Volume 27 · Number 4 · Summer 2010
News & Notes
Standing Tall Against Hate
UC Davis is taking steps to curb intolerance after experiencing several angry acts of prejudice this year.
In February, someone carved a swastika into the dorm door of a Jewish student, and derogatory and profane words spray-painted across the entrance to the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Resource Center. Then, in early March, more graffiti was discovered — four swastikas spray-painted on the Centennial Walk through the Quad, on the Social Sciences and Humanities Building, on the campus’s brick entry sign along A Street, and on another building. All were quickly removed.
While campus police investigate the incidents with help from the FBI, the university has launched an action plan to promote a safer, more inclusive environment — a “hate-free” campus.
“Expressions of hate, intolerance, and incivility have no place in a university community that prides itself on educating the brightest minds of tomorrow and are inconsistent with the goals of our Principles of Community,” said Linda Katehi in announcing the action plan on May 5.
That plan involves a strategic investment of $230,000 to support programs and educational efforts in the LGBT and Campus Council on Community and Diversity offices, and among marginalized and underrepresented students. These programs will report back to the administration with measurable results.
Even before the action plan, UC Davis had already done much, including:
- After the LGBT graffiti and swastika attacks, the university held a March 1 town hall meeting where more than 400 students and others turned out for wide-ranging conversations with campus leaders. Katehi said then, “We are all very committed to take action to make sure we all feel safe in this university to learn freely and to live the life that we all deserve.”
- On April 8, Jim Leach, chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities, visited campus to speak on “Civility in a Fractured Society.” His talk was the first in a yearlong series of distinguished speaker events the chancellor is organizing in support of the Principles of Community. “There are few greater threats to civilization than intolerance,” said Leach.
- On April 13, the campus community publicly reaffirmed the Principles of Community at the Soaring to New Heights Staff Diversity Awards Program. Campus leaders signed the fifth reaffirmation of these principles and accepted the obligation “to build a true community of spirit and purpose based upon mutual respect and caring.”
- On April 25, the chancellor led a group of key administrators and students on a visit to the Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles. There they toured the many exhibits and participated in a special session designed to expose them to the Tools for Tolerance training program developed by the museum staff. Katehi and her staff discussed future collaborations in tolerance and diversity training, and the possibility of bringing some of the museum’s mobile training exhibits to the campus.
Those visiting the museum returned to UC Davis with new insights on tolerance, civility and respect.
“I felt inspired, I felt morally outraged,” doctoral student Malaika Singleton said of her visit to the museum.
Hailey Ferroni, a third-year student, said, “If we don’t let people know these things are happening, then we’re not going to learn from it.”
Beyond UC Davis, other campuses in the UC system — Irvine, San Diego and Santa Cruz — also experienced racist and hate incidents around the same time UC Davis did. “These are the worst incidents of racism I have seen on campuses in 20 years,” said UC President Mark Yudof.
Back at UC Davis, the goal is to confront prejudice through collaborative action, dialogue and the promotion of civility.
“We cannot be hopeful about defeating intolerance unless we are talking about it,” Katehi said.
Reaching Out to Latino Parents
A father washes dishes to give his daughter more time for homework. An older sister helps her sibling with a class assignment. A family member clears a space at home for studying. These vignettes and others comprise a series of public service announcements created by UC Davis and Bustos Media of Sacramento to help Latino parents prepare their children for college.
The campaign for Spanish-language radio stations emphasizes that children’s school success depends on the trabajo de todos, or “the work of everyone” — the students, their families, teachers and the community. Each of the six 60-second-long spots suggests ways to help children become college-ready.
Angela Balderas, vice president of national sales for Bustos Media, said she believes the theme will resonate with Latinos who have a strong culture of work but might not see school as their children’s first priority. “Education is everybody’s job,” said Balderas, who wrote and produced the spots in collaboration with UC Davis.
The announcements are airing three to five times a day through the summer on its 22 Spanish-language radio stations. Locally, these include KBBA 103.3 serving Yuba City and Marysville, KTTA 94.3 and KLMG 97.9 in Sacramento, and KBBU 93.9 serving Modesto and Stockton. The spots are also being heard on stations serving Seattle; Salt Lake City; Milwaukee; Portland, Ore.; and Boise, Idaho.
UC Davis approached Balderas last fall with the idea for the campaign as another way for the campus to reach out to the community and help ensure that more Latinos become college-ready.
Reviving UC’s Sacramento Center
The UC’s satellite teaching, research and public service center near the state Capitol, suspended last year, will be restored and operated for the entire 10-campus system by UC Davis.
The move will preserve the popular public policy and public affairs journalism programs that offered UC students from throughout the system an opportunity to learn through internships in and around the Capitol. The center also will provide a forum for public policy researchers from all UC campuses to address key issues facing the state.
Many students who went through the programs are now employed by state lawmakers, the Legislature’s policy committees and numerous state agencies.
“We are excited by the opportunity to lead the UC Center Sacramento on behalf of the University of California,” said Chancellor Linda Katehi, who made the center a top priority shortly after arriving in Davis last summer.
The center has operated since 2004 as a unit funded by the UC Office of the President. It is located and will remain in a UC-owned office building at 12th and K streets, one block north of the state Capitol.
More than 600 UC students — an average of 120 a year — have enrolled in UC Center classes here. But, in the face of a sharp reduction in state funding, the president’s office concluded last August that the university could no longer afford the center’s nearly $1 million annual budget.
Under an agreement between UC President Mark Yudof and UC Davis, the president’s office will continue to provide transitional funding as the Davis campus attempts to make the center self-supporting with restructuring and a portion of existing student fees.
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Reading to Rover
Kids, dogs and a good book are a great combination, according to researchers in UC Davis’ School of Veterinary Medicine — and they have the data to back that up.
It has been recognized anecdotally that children become better readers when they regularly read aloud to dogs, and many animal organizations and libraries around the country have developed reading programs that pair up kids and dogs. One such program is the All Ears Reading Program, an animal-assisted therapy program developed by Tony La Russa’s Animal Rescue Foundation of Walnut Creek.
Hoping to collect scientific data related to the observed successes of reading-to-dogs programs, the foundation and researchers from the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine collaborated on two studies.
The first study explored changes in reading skills among third graders in a public school and the second study focused on home-schooled students. Researchers found that the kids’ reading fluency improved by 12 percent in the first study and by 30 percent in the second study.
“The dogs, in contrast to a human, don’t judge the individual, aren’t grading the individual,” said Martin Smith, a veterinary school science educator and lead researcher on the study.
Leading the Green Wave
UC Davis is seeking to spur innovations, ideas and dialogue to help create a clean energy future for Northern California — and beyond.
Toward this vision, the university held a May “green roundtable,” E3: Economic Prosperity, Energy and the Environment. The goal is to build a network of university researchers, public policymakers, corporations and investors all working together to drive innovations from labs into the marketplace.
“We intend to build momentum and promote action to move California and the nation to a future characterized by economic prosperity, new jobs and a greener future grounded in innovation and entrepreneurship,” Chancellor Linda Katehi told the audience of almost 300 at the Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts.
The forum featured California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson, Chevron Technology Ventures President Desmond King, PG&E Senior Vice President Nancy McFadden and other regional and national leaders.
“UC Davis is a university that doesn’t just talk about and theorize about the kind of interesting things that you develop here,” Schwarzenegger said, “but you also put it on the market and you make it workable and it has such a tremendous effect.”
The E3 forum was the first major event of that initiative that is helping to shape the agenda of a larger clean technology summit to be held this fall, said Steven Currall, above right, the dean of the Graduate School of Management.