Author: Public Affairs

SANTA CRUZ, CA–M. Brewster Smith, professor emeritus of psychology at the University of California, Santa Cruz, has received the first Lifetime Service Award bestowed by the Western Psychological Association. The award recognizes Smith’s "distinguished contributions to the advancement of the science and profession of psychology." "Professor Smith brings to psychology a unique blend of social…

Endowment Is Largest Alumni Gift In UC Santa Cruz History SANTA CRUZ, CA–An Aptos, Calif., couple with a long-standing commitment to local arts and culture has made a gift of $250,000 to the University of California, Santa Cruz, to establish an endowed chair in art history. The gift comes from Rowland "Reb" and Patricia "Pat"…

SANTA CRUZ, CA–Mad cows, laughing cannibals, itchy sheep, and ten new cases of a rare human brain disorder called Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) in Great Britain are all part of a puzzle that has scientists stymied. In these diseases, as well as other neurological disorders such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases, dense plaques of misfolded proteins…

SANTA CRUZ, CA–Delaine Eastin, the state superintendent of public instruction, will visit the Santa Cruz area on Monday, May 20, to meet with participants in regional educational collaborations. Eastin, an advocate of educational partnerships, will visit several schools and will deliver a lunchtime speech titled "Working Together for Our Children’s Future" to education, community, and…

SANTA CRUZ, CA–When galaxies collide, the results can be strikingly beautiful or deadly dull. Some pairs of galaxies fling sweeping arcs of stars into space; others just merge into shapeless blobs. The difference, it turns out, is a matter of some gravity. Gravity dictates the overall shapes of galaxies during a collision, as well as…

PASADENA, CA–Astronomers and leading administrators from the California Institute of Technology, the University of California, and the University of Hawaii will dedicate the ten-meter Keck II Telescope in a ceremony at 11 a.m. Hawaiian time (2 p.m. PDT) on Wednesday, May 8. Keck II and its five-year-old twin, Keck I, are the world’s largest optical…

SANTA CRUZ, CA–How do individuals, firms, or states enforce agreements over time without lawyers, contracts, or courts? That will be the topic of a free public lecture by professor of economics Kenneth Kletzer of the University of California, Santa Cruz, on Tuesday, May 14. The event will begin at 8 p.m. in the Performing Arts…

SANTA CRUZ, CA–A reception is planned to celebrate the opening of a special archive recently acquired by the University Library at the University of California, Santa Cruz. The archive documents the family history of a local woman who narrowly escaped Nazi persecution during World War II. A short program is planned to introduce the Neufeld…

Event Features Pulitzer Prize-Winning Scientist Douglas Hofstadter And Composer/Programmer David Cope SANTA CRUZ, CA–Is creativity a uniquely human ability? The question is at the crux of ongoing debate, most recently embodied in the chess match between Gary Kasparov and IBM supercomputer Deep Blue. Weighing in on the debate at a May 22 symposium at the…

Three-Year Teacher-training Project Will Help Bridge The Cultural Gap Between Teachers And Increasingly Diverse Students SANTA CRUZ, CA–Dramatic demographic changes have transformed the makeup of students in California classrooms, where more than one-fifth of K-12 students have limited English skills. Although Spanish remains the most prevalent language other than English, it is becoming more common…

SANTA CRUZ, CA–UCSC es reconocida a nivel nacional por el interes que pone en la educacion de los estudiantes de bachillerato. If you couldn’t understand the preceding sentence, you can appreciate what many Spanish-speaking parents feel when their college-bound children bring home admissions brochures in English. "Sometimes parents end up feeling kind of left out…

Astrophysics I A model for the birth and strange life of the first new planet orbiting a "normal" star Delight zipped around planet Earth last October when astronomers discovered signs of a new planet in the cosmos, orbiting a star much like our own Sun. But fantasies about life on this distant body went up…