The latest freshmen survey of the UCLA Higher Education Research Institute suggests that, except for “emotional” health, the students come from Lake Wobegon. (The survey is of freshmen around the country, not just at UCLA.) Summary of survey available at http://www.heri.ucla.edu/PP/Understanding%20the%20Incoming%20Freshman-AAC&U%202010.pdf
Opening the chemistry building (now Haines) in 1929. UCLA History Project.
There was definitely a need for landscaping in front of Powell in 1930.
Just a little experiment by a UCLA professor in the 1950s with giving a nice lady LSD at our neighboring VA Hospital: The footage is discussed in the UK Daily Mail at http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1348080/Grandma-acid-Researcher-finds-rare-footage-1950s-housewife-LSD-experiment.html Here is a bio of Prof. Cohen, shown in the video: Sidney Cohen conducted early LSD research in the 1950s and was a noted U.S. public expert on drug abuse from the 1960s to the 1980s. Cohen was a Professor of Psychiatry at UCLA and served in the Nixon Administration as the first Director, Division of Narcotic Abuse and Drug Addiction at the National Institute of Mental…
A vigil for Martin Luther King on the UCLA campus in 1968 after his assassination. Source: UCLA History Project
The internet is buzzing today about an email sent on behalf of a professor in the veterinary medicine dept. at UC-Davis concerning how to grade a student who was absent due to giving birth. It was sent to all students in the class. Here is a sample:——-Davis officials confirmed the authenticity of an e-mail that was first quoted on the blog “On Becoming a Domestic and Laboratory Goddess” by a female scientist at a major research university who blogs, as “Isis,” about issues in academic science, particularly for women.The e-mail was sent by the presidents of the third-year class to…
Martin Luther King Day is coming up on Monday. Here is a photo of King speaking at UCLA in 1965, from UCLA History Project.
Old timers will remember the California created a Self-Esteem Commission back in the mid-1980s. For those that don’t, you can find a reference to this endeavor at http://www.nytimes.com/1986/10/11/us/now-the-california-task-force-to-promote-self-esteem.html The Commission was the brain child of John Vasconcellos, a state assemblyman of that era, who was very much into such concepts. His picture is at left. Much national mirth was aimed at California as a result of the Commission’s creation, including a Doonesbury parody. The Commission neatly fitted into the state’s New Age/hot tub image. Inside Higher Ed today points to a new study in which self esteem of college students…
Under Prop 209, affirmative action in public university admissions is banned in California. As many will know, Prop 209 evolved out of a UC Regents action in the 1990s. (Subsequently, after Prop 209 passed, the Regents dropped their regulation. But the change had no effect since Prop 209 remained in effect.) Over the years, various approaches have been proposed to increase minority representation in UC enrollment. One approach, found in Texas, is to take the top X percent of high school grads by high school rather than in all high schools combined. In Texas, X = 10%. A working paper…
Hollywood stars – Bette Davis, Cesar Romero, Gene Kelly, and Bob Hope – turn out with architect Rodney Hemsworth at the Groundbreaking Ceremony for the Jules Stein Eye Institute. Maybe it was not surprising that Hollywood types would be prominent in the ceremony since Jules Stein headed MCA. Note: Yours truly will be out of town at a meeting Jan. 7-9 so blogging will be light in that period. The state budget will be unveiled on Jan. 10. Once you see it, you may find your eyes filling with tears. A visit to Jules Stein probably won’t help.
