SoCal Minds

42 million big, new ways to aid 'vulnerable' kids, veterans

From Cal Poly Pomona

Yup, size matters. But intent and execution end up as more decisive factors in lots of maters. So here's hoping there's plenty of snap, crackle and pop to the $42 million awarded to the Broncos by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and that big sum goes far to bolstert, as planned, the school's outreach to first-generation college students and their families, military veterans and emancipated foster youth. With all the cruel cuts in programs, support and opportunities for Cal State students linked to the economic crash and the state's massive budget crisis, the yipppeee-inducing five-year challenge grant -- which officials say is the largest gift of its kind to an institution in the system -- will give a 'transformative'  shot to faculty and 'vulnerable' students at what is termed the 12th most ethnically diverse campus in the country. The Kellogg family has had a long association with the school since W.K., the breakfast cereal magnate (shown at right) whose 150th birthday was commemorated with the Bronco grant, built a winter home at the edge of the campus in the 1920s and kept on his ranch a corral full of Arabian horses, which were featured in Hollywood movies.

W.K. Kellogg grant, biggest cash gift to a Cal State, aimed at opening educational opportunities

How the Times tallies the $42 million Kellogg gift

In Pomona, East L.A., advances in 21st century technology

From Cal Poly Pomona and CSULA

Great to see that the Luddite torpor that may seize some of us plays out in just the reverse in Pomona and East L.A. 

• In fact, for two dozen or so very different kind of summer campers, time spent on the Bronco campus may prove invaluable to them and to those seeking to combat cyber criminals. These recipients of an all-expenses, four-day immersion in the latest tools and thinking on cyber security won their spots by competing, online of course, in a 'security treasure hunt,' in which they tested for flaws in a target online system. Top competitors, some with serious IT credentials and others with no formal training, were invited to cyber camp, as part of the university's burgeoning effort to fill a targeted, dire need by society and industry for top talents to secure and protect our 21st century technology and online existence.

It's no dungeon with dragons: It's summer cyber security camp for top competitors

• Meantime, in East L.A., a quarter-mil or so grant from HP has helped more than 250 students in engineering classes, as well as their profs and the school, figure how to stay cutting edge in learning about and using the latest technology. This endeavor has employed tablet computers, wired classrooms and more virtual interaction for students and teachers so they can get hands-on experiences in working with, designing for and thinking about computers as customary, ordinary and crucial tools in the contemporary engineering workplace, as well as the machines and technology as teaching, learning and study tools.

HP grant, tablet computers, wired classrooms let engineering students, profs get with program 

Summer heat conjures thoughts of, um, a Rose float?

 From Cal Poly Pomona

That first summer sizzler fried a few synapses over the weekend and sent out notice that a beloved season's under way in Southern California. But no sooner do we get some heat does word also arrive that, yup, some folks out in Pomona are hard at work, yup, on their New Year's Day floats for the Rose Bowl parade. Sheesh. The two, Cal State campuses collaboration will keep to the 2010 theme, 'Building, Dreams and Friendship,' and will feature the 'Galactic Expedition' design of third-year Bronco mechanical engineering student Michael Roussin. Volunteers, who pored over almost 100 concepts before picking Roussin's, labor through the summer to build the 50-foot long base of the float, which will carry multiple animated components; the bulk of the work on the entry occurs in the fall, and, of course, in the frenzied flower-placing days before the parade and competition.

2 Cal State campuses collaborate anew on 'Galactic Expedition'

For top Bronco techies, a 'golden ticket' from Microsoft

From Cal Poly Pomona

Some Bronco tech types probably should be falling on themselves to say thank you to fellow student Jacob Curtis. The computer science student, praised as smart, amiable, knowledgeable, a good communicator and team player, trekked to Redmond, Ore., where by all accounts, he wowed the collegiate recruiters at industry giant Microsoft in a one-day May visit. That trip not only convinced Curtis that he could work for Steve Ballmer and company; it led Microsoft to grant Pomona's best and brightest a coporate kind of e-ticket, their 'golden ticket' for recruiting. Graduating Bronco computer science or computer engineering seniors who have held a paid internship at a significant IT, tech, aerospace or engineering company automatically will be granted a tough-to-get Microsoft interview in Redmond, school officials say. They note that the Bruins are the only other Southland school with such a 'golden ticket' from the corporate giant, which also fessed up this week to having employed one of the members of the notorious, longtime East Coast Russian spy ring.

Polished interview performance by computer sci senior opens recruiting door to classmates

Generous donors shower millions on area institutions

From the Huntington, Harvey Mudd & Cal Poly Pomona

The lights don't go on for free at the intellectual institutions across the region, so students, researchers and members of the general public have cause to celebrate that donors have shown such generosity in recent days with the folks in San Marino, of course, capturing the big headline of the moment.

 That's because they have reported that their six-year fund-raising campaign, which had a goal of $175 million, has all but ended and brought in an unexpected $240 million  with gifts still getting tallied and the official close of the books on Wednesday. Outreach to new, varied and different donors -- the Chinese American community, for example -- boosted giving, as did the receipt not just of cash, pledges and an increase in the institutional endowment but also significant, sizable collections and valuable displayable items.

Besides reeling in major donors, the institution also recently received a smaller, fishy present from Disneyland in Anaheim: 250 koi, valuable creatures that needed to be relocated and saved from a hotel pond.

In Claremont, meantime, the Mudders are saying many thanks for a $1 million donation to their Global Clinic program from some grateful, late parents who appreciated how their son put in practice all he learned while helping and working with others from spots in Central and South America, Asia and Europe.

And lastly, in Pomona, the business administration and hospitality management folks are appreciating the $2 million pledged by a prominent alum , who said he felt the need to give back to his onetime school not only for the education he received but also because it was the place where he met his wife.

Here's a novel way to wrangle students: charreada outreach

 From Cal Poly Pomona

Yippee, tie-yi-yay, those Broncos have a different kind of recruiting and outreach program planned Saturday. With school and community support, the Latino Business Students Assn. will be staging a charreada, a Mexican rodeo, and college fair from noon to 5 p.m. at the 5,000-seat Industry Hills Expo to try to provide both entertainment and persuasion to a Latino community that might be thinking about sending its first sons and daughters off to university. The Industry Manufacturers Council and other business sponsors have underwritten the event to help keep costs low. 

Will Mexican rodeo, combined with college fair, reach out to, persuade Latino community?

In Pomona, a career path into forensic cyber sleuthing

From Cal Poly Pomona

With top policy-makers and the media focusing ever more on the potential mayhem that can be caused by all manner of cyber criminals, what more perfect timing for a local school to plug itself into a new field with a certification program for students in computer forensics. The folks out in Pomona note that their program includes the opening of a dedicated computer lab for learning, academic research and labors by law enforcement agencies. Instructors, among other things, aim to teach students at all levels of expertise the fine points of carefully finding and extracting data from computers about illicit activities; certification in these processes, which can be a key to a new career path as well as increased credibility in potential testimony in court, can be achieved in a relatively brief time, the school says. It notes that it has attracted cyber sleuthing expertise from state tax authorities as well as police participation from Los Angeles, El Monte, Ontario and the California Department of Motor Vehicles.

Certification, for students at all levels, can occur relatively quick, school says

Bruins tap Latina as law dean; interim chiefs ascend at 2 schools

From UCLA, Loyola & Cal Poly Pomona

Let's take note of some top-level changes around town:

• She's wise,  a Latina -- and now a first to head one of the big law schools. The Bruins went north to nab a top legal scholar at Berkeley, naming Rachel F. Moran, an expert on civil rights, anti-discrimination, education and family law, to be the new law school dean in Westwood. She was a Stanford undergrad and was graduated from Yale Law School. She clerked for Chief Judge Wilfred Feinberg of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit and worked for the San Francisco firm of Heller Ehrman White & McAuliffe. She was a founding faculty member at UCI's law school and has been a visiting prof with the Bruins, as well as at Stanford, Miami, UT and NYU. She was born in Kansas City, was reared in Yuma, Ariz., and succeeds five-year dean Michael Schill, who split to be dean at the University of Chicago.

Bruins appoint Latina scholar as dean at one of the big law schools

• In Westchester, a graduate of Oxy, Cal State Long Beach and Loyola Law is heading up the Lions' kingdom on an interim basis since the medical leave and retirement of Robert B. Lawton, S.J. Interim prez David W. Burcham, of course, is no stranger to top roles at the school since he was executive vice president and provost, as well as having served as senior vice president and dean of the law school. He has been deeply involved in the school's $380-million capital fund drive and its 20-year master plan. He's an an authority on constitutional law, clerked at the U.S. Supreme Court for Justice Byron White (1986-87) and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit for Chief Judge Ruggero J. Aldisert (1984-86), and was in private practice at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher (1987-91). The Trustees say they will search nationwide until next summer before picking a replacement for Father Lawton.

EVP-Provost steps up as Lions' interim president

• As the folks out in Pomona conduct a nationwide search to replace Ed Hohmann after his 27 years as the engineering dean, Don Coduto (shown at right), a 26-year member of the faculty, will step up as interim. Coduto now chairs the civil engineering department, which is one of the largest such undergraduate programs in the nation. The Broncos boast that theirs consistently is rated as one of the top 15 undergrad engineering programs in the country.

In Pomona, 26-year faculty vet will be interim engineering dean

How parental income carries lifelong effect on kids

From UCI & the Cal States

As politicians and policy-makers slash and burn social programs in their effort to stanch the flow of government red-ink, especially in Sacramento, an education professor in Irvine has some noteworthy research they might consider. He has examined the deep, sweeping data from a study that has followed more than 9,000 U.S. families and individuals for more than four decades. And, with colleagues, the researcher asked what would happen to kids younger than 5 if their parents got more annual income but nothing else changed in the picture -- mom and dad don't get more education, they don't alter their parenting practices, the family structure remains the same and genetic factors don't shift a whit. Well, look down the road and those youngsters show higher incomes and less use of food stamps (social programs) when they become adults, the researchers found, arguing for the importance of governmental efforts, if necessary, to supplement the incomes of families with youngsters to break a long cycle of potential poverty.

A key insight into breaking the cycle of poverty

And speaking of funding arguments, the Cal State system, like its powerful siblings in the UC network, has been lobbying furiously to try to stem the budgetary bloodletting now under way in public higher education in California. Part of the latest campaign aims to show the economic impact of the various CSU campuses, and, finally, there are detailed, online break-outs on the hundreds of millions of dollars and thousands of jobs that can be linked to each of the institutions.

Click here for online look at Cal States' economic impact

For Broncos, arts bust, $30-million business boom

From Cal Poly Pomona

Duly noted: a day before the folks out in Pomona break ground today on a $30-million complex of buildings for their business school, they also broke the bad news that the school's fine arts program, part of the art department, is on the path to demise. The program has 79 active students, two tenure-track faculty and seven lecturers, the school says, noting they will continue on as the formal, academic process goes on to shutter this study option, which was unfavorably reviewed inside and outside the institution. While the current state budget crunch was cited as one factor in the fine arts decision, the school notes that it has sought for a decade to get in one place all its healthy, well-received business programs. The 70,000-square-foot complex (seen in artist rendering above) will take two years to build, will include two auditoriums, areas suited to teaching by the case study method, the latest high-tech bells and whistles and flexible workspaces to accommodate group and team projects.

Fine arts program heading to its finale

Ground breaking for $30 million business education complex