Campus News

News and feature ideas in the social sciences, issued periodically by the UCSC Public Information Office. For more information, contact Jennifer McNulty at (408) 459-2495 or mcnulty@ua.ucsc.edu Psychology He said, she said: Psychologist Campbell Leaper studies language and gender Developmental psychologist Campbell Leaper offers a first step for those who are concerned about gender inequality:…

Unbound Feet, by associate professor of American studies Judy Yung, has received the Jeanne Farr McDonnell Award from the Women’s Heritage Museum of San Francisco as the outstanding book within the last two years by and about women. This is the third award the book has received.

Barry Sinervo Assistant Professor of Biology Barry Sinervo, a behavioral ecologist, uses the common side-blotched lizard as a model system to study the fascinating ways in which animal behavior and hormonal systems can dictate evolution and sexual selection. He received acclaim for a recent paper in Nature that described "rock-scissors-paper" mating strategies among male lizards…

SANTA CRUZ, CA–When poor vision hobbled the Hubble Space Telescope, UC Santa Cruz astronomer Sandra Faber and several colleagues suggested that a set of high-tech corrective lenses would restore the telescope’s keen eyesight. They were right, and in the last three years Hubble has rewarded astronomers–and the public– with one stunning view of the cosmos…

For years, union organizers and labor activists have urged consumers to "buy American" as a show of support for American workers. But does buying a Volvo really put U.S. autoworkers out of work? Does increasing foreign competition actually depress U.S. wages? Economists disagree. At UCSC, labor economist Lori Kletzer () is embarking on a 12-month…

SCIPP researchers skeptical about hints of a new particle In a famous experiment more than 80 years ago, physicist Ernest Rutherford fired particles into an ultrathin layer of gold. Most particles zipped through, but some ricocheted sideways and backward, as if they had struck immovable objects. This amazing result parted the curtain of mystery around…

Gail Hershatter, professor of history, is the author of Dangerous Pleasures: Prostitution and Modernity in Twentieth-Century Shanghai (University of California Press, 1997). Hershatter makes use of a broad array of sources–from classical texts, to newspaper reports on court cases, to surveys by doctors and social workers–to present an intellectual history on one of society’s most…

Alumni, current and prospective students, and their families and friends will come to the campus on Saturday, April 19, for the Banana Slug Spring Fair. Last year, more than 3,000 people attended the fair. This year’s campus open house features special faculty lectures; alumni reunions; tours of the colleges, campus, and special facilities; and presentations…

SANTA CRUZ, CA–The National Science Foundation announced on March 28 that it will negotiate a five-year agreement with the University of California, San Diego, to revolutionize high-performance computing resources for the nation’s scientists and engineers. UC Santa Cruz is one of 37 institutions that will contribute to the program, called the National Partnership for Advanced…

Nature Magazine Publishes Commentary By Linguist That Shows Ebonics Is A Linguistically Sound Dialect Editors: Below is a commentary piece written by Geoffrey K. Pullum, professor of linguistics at the University of California, Santa Cruz, on both the decision by the Oakland school board to recognize Ebonics as a language of its students and the…

SANTA CRUZ, CA–Are female faculty underpaid? The question quickly triggers a host of follow-up queries, such as how do you weigh productivity? How do you compare the productivity of faculty artists and scientists? Should faculty research be reviewed independent of teaching performance? Ronald Oaxaca, a professor of economics at the University of Arizona, has been…

One morning last week, high school sophomore Genevieve Garcia went on a building inspection, saw dolphins and sea urchins at Long Marine Lab, and learned how certain chemicals can affect the environment. It was a busy few hours for Garcia, who trailed Dan Blunk of Environmental Health & Safety through his morning on the job,…