UCLA History: Water

And speaking of Powell Library (see previous post), the Library recently posted this photo of a water fight between UCLA students in 1942.  Not clear if the posting was tied to the recent flooding.

UCLA History: Librarian

University librarian Lawrence Clark Powell c1950.  The Powell undergrad library carries his name.

Good News and Bad News

Parking Structure #6 (behind the trees & bus) lives on in Google maps

The good news is that despite the recent flooding which led to the closure of parking areas 4 and 7, the Daily Bruin reports that they are targeted to be reopened by the fall.  See
http://dailybruin.com/2014/08/08/ucla-officials-aim-for-fall-reopening-of-parking-structures-4-7/

The bad news is that we no longer have parking structure #6, which might have helped the currently-displaced parkers, because we are building a Grand Hotel.  You can add that absence to the costs of the hotel project.

Trustworthy College Athletics

Do we need to add the college football & basketball trusts?

From the Chronicle of Higher Education:

Judge Rules Against NCAA in Key Antitrust Case 

A federal judge in California ruled on Friday that NCAA rules barring college athletes from sharing in the revenues produced by the use of their names and likenesses violate antitrust law, handing the plaintiffs a key win in a case that has threatened to upend the association’s principles of amateurism... In a 99-page ruling, Judge Claudia Wilken, of the U.S. District Court in Oakland, issued an injunction that will “enjoin the NCAA from enforcing any rules or bylaws that would prohibit its member schools and conferences from offering their FBS football or Division I basketball recruits a limited share of the revenues generated from the use of their names, images, and likenesses in addition to a full grant-in-aid.” Judge Wilken said the injunction will not bar the NCAA from capping the amount of compensation that athletes can receive while they are enrolled, but said the NCAA will not be allowed to set that cap below the cost of attendance...

Full story at http://chronicle.com/blogs/ticker/judge-rules-against-ncaa-in-key-antitrust-case/83731

Maybe the flooding of Pauley was an omen!

More on plagiarism

In an earlier post, we noted the pickle U.S. Johsn Senator Walsh found himself in after being caught plagiarizing.  Such cases are good examples to bring up in classes.

As a follow up, note that the consequence could be very large in the Walsh case, possibly a change in which political party controls the Senate:

Montana U.S. Sen. John Walsh dropped his election campaign Thursday amid allegations he plagiarized large portions of a 2007 research project, leaving fellow Democrats to scramble for a replacement with the election less than three months away. Nationally, the development only improves the odds for Republicans, who need a net gain of six seats in November to take Senate control...

Full story at http://m.sfgate.com/news/politics/article/Walsh-campaign-remains-tight-lipped-on-Senate-race-5674860.php

Solution to Grade Inflation: A Modest Proposal

There is a report that a Princeton committee wants to do away with a quota on A grades:

A faculty committee at Princeton University has recommended that the institution scrap its policy limiting the A’s handed out by each department, over time, to 35 percent of grades. The group, which was formed last fall by the university’s president, Christopher L. Eisgruber, concluded in a report that the 35-percent targets were “too often misinterpreted as quotas” and made students worry that “they are competing for a limited resource of A grades.”  The policy was established in 2004 to combat grade inflation. Three years later, university officials said the policy was working, citing a decline in the percentage of A’s across the university...

Full article at http://chronicle.com/blogs/ticker/princeton-faculty-group-recommends-axing-policy-that-limits-as/83637

The real problem with grade inflation is that when everyone gets an A, it is hard to differentiate between one student and another in terms of achievement.  Of course, there is the A+ but that grade can fill up, too.  So why not add unused letters from the back of the alphabet.  We could have XYZABCD and F.  It would take awhile before everyone gets to X.  But when they do, we can go to UVWXYZABCE and F.  Now eventually, we will still run out of unused letters.  But that assumes we are confined to the Romance alphabet.  There are others such as the Greek alphabet.  Or we could just go to numbers that have no limit.  ...321ABCD and F.  Just a thought for our friends at Princeton.  If it works there, maybe it would work at UC.

Good News - Bad News

The good news is that math prof Terrence Tao has one yet another prestigious award:

http://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/terence-tao-selected-by-royal-society-to-receive-2014-royal-medal

The bad news - which is old news in more than one sense by now - concerns the water main that broke on Sunset Boulevard:

The two trunk lines, which formed a "Y" shape linking to another pipe dating to the 1950s, were joined by a piece that had been welded using an outmoded and substandard technique, McDaniel said. The joiner appeared to have been "cobbled together" from leftover pieces from another job — "not the most professional type of installation" ...

Full story at http://www.latimes.com/local/cityhall/la-me-pipe-rupture-20140807-story.html

So go ahead and blame the cobbler: