On the evening of October 2, I had the pleasure of speaking at a Graduate Assembly Delegates meeting about the place of graduate student support in the Campaign for Berkeley. That is our campuswide fundraising campaign, which shifted into its public phase in late September.
In my seven years as a member of the Graduate Council, Chair of Graduate Council, Associate Dean, and Dean of Graduate Division, I have seen a great many academic reviews of graduate programs across the campus. Based on that experience, I have concluded that our main opportunity to enhance the excellence of the campus with respect to graduate study is by improving graduate student support. I am very pleased to say that this is reflected in an ambitious campaign target of nearly $350 million in new graduate student support endowments. We are stressing endowments, because these serve to insulate the campus from fluctuations in the state budget and in research grants. We have very attractive matching programs in place for campus-based donors and for alumni and friends of our graduate programs. I am hopeful that this campaign will lead to a new era at Berkeley, characterized by better funding for graduate students and an increased ability to compete for the top students from around the country — and the world.
Best,
Andrew J. Szeri
Dean of the Graduate Division
Graduate Fellowships
- A wide menu of possibilities to help fund your graduate education
Graduate Support
- How are Berkeley alumni and friends helping you?
Career Center
- Sign up for the Ph.D. CareerMail list
UC Police Department
- Safety Counts has a wealth of info
University Health Services
- Guard against the flu this fall — get a shot!
- Online appointment scheduling is a handy option
- Student members are needed for three advisory groups
- This fall’s CPS groups for graduate students
UC Library
- Graduate Services: a hidden treasure in the Doe Library
- Free money for graduate student authors
- New collection of ebooks
In the News
- A nod from the Big Apple for a grad student composer
- A Cal grad alum at UW snags a MacArthur
- Rodent crop circles from space
Pacific Film Archive
- A fall harvest of directors
Texture
- A first-person testimonial for the Library’s Graduate Services
- A Supreme topic generates some lively coverage
Campaign Kickoff
- The $3 billion campaign kicks off with fun, faces, and food
Listed chronologically by deadline date.
Graduate Division summary of fellowships and awards for 2008-2009
Resources provided by the Graduate Services: Fellowships office
This fellowship program annually recognizes, rewards, and supports five U.S. women at the beginning of their scientific careers. Recipients receive up to $60,000 each which they must put toward their postdoctoral research. The amount of the grant will be based on each candidate's research experience as well as the quality of their proposal. In addition, the five recipients will be invited to attend a week of events in New York City that includes an awards ceremony, professional development workshops, media training, and networking opportunities. The application and complete program guidelines are available online. Applications must be postmarked no later than October 31, 2008.
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory is currently accepting applications for its prestigious Lawrence Fellowship. Applications can be submitted through the LLNL website. They must be completed no later than November 3, 2008.
The Lawrence Fellowship was established to provide outstanding postdocs an opportunity to pursue cutting-edge science and stimulate cross-fertilization of ideas. The successful candidates have freedom to pursue world-class research with ample resources to support their efforts. Lawrence Fellows will interact with scientists having a wide range of expertise. The Laboratory is committed to making their experience at LLNL positive and rewarding.
This three-year fellowship is awarded to candidates with exceptional talent, credentials, scientific track records, and potential for significant achievements. Typically, two to four awards are given each year. After the three-year term, fellows may consider any career option, including staying on at the Laboratory. Fellows will choose original and independent research in one or more aspects of science relevant to the competency at LLNL. Research areas may include many branches, including atmospheric science; biology; chemistry; computer science; energy; engineering environmental science; geoscience; lasers; materials science; applied mathematics; and physics.
The fellowships honor Ernest Orlando Lawrence, for whom the Livermore and Berkeley national laboratories are named (along with the Lawrence Hall of Science and element 103, lawrencium). He taught physics here, and became the university’s youngest full professor. A visionary researcher, he invented the cyclotron, assembling (with the help of some graduate students) a particle accelerator that made many discoveries in nuclear physics possible and gained Lawrence the Nobel Prize, the beginning of Berkeley’s long string. As the first director of Berkeley’s Radiation Laboratory (nicknamed the Rad Lab, now called Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory), Lawrence earned a label as “the father of big science,” pioneering the idea of doing research with multidisciplinary teams of scientists and engineers. Instrumental in releasing the nuclear genie from the bottle, he also sought its control. His last trip abroad, prior to his death 50 years ago at the age of 57, was to Geneva, to join negotiations with the Soviet Union on a treaty to ban the testing of nuclear weapons.The International Dissertation Research Fellowship (IDRF) Program supports distinguished graduate students in the humanities and social sciences conducting dissertation research outside the United States. The IDRF is committed to empirical and site-specific research that advances knowledge about non-U.S. cultures and societies (involving fieldwork, research in archival or manuscript collections, or quantitative data collection). The IDRF Program is administered by the Social Science Research Council in consultation with the American Council of Learned Societies and with funding provided by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Application materials and information on the 2009 competition are now available online. The application deadline is November 5, 2008 (9:00 p.m. EST).
The NPSC offers multi-year fellowships for graduate students in the physical sciences and related engineering disciplines. Fellowships are awarded in conjunction with sponsoring employers, who also provide paid summer employment. The NPSC seeks a broad applicant pool with special emphasis on underrepresented minorities and women; all eligible U.S. citizens may apply. Application information and instructions can be found online. The application deadline is November 7, 2008.
These fellowships, for 12 months of full-time dissertation research and writing, are designed to encourage original and significant study of ethical or religious values in all fields of the humanities and social sciences, and particularly to help Ph.D. candidates in these fields complete their dissertation work in a timely manner. In addition to topics in religious studies or in ethics (philosophical or religious), dissertations appropriate to the Newcombe Fellowship might explore the ethical implications of foreign policy, the values influencing political decisions, the moral codes of other cultures, and religious or ethical issues reflected in history or literature. The stipend, raised this year, is $24,000 for a 12-month period of dissertation writing. The Newcombe Fellowships are administered with the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation. Applications and further information are available online. The application deadline is November 14, 2008.
Charlotte W. Newcombe (1890-1979) was a Philadelphia philanthropist and world traveler. She never attended college; with vision impaired from childhood, she couldn’t read long enough to make serious study possible. But she greatly valued higher education and sent the children of many of her friends to college. In her will, she established the Charlotte W. Newcombe Foundation to continue her scholastic giving.
Applications are now being accepted for the one-year 2009 Symantec Fellowship for graduate students pursuing innovative research related to information security, storage, and availability. The stipend is $20,000, plus tuition and fees, and comes with an opportunity to work alongside Symantec researchers. Symantec is a global leader in providing security, storage, and systems management solutions to help businesses and consumers secure and manage their information. Headquartered in Cupertino, the firm has operations in more than 40 countries. Applications and further information are available online. The application deadline is December 12, 2008.
This fellowship is for exceptional first-or second-year graduate students (as well as undergraduate seniors) planning full-time study toward a Ph.D. in the physical, engineering, computer, mathematical, or life sciences with emphasis in high performance computing. Applicants must be U.S. citizens or permanent resident aliens; departments must certify that fellows will not be required to perform services (e.g., GSI, grading, etc.) during the tenure of their fellowships.
The DOE CSGF program pays all tuition and required fees for up to 4 years of study at any U.S. university, provides a $32,400 yearly stipend, matches university funds (up to $2,475) to purchase a computer workstation for the fellow's exclusive use, and provides a yearly academic allowance of $1,000 to the fellow for professional development. Further details about the program are available on the program website and from the Program Coordinator, Ms. Jeana Gingery, by email. Apply online. The application and supporting materials must be received by January 14, 2009.
The ACLS administers and awards well over a dozen fellowships and grants related to the humanities, in separate competitions. Program descriptions and application details are available online. The application deadlines run through January 16, 2009.
A principal purpose of the Maybelle McLeod Lewis Grants is to permit advanced doctoral candidates in the humanities at Northern California universities and colleges to devote full time to the completion of their dissertations. Significant work should already have been accomplished toward the dissertation project. Application forms may be obtained after October 15 from the Graduate Services: Fellowships Office in 318 Sproul Hall or by writing the Mabelle McLeod Lewis Memorial Fund, Box 20424, Stanford, CA 94309-0424 or by email. Applications and recommendations for 2009 awards must be received no later than January 16, 2009.
If the Ph.D. you’re pursuing is in an area of interest to stewardship science — such as high-energy physics, low-energy nuclear science, or the properties of materials under extreme conditions — you might benefit from the U.S. Department of Energy’s NNSA Stewardship Science Graduate Fellowship. Its features are similar to the CSGF, above. More information is available online. Applications and supporting material must be received by January 19, 2009.
The DOE CSGF Fellowships, above, and the DOE NNSA Stewardship Science Fellowships are administered for the Department of Energy by the Krell Institute, the mission of which is to advance the next generation of computational scientists and engineers. The institute also plans and executes meetings on computational science topics, disseminates research results in science and engineering, and develops new educational programs The institute is named for the Krell, an advanced civilization that once inhabited the planet Altair IV in the classic 1956 science fiction movie Forbidden Planet, the plot of which owes much to Shakespeare’s The Tempest. Columbia University’s Institute for Comparative Literature and Society will appoint a Postdoctoral Fellow for the Spring 2010 semester. The fellow must have received a Ph.D. between January 1, 2003, and July 1, 2009. The ICLS was founded at Columbia in 1998 to promote a global perspective in the study of literature, culture, and their social context. It houses the interdepartmental undergraduate and graduate programs in Comparative Literature and Society, drawing its faculty from the humanities, the social sciences, and the Schools of Architecture and Law. The specific topic of the fellowship is the importance of language learning and/or translation to produce an informed global scholarship and practice. The Fellow will be given time and resources to develop his or her scholarship in a broadening and experimental cross-disciplinary and cross-regional context. The stipend for the spring 2010 semester will be $25,000. Full fringe benefits will be added, plus $1,000 for travel. An additional $2,000 will be given for innovative course planning. Application forms may be downloaded from the institute’s website. The postmark deadline for completed applications is January 31, 2009.
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. The scholarship fields are mirrored in the three categories chosen each year for the Dan David Prize. Three prize laureates each receive $1 million, of which they donate 10 percent for scholarships in their fields. Nominations for the prize are now being accepted. The deadline for prize nominations is November 30, 2008, considerably earlier than the March scholarship deadline. Prior recipients of the Dan David Prize include Tom Stoppard, Amos Oz, Michel Brunet, Yo-Yo Ma, Al Gore, Zubin Mehta, and a wide variety of others.
Each year, the Robert and Patricia Switzer Foundation awards fellowships to emerging environmental leaders who are pursuing graduate degrees and are dedicated to positive environmental change in their careers. This year a fifth of the 25 recipients are Berkeley grad students. They are:
Samuel Borgeson, who co-founded the San Francisco-based software consulting firm Carbon Five, left his position as managing partner there to work full time on reducing the environmental impacts of buildings. He is now pursuing a master’s degrees in building science as well as energy and resources.
Sherrie Gallipeau is doing research on the effects of pesticides on the health of amphibians, in part because she believes a widespread lack of education about biological processes has direct negative effects on the lives of these creatures. She plans to use her integrative biology Ph.D. in a teaching position in a low-income community where she can help new generations of students make educated decisions about their lives and the natural world.
Nathan McClintock, a Ph.D. candidate in geography, has more than a decade of experience as a researcher, organic farmer, trainer, journalist, and consultant. His dissertation work focuses on overcoming obstacles to urban agriculture in the low-income “flatlands” of Oakland.
Urvi Parekh, who is completing a master’s degree at the Haas School of Business, wants to understand market fundamentals and principles in order to use them in getting clean-energy information into the hands of decisionmakers so that facts can bring about better decisions about what we consume and how we generate our energy.
Thu Quach, a Ph.D. candidate in epidemiology, is studying occupational exposure and cancer incidence among cosmetologists and nail salon workers in California, particularly immigrant Vietnamese, a topic she became interested in because, like many refugees, she has family members in that line of work.
Bob Switzer — from a
darkened room came
attention-grabbing colors
and support for emerging
environmental leaders.
The Switzer Fellowships were created by a Cal alumnus, Bob Switzer, who came here on a Scaife Foundation scholarship to study chemistry, aiming at a career in; medicine. While working in a railyard, Switzer suffered a head injury that sent him into a coma for months. His recovery required him to stay in a darkened room. To pass the time, he and his brother Joe, both amateur magicians, experimented with fluorescent minerals to enhance magic tricks. They invented the worlds’ first fluorescent paint. As they devised a variety of uses — including making money — for what Bob called Day-Glo colors, they founded a company. Over the years, the high-visibility colors have appeared on warplanes, tennis and golf balls, traffic signs and cones, safety clothing, detergent boxes, and more. A lifelong environmentalist who also happened to be an executive in a regulated industry, Bob Switzer became concerned about a growing dearth of scientific expertise, so when the company sold in 1985, he used some of the proceeds to start the Switzer Foundation in order to help graduate students interested in solving environmental problems and to encourage them to become future environmental leaders.
Most graduate students — nearly three quarters — 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. Even the money paid to GSIs and GSRs (as full or partial fee remission) comes, in part, from private sources.
Who are these sources? Some are big foundations you may have heard of, like the Ford 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. 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. Sometimes a conversation or exchange of notes between a student and a donor can shed light on changes or new realities and result in increased support for graduate students at Berkeley.
In recent years, the Graduate Division has been increasing opportunities for donors and students to meet face to face, at receptions and other events. (Some of you will soon be receiving an email invitation to one such event that’s coming up in the near future, so keep an eye on your in-box.)
And there's now an online method by which you can let donors know who you are, what you're studying, and what their support has meant to you.
If you've received a request to submit your profile, the donors of your specific award have asked the Graduate Division to let them know about your progress. Please visit the new graduate support recipients' website and fill out the short survey you'll find there. This information is a vital part in completing the Graduate Division’s financial aid process — and your response will also go to the donors who made your funding possible.
Donor-scholar receptions like this one are a chance for grad students to meet the people who support them and talk about their research. (Photo: Peg Skorpinski)
Mortal portal — time has taken its toll on Sather Gate, as it does on the rest of us. Over the near-century since its 1910 completion, the interior steel frame has corroded and expanded, warping and loosening the ornamental bronze exterior. Renovation began this month with scaffolding to remove the metal for repair and refurbishing. By Thanksgiving, the orb-topped granite pillars will have nothing but each other — and thousands of passersby — for company until spring, when the Beaux Arts metalwork is due back, stronger than before.
(Photo: Dick Cortén)
Graduate Division Calendar
Campus Events Calendar
Denotes Graduate Division sponsored event
THROUGH JANUARY 20, 2009 (inauguration day)
“The American President”
Weekdays, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., North Gate Hall
A far-reaching collection of memorable images by Associated Press photographers showing U.S. commanders in chief, from the Civil War to today's "War on Terror," while they travel the campaign trail, attempt to shape international relations, navigate tumultuous governmental crises and personal scandals, and occasionally just rest.
National tragedies, a mainstay of American history, also are featured in a series of photos surrounding John F. Kennedy's assassination in Dallas in 1963, and through images recorded immediately after John Hinckley Jr.'s attempt to kill Ronald Reagan in 1981.
Ken Light, an adjunct professor and director of the Center for Photography at the journalism school, selected the exhibit images from a special AP archive of presidential photos. He notes that, ironically, the exhibit is being staged in an era of major staffing cutbacks for traditional media and increased reliance on AP for campaign trail and presidential photos. Light chose the photos on display from a collection of more than 80 iconic images taken by AP photographers covering the U.S. president and made available to universities, news outlets, and other groups during the current presidential campaign. They are part of the AP Images photo archive of more than 10 million film and digital images.
If it’s Tuesday, this must be Belgium: President Richard M. Nixon multitasks, checking his watch while shaking hands in Brussels on his way to meet Belgium’s King Baudoiun for lunch, June 26, 1974 (actually, it was a Wednesday).
(AP photo by Charles Tasnadi)
OCTOBER 22 (Wednesday)
Greater Good magazine presents “An Evening with Paul Ekman”
6 to 7 p.m., Bayley Library, North Gate Hall (Graduate School of Journalism)
Paul Ekman is one the world's foremost experts on emotions and facial expressions. He a professor emeritus of psychology at the University of California Medical School in San Francisco. serves on the editorial board of Greater Good magazine, and is the author of 14 books. In 2001, the American Psychological Association named him as one of the most influential psychologists of the 20th century. When Ekman first met the Dalai Lama in 2000, a unique bond formed between the two of them. The leader of Tibetan Buddhism and the renowned Western-trained scientist soon realized that despite their different educational and religions backgrounds, they shared the same motivation for analyzing emotions: a commitment to reducing human suffering. The groundbreaking conversations they had are captured in their new book, Emotional Awareness: Overcoming the Obstacles to Psychological Balance and Compassion, which Ekman will discuss, accompanied by photos and audio excerpts from their conversations. A Q-and-A with the audience will follow. This free event is presented by Greater Good magazine and the UC Berkeley Greater Good Science Center, the Harold E. Jones Child Study Center, and the Graduate School of Journalism Felker Magazine Program. It will be made available as an online webcast. For more information and to view the webcast, see the Greater Good website. A map, additional directions, and information on parking are available online. Note: the Dalai Lama will not be at this event.
OCTOBER 23 (Thursday)
Oktoberfest, presented by the Graduate Social Club
6 to 9 p.m., Pauley Ballroom, Martin Luther King Jr. Student Union
Live acoustic band, Sam Adams Oktoberfest beer and Budweiser's new seasonal ale, Top Dogs, and the company of your fellow grad students from many disciplines. Cal graduate student ID and proof of age are required. Bring up to two (legal-age) guests. Cost: $4 at the door.
OCTOBER 28 (Tuesday)
Academic Writing for International Graduate Students
4-6 p.m.,
Ida & Robert Sproul Rooms, International House
The purpose of this two-hour workshop, intended for non-native speakers of English, is to provide UC Berkeley international graduate students with information on how to write about their academic research and how to improve their writing styles and skills. Presented by Sabrina Soracco, Director, Graduate Division Academic Services. Open to UC Berkeley international graduate students in all disciplines. No preregistration is required.
Amory Lovins
OCTOBER 28 (Tuesday)
Barbara Weinstock Memorial Lecture on the Morals of Trade: “Natural Capitalism: The Next Industrial Revolution”
4:10 p.m., Lipman Room, 8th floor, Barrows Hall
Amory Lovins, cofounder and chief scientist of the Rocky Mountain Institute
Industrial capitalism productively employs and reinvests in two forms of capital — money and goods. Natural capitalism adds two even more important forms of capital — people and nature. Playing with a full deck lets businesspeople make more money, have more fun, do more good, and gain stunning competitive advantage through four interlinked principles. (The Weinstock Lectures are presented by the Graduate Division and the Academic Senate’s Graduate Council.)
OCTOBER 30 (Thursday)
Industry seminar: Law
6:30 to 7:30 p.m (followed by reception), Lau Auditorium, Stanley Hall
The seminar features It will feature a panel of attorneys (including one of the partners) and scientific analysts from Morrison and Foerster, a global law firm that focuses on finance, life sciences and technology. They will discuss career opportunities for scientists in intellectual property, patent prosecution and patent litigation, and will be accepting resumes from interested candidates. More information will soon be posted on the Berkeley Postdoctoral Association website. If you are interested in registering for this event, please provide the following information and send via e-mail to vspa@berkeley.edu: family name, first name, and sponsoring graduate department.
NOVEMBER 3 (Monday)
Workshop on Teaching: “GSI Uses of bSpace”
3 to 5 p.m., 370 Dwinelle Hall (Note change in time)
bSpace is the online collaboration and learning environment at UC Berkeley. Instructors and staff can create project or course sites to build community, share knowledge, and work together in an online environment. bSpace is the first step toward providing the campus with a single, integrated, easy-to-use collaboration and learning system.
A professional development series for GSIs, these Workshops on Teaching 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. On-line pre-registration for the event is encouraged; however, those who have not pre-registered are also welcome.
NOVEMBER 7 (Friday)
Teach For America application deadline
A national corps of outstanding recent college graduates, graduate students, and working professionals of all academic majors, Teach For America is a way to make an impact in the lives of children growing up in poverty. Commit two years to teaching in urban and rural public schools and become a lifelong leader in expanding educational opportunity. Corps members are employees of the local school districts and typically receive the same salaries and health benefits as other beginning teachers. (Graduate degrees may bring higher salaries.) More than 100 graduate schools and over 20 leading employers offer special benefits, such as two-year deferrals and scholarships to corps members and alumni. To see which Berkeley graduate schools now partner with Teach for America, visit the Teach for America website. Applications are available online.
TopThe following are just some of the many workshops, career fairs, and other events for the Career Center presents for graduate students and those who’ve already earned their Ph.D.s. The full range is available online.
If you want to receive timely updates and information about opportunities and events designed specifically for graduate students and Ph.D.s, sign up for CareerMail. To do so, register or login to Callisto (the gateway to online Career Center services, exclusively for Cal students and alumni) and on your profile select one of the two Ph.D.-specific options (Ph.D.s in the sciences and engineering or Ph.D.s in the humanities and social sciences). You may also sign up for one or more of the industry-oriented lists.
Top
Safety Counts 2008-2009 is a 64-page booklet with at-a-glance info on UCPD’s most useful safety services. All campus crime statistics are published here, as required by federal policy, but the booklet contains a wealth of safety information. Learn what you can do to help keep the campus safe, to keep yourself safe, or to respond and stay safe in case of an emergency, and what you MUST do to comply with University policies, and other local laws. The booklet was recently mailed to all UCB students and employees with current campus addresses. It’s also online in both HTML and PDF formats, and printed copies are available in room 36 in the basement of Sproul Hall.
Among the things you can learn about in Safety Counts are:
On the booklet’s cover is a macro photograph of vintage UCPD badges by MarshaMod, which you can see even larger online.
The force: UCPD consists of 75 officers, 45 full-time civilian personnel, and 60 student employees
Hours: 24 hours a day, seven days a week, year-round
Location: 1 Sproul Hall
Website: http://police.berkeley.edu
Email: police@berkeley.edu
Emergency call: Dial 911 from any landline phone on campus property (or, from a cell phone in the campus vicinity, dial 510-642-3333)
University Health Services fall flu shot clinics will be held October 20; November 5 and 13; and December 1. The hours for all are noon to 6 p.m., and the location is the Tang Center, 2222 Bancroft Way. The cost for staff, faculty, and members of the community (college age adults and above) is $25 regular vaccine/$30 thimerisol-free, $5/$6 for SHIP members. No appointment is necessary. You can get more information or download a Flu Shot flier on the UHS website.
Don’t forget that you can now schedule some appointments online. The new service has been so popular that UHS is working to expand online scheduling to more kinds of appointments during this academic year. Get more information — or schedule an appointment — online.
Interested in influencing and providing feedback for health-related issues on campus? Two student-run and staff-supported advisory committees to the Tang Center are looking for new graduate student members. If interested, contact Bené Gatzert, the University Health Services staff member who works with the committees, by phone (510- 642-3629), or email.
The Student Health Advisory Committee (SHAC) fosters an organized dialogue between students and the administration about student health and counseling needs, and UHS programs and services. SHAC makes recommendations to the UHS Executive Director and senior managers. Committee members provide consultation on programs/services, student health insurance and budget issues, educational and informational needs of students, accessibility and ease of use, and emerging student issues. SHAC meets three times per semester. Meetings for 2008-09 will be held on Thursdays from 5 to 7 p.m. at the Tang Center on the following dates: September 25, October 23, November 20, February 5, March 5, and April 16 or 23 (to be determined). More information is online.
The Health Fee Advisory Board (HFAB) advises University Health Services-Tang Center and the Associate Vice Chancellor—Health and Human Services on matters related to the Campus Health Care Fee. The committee reviews allocation of the fee monies to meet student health and counseling needs, makes annual recommendations to campus health officials about any increase or decrease in the health care fee level, and advises on communicating matters pertaining to the fee to the student body. HFAB meets three to four times per month during the fall and less frequently in the spring. More info is online.
Join the Graduate Mental Health Advisory Committee, coordinated by University Health Services-Tang Center. This committee advises on Berkeley's Counseling and Psychological services, mental health outreach, and graduate student education. Specific issues addressed by the committee have included international student needs, GSI training sessions, and campus awareness of depression. If you’re interested in being a new committee member for the 2008-2009 academic year, email Dr. Susan Bell (suebell@uhs.berkeley.edu). The committee meets three times each semester. Two meetings remain for the fall semester; they’ll be held from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. on September 29, October 27, and November 24.
Counseling and Psychological Services will offer several groups during the fall semester. Three of these groups are specifically designed for graduate students. Further details are available in the CPS section of the UHS website. For information beyond what’s there or to register, call CPS at 642-9294. A phone-screening appointment is required to join the group.
Top“Graduate Women’s Support Group” (on campus in the Grad Annex)
Wednesdays, October 17 through December 8, 4:15 to 5:45 p.m.“Health and Wellness” (in the Tang Center. 2222 Bancroft Way)
Fridays, October 17 through December 12, 3:15 to 4:45 p.m.
The Library’s Graduate Services entrance, and relaxing interior.
(Photos: Dick Cortén)
Are you a humanities graduate student looking for a place to study and do research on campus?
Graduate Services in Doe Library offers a core non-circulating research collection of around 25,000 books that supports UC Berkeley's graduate programs in the humanities and history, course reserves for graduate humanities and social sciences courses, and a quiet and congenial study space for graduate students and faculty. This collection, largely duplicative of Main stack material, comprises standard editions of core texts, works of major theorists, titles on Masters exams reading lists, and The Modern Authors Collection (XMAC)—the works of major twentieth century English, American, and Anglophone literary authors—as well as other materials heavily used by graduate students.
Moreover, recommendations for additions to the collection by users of Graduate Services are always welcomed. So, if you are a faculty member or graduate student, and there is a book not in the collection you think should be there, fill out a Book Purchase Recommendation form available in Graduate Services or online.
More information about Graduate Services can be found on the Library website.
(See below under Texture for a first-person account by a recent alumna who discovered, and treasured, Graduate Services for both its collection and its peaceful atmosphere.)
Disambiguation Note: the Library’s Graduate Services is a separate entity from the Graduate Division’s identically-named Sproul-Hall-based Graduate Services, which is comprised by the offices that work with grad students regarding fellowships, appointments (academic employment, such as GSIships), and degrees. Both are quiet places, but the Library’s has far more table space.
All graduate students are eligible to apply for funding through the Berkeley Research Impact Initiative (BRII) which supports faculty members, post-docs, and graduate students who want to make their journal articles free to all readers immediately upon publication.
An 18-month pilot program initiated in January 2008, BRII subsidizes, in various degrees, fees charged to authors who select open access or paid access publication. The pilot will also yield data that can be used to gauge faculty interest in — as well as the budgetary impacts of — these new modes of scholarly communication on the Berkeley campus. Thus far, four out of 26 recipients have been graduate students.
The Library recently licensed ebrary, a core collection of some 38,000 academic titles published prior to 2006. Among them are some notable titles by Berkeley authors, including:
Fascist Virilities: Rhetoric, Ideology and Social Fantasy in Italy (Barbara Spackman, Professor of Italian Studies and Comparative Literature)
Green vs. Gold: Sources in California's Environmental History (Carolyn Merchant, Professor of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management) 
Mark of Shame: Stigma of Mental Illness and an Agenda for Change (Stephen Hinshaw, Professor of Psychology) 
Queer Latinidad: Identity Practices, Discursive Spaces (Juana Maria Rodriguez, Associate Professor of Gender and Women's Studies)In addition to 24/7 access, ebrary allows keyword search across the complete collection and, if you set up a free, personal account, the ability to highlight relevant text and take notes. Note: ebrary requires users to download a plug-in with instructions easily available on the ebrary site.
Jimmy López
Toward the end of September, the New York Times reviewed a concert by the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra and mentioned, in the same breath, music by Rachmaninoff, Respighi, and a new work, “Fiesta!” “by a young Peruvian composer, Jimmy López.” Mr. López, 29, noted the Times, “is a doctoral candidate at the University of California, Berkeley.” López’s Ph.D. will be in composition.
The orchestra’s “fast-rising” musical director, Miguel Harth-Bedova, is Peruvian-born, but he didn’t pick López’s name out of a hat. “Fiesta!” premiered in Peru’s capital a year ago, commissioned of López by Harth-Bedova for the 100th anniversary of the Lima Philharmonic Society.
The traveling Times critic, James Oestreich, said “Fiesta!” was labeled a miniature symphony, but “it actually represents a genre with an even older tradition, a virtuosic suite of dances giving refined expression to popular idioms.” Mr. López , he said “proves himself expert in orchestration.” The concert was in Fort Worth’s Bass Performance Hall, a “magnificent” multipurpose auditorium “seating more than 2,000 yet retaining the acoustics of a fine, intimate concert hall,” according to Oestreich.
In addition to Peru and the U.S.A., López’s works have been performed in Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, The Netherlands, Norway, and Taiwan. “Fiesta!” garnered a lively review at the beginning of the summer in Maryland, where it was performed by the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra; the Baltimore Sun’s music writer said it “had a kinetic kick, with great brass licks and percussion flourishes.”
Short audio samples of López's works are available online.
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer told its readers on September 22 that University of Washington professor David Montgomery was one day into his sabbatical, wondering how to cut expenses while writing a book, when he was contacted by the MacArthur Foundation. “Montgomery, 47,” the paper said, “is one of 25 people who have been chosen to receive a $500,000 fellowship to do as they please.”
At UDub, Montgomery teaches geomorphology. His MacArthur selection comes from his groundbreaking contributions to the understanding of how landscapes (on Mars as well as Earth) are formed, and the ways he’s communicated this to the public. Some of his communication is through popular books, including his most recent, Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations , on the threat posed by our planets rapid loss of topsoil, and a predecessor, King of Fish, showing how current practices may cause devastating declines in Pacific Northwest salmon runs, as has happened in Europe and elsewhere.
Montgomery was an undergrad at Stanford, aiming at theoretical ecology, but, encountering “hypercompetitive pre-med types,” opted for geology, where everybody “just worked together on the science.” He came to Berkeley for his Ph.D. (’91) in geology, learning about geomorphology from Professor William Dietrich, and met his wife, Ann Bikle (M.L.A. ’91), who is now west coast education director for the National Wildlife Federation. She’s quite pleased about his MacArthur, but doesn’t “totally buy this whole genius thing...I mean, he still gets confused about the difference between garbage and what’s recyclable.”
(Bill Dietrich, by the way, is still at Berkeley, with appointments in two departments and a division of LBNL, and working with six graduate students. His own Ph.D., just for complete circularity, is from the University of Washington.)
In addition to Big Dirt, Montgomery has played with Flat Earth
(Photo: Scott Eklund, Seattle Post-Intelligencer)
Grad student Tim Bean
The Carrizo Plain is 390-square-mile chunk of desert grassland.
It’s also a national monument, governed by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management. It’s the largest single native grassland remaining in California. One if its denizens is a small creature known as the Giant Kangaroo Rat, which, as you might guess, is large compared to other kangaroo rats. None of them are common like household-and-garden-variety rats (to which they’re not closely related, being closer to squirrels and gophers), and this particular rodent has been on the endangered list for decades and is eking out a living on less than two percent of its original range. Isolated areas in Central California west of the San Joaquin Valley, like the Carrizo Plan, are all it has left.
If the Giant Kangaroo Rat population drops, it could mean real problems for the other endangered San Joaquin Valley species, including the Kit Fox, the Blunt-nosed Lizard, and the Antelope Squirrel. The Giant Kangaroo Rat is the keystone species of the Carrizo Plain, holding the ecosystem up like the centerstone of an arch. Their burrows provide shelter for the squirrels and lizards, and their chubby five-inch bodies are a favored part of the Kit Fox diet. “Without them,” says Tim Bean, a doctoral student in environmental policy and management, “the entire ecosystem would go out of whack.” He also notes that “It’s fairly rare for something so small to be a keystone species. It’s easier to track, say, bison.”
Bean and Scott Butterfield, a biologist with The Nature Conservancy, are using satellite photos to count the Carizzo Plain’s Giant Kangaroo Rats in what amounts to the first-ever monitoring of an endangered species from outer space. They’re examining images from the same satellite used by Israeli defense forces to find rat burrows to get an accurate count of the population. The rodents’ foraging habits make this easier than you might suspect. Some call the creatures “nature’s lawnmower” because they clip the grasses that grow nearby, then pile up the clippings in neat circles at the entrance to their burrow, then wait for the sun to cure the grass seeds, which they then store below ground. The crop circles show up as distinct, countable round dots on the satellite image — and enrich the soil.
Previous population estimates came from trapping, which proved too expensive, time-consuming, and difficult to do each year across the rats' 150,000-acre habitat., and from standard aerial surveys, which produce hand-drawn maps that vary in accuracy depending on the skill of the surveyor. Satellite sensing, by comparison, results in counts and maps that are precise, repeatable, fast, and cost-efficient.
Since the middle of the last century, farming has taken over 90 percent of the kangaroo rats’ onetime habitat. What Butterfield and Bean are doing will provide much better information for hard decision about managing the habitat that’s left. The kangaroo rats prefer a mix of short, low-to-the-ground plants. To keep it that way when the little clippers’ population dips, managers have to decide how else to maintain the low profile habitat they like — by, for instance, bringing in cattle to graze, or doing a prescribed burn. Bean hopes to be able to predict future distribution of these endangered rodents, and to answer questions about how climate changes affect them.
He’s ready for any eventuality. Under ‘research interests” on his web page, he says he expects that “’Counting Rats from Space,” the proposed title of my thesis, will become an international phenomenon, spawning everything from a board game to a Top 40 dance-hall burner.”
Rats from space (Top Left): While this may look like an extreme closeup of your uncle Ralph’s disappointing experience with Rogaine, it’s actually a satellite image of Giant Kangaroo Rat populations in the Carrizo Plain. Each “dot” is the cleared area right around the entrance to a rat’s burrow, and so, since they live alone, it’s a good indicator of one rat. Researchers count the dots and tote them up.
Giant Kangaroo Rat (Dipodomys ignens) at burrow entrance (Top Right): holding up the environmental arch in pockets of the San Joaquin Valley (Photo © John Roser)
No Wave: The Cinema of Jean Eustache
I Love Beijing: The Films of Ning Ying
Special Event: Ghost World
Alternative Visions
Envisioning Russia: A Century of Filmmaking
The Pacific Film Archive Theater is located at 2575 Bancroft Way (between Telegraph and Bowditch) in Berkeley. Advance tickets are available by calling (510) 642-5249 or online. More information is available online.
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Nicole Asaro McGloin
in grad
student days
(Photo: Peg Skorpinski)
Nicole McGloin (nee Asaro) earned her M.A. in English last year and recently married. She looks back fondly on hours well spent in Graduate Services, an especially peaceable kingdom within the Doe Library. (See above for the Library’s own description of this hideaway.)
“It's an indispensable, practically inviolate library collection and a quiet place to study,” she says. “I'm not really sure what services they offer, besides reserving books for professors and ensuring the availability of their books by keeping them on a very short leash (usually 2-hour loan). I could always depend on the Grad Services copy of a book to be on their shelf, or to reappear within a couple of hours. Grad Services was also a great place for a short snooze between classes; anyone who told herself she was actually going to read in one of their big cushy chairs was deluding herself. I never brought my heavy laptop to campus, but many students took advantage of the ports and outlets available at the desks. The bank of computers and the photocopier were also constantly in use.
“In terms of atmosphere, Graduate Services felt (unlike most of the Main Library) like an insulated safe haven for students who want to immerse themselves in quiet study. I always felt the mutual respect and consideration between students there: no crinkly candy wrappers, no cell phone chatter, no backpacks or jackets sloshed over the only available seat at the desk. I felt I got more work done, and more learning in, because everyone in the room, reaching for the same goals, was tacitly supportive of me. I didn't meet new people there, but you'd run into the same cast of students all the time. It was kind of like Cheers that way. I often ran into friends from my department there, and it was nice for us to see each other being responsible enough to seek out Grad Services for serious study.”
Linda Greenhouse’s lecture filled its main room
and jammed this spillover site, where she was
televised.
The Graduate Division plays host to seven different lectures series during the year, free public events that are a change of pace from its more arcane academic and administrative endeavors. The most recent of these was the Jefferson Memorial Lecture in mid-September, which featured former New York Times Supreme Court correspondent Linda Greenhouse, speaking on “The Mystery of Guantanamo Bay.” This and a companion event with Greenhouse, a forum on the courts, politics, and the media, were covered in admirable depth in Berkeleyan, nominally a paper for campus staff and faculty, but available to all online.
The lecture, which took place in the Lipman Room, the eagle’s nest of Barrows Hall, drew a record crowd requiring a closed-circuit spillover room. If you're interested in hearing the lecture, it will be available in mere weeks on the Graduate Council Lectures multimedia web page, where you can view other lectures and interviews and see another side of the Graduate Division's service to the campus and public. Meanwhile, Harry Kreisler’s “Conversations with History” interview with Greenhouse is below.
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Chancellor Birgeneau swung into action for a symbolic and literal kickoff of the ambitious campaign at a black-tie gala dinner in a temporary tent in Memorial Glade.
First Lady Mary Catherine Birgeneau bravely tripped the light (and heavy-footed, respectively) fantastic with Oski.
With Birgeneau again officiating, a 72-foot-wide art installation (nicknamed the billboard) was unveiled, featuring more than 400 black-and-white photos of Berkeley’s diverse community — a consistent visual statement of the “Thanks to Berkeley” theme of the multiyear campaign. To see the image collection online, check out the campaign website’s opening page (http://campaign.berkeley.edu/). In most browsers, double-clicking an individual picture will bring up an enlarged version, including any “Thanks to Berkeley” statement the person has made for the occasion.
At a campaign-kickoff pancake breakfast for faculty and staff, the top of the food chain, administratively, cooked and served favorably-rated grub for all comers, in inclement weather. Graduate Dean Andrew Szeri, with apron and tongs, made sure his own (including Grad Division staffers Elaina Hutchinson, with plates, and Linda Miiyagawa, waiting her turn) and others were provisioned.
Birds mostly of a feather — a voting majority at this Campanile Esplanade table work in the Grad Division’s Graduate Services office, and were up for festive al fresco dining.
This clearly-marked (and correctly spelled) contingent from the English Department sported matching official T-shirts, which they expanded somewhat with what was on their plates.
The kickoff celebration had music, dance, a panel of award-winning faculty, and some perhaps unintended drama, indicated here by the ecstasy and agony of the faculty team at a Jeopardy-like four-round Quiz Bowl match that pitted faculty and staff against alumni and students. The students ran away with the contest, leaving shining moments of exhilaration (exemplified by Beth Burnside, above, vice chancellor for research and professor of cell and developmental biology) and humiliation (expressed vividly by the faculty team’s abjectly miserable George Breslauer, below, a poli sci prof when he isn’t being executive vice chancellor and provost).
(Campaign kickoff photos: Peg Skorpinski)
eGrad is produced by Graduate Communications & Events, distributed by email, and archived online. Graduate students, alumni, faculty, and staff are invited to send timely news and announcements of interest to or utility of graduate students and the graduate community. Please submit items to Dick Cortén, editor, at gradpub@berkeley.edu.