SoCal Minds

Global-minded Trojans paying heed to Africa

From USC

Even as they're trying to ensure an accurate Census tally of their students, especially their sizable international cohort, and they're opening a new center in Korea, the globally minded Trojans also are turning their view to yet another part of the planet: Africa. The school has awarded grants to undergrads from its schools of cinema, communications and journalism and the liberal arts college for study projects in Senegal, Mozambique and Ethiopia, with the proviso that they report back on their various works on their return to campus this fall. Meantime, the law school opens a sixth legal clinic on international human rights, with the expectations that aspiring barristers will work on cases involving asylum seekers and refugees in the U.S., as well as international prosecutions and tribunals investigating human rights violations, war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. Among the other plans will be a push to partner with lawyers in Africa.

Grants to undergrads for study projects in Senegal, Mozambique, Ethiopia

New legal clinic to partner with lawyers in Africa, focus on global human rights

New president promises 'cultivation of genius'

From Scripps

Is there more pep in their step, more focus in their minds and more dedication to the 'cultivation of genius?' Sure hope the 850 or so women out in Claremont got an inspiration from the weekend's inauguration of the school's eighth president, Lori Bettison-Varga, (shown on right) a geologist, educator and advocate for undergraduate research and the 21st Century role of women scholars and leaders. In her inauguration address, delivered during the last week of Women's History Month and as part of a year dedicated at Scripps to the 'genius of women,' she  pledged that her tenure at the top-notch liberal arts institution for women will be noteworthy for its: founding a center on women's research and leadership; focusing on increasing the number of women scientists; and building even more on the school's relationships with its partners in the Claremont consortium of schools. 

In inaugural pledge, a vision for more women leaders, scientists, reasearch

In business plan contest, he plays socket to 'em

From Pepperdine

Back to the future? With a group of impressive e-commerce executives empaneled as judges, what ended up as the top pick in the business and law schools' annual competition considering students' prospective business plans? No, this is not a Ronco spot, nor one of those annoying 'Buy!Buy! Buy!' television informercials. Still, the top pick and $15,000 was awarded to a proposal by a young entrepreneur to pitch his pop's proven, innovative socket wrenches. The new design, it is said, lets handy types toss out the 19 different socket sizes now marketed, in favor of a single adjustable model that is durable enough to plunk on an industrial drill and adapts to extract even those major nuisance worn or rusty bolts. The pitch from MBA student Tim Kim (shown at right), of Northridge, outpaced others, including proposals for a net-based way to track environmentally conscious home remodels and ideas on e-book rentals and water purification to aid the world's poor.

$15,000 award for wrenching pitch that beats out 'net notions

On arts: a 45th birthday, departmental angst

From LACMA & Chapman University

Just a midweek pause to pay a little attention to the arts, notably the 45th birthday of the mid-city cultural force and the rumblings down south about changes in a school's art study offerings. With all the changes that have occurred over the years, and with many more afoot at LACMA, it's a bracing reminder to take in the county museum's blog posting about the 1965 inauguration of the William Pereira-designed buildings and campus, and in particular, to see the soigne set depicted at the place's debut. Meantime, in Orange, the school's public information blog is giving a sense of just how high sentiments are running about even preliminary discussions of the fate of the art department. Administrators say they're studying its future, where it fits in various existing college and whether enrollments, particularly in studio art as opposed to graphic design, offer any indicators for potential next steps.

Photo: fur de rigeur at '65 debut of museum's new campus / LACMA

Bracing look back as county art museum turns 45

In Orange, heat as talks launch on future of art department  

Where Mother Nature hits evolutionary wall

From UCI

If Mother Nature can't, can man? When it comes to a key question of agriculture, the answer may be no, researchers in Irvine say, citing their experiments in seeking to balance the speed of plants' growth versus their capacity to protect themselves from nasty gnawing critters. They say that their work suggests that Kierkegaardian dilemma dominates, even after 20 million years of nature's best evolutionary efforts: either-or. Either the plants, in this case 16 species of milkweed that flourish throughout the Western Hemisphere, grow big and swift. Or they protect themselves well against predators, fighting off insects like aphids that would munch upon them.  

Milkweed experiments suggest an evolutionary either-or

Renovations for a Silverlake architectural icon

From Cal Poly Pomona

If the boho neighbors over in Silverlake see a sudden burst of activity on an iconic area home, there's a positive reason: the experts from Pomona will be using a Los Angeles County grant to renovate the Neutra VDL studio and residences at 2300 Silverlake Blvd. They will be replacing two roofs and repairing damaged walls, structural joints and substrate at the architecturally important site, which played a key role in various stages of the career of Richard Neutra, the famed Southern California modernist architect. He not only built and designed the 'radical' glass-walled studio and residence but also rebuilt it with Dion Neutra, his son and business partner, after a blaze. The buildings and property, donated to the university by Richard's wife, Dione, was the spot where hundreds of Neutra disciples flocked to not only study with the mid-century master but also to work with him on their own influential plans and designs; it's where the recently deceased Julias Shulman launched the photography career that would shape the world's view of Southern California design. 

Photo: architect Richard Neutra at Silverlake home as photographed by Julias Shulman

LA County grant will let Pomona experts renovate iconic Silverlake home 

Click here for more info on Neutra VDL studio, residences

Coed takes 2:30 a.m. cell call, saves a far life

From UCR

For every parent who has cringed, winced, cried or gone apoplectic about a teen-ager's cell phone bill or use, here's an odd twist -- the story of a coed who took a curious late, Saturday night call out in Riverside. She saw that the caller was phoning at 2:30 a.m. from her home area code, but she didn't recognize the number exactly. Exactly why, then, she not only answered but stayed on the line for a protracted period of silence, well, who's to say. But good thing she did because a few minutes in, she heard the faint, croaked cry for help from an elderly woman. And, in smart Samaritan fashion, the undergrad enlisted the help of a friend and eventually authorities to get her distant and unknown caller -- Annie Turner, a 70-year-old Northern California woman who had suffered a stroke and misdialed while trying to reach a fried -- some life-saving aid. Taylor Booker, 17, a biochemistry major, recently was honored in Hercules, her NorCal hometown for her savvy, compassionate response. Turner has been debilitated but is recovering.

Photo: Taylor Booker, 18, in recent meeting with Annie Turner, 80 / Contra Costa Times

Savvy response from Riverside gets 70-year-old stroke victim emergency aid

How to get more financial juice into electric grid

From the Milken Institute

Even as Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa mud-wrestles with the Los Angeles City Council to try to finance a cleaner, greener Department of Water and Power, the experts in Beverly Hills are calling for innovations nationally to reverse more than two decades of neglect and lack of investment in the national power grid. They praise the Obama Administration's efforts as part of the stimulus package to pump $11 billion into various aspects of the system that gets electrical power to the doors of homes and businesses across the country. But they say much, much more needs to occur to keep the U.S. up to speed with the power supply it will need in the 21st Century, including such ideas as: creating national sustainability standards, streamlining regulation and ensuring it is clear and comes from as few directions as possible and designating federal energy 'empowerment' zones. They also call for new ideas to finance investment in a smarter grid, such as new uses of existing tax credits and loan guarantees and allowing operators to employ a business model like real estate investment trusts.

U.S. electric power system found to require big 21st Century investments

Trojans tapped to test harm to ex-NFL players

From USC

The National Football League, which has a giant public relations and health problem with some of its alumni players, will turn to the Trojans and four other medical institutions for help, asking their experts to assist in evaluating former athletes' neurological condition. Years of banging, slamming, colliding and otherwise having ginormous jocks of giant size and skill seeking to teach other from limb to limb on the playing fields have left a growing body of severely injured one-time pro players, who, in contrast to today's stars, were getting neither the protection, medical attention nor care -- nor did many of them get the galactic salaries and compensation packages that would offer them the health coverage they would need when their battered bodies began to collapse with age. Neither the league nor the players, especially through their union, critics howled, have paid the needed attention due to the now broken down, aging guys who had built a modern money machine. But as more research has pointed out their issues and how much their past and play contributed to their debilitation, including from concussion, brain and other neurological injury, well, more effort is under way, including this evaluation program at five spots nationwide.

League asks 5 institutions to help with neurological exams of former pro footballers

Lessons learned in killer quakes in Chile, Haiti

From Caltech & CSUN

On a Pasadena campus laden with Nobel Laureates and world-class scientists, they still manage, especially locally, to be sort of academic rock stars, dominating at turns not only print news and the broadcast airwaves but also commanding almost reverential attention to their findings and prognostications. So, here's a chance to get a full, free, public fill from a pack of those well-known earthquake experts as they offer the latest about what they know of their field and especially how it has been affected by observations from giant, killer temblors in Haiti and Chile. The session will be Tuesday night at 8 and no tickets nor reservations are required for the talk, moderated by Dr. Lucy Jones (shown at right), and taking on, too, the issue of how space technology is bettering seismology, geophysics and other earth sciences. Meantime, the folks in Northridge have put up a feature on some of their deep ocean delving to gain more knowledge about shifts in tectonic plates, including how volcanoes affect these quake-causing geological elements.

Seismology session will size up science's latest on temblors, space

In Northridge, a focus on deep sea study of tectonics, volcanoes