Author: uclafaculty

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Broken Ground

Byuclafaculty

Official Program Shovel Ready Chancellor Block EVC Waugh Donors Shovel Photo Op Audio recording of event link below (about 14 minutes): {Note: Archive.org where audio is posted is currently down for maintenance – as of morning of 9-11-13.  Check back later if you don’t find the audio.  It is also directly accessible athttp://archive.org/details/UclaHotel-conferenceCenterGroundbreaking9-10-2013 when the archive.org website is functioning.} Update: Given the delay today in the archive.org service, below is an alternative source for the audio: Concluding Thoughts: All’s Well That Ends Well: [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8YFUJ8aBkpc?feature=player_detailpage]

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Construction on Wilshire West of 405

Byuclafaculty

There is a construction project now approved for Wilshire between Federal and Bonsall west of the 405 involving adding a bus lane by widening the avenue.  This construction will begin once the current 405 construction over Wilshire ends.  (Bonsall is the street that runs through the Veterans’ home area.  Click on the image above for a better view.)  Exactly what happens going east from Bonsall is unclear in terms of any construction since once you get to the freeway overpass, further widening for the bus lane would not be possible. The lanes to be added west of Bonsall won’t subtract…

The Harvard Business School Frat House is Classy

Byuclafaculty

On Sunday, we posted a link to the NY Times piece on the Harvard Business School and its frat house atmosphere.  Now the Times is running a piece saying the class divide among the students is even more of a problem:  …In recent years, second-year students have organized a midwinter ski trip that costs over $1,000, while others, including members of “Section X,” a secret society of ultrawealthy students, spend far more on weekend party trips to places like Iceland and Moscow… When Christina Wallace, now the director of the Startup Institute, attended Harvard Business School on a scholarship, she was told…

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Trouble Brewing

Byuclafaculty

From the Daily Bruin: Two first-year students recently chose not to participate in part of a sex education presentation offered at UCLA’s freshman orientation for religious reasons, prompting confusion about whether the presentation is mandatory.  Bella and Angelica Ayala, twin first-year biology students, said they wanted to be exempt from part of UCLA’s mandatory sex education presentation in late August because of moral objections to contraception. New Student Orientation lasts three days and includes informational sessions on extracurricular activities, academics and class enrollment procedures at UCLA, as well as discussions about topics like sex and alcohol… Angelica Ayala said she and her sister…

Yet another review questioning whether for MOOCs there is a there there

Byuclafaculty

A lengthy review of the MOOC world appears in The Nation.  The author notes that you might do better perusing iTunes and YouTube if you want to watch courses.  Lack of credit for most courses, even from the institutions offering them, is also noted.  And there is the big dropout rate. You can get a sense from the title alone: “Inside the Coursera Hype Machine.”  The article is at:http://www.thenation.com/article/176036/inside-coursera-hype-machine

You probably forgot to plan your celebrations but…

Byuclafaculty

…today is Admission Day.  No, it doesn’t refer to getting into UCLA.  See below: In February of 1848, Mexico and the United States signed a treaty which ended the Mexican War and yielded a vast portion of the Southwest, including present day California, to the United States. Several days earlier, January 24, 1848, gold had been discovered on the American River near Sacramento, and the ensuing gold rush hastened California’s admittance to the Union.  With the Gold Rush came a huge increase in population and a pressing need for civil government.  In 1849, Californians sought statehood and, after heated debate in the U.S….

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A bad patch of news for UCLA’s patent on the nicotine patch?

Byuclafaculty

From Time:…The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is currently evaluating the safety of e-cigarettes, which are battery-powered versions of cigarettes that can contain varying amounts of nicotine but don’t expose users to the potentially harmful byproducts of tobacco smoke such as tar and carbon monoxide. Instead, they inhale nicotine vapors, which the device’s advocates say is safer than smoking conventional cigarettes, and makes e-cigarettes a viable way to kick the habit as well. And the latest study on e-cigarettes, published in the journal Lancet, supports that claim. In the first clinical trial comparing e-cigarettes and nicotine patches in helping people to…

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Trying to Reform the Harvard Business School Frat House

Byuclafaculty

[No, the title of this posting is not the official title of the article excerpted below from the NY Times.  But that’s what it seems to be about.] BOSTON — When the members of the Harvard Business School class of 2013 gathered in May to celebrate the end of their studies, there was little visible evidence of the experiment they had undergone for the last two years. As they stood amid the brick buildings named after businessmen from Morgan to Bloomberg, black-and-crimson caps and gowns united the 905 graduates into one genderless mass.  But during that week’s festivities, the Class…

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The Mustache Should Have Been the Clue

Byuclafaculty

From the Daily Bruin: University police issued a warning on Friday about men attempting to sell counterfeit Armani jackets in Westwood, according to a police report. UCPD has received five reports since February about suspicious men driving around Westwood Village and the UCLA campus, asking students for directions to the Los Angeles International Airport, and offering to sell them the fake designer jackets at a reduced price, said Brian Washburn, a university police detective…  One of the two men was described in the police report as white, about 35 to 40 years old, with black hair and a thin mustache. The other man…