UCLA

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The Power of Positive Thinking on the I-405

Byuclafaculty

From the Westwood-Century City Patch: Good news about traffic on Sunset Boulevard near the 405 Freeway! (Yes, you read that right — there’s good news about traffic on the Westside.) Starting tomorrow, LADOT will begin changing the signaling and striping at one of the more congested intersections in the area, allowing drivers exiting the 405 Freeway more time to make a right on red from southbound Church Lane to westbound Sunset. Currently, there is a “No Right Turn on Red” sign at the intersection, significantly contributing to the maddening traffic bottleneck we all endure. This small change is expected to…

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TA Union Strike May Accompany Other Strike on Nov. 20

Byuclafaculty

The Daily Bruin is reporting that the union representing TAs may strike along with the larger AFSCME one-day strike on Wednesday, November 20. Excerpt below: University of California teaching assistants, tutors and other unionized academic student workers will go on strike on Wednesday in solidarity with another UC workers union. Many discussion sections for undergraduate coursework scheduled for Wednesday could be cancelled, said Cody Trojan, a recording secretary for UC Student-Workers Union Local 2865 and vice president of academic affairs for the Graduate Students Association. Unionized teaching assistants will not show up to class to teach their sections, Trojan added….

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UCLA’s Lawsuit to Retain Baseball Stadium at VA Property Criticized by LA Times

Byuclafaculty

Westwood’s Veterans Home, back in the day Blog readers will know that various tenants of the VA property in Westwood are facing litigation and potential eviction on the grounds that the property is not being used for its intended purpose.  UCLA’s baseball team uses the internal stadium: From yesterday’s LA Times‘ editorial page: [excerpt]: …Instead of appealing the decision, UCLA could play a helpful role by urging the VA to sit down with the plaintiffs to work out an agreement that meets the needs of the interested parties but also ensures that the federal government fulfills its responsibility. If baseball…

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Obituary: Supporter of Holocaust studies chair at UCLA

Byuclafaculty

From the LA Times: Samuel Goetz was 14 when the Nazis rounded up Jews in his hometown of Tarnow, Poland, and killed thousands of them — his parents included — in the gas chambers at Belzec in southeast Poland… An early advocate of Holocaust education in the United States, Goetz became a prime force behind the creation of a Holocaust studies chair at UCLA, the first at a public university in the United States. An optometrist for 50 years, Goetz, 85, died of pancreatic cancer Oct. 24 at his Los Angeles home, said his wife, Gertrude… During the ’70s, the…

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Grand Design

Byuclafaculty

Two proposed Santa Monica hotels From time to time, we try to give you a sense of the scale of the UCLA Grand Hotel project.  A developer is proposing two hotels in downtown Santa Monica.  Combined, they are roughly the size of the Grand Hotel.  So imagining them squeezed together will give you a sense of the size of the project.   You can also get a sense by looking at the current construction site in terms of area covered.  But don’t worry about the cost:

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Arts ReSTORE LA in Westwood

Byuclafaculty

As we noted some time back, the UCLA Hammer museum got a grant to put arts projects in various empty Westwood stores in a temporary exhibit, which is now running until Nov. 24.  See http://artsrestore.la/.  LA Magazine has an article and some photos about the exhibit at http://www.lamag.com/laculture/culturefilesblog/2013/11/05/repopulating-the-empty-storefronts-of-westwood-village-with-art-and-artisans.  [Yours truly went by on Nov. 1 when the exhibit officially opened and not everything seemed to be ready, but maybe that has changed.]

Not the most fascinating bedtime reading but here it is…

Byuclafaculty

Yours truly came across a website run by a group called “California Competes,” which funded a failed lawsuit against a requirement that community colleges consult with their academic senates.  However, on the group’s website were documents from the last accreditation review of UCLA back in 2009 and 2010.  They are not the most fascinating bedtime reading you can find but here are the links for the curious: http://californiacompetes.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/UCLA%20-%20Self%20Study.pdf http://californiacompetes.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/UCLA%20-%20Evaluation%20Report.pdf http://californiacompetes.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/UCLA%20-%20Action%20Letter.pdf