SoCal Minds

In Pomona, a first-ever, $150 million fund-raising campaign

From Cal Poly Pomona

With a $42 million gift from the W.W. Kellogg Foundation just recently announced, those Broncos are bucking for some big bucks as part of their first-ever, ambitious, $150 million, five-year fund-raising campaign, school officials say. Leaders say the state's extreme budget whacking leaves them no choice but to try to seek support across Southern California to try to preserve, protect and even expand scholarship and academic accomplishment on campus. They note that a decade ago, in inflation-adjusted dollars, California provided more than $11,000 per student; the state has cut that sum to $4,400 per student this year, while also ordering $584 million in cuts in the Cal State system. Entertainer Paul Anka (shown in photo at right) joins the handful of top community figures the school has tapped for its fund-raising steering committee.

California's giant budget whacking prompts Broncos to buck for big bucks

Click here for more info on the campaign

Struggles with economic, racial, gender, religious divides

From UCLA, the Autry, Cal Poly Pomona & UCI

Poof. Shazam. Woo-hoo. It didn't happen, folks. Contrary to the weird, dream idealism that somehow conjured the twisted notion that the election of a gifted, mixed race president of African origin would somehow, by itself, eliminate all the deleterious inequities and cure the deep economic and religious divisions in U.S. society -- well, it hasn't happened. That's not occurring. And the realities of this crop up all over campuses and research, to wit:

How U.S. standards can impoverish California seniors

In Sacramento this morning, Bruin researchers will present their work showing the inadequacy and flaws of federal guidelines that help determine whether seniors are poor and need government assistance. It's a sadly familar comparative calculation conundrum that, unfortunately, leaves the Golden State's old in a vulnerable spot: because the U.S. sets its elderly poverty measures based on national averages, this data fails to account for the high cost of living in California and locks seniors in this state out of help that might be available elsewhere. L.A. seniors, for example, might need almost $23,000 on average to cover annual rent on a one-bedroom unit and to cover other basic living expenses, while the Social Security max payment is $10,440 and the poverty guideline is set at $10,830. Researchers from Westwood have proposed alternative standards that they deem more fair.

A push in Westwood, Sacramento for a new economic index for the elderly

Click here for full report, comparative data on elder index

Daily racial slights for Latinos, Asians; soaring suspensions for blacks

Two separate groups of researchers in Westwood find disturbing levels still of racial discrimination against Latino, Asian and African American youngsters harming their grades, health and leading to more suspensions, particularly in middle school, of black kids. Daily, race-based slights were experienced with a surprising frequency by Latino seniors in high school, while those of Asian descent had more negative such experiences than did their peers of European parentage, researchers found in examining the lives of more than 600 teens on the brink of adulthood. Meantime, in scrutinizing random samples of data from more than 9,000 middle schools, other researchers saw a disturbing increase in the rate of suspensions for black youngsters.

Latino, Asian teens found to experience daily race bias with harmful effect

Big gap discovered in rate of suspensions for black middle schoolers

Click here for full report on 'suspended education'

Actor George Takei speaks out about his 'human rights' activism

He's not just a familar face from a cult-popular television science fiction program. And he's certainly not the character he played there, the inscrutable Mr. Sulu. No, actor George Takei (shown at left in traditional garb at the Oscars with his husband, Brad Altman, who courteously provided the photo) long has been a progressive activist, he notes, pushing for social change to remedy the injustices he says he has seen as a Japanese American interned with his family during World War II, as an Asian American and now as an openly gay man. Here's a blog post that hits on his longtime activism as a curtain-raiser for his weekend public conversation on these topics in Griffith Park.

Don't mistake Star Trek star for famed character or recent conversion to causes

A weekend chat with George Takei about 'One Man's Journey'

A million reasons to unwind mystery of an academic gender gap

There are, of course, myriad scientific mysteries to be unwound and decoded. But for contemporary scholars one of the currently elusive of these continues to be why there aren't more young women flocking to study science, technology, engineering and math. Why is this so and why do some women succeed in these male-dominated fields? That's now a million-dollar issue in Pomona, where a federal grant will let researchers folow 400 male and female students for two years to get a better grip on the gender divide in these crucial areas of scholarly endeavor.

In Pomona, a two-year scrutiny on why more women don't study science, engineering, math

A timely tome asks tough questions on media coverage of religion

For all the yelling, screaming and sick public attention paid to a Florida pastor who proposed to burn Korans or to the incessant bickering over a plan to build an Islamic community center near New York's 'Ground Zero' site, well, does it all provide cause to wonder about the media's capacity to cover religion and matters religious? The folks in Irvine, with some key contributions from some terrific one-time Los Angeles Times scribes like Jack Miles and Stephen Burgard, have their timely take on this topic in a quick q-and-a. It includes the intriguing argument that, by its lack of any coverage at all, is Buddhism -- not Islam -- the world's least understood faith?

A fast Q-and-A on a burning topic in today's headlines: religion and society

Green tomorrow a front and center focus on campuses

From UCLA, Cal State Fullerton, Loyola Marymount, Occidental, Cal Poly Pomona, CSULB & Chapman

For those in northern climes, will global warming offer surprising boon?

It's not exactly an expected scenario. And, at root, it speaks to a vast global divide that will occur, experts say, due to dire circumstances associated with global warming: Those who live in what's now a vast, often desolate and lesser developed frigid northern climes will find themselves in a newly prosperous, resource rich, probably more affluent and favored zone of the planet when the global environment warms and shifts, a Bruin geographer predicts. This will lead to Canada, Scandinavia, Russia and the northern United States, he says, suddenly becoming beckoning havens, spots with, perhaps, the only abundant supplies of fresh water, abundant population growth and almost miraculously released natural resources, such as oil and gas supplies. Meantime, he sees wet places on earth getting wetter and parched spots getting even more so, with little cheery news at all for many of the highly populated spots on the present planet. He forecasts China as the world's economic superpower by 2050, with the U.S. sliding into the No. 2 spot and the longer rise of cities north of the 45th parallel. Los Angeles and other spots will still be major population centers and more folks will still be in traditional population centers but look to Seattle, Minneapoli-St. Paul, Toronto, Copenhagen, Moscow and other northern burghs to be the capitals of the climate change tomorrow.

A sunny forecast for northern lands in the era of drastic global climate change

Can student commuters find eco alternatives to cars, crowded parking?

• Now that Labor Day has come and gone and the calendar marks the end of summer, tens of thousands of students across the Southland have or soon will be racing back to campus, all too often commuting across considerable distances, one to a car, to get to classes and a higher education. And, if the responses from 500 students studied for a Fullerton research project are indicative at all, driving -- and especially stashing that car in costly, chaotic, congested parking -- is no fun at all for young people, who argue they have little choice about how they get to school. Three-quarters of those Orange County students motor to school, alone, researchers, including Edwin Shin and Jessica Watson, found in Prof. Ray Young's urban planning course. (Shin and Watson flank Young in Karen Tapia photo at right) Here's another big finding, though: Students who take public transportation or who bike or walk to school are much more satisfied with their commuting experience. The students involved in the academic research on commuting offered their own suggestions on how to provide incentives to get their peers out of the car-parking-commuting snaggle. In Westchester and Eagle Rock, though, school officials have taken one small step to cut down on the presence of so many vehicles, working, as many other campuses have, to provide the Zipcar program. The vehicle-sharing program aims to allow not only students but also neighbors to sign up for relatively affordable, short-term rental of cars.

In Fullerton, proof that the headache list often tops out with cars for commuting, campus parking

In Eagle Rock, a new sharing option for those who need a car only rarely

In Westchester, a way to cut congestion, parking through vehicle sharing program

How to power up, track better campus environmental programs

•  As long as there's going to be huge demand for big expanses to park student commuters' cars, well, why shouldn't such spots do double-duty and provide campus shade and solar generating spots, too? In Pomona, two new installations on the roof of a school gym (shown in photo at right) and with a canopy over a parking lot will help the school chip away at becoming 'carbon neutral.' The leased equipment, which also comes with grants and subsidies, will generate roughly 1.8 kilowatt hours of electricity annually for the campus, which has an annual, total electric consumption of some 45 million kilowatt hours, school officials say. But how best to monitor and encourage green practices at institutions of higher education? In Long Beach, where the school spends more than $7.5 million annually on utility costs, officials have created an intern program to help both track and spread best environmental practices with efforts such as a fall audit of classroom energy use and a residence hall competition to see which dorm can conserve the most power. And, in Orange, school officials are touting their participation in a new, 230-institution 'sustainability' program, which aims to provide greater accounting and transparency about campuses' environmental and conservation efforts. An aim of the 'STARS' program, in which the Orange County folks also hope to win some key certifications, is to provide an alternative to some existing efforts, which have drawn considerable criticism for their evaluation methods and seemingly punitive rating systems.

In Pomona, solar power arrays start popping up all over 

In Long Beach, interns help campus push its green programs

In Orange, joining up with consortium's new, more open monitoring of green campus efforts

Collegians dig in to help kids grow, eat greener, healthier

From Cal Poly Pomona & Pomona

As any parent can attest, what big sis and brother do has a profound effect on younger siblings. So it will be interesting to see whether some environmental, social justice, health and nutrition ideas cultivated by collegians in both a public and private campus in Pomona take root among younger students after some digging in and exposure. Specifically, can junior and senior high kids really get the idea of growing and eating their own better foods by learning from collegians such as senior Lissette Fitoria (shown at right) about community gardens and healthy diets? Will they see both the benefits of giving up greasy cheeseburgers and the great taste of fresh onions, lettuce, green beans, tomatoes, chives, peaches, pomegranates, fennel, kale, squash, cabbage, grapes, guavas and strawberries? The Broncos' push to teach younger kids about growing and good eating comes as part of an academic endeavor, while for the private school Sagehens, a push to create a summer food and farming internship for area high schoolers was both a volunteer and grant- and school-supported project that underscored ideas on food, environmental and social justice for preps.

Gardens aim to help seed smarter eating, living ideas for junior, senior high schoolers

Summer high school internships aim to cultivate connections between food, ecology, social justice

A look at how academic 'other half' vacations, returns

From Pomona & Cal Poly Pomona

Oh, the lush life of academia: According to popular lore, it's not just summertime when the living is easy for those who teach in colleges and universities. But out in Pomona, a professor makes an argument that the 'life of the mind' comes with far fewer respites and cruises than most would imagine and the school riffs off that notion to give all the rest of us working stiffs a reading on what faculty do with their summer 'vacations,' such as donning mosquito protection, as did Prof. Nina Karnovksy (shown at left) for her Arctic ornithological research. Still, the lure of making a living in an intellectual fashion clearly has powerful pull, as illustrated, too, out in Pomona, where a number of Broncos have returned to what must be a pretty OK corral. The school posts a nice read on a selection of one-time students like Leslie Butler (shown at right) who have gone on to become faculty.

Do professors really get vacations and respites from lives of the mind?

Hey, professor, how long have you really been hangin' around this place? 

Wild things may be bees-knees for desperate farmers

From Cal Poly Pomona

While domesticated, European honeybees have been brought to their knees by mysterious circumstances that have created grave concerns not only about our bug pals but also the potential devastation to farming and an insect-raising industry that may amount to as much as $20 billion, researchers in Pomona say their work agrees with a growing consensus that another option may be at wing. Their buzz holds that several species of wild bees may do better work in spreading pollen from plant to plant and cultivation of these flying wonders may be a boon to those afflicted by the die-off of their domesticated cousins. The 16 species with potential that the Bronco entomologists have identified, however, will require new conduct by farmers, in particular. That's because the wild bunch don't gather and live in hives and pay obeisance to queens and their courts. They, instead, live in tree hollows and nest in the ground, and they require the growing of off-season flowering plants for feeding on when crops aren't around for them to work their bee magic on.

In Pomona, wild bees found to be possible substitute for dwindling domesticated species

 

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