the best interdisciplinary student ideas. Bears Breaking Boundaries is a series of competitions to encourage student teams to the next generation of research, education, and service activities on the UC Berkeley campus.
"Bears Breaking Boundaries 2009" is awarding $85,000 in prize money in the following topics:
Submissions are due March 23rd or March 31, depending on which categories you apply to. Please check the rules and guidelines for the specific contests that you’re interested in for more details. Interdisciplinary teams are highly encouraged. In addition to receiving seed funding for your projects, students will also be able to post their projects on the Big Ideas @ Berkeley marketplace.
Lucy Shapiro
MARCH 31 and APRIL 1 (Tuesday and Wednesday)
Charles M. and Martha Hitchcock Lectures
4:10 p.m., International House Auditorium, 2299 Piedmont Avenue
Tuesday: “Emerging Infectious Diseases and Global Health”
Wednesday: “The Systems Architecture of a Bacterial Cell Cycle”
Lucy Shapiro, Ludwig Professor of Cancer Research, School of Medicine, Stanford University
APRIL 2 (Thursday)
4 p.m., Room 140 Boalt Hall, School of Law
Lecture: “Weak States and Transnational Threats”
Stewart Patrick, Senior Fellow and Director of the program on International Institutions and Global Governance at the Council on Foreign Relations
Stewart Patrick’s areas of expertise include multilateral cooperation in the management of global issues; U.S. policy toward international institutions, including the United Nations; the challenges posed by fragile, failing, and post-conflict states; and the integration of U.S. defense, development, and diplomatic instruments in U.S. foreign and national security policy. His lecture is sponsored by the Religion, Politics and Globalization Program (RPGP), the Institute of International Studies, and the Human Rights Center
APRIL 4 (Saturday)
6 p.m. to midnight, Festival Pavilion, Fort Mason Center, San Francisco
Charter Gala 2009
An evening of celebration, fine dining, music, and dancing marking the 141st anniversary of the University of California and honoring, among others, the 2009 Alumnus of the Year, Robert D. Haas. ’64. More information is available online.
Jeremy Waldron
APRIL 21, 22, and 23 (Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday)
Tanner Lectures on Human Values
4:10 p.m. on each of the days, Toll Room, Alumni House
Tuesday: “Dignity and Rank”
Wednesday: “Law, Status, and Self-Control”
Thursday: Seminar and discussion with commentators
Jeremy Waldron, University Professor, NYU School of Law
APRIL 25 (Saturday)
Bay Cruise for Grad Students
The Graduate Social Club is once again taking Cal graduate students on a scenic cruise in San Francisco Bay Boarding begins at 6:15 p.m. at Pier 43-1/2. Join your fellow grad students on a sunset cruise beneath the Golden Gate Bridge. Tickets, which include open bar, are available online. You must be 21 to come on board. Guests of UC Berkeley grad students are always welcome. Tickets sold out quickly last year. This year’s boat is bigger, and will accommodate at least 250 people.
The answer depends upon what kind of housing interests you. The campus housing options, Ida Louise Jackson Graduate House, Manville Apartments and Family Student Housing at University Village all have chronological waiting lists, so please apply immediately. An overview of campus housing for graduate students is available on the Living At Cal website. Select your student status on the pulldown menu to find information about each facility.
For students interested in off-campus housing, Cal Rentals is the rental resource for the UC Berkeley community, providing information about the rental market, advice for conducting a housing search, and rental listings for students, faculty and staff. Listings are available on-demand, online for a $20 fee which includes 3 months of online access.
Students who need a roommate can list an available room for free on the Cal Rentals website.
If you are planning on living in an off-campus rental, timing your search depends upon a variety of factors related to your individual needs and summer scheduling. For more information, please consult when to look on the Cal Rentals website.
Please see below for contact information for your various housing options. All offices are located at 2610 Channing Way, Berkeley, CA 94720-2272.
Events in recent years, such as the tragedies at Virginia Tech and Northern Illinois University, have caused have called attention to the need to be prepared for a wide range of emergencies. Campuses across the country have reassessed their level of preparedness and established broader training and education programs. The Berkeley campus has been ahead of the curve. UCPD officers have been training for years to respond to an “active shooter” incident, training that is routinely reinforced with scenario exercises.
For members of the campus community, an 18-minute video, “Shots Fired,” is now available for viewing online. If you have a CalNet ID, log in to bSpace, and join our project site, “UCPD Safety Resources.” Your membership will let you access the video. Expert advice and scenario dramatizations help to prepare every community member.
The UCPD wants to emphasize that in keeping the campus safe, your awareness and preparedness are as important as the expert training their officers receive. Their hope is that each community member, or campus organization, will take advantage of this available training and either watch the video or schedule a “Tools to Survive an Active Shooter” presentation for their group. A scheduled presentation will leave time for a question-and-answer session with officers. Email the UCPD to make comments or ask questions.
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The California Digital Library (CDL) and Springer (the world’s second-largest publisher of journals in the science-technology-medicine sector) have signed a groundbreaking agreement in which UC-authored articles accepted in most of the 2000-plus Springer journals will be published using Springer Open Choice, which brings with it full and immediate to all readers. This means that UC authors will will pay no additional publication fees in order for their articles to be immediately and fully open to all. Under this agreement, articles will be published under a license in which authors retain the right to distribute and re-use their articles freely. The UC-Springer agreement is the first large-scale open access experiment of its type undertaken with a major commercial publisher in North America. In 2008, some 1500 journal articles by UC-affiliated authors were published in Springer journals. For more information see the UC/Springer OA pilot page or talk to a UC librarian.
In January, the Berkeley Research Impact Initiative (BRII) celebrated its first birthday. BRII supports faculty members, postdocs, and graduate students who want to make their journal articles free to all readers immediately upon publication. So far the results are pleasing — 40 requests for funding, indicating that there is interest and a need for funding of open access journal articles. The requests span life and physical and the social sciences. This is an 18-month pilot project. For more information on the pilot along with instructions on how to apply for funding for your open access journal article, visit the BRII website.
TopMany of you are familiar with the Lower Sproul Plaza, the large square surrounded by the MLK Student Union, Eshleman Hall, Zellerbach Hall, and the Cesar Chavez Student Center, originally designed in 1959. Plans are coming together now to redevelop this area into a thriving student center on campus. Student input is the only way to ensure that the new center will meet the needs and desires for all students on campus. You can influence the nature of the new center by filling out a five-minute survey on student needs and expectations for the facility. As an added incentive, survey participants will be entered in a campuswide drawing to win one of seven $300-plus gift certificates to the Cal Student Store and bookstore.
To take the survey and to see more information about the Lower Sproul redevelopment project, visit the Student Center website.
If you missed the live Jefferson Lecture by Stanford history professor David M. Kennedy, you’ll be able to catch it online in a few weeks. Meanwhile, you can learn more about the man and his topic in his Conversations with History video interview (“Lessons from FDR’s New Deal”) with Berkeley’s Harry Kreisler.
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Paul Richards
Paul Richards, Professor of the Graduate School in the Department of Physics and a Berkeley graduate alumnus (Ph.D. 1960), has been honored with the million-dollar Dan David Prize, sharing with two others, including a former postdoctoral fellow of his, Andrew Lange, who is now a physics professor at CalTech. Richards is known for discovering that the large-scale spatial geometry of the universe is spatially flat and confirming the existence of a negative-pressure dark energy pervading the universe. Richards, Lange and Paolo De Bernardis of the University La Sapienza in Rome, were recognized with the prize for their contributions to understanding of past astrophysics — the history of the universe.
George Smoot, who is not a grad alum (but shared his Nobel with John C. Mather, who is — Ph.D. 1974, coincidentally under Paul Richards), was given the Oersted Medal (and $10,000) by the American Association of Physics Teachers, recognizing "those who have had an outstanding, widespread, and lasting impact on the teaching of physics." Smoot was also scheduled to appear in the March 9 episode of the television sitcom The Big Bang Theory.
All of this, with more detail, was reported on the UC Berkeley NewsCenter by writer Robert Sanders, who also happens to have a physics M.S. from Berkeley, awarded in 1976).
Surrounded by well-wishers — John Searle, center, sits with philosophy student Vida Yao, his son Mark and his wife Dagmar. (Photo: Peg Skorpinski)
Merriment was definitely on the agenda at the February 23 celebration of philosophy professor John Searle’s 50 years of teaching at this campus. A native of Denver, he earned three degrees and taught at Oxford, but after seven years there he was tempted to Berkeley in part by its proximity to the Sierras and first-rate skiing.
Within his first five years here, unprecedented protest arrived in the form of the Free Speech Movement, and Searle became the first faculty member to join, leading a historic march, with Mario Savio and others, to a meeting of the Board of Regents. He helped draft the December 8, 1964 resolution that affirmed the free speech rights of students over the wishes of administrators, and served as chairman of the Academic Senate’s Academic Freedom Committee. He differed with students on some subsequent campus issues, most notably the controversy over People’s Park.
Searle speaking in front of Sproul Hall during the FSM
He found being attacked by both the right and the left intellectually intriguing, and noted that “Stylistically, the attacks are interestingly similar. Both rely heavily on insinuation and innuendo, and both display a hatred — one might almost say terror — of close analysis and dissection of argument.” As a philosopher, he examined the role of language in human consciousness and society. He wrote 18 scholarly books and more than 200 articles, and helped found the campus Cognitive Science Program. In 2004, he received the National Humanities Medal at the White House.
At the celebration last month he said, “I stayed here because I love Berkeley and I love teaching Berkeley students. I got a lot of offers from other places, but Berkeley is the best.” His future plans? “To keep doing what I like best — teaching and writing at Berkeley. With plenty of international travel.”
Clint Eastwood is congratulated by Chancellor Robert Birgeneau, with center director Duncan Williams looking on. (Photo: Peg Skorpinski)
The temptation was too much, and the campus news website caved in to it and ran the headline “Center for Japanese Studies makes Clint Eastwood’s day.”
The Oscar-winning actor-director came to campus briefly on January 28 to pick up yet another honor, this one the first annual Berkeley Japan New Vision Award from Berkeley’s Center for Japanese Studies, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary. The full story admirably told Eastwood’s groundbreaking achievement in his two 2006 films, Flags of Our Fathers and Letters From Iwo Jima, which showed “one of the most gruesome World War II battles from both the American and Japanese points of view. Until then, Hollywood had portrayed the Japanese soldiers who were defending the island of Iwo Jima against the U.S. military as simply the enemy, a foreign force to subdue and defeat. Eastwood took a decidedly different approach, depicting ordinary Japanese foot soldiers with humanity and sympathy.”
Duncan Williams, professor of East Asian languages and culture and director of the center, is quoted as singling out the Eastwood’s willingness, in Letters From Iwo Jima, “to embrace the perspective of the enemy — in this case Japanese soldiers.” Eastwood directed the film entirely in Japanese, and used Japanese actors despite not being fluent in Japanese, and thereby “demonstrated by example the kind of cross-cultural cooperation and understanding that can be brought about by an enduring act of imagination.”
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Artist Miguel Arzabe (NewsCenter photo)
Art Practice M.F.A. candidate Miguel Arzabe is a West Oakland urbanite who loves the outdoors. He documents his wilderness hikes on video and in abstract paintings, and has also brought the experience back through a medium many of us have tried and, over the years, mostly forgotten: Etch A Sketch, the plastic mechanical drawing toy on which you guide a stylus to scrape aluminum powder off the screen, forming an image with lines. (Don’t like the result? Flip it, shake it, and start anew.) Ohio Art, the manufacturer, has given the device technological upgrades over the years, but Arzabe works with vintage specimens he bought second-hand in a Wyoming thrift shop.
In addition to his landscapes, Arzable has etched portraits of nearly a hundred friends, relatives and strangers, which he preserves in photographs. See how he does it in this video and read more about his work in this recent profile. More samples of his work can be found on his website.
An Etch A Sketch portrait in progress
Alvaro Huerta
(Noel Huerta photo)
City and regional planning doctoral student Alvaro Huerta, who’s been profiled online at Berkeley, is also a visiting scholar at UCLA’s Chicano Studies Research Center, and just recently wrote a piece for the faculty and staff news publication for that campus, UCLA Today. His essay is called “The harsh reality — and hypocrisy — of government aid,” and it’s easily found online.
Like many phenomena propagating on the Internet, this development was hard to keep up with.
Berkeley’s entry in a national “explain nano” contest, created mainly by grad students, was entered online February 22.
The next day, the Scientific American 60-Second Science Blog tagged it this way:
Nanosong breaks down the miracle of the miniature — with puppets
Quick: What is nano? Can you answer in three minutes or less?The American Chemical Society (ACS) is challenging the public to do just that, in video form. They're asking people to come up with short films in reply to that question, preferably informative and entertaining ones. (One could be literal and just say nano is a prefix meaning one billionth, but that doesn't make for a very engaging three minutes.) Two cash prizes of $500 are up for grabs—one for the critic's choice, as selected by ACS staff and expert judges, and one for the people's choice, as determined by user votes.
Patrick Bennett and Ryan Miyakawa, grad students in the Applied Science and Technology program at the University of California, Berkeley, took the Sesame Street approach in their submission. "Nano Nano," which found its way onto the blog Boing Boing this morning, illustrates the principles of nanotech and some of its promise in a musical combining live action and puppets.
The video team, it turns out, is good-sized and Berkeley through and through. They were all friends before production began, and remain so.
Cinematographer-engineer Patrick directed and edited, pianist-composer-engineer Ryan wrote the music and lyrics (in a single day), and sprightly Glory Liu, a third-year undergrad in Political Economy of Industrialized Nations and Classical Civilizations with three years of classical music training, performed the vocals. Electrical engineering grad student David Carlton and Neuroscience staffer and alumna Nora Klemfuss designed and operated the puppets, and student Molly Felz and recent alumnae Stacey Wallace and Angelica Zen help operate the critters. Inspired by the ACS contest (in part because some entries they saw were simply boring, explaining nano as “ten to the minus nine”), the process went from mere talk to what Patrick describes as “an astoundingly good music track” by Ryan and Glory, to a big, enjoyable group effort that took considerable time. All, of course, had other lives to maintain; Patrick and Ryan, for example, in addition to their studies, both work at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Patrick in the Molecular Foundry and Ryan in the Center for X-Ray Optics.) Ryan and Dave are both GSIs for the Physics and Music discovery course taught by astrophysicist Saul Perlmutter (Berkeley Ph.D. ’86), and they met Glory while she was taking the course.
The video is blazing rapidly through cybersphere. It’s been featured on Boing Boing, Wired, Scientific American (as above), PhysOrg, Chemical and Engineering News, Metafilter, Neatorama, and YouTube (the latter of which causing the biggest bump in views), Discovery Channel Canada has plans to show it on their nightly science news program, and bloggers have extended it through their tentacles. UC Berkeley’s news website featured it, and USA Today.com featured their version, as did many “content aggregators.” Chemistry-blog.com featured it as “Chemical Edutainment Done Right,” with the writer’s personal comment: “I showed it to my five-year-old niece. She memorized the song today and said, ‘I’m going to teach my teacher about nanotechnology!”
The tune is catchy and the lyrics are painless exposition:
A million nanometers
that are lined up in a row
are just about as long as
a single flake of snow.
The video is leading so far in rankings on the contest website, so that prize money might yet arrive in Berkeley.
The makers are highly gratified by the response, especially since nanotechnology, as Patrick Bennett says, “is not well understood outside of the scientific community. We’ve seen a lot of comments equating nanotechnology to catastrophe, and we hope this may show the public some concrete examples of nano applications.” Views on YouTube are 343,000 and counting, but Bennett has no illusions about just how viral the video is likely to go: “We still don’t have as many views as “Cat Eating Sour Apple Lollipop.”
Coming up: another video, filming this summer. The group’s website will have updates, so stay tuned.
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