SoCal Minds

Campuses take on Haiti relief, volcanoes, mercy

From UCSB, Pomona & Loyola Marymount

Across the region, campuses have taken on disaster release, the calamitous potential power of nature and a quality that may be far too strained in public life:

• In Santa Barbara, the UC system's response to the disastrous Haitian earthquake and its nightmarish, unending aftermath will be headquartered at the Center for Black Studies Research, which says that it is, after expertise in big metropolitan enclaves in Miami and Boston, one of the premier sites with scholarly knowledge about Haiti. Concerned parties from throughout the UC system conducted a system on this campus in the spring and set up a reconstruction organization and plans to work with academic counterparts, as well as government, nonprofit and community groups in Haiti to provide the university's top-flight expertise in key areas such as agriculture, arts and culture, education, economics, education, engineering and architecture.

In Santa Barbara, a headquarters for UC system's Haiti reconstruction efforts

Click here for more info on UC Haiti relief

• In Pomona, there's talk about the timely release of a scholarly tome that takes on mountains that blow up beneath us. Richard Hazlett, a geology and environmental analsis prof, got out his new text, 'Volcanoes: Global Perspectives,' just in time for huge swaths of the planet to be plunged into an air travel mess caused by the eruption of that wickedly named Icelandic volcano. For Hazlett, whose childhood fascination was piqued by tales of Vesuvius and Pompeii, an initial experience with a summer volcanic eruption in Hawaii since has been followed with eyewitness volcanology scholarship in Galanggung for a grey volcano, Kilauea for a red one and sightings in Japan, the Pacific Northwest, Aleutians, Italy, Kamchatka, Iceland and mainland Alaska. His book also discusses legendary explosions in Krakatoa and Santorini. The prof says he's not a thrill-seeker and concedes that to scrutinize the awe-inspiring power of volcano means taking risks.

From Pomona, a timely glimpse into global awe of volcanoes, eruptions

• In Westchester, a prof and his academic partner in Iowa have decided to delve into the fascinating question about a key happening at a crucial intersection of religion, philosophy and politics. When resources get scarce, the public's scared and policy making gets particularly rough in areas such as punishment for juveniles, amnesty for immigrants, reparation for much harmed people such as slaves or truth telling and reconciliation after large scale chaos and killing in a society, must the quality of mercy be strained, the profs ask? Besides considering this topic in classes they conduct, they're hard at work on a book, tentatively titled, 'The Death of Mercy,' which examines its role in public life.

In Westchester, seeing role for mercy at the intersection of politics, religion and philosophy

A higher-ed peoloton offers a look-see at SoCal minds

From Oxy

Phew, it's summer and an ostensible pause in the seasons of anxiety for collegiate aspirants. But some work never ends, and, for some fun-seeking college counselors, a work-vacation offers an opportunity to see up-close what's on SoCal Minds via a rolling, 400-mile tour of regional campuses. The folks over in Eagle Rock are hosting a stop on the bicyclist look-see, a grownups' peloton aimed at getting a personal-professional view of what's new at spots like the Claremont collective, the universities of Redlands and LaVerne, Oxy, Caltech. LMU and USC. So what, in hyper-conscious fashion, should the schools know about what the 19 visiting pros from 13 states have to say about them as they undergo their seventh annual cycling whistle-stop tour of schools? Because this is the age of blogging, the East Coast Gray Lady offers a big forum for the observations of group members...

College counselors cycling 400 miles in tour of area campuses 

Click here for NYT 'Choice' blog, with dispatches from biking counselors

Rocks, baby books, recordings: Oh, the stories they tell

From the Autry, UCLA & Pomona

Oh, the things that get collected, and, oh, my, what they tell us about ourselves:

• In Griffith Park, curators have combined the best of modernity and the recent past to give online audiences an earful. This may be the summer of Wagner and his Ring cycle with that masterwork dominating the cultural scene with its Los Angeles Opera performances and all the associated attention from seemingly every institution in town. But hearken back to a time when Los Angeles pioneer Charles Lummis still was around and inviting all kinds of swells to his Highland Park home and it is now possible to catch an online listen to an opera performance from the turn of the century. The wax cylinder recording is part of a cyber exhibit spotlighting some of the more than 900 captured rarities, most Native American or California Latino folk songs.

In Griffith Park, divas, Native American and Hispanic folk artists sing out from the past

Click here for Autry's online Opera Collection spotlight

• In Westwood, curators at the Bruin biomedical library looked twice at a 2003 donation from Barbara Rootenberg, an antiquarian bookseller with a specialty in the history of medicine. Included in her gift was the first of what would become a major collection of baby books, those parental ledgers, often only partially filled out, that were supposed to let moms and dads take note of and even to collect bits from key developmental moments of their growing little darlings' lives. The tomes, which the folks in Westwood found few collecting, and, thus, were able fast to amass more than 1,000 key volumes with relatively little fuss, already have given researchers important historical insights into everything from public health to advertising, marketing , art and sociology.

In Westwood, going ga-ga over historical bits contained in baby books

• In Pomona, researchers have combed piles of loose rocks hoping to unearth more surprising history about the heretofore unknown sophistication of Chumash Indian civilization on the Channel Islands, a legacy that now, perhaps, has a slightly more precarious existence even with the protections offered because the area is a federal park. The anthropologists always fear that campers and tourists unwittingly may disturb important archeological sites, if only because they root around and drag stuff off, sometimes just to show park rangers and to ask if the objects they find have any significance. Alas, that can destroy key evidence as to what experts are learning already about the Chumash and particularly their lives on Santa Cruz Island. A Pomona prof says the Native people, in the pre-Colombian era, played a huge role as regional, water-borne merchants. They became exceptionally savvy in their exchanges and those rocks on the isle, a flint-like substance called chert, became important for a reason: They were employed as drills and other tools, so the Chumash could work olivella shells from island beaches into an early currency; Santa Cruz, thus, was once an island mint -- and some of the Native people amassed real wealth as they measured it in days of yore, the prof says.

From Pomona, new finds about the trading, wealth of Channel Island Chumash

A spotlight on campus comedy, vocalism, avant-garde art

From Loyola Marymount, Pepperdine & Pomona

Pack together a bunch of lively, smart, talented young people for the purpose of learning and who knows how entertaining it all can turn out to be?

• Who, for example, would have figured that Westchester can be a barrel of laughs? There's something hilarious about the Lions because a team of them have gotten to the finals of a televised, internet-based national comedy competition. They'll battle against students from Emerson College, the University of Florida and Xavier University after besting competitors from USC, USF and UC Berkeley.

• Meantime, in shades of the popular television show 'Glee,' singers and pianists from across the country are flocking to Malibu to participate in a month-long program, 'Breaking the Song Barrier,' which is what organizers have dubbed this year's version of the annual 'Song Fest' vocal training program. Participants will put on a number of concerts, and, yes, it's a mostly classical not a pop-oriented gig.

• Finally, the folks in Claremont have posted a magazine piece previewing a fall exhibit that tries to track back on what went down so It Happened at Pomona in the 1960s and '70s when a sleepy suburban campus suddenly became a cauldron of creativity for then young conceptual, light and space and performance artists. They went on to be now recognized art stars, including James Turrell, Peter Shelton, Chris Burden, Michael Asher, Judy Chicago, Ed Moses, Allen Ruppersberg, William Wegman and Wolfgang Stoerchle. A Getty grant underwrites the exploration how this scene flourished and vanished. It has something to do with an artist taking clothes off in a display too risque for the conservative community of the day.   

A focus on college 'hook-ups,' abused women GIs

From Pomona & ALOUD

Just how divergent are the paths for young people in America today -- or are they more similar than is apparent -- will be illustrated in two, free, open and public conversations that will occur in Claremont and in downtown on Tuesday. At the suburban college at 4:15 in the afternoon, a panel of academic experts will talk, mostly with students, about the 'hook up culture' and why young people today don't date. They'll investigate how and why contemporary social mores have shifted so it is seen as acceptable, if maybe not desirable, to drink, socialize, satisfy one's sexual drives but not necessarily to get any deeper into relationships of duration, affection or substance. At the Central Library at 7 in the evening, journalist Helen Benedict (shown at left), the author of 10 tomes, will talk about the shocking, abusive experiences of young women who serve in the U.S. military, especially in Iraq and Afghanistan. Isolated by the reality that they make up only about a tenth of the nation's fighting forces, young female soldiers are reporting scandalous numbers of rapes and sexual assaults, which have only grown as their numbers have increased in the military; some statistics show that as many as 71% of those women veterans seeking help for post-traumatic stress disorder said they were raped while in the military. Space is limited for Benedict's chat with author-moderator Deanne Stillman and reservations are required.

At Pomona, a panel discussion on 'The Hook-Up Culture: Why We Don't Date'

Click here for more info, to RSVP for talk on 'Private War of Women Serving in Iraq'

Bah, which schools are happy, stressful, got buzz?

From Claremont McKenna, Pomona & UCLA

What's with the zeitgeist in Claremont? Or maybe the question should be, What's with the American fascination about ratings, rankings and lists -- aside from the media manufactured attention grabbing that these gigs generate? Just in time for the academics to boast about or belittle the various annual ratings and rankings by certain publications, there are a couple of cyber lists that are worth a mention for Friday water-cooler fodder. Says the Daily Beast, based on criteria that barely eke beyond the risible, Southern California campuses, especially those out in Claremont, are among the Happiest, while others are the most Stressed Out. Let's cut to the chase: Claremont McKenna tops the bliss list, followed by Harvard, Pomona, Harvey Mudd and Scripps, with Caltech (8), Oxy (12), UCLA (13), UCI (16), Pitzer (22), UCSB (28) and USC (31) following. On the other hand, the high anxiety crowd is said to be topped by Stanford, Columbia and MIT, with Caltech (9), USC (18), UCLA (30) and UCSB (41) following. Not quite sure of what to make of another set of measures that are said to tap the 'buzz' detectable online, in social media and other ways about schools, though Pomona shows up No. 6 on this list, which also mentions Oxy (45), Claremont McKenna (66), Harvey Mudd (80), Pitzer (92) and Scripps (93), allegedly following the tops of Wellsely, Williams, Colorado College and Oberlin; among the universities, UCLA hits this list at No. 14. And while deciding what to make about the U.S. News & World Report and other such list-mania that's popping up, well, a good dose of perspective from the Bruins on the topic, put together by the always readable Claudia Luther. By the way, we're not linking here to every school's post on this topic, just a sample few.

In Claremont, just one of the kvelling reports on the Happiness list 

From Pomona, a favorable nod from monitor of the 'net 'buzz' about schools

Click here to see the 'Beast' list of Happy schools

Click here for the 'Beast' list of Stressful campuses

Bruins put magazine, publications' school ratings in perspective

A special buzz over workshop on keeping bees

From Pomona

Where the bee sups sip, um, students? If there's a particular buzz about a required workshop for those learning about agriculture and horticulture in Pomona, well, it may be because the weekly sessions expose students to the art of bee husbandry. They learn to don protective garb, to separate queens and drones, to recognize harmful predators and how to gauge and encourage honey production so as to maintain healthy, productive bee colonies. As proponents of this training point out, bees do the planet great life-giving service with their pollinating activity and knowing about and experiencing practical skills such as bee husbandry gives liberal arts students a glimpse not just into horticulture and agriculture but also environmentalism and economics.  Bee husbandry is an especially key concern these days with the abrupt, increasing disappearance of the insects in Europe and North America. 

Insect husbandry boosts learning about horticulture and environmentalism

In Claremont, former justice sets a speaking date

From Pomona College

She blazed a path for women on to the highest court in the land and hasn't stopped since her retirement talking about the law and her own distinctive personal experiences. Now students in Claremont and those fast enough to swoop down and nab tickets starting March 1 for her free, upcoming talk can hear Justice Sandra Day O'Connor in a program set for March 30. O'Connor, who long played the role of swing vote and for long stretches the only woman on the high court, continues to hear appellate cases on a part-time basis. She is pushing a website to revive civics education, has openly and movingly discussed the difficulties of dealing with her late husband's long struggles with Alzheimer's and has kept up an active speaking career, particularly in defense of the judiciary. She recently assailed the justices on the current Supreme Court for their decision lifting curbs on corporate political spending, which, she argued, may pose a threat to the independence of elected judges. 

Justice Sandra Day O'Connor to appear in distinguished speakers' series

Mexican media star? Si, he's in Claremont

From Pomona

One of Mexico's most esteemed commentators, an analyst who is featured on CNN Espanol, Telemundo and Univision, appeared in 2008-2009 in 88 broadcast interviews and in more than 250 print news or news feature stories. He became the go-to guy to explain in Spanish the U.S. presidential race, American foreign policy toward Mexico and Latin America, as well as political developments across the region. He just was chosen for honors, from out of 7,000 entries, in Mexico City by a half-century old, prominent Mexican journalism group. And, oh, by the way, this media guru happens to be a history and Chicano studies prof in Claremont.

Photo: Prof. Miguel Tinker Salas, honored by Mexican journalists / PBS

Top journalists' group in Mexico honors history, Chicano studies prof at Pomona

Rare stuffed Calif. condor alights in new home

From Pomona

Since 1904, the great but still beast had hovered over science students. With its majestic wings spread wide, the mounted and now rare California condor was considered a cool taxidermy specimen. But as the years passed, it gathered more dust than students or faculty eager to study it. So, finally, this avian artifact has taken wing on a donation and it is finding new scientific admirers and a fresh home in a Camarillo museum. More than 100 other zoological curios, most of them stuffed bird skins, went with the condor. They'll be studied and valued in their new home, museum curators say. It's unclear, by the way, exactly how the college ended up with the condor and the other bird specimens, though the great bird appears to have been killed and mounted at a time when the species was more plentiful, not as endangered as it is now (with 400 or so of them surviving) and when taxidermy was a more common and accepted practice.

Photo: prof holds up rare California condor, stuffed, and donated recently to museum / Nina Karnovsky, Pomona

Biology department donates a hundred stuffed bird specimens to museum for study