Hunger

From the Bruin: UCLA students are hungry for food delivery apps, and they have expensive taste.

UCLA students purchase the most expensive food on popular food delivery app Grubhub compared to students at other universities, according to a recent report released by Grubhub.

This data was taken from the top-50 universities in the United States over the 2018-2019 academic year. Coming in second and third were Stanford and Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Students at UCLA say they use food delivery apps for a variety of reasons, from convenience to celebrating special occasions...

Full story at http://dailybruin.com/2019/10/15/ucla-students-are-biggest-spenders-on-food-delivery-items-according-to-grubhub-data/

Expansion

From the LA Times:

...The legislation signed by (Governor) Newsom... expands California’s college student loan program for so-called Dreamers, young immigrants brought to the country illegally as children, to include students seeking graduate degrees at the University of California and California State University schools. Undergraduate Dreamers already are eligible for those loans and in-state tuition. The new laws take effect Jan. 1...

Full story at https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2019-10-14/california-new-protections-immigrants-laws-signed-gavin-newsom

Consequences

From ABC7: Sarah Morris says 12-hour days are not uncommon at her bio-chemistry lab in Morgan Hall at UC Berkeley. But PG&E's power outage may have destroyed two years of her ground-breaking cancer research, valued at $500,000.

"I kind of had a moment of thinking, 'is my dissertation thesis going to include the lines: I did this, and then it got wiped out because of a power outage. Please let me graduate!'" says Morris. Morris is a PhD student researching new therapies to fight drug-resistant forms of cancer.

She says PG&E assured UC Berkeley that the power would not be shut off, but then suddenly found herself with just 12 hours to decide how to salvage two years worth of research after PGE announced power would be cut. "I was so excited because I was just one week away from finishing, and then all of a sudden I am (thinking), I may have to lose a year-and-a-half worth of work," explains Morris.

Due to the time-sensitive nature of her work, Morris says even a slight change in temperature could kill off her cells, some which require refrigeration at minus 80 degrees. Some cells were moved to special tanks on campus, while some were taken to UCSF, as UC Berkeley scrambled to divert its limited power to keep the research labs running. "I just like put away all this monstrous anger and I just shoved it in the back of my mind and said, 'Ok, this is a do-or-die moment,' quite literally for my cells," says Morris.

PGE says it gave UC Berkeley advanced notice. In an email to ABC7's sister station ABC7 News, PG&E said:

"PG&E has been working with critical service providers and our large customers with one-on-one engagement and sector-specific meetings and webinars to inform, provide resources for and support as they developed their PSPS and emergency-preparedness plans. We also had frequent communications with these customers before, during and after the PSPS event to support their event-specific preparedness and address restoration prioritization requests and other needs."

Morris says if her work is lost, not only will she have to start over, but it could have a huge impact on any future career. "If I go out into the job market, I cannot say: The power went out. Please give me a job," says Morris.

Morris says academia is not so forgiving. If she has to start from scratch, it will require her to be in college for another year and a half. That means trying to raise money for tuition and research, which may not be as easy second time around from donors and grants. "They are very particular. They don't want to just give money to someone they think is a failure. And having a really long graduate student lab, does not look good. They are not willing to fund that," says Morris.

But for now, Morris says there needs to be a stronger focus on the economic and social costs of cutting power to a state. "This is a call to action," says Morris. "If PG&E cannot hear us individually, they will hear UC Berkeley. And I am glad to put my voice to that."

Morris gets her cells back from UCSF on Tuesday. She says it will take her two weeks to figure out what, if any, part of her research can be salvaged.

Source: https://abc7.com/science/ucb-grad-student-says-research-may-have-been-destroyed-by-pg-e-outage/5616554/

UC's Defense of DACA

Facebook Ad above takes you to website below:

Website Page: https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/daca

Click on images above to enlarge

Under new law, public university health clinics will provide abortion pills

Governor Newsom signed SB 24* - a bill previously vetoed by former Gov. Brown - which requires public university student health clinics to provide abortion-inducing medication.

From the Sacramento Bee: The Department of Finance, which reports to Newsom’s office, ... opposed the measure, citing a lack of resources, personnel expertise and private fund dollars that could support such a program of its “size, scope or content.” Committee reports priced the implementation at “hundreds of thousands of dollars.” CSU did not take a position on SB 24, but UC President Janet Napolitano wrote in an Aug. 22 letter that the system was prepared to comply with the proposed law. The abortion pill is considered safe and effective, according to Planned Parenthood. A woman takes two medications within two days, which prompts cramping and bleeding while the uterus expels the pregnancy. The medication is limited to women who are less than 10 weeks pregnant. “It’s a very simple service to offer. It seems like it would be a very feasible thing for clinicians at student health centers to do,” said Daniel Grossman, an abortion provider and UC San Francisco professor in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences. Grossman said it’s important that student health centers invest in new equipment and train clinic staff on “wrap around services.” He recommended making a 24-hour phone line available for students to call in case they have a question or complaint about their experience...

Full story at https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article235522937.html
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*https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=201920200SB24

UCLA History: The Campus - 1936

The UCLA campus in 1936

One Hundred

We received notice from Professor-Emeritus Ron Mellor, president of the UCLA Emeriti Association, that Professor-Emeritus Norman Thrower had reached his 100th birthday. The Emeriti Association sent Prof. Thrower the following note:

The Executive Board of the UCLA Emeriti Association would like to extend to you on behalf of all Emeriti and Emeritae our warmest congratulations on your One Hundredth Birthday. We want to acknowledge your contributions to UCLA over many decades as a teacher of geography and cartography, a scholar of exploration and Sir Francis Drake, and as an administrator, notably as Director of the Clark Library. Your emeriti colleagues wish you many more birthdays and good health and happiness in retirement.

Prof. Thrower's academic papers are in the UCLA library and the following information can be found about them:

Norman Thrower was a professor in UCLA’s geography department from 1957 to 1990, where he specialized in cartography, remote sensing, and Europe. He was the director of the (Columbus) Quincentenary Programs at the UCLA Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, and the director of the Clark Library at UCLA. The collection consists of lecture notes and pamphlets on the 1986 Halley’s Comet and the subsequent Newton-Halley volume, Standing on the Shoulders of Giants: A Longer View of Newton and Halley (1990), which Thrower produced with colleagues, along with relevant correspondence.

Normal Thrower was born in England in 1919. He served in India during World War II and afterwards he joined the Directorate of Colonial (later Overseas) Surveys. Desiring an academic background, he completed his Bachelor of Arts degree in geography at the University of Virginia in 1953. He then earned his Ph.D. degree in geography in 1958 at the University of Wisconsin. His dissertation concerned cadastral survey systems, used to establish legal property boundaries, and it was later published by the Association of American Geographers as Original Survey and Land Subdivision: A Comparative Study of the Form and Effect of Contrasting Cadastral Surveys (1966).

Source: https://oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/c8tb1d2n/

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Yours truly would be remiss if he didn't point out that the Emeriti Association's board contains another 100+ citizen of UCLA:

Toshi Ashikaga*

who administers the lending library known as the Book Exchange that you may be familiar with in the Faculty Center. As we noted in a prior post, in this centennial year of UCLA, she can point out that she is older than the university.

http://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2018/10/before-you-get-carried-away-by-uclas.html

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*Toshi Ashikaga is the surviving spouse of Professor Emeritus Ensho Ashikaga of East Asian Languages and Cultures. Toshi has served the Emeriti Assn. as the chair of the Book Exchange Committee from 2009 until the present time. In this position she records new books received and re-shelves those that are returned on a weekly basis. Annually, Toshi and several other volunteers cull books that are not in heavy use (usually 200 or more books) in order to make room for others.

Source: https://emeriti.errc.ucla.edu/Emeriti-Association-Awards