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The bells are ringing (again) What with all the construction noise, maybe no one noticed that the Memorial Union's carillon--you know, the chimes--had been silent since the start of the seismic renovation project The last time the mechanism needed repairs, the service person told MU Facilities Manager Acey Hannam that the carillon's days could be numbered; the parts to fix it don't exist any more. Maybe it's time to hold a "Chime-A-Thon" to fund a replacement. After umpteen renditions of "Chopsticks" or "Heart and Soul," people would pay to have it stop. The prize of fame Richard Tucker, a professor of cell biology and human anatomy in the School of Medicine, each fall conducts a freshman seminar titled "The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine," which examines the issues surrounding this most-coveted prize in biology: What kinds of scientists win the Nobel Prize? What kinds don't? On the course description Web page, accompanying such information as when the class meets and how it will be structured, Tucker provides his students with some biographical information about himself. "[Dr. Tucker] is the director of the gross anatomy course at the School of Medicine," it says, "and has a long-standing interest in the history of science and scientific misconduct. He will never win a Nobel Prize." Add this to the MCAT
"At the end of the day there was a reception. (Note: a 'reception' is simply another interview with all the admissions committee members at which they serve cookies.) The chair of the committee was holding forth about Davis to another committee member, who was from Stanford, on topics ranging from our wine prowess to athletics, but mostly about sports and team spirit. 'I'll bet you don't have a cheer like Bossy Moo-Moo!,' said the chair. I corrected him, which reminded him that I had been in the Band-uh. "What happened next I shall never forget. I have been through two years' worth of medical, graduate and M.D./Ph.D. interviews, amounting to an estimated 150–200 interviews. I was certainly nervous for the first few and for others that were with some VIPs of the medical world. But that pales in comparison to what I felt when the chair asked me to get up and perform Bossy Cow-Cow for everyone (and everyone included all the committee members, several other faculty, a current M.D./Ph.D. student and all the other applicants). "I got up, performed Bossy Cow-Cow (albeit with a slight nervous waver in my voice on 'oleo margarine'), received my graciously (mercifully?) doled out applause, took my seat and attempted to put my stomach back in its proper place. I have no idea if it helped my cause. However, one member did lament that none of the other candidates would want to come to Davis after that display, so perhaps I did help myself by thinning the field a little." A brain on vacation Being chancellor means getting a chance to do lots of things. Even be a newspaper columnist for a day. As is his custom every year, Davis Enterprise columnist Bob Dunning invited local readers to submit replacements for his column while he takes a vacation, and this year he invited Larry Vanderhoef's contribution. Titled "Summer Ruminations," Vanderhoef's guest column describes how in the summer his brain finds ways to turn the distressing events of the previous year into humorous memories. In this excerpt, he recalls the pie-in-the-face incident: "Early on in 1998–99 somebody, no one ever found out who, came up behind me at one of my [noontime talks] and pushed a banana cream pie into my face. I had many immediate reactions to that event, I am sure, but now, two-thirds of the way through the summer, I can remember only two of them. One was the thought, on the spot, that this was good pie, and I really would have preferred having it with a fork. Second, I remember Bob Grey, provost but definitely not, I now know, protector of the chancellor, proclaiming immediately afterwards that a woman who had been seated in the chair to his right did it. Others were totally unimpressed with his powers of observation: 'Absolutely not--it was a man very poorly disguised as a woman.' CindyContreras, my assistant, who does have good powers of observation, later said that she had been reading just that weekend about cross-dressers, and she thought she was seeing one on campus for the first time, though, she added, 'I thought he was wearing an outrageously cheap and ugly wig.' "That's it. That's all I remember about the pie guy. It only makes me chuckle, and that is the wonder of the summertime brain." PASSING TIME -- The California Aggie Illustrations by Paiching Wei. |
back in 1996. But now that the MU is back in business, so is the carillon, marking the hours and half-hours with the traditional Big-Ben "bing BONG bing BONG." In fact, the carillon may be the only thing that didn't get updated in the MU retrofit; the sounds we hear today are created using the same vacuum tube technology that was installed back in 1955. (And no, dear reader; there are no "bells." The bell-like sound is electronically generated and broadcast through speakers on the MU roof.) There's a keyboard, too, and back in the '70s those having lunch on the Quad were routinely treated (or subjected) to the nimble (or not-so) fingers of volunteers playing their favorite tunes. I seem to recall "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida". . .
We've all heard about those med school interviews, where aspiring (and perspiring) hope-to-be docs pull out all the stops to convince the admissions committee of their well-rounded capabilities. But at a recent interview at the UC Davis medical school, Dan Herman, an aspiring M.D./Ph.D. student, discovered a niche he didn't know existed, thanks to his days as a member of the Cal Aggie Marching Band-uh. But let him tell it: