Dickson Awards

From a recent email:

The Dickson Emeritus Professorship Award is funded from a gift endowment established by the late Edward A. Dickson, Regent of the University of California, to honor outstanding research, scholarly work, teaching, and service performed by an Emeritus or Emerita Professor since retirement.

Three UCLA emeriti professors have been selected to receive the 2025 – 2026 Edward A. Dickson Emeritus Professorship Award, which includes a prize of $5,000: Distinguished Research Professor Arthur P. Arnold, Professor Emeritus Sander Greenland, and Professor Emeritus David A. Talan.

Arthur P. Arnold, Distinguished Research Professor of Integrative Biology and Physiology retired in 2018. Professor Emeritus Arnold has continued to demonstrate extraordinary intellectual vitality and global leadership. As a neuroscientist and behavioral biologist, he transformed the scientific understanding of sexual differentiation by establishing that sex chromosomes directly shape brain development and disease vulnerability. During his emeritus years, he has published more than 40 peer-reviewed papers in leading journals including Science Translational Medicine, Nature Immunology, and Journal of Neuroscience. His work has redefined how researchers conceptualize sex differences in physiology and medicine and continues to influence biomedical research worldwide. Professor Emeritus Arnold has also secured competitive NIH funding during retirement, including multiple R01 awards, and has led the development of innovative Four Core Genotype rat models that will advance sex-differences research across disciplines. His service to the scientific community remains exemplary. He has served on the NIH Advisory Committee on Research on Women’s Health, contributed to a National Academies report on chronic conditions in women, and continues to shape international standards for rigor in sex-based biomedical research.

Sander Greenland, Professor Emeritus of Epidemiology and Statistics, retired in 2012. Since retirement, Professor Greenland has remained one of the most influential scholars in epidemiology worldwide. From 2019 through 2025, he has been consecutively named a Clarivate/Web of Science Highly Cited Researcher, placing him among the top 1% of researchers globally. During his emeritus years alone, he has authored or co-authored more than 90 peer-reviewed publications, many in leading journals including the American Journal of Epidemiology, and International Journal of Epidemiology. His work on causal inference, bias analysis, Bayesian methods, and meta-analysis continues to shape modern epidemiologic methodology and inform public health policy around the world; reflecting a career that bridges deep theory and practical application. He continues to mentor junior investigators and faculty across institutions internationally, serving as senior or corresponding author on numerous collaborative publications that elevate the next generation of methodologists. His leadership and intellectual generosity have sustained UCLA’s reputation as a global center for excellence in epidemiologic research and training.

David A. Talan, Professor Emeritus of Emergency Medicine retired in 2014. Dr. Talan continues to produce practice-changing research published in the highest-impact medical journals, including the New England Journal of Medicine, and The Lancet. His NIH-funded trial has reshaped emergency and infectious disease care worldwide, most notably through landmark multicenter trials of modern management of skin abscesses. As co-Principal Investigator of the landmark PCORI-funded Comparison of Antibiotic Drugs and Appendectomy (CODA) trial, he helped redefine the management of uncomplicated appendicitis, advancing patient-centered, nonoperative care worldwide. His ongoing leadership of the CDC-funded EMERGEncy ID NET and current NIH-supported investigations into antimicrobial resistance and vaccine development continue to influence global health policy and practice. He has created advanced infectious diseases educational programs within the department and established an Emerging Infections Fellowship to train the next generation of physician-scientists. His mentorship spans emergency medicine, infectious diseases, and surgery, fostering interdisciplinary collaboration across UCLA.

Please join me in wishing them a well-deserved congratulations for outstanding contributions to their respective fields since retirement and for serving as powerful examples of intellectual and professional achievement.

Sincerely,

Michael S. Levine

Chair, Edward A. Dickson Emeritus Professorship Award Selection Committee

Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs & Personnel

Straws in the Wind - Part 332

From the Brown Daily Herald: Three students who were injured on campus during the Dec. 13 shooting are suing the University in three separate lawsuits over security failures, citing inadequate security measures and a failure to act on repeated warnings about the shooter’s suspicious behavior. “Brown’s conduct, as alleged herein, was so willful, reckless and wicked as to amount to criminality, which, for the good of society and as a warning to Brown, ought to be punished by an award of punitive damages over and above that provided in an award of compensatory damages,” one of the complaints reads.

All three lawsuits were filed last Thursday in Rhode Island Superior Court, and the students are seeking more than $10,000 in damages each for medical expenses as well as physical and mental distress. The students were not identified in the documents, and were referred to as “J. Doe No. 1, 2 and 3.” ...

Full story at https://www.browndailyherald.com/article/2026/04/three-students-injured-in-dec-13-shooting-sue-brown-over-alleged-security-failures.

Second thoughts at the legislature

The governor will soon be presenting his May Revise budget proposal. From the perspective of the legislature, despite all the PR that UC gives its research agenda, the typical legislator hears from parents whose kids didn't get into the UC of their choice. The fact that what gives prestige to the campuses that are disappointing parents is research doesn't register. 

Back in the Good Old Days, people are told - maybe by grandparents - it was easy to get into, say, UCLA. Now it is hard. It is also true, however, that the population of California has grown by a factor of around 2.5 since 1960, the date of the Master Plan. And more kids finish high school and want to go to college now. 

It is also true that the state has a lot more on its plate than it did in the early 1960s. Example: The state didn't worry about funding Medi-Cal back then because there was no Medi-Cal. So, despite the Master Plan's promise of no tuition, i.e., full state funding, UC gets a mix of tuition and funding. It gets a lot more money from out-of-state and international students than it does from in-state enrollees. 

To make room for more in-state students at the prestige campuses, the state required fewer out-of-state admissions and promised to reimburse UC for the loss or revenue. But that turns out to be expensive. So now the legislature is having second thoughts about the deal. From CalMatters:

In 2022, faced with mounting criticism from California parents and students who couldn’t get into the state’s three premier public universities, legislators and UC officials struck a deal. UC Berkeley, UCLA and UC San Diego would admit a combined 900 more in-state students a year, and the state would up their budgets to cover the loss of revenue from non-resident students, who pay three times what in-state students pay. 

That deal has since cost taxpayers $276 million and allowed around 3,000 more students to enroll at the three universities. While the costs were expected, the number is far higher than the annual $31 million figure Gov. Gavin Newsom and state legislators routinely cite for funding the in-state student expansion, a CalMatters analysis shows. Now, with one year to go in the five-year plan, some are wondering whether the program’s high costs should continue as-is, particularly as California faces several years of multibillion-dollar deficits...

Full story at https://calmatters.org/education/higher-education/2026/04/uc-admission/. (Dan Hare was nice enough to forward this article to yours truly.)

The fact is that you can always say that the marginal cost of adding one more kid in the back of the lecture hall is essentially zero. But that doesn't mean that adding thousands more will cost zero. And from UC's perspective, even if it were zero, those seats in the lecture hall could go to out-of-state students who pay more than in-state students. Since there are many in-state kids turned away, and many out-of-state kids turned away, the opportunity cost for UC of a seat is the difference between what the two kinds of students pay.

It has always been the case that you could "process" lots more undergraduate students cheaply. That's what CSU does. That's what the community colleges do. And that's why - as we have said on this blog umpteen times - the state needs a new Master Plan in which all the trade-offs are thrashed out rather ad hoc legislative directives.

Straws in the Wind - Part 331

From Florida's Voice: Barry University School of Law has reversed its earlier denial and will allow students to form a chapter of Turning Point USA, complying with demands from Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier that the private Catholic institution had engaged in viewpoint discrimination. The law school notified students of the decision Wednesday, ending a months-long dispute that began when administrators rejected a student request for official recognition of the conservative group in November. School officials had cited Turning Point USA’s emphasis on political advocacy and “ideological confrontation” as inconsistent with the university’s educational philosophy of reflective dialogue, intellectual humility and respect for human dignity, rooted in its Catholic and Adrian Dominican heritage.

Uthmeier sent a sharply worded letter to Dean Leticia M. Diaz on April 9, accusing the law school of “blatant viewpoint discrimination” that could violate its own student handbook guarantees of free expression and association, as well as Florida consumer protection laws. He noted that the school had approved other student organizations, including OUTLaw, a group focused on legal issues facing the LGBTQ+ community. Uthmeier welcomed the reversal in a statement Wednesday on X. “Great to see Barry Law School come around and provide its students with an opportunity to engage with and exchange diverse ideas,” he said...

Full story at https://flvoicenews.com/exclusive-barry-law-agrees-to-recognize-turning-point-usa-chapter-following-ag-uthmeier-pressure/.

Will Harvard Continue to Lead the Charge? - Part 156

From the Harvard Crimson: The Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study implemented a series of staffing cuts Wednesday, laying off employees and reducing positions as it grapples with mounting financial uncertainty. The Institute laid off four employees, shifted three staff members to part-time roles, and eliminated eight vacant positions, according to a Radcliffe employee familiar with the matter.

In [an] email to staff — which was obtained by The Crimson — Radcliffe Institute Dean Tomiko Brown-Nagin described the decision as “painful,” citing “a wide range of federal actions targeting Harvard, cost pressures, and market volatility.” She said Harvard’s central administration had directed units to pursue “structural cuts.”

“We will operate with substantial financial uncertainty for the foreseeable future — years, not months — and we have been asked to respond accordingly,” Brown-Nagin wrote... 

Full story at https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2026/4/30/radcliffe-layoffs/.

Poof! You're a Pauper!

The link to the article shown in the image is below. It's a sad tale of a computer SNAFU that isn't fully explained but was eventually corrected. However, in between the point where the accounts disappeared and when they were resurrected, there was a lot of anxiety, to say the least.

Some UC employees and retirees have their tax-favored savings accounts at Fidelity. And Fidelity provides other services for UC related to retirement accounts. But the glitch seems like something that could occur in any large computer system.

The moral of the tale would seem to be that it would be a good idea to keep some kind of external record of your accounts so that when someone tells you that they can't find any trace of your accounts in the system, you have a screenshot or a paper copy to prove otherwise. In this case, the victim of the SNAFU was told that because there was no record that she ever had existed, there was nothing to be done.

You can find the story at:

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/25/your-money/fidelity-investments-fraud-alert.html.

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Straws in the Wind - Part 330

From Fortune: The assignment involves no laptop, no chatbot and no technology of any kind. In fact, there’s no pen or paper, either. Instead, students in Chris Schaffer’s biomedical engineering class at Cornell University are required to speak directly to an instructor in what he calls an “oral defense.” It’s a testing method as old as Socrates and making a comeback in the AI age. A growing number of college professors say they are turning to oral exams, and combining a variety of old-fashioned and cutting-edge techniques, to help address a crisis in higher education. “You won’t be able to AI your way through an oral exam,” says Schaffer, who introduced the oral defense last semester.

Educators are no longer naively wondering if students will use generative AI to do their homework for them. A big question now is how to determine what students are actually learning. College instructors across the U.S. are noticing troubling new trends as generative artificial intelligence becomes more sophisticated. Take-home essays and other written assignments are coming back perfect. But when students are asked to explain their work, they can’t...

At the University of Pennsylvania, Emily Hammer, an associate professor of Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures, now pairs oral exams with written papers in her seminar classes...  Hammer forbids AI use on all writing assignments but tells her class she knows she can’t enforce that. However, if they haven’t written their papers themselves, defending the material face-to-face will likely be “a very stressful situation.”

Hammer’s class is part of “a massive shift toward in-person assessments,” both written and oral, at Penn, says Bruce Lenthall, executive director of the school’s Center for Teaching and Learning. The Ivy League school is one of a small but growing number of universities that have started running faculty workshops on oral exams...

Full story at https://fortune.com/2026/04/23/the-gen-z-stare-meets-the-mysterious-perfect-homework-assignment-in-the-age-of-chatgpt-enter-the-oral-exam/.