UC Davis News: Arts and Humanities

UC Davis plans 13 commencements, will graduate first nursing students

Tue, 08 May 2012 11:25:00 -0700

Thousands of students from the University of California, Davis, will participate in 13 commencement ceremonies this spring, including the first class from the new Betty Irene Moore School of Nursing.

Commencement season begins Thursday, May 17, and concludes Sunday, June 17.

Guest speakers will include:

Goodwin Liu, an associate justice of the California Supreme Court, at the commencement for the School of Law on May 17;
Marie V. McDemmond, president emeritus of Norfolk State University in Virginia, at the commencement for the School of Education on June 13;
James C. Davis, president of Chevron Energy Solutions, at the commencement for the Graduate School of Management on June 16; and
Secretary General Chris Buijink of the Ministry of Economic Affairs, Agriculture and Innovation for the Netherlands, at the commencements for the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences on June 17.

For more about speakers, visit: http://commencement.ucdavis.edu/speakers.html.

Commencement dates, times and locations are as follows:

May 17 — School of Law at 2 p.m. at the Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts;
May 19 — School of Medicine at 10 a.m. at the Mondavi Center;
June 13 — School of Education at 4 p.m. at the Mondavi Center;
June 14 — Graduate Studies at 4 p.m. in the ARC Pavilion;
June 15 — College of Biological Sciences at 9 a.m. in the ARC Pavilion;
June 15 — School of Veterinary Medicine at 10 a.m. at the Mondavi Center;
June 15 — College of Engineering at 3 p.m. in the ARC Pavilion;
June 16 — College of Letters and Science at 9 a.m., 1 p.m. and 5 p.m. in the ARC Pavilion;
June 16 — Graduate School of Management at 10 a.m. at the Mondavi Center; and
June 17 — College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences at 9 a.m. and 2 p.m. in the ARC Pavilion.

In addition, the Betty Irene Moore School of Nursing will hold a special celebration of its first graduates at 12:30 p.m. on June 14 at the UC Davis Conference Center, before students participate in the Graduate Studies commencement. About 25 nursing students are candidates for a Master of Science degree.

Established in 2009, the nursing school admitted the first students to its master’s and Doctor of Philosophy programs in fall 2010. The school focuses on preparing graduates as educators, researchers and leaders to promote health, advance quality of care and safety, and shape policy.

The School of Law will award 23 Master of Laws and 202 Juris Doctor degrees at its ceremony, and the School of Medicine will award 108 Doctor of Medicine, four Master of Health Informatics and 24 Master of Public Health degrees.

Estimates of degrees to be awarded at the other ceremonies will be available in June. In 2010-11, UC Davis conferred 8,350 degrees.

Tickets are required for all commencement ceremonies except Graduate Studies, and they are distributed to graduating students by individual schools and colleges.

UC Davis will offer live and on-demand webcasts of each of the commencements at http://commencementvideo.ucdavis.edu/.

UC Davis academic associations award prizes for faculty teaching, research, service

Fri, 04 May 2012 15:04:00 -0700

The UC Davis Academic Senate and Academic Federation have announced their 2012 teaching and research prize recipients.

The senate each year presents Distinguished Teaching Awards and Distinguished Scholarly Public Service Awards. The federation honors its members for Excellence in Teaching and Excellence in Research.

ACADEMIC SENATE

Distinguished Teaching Award: Undergraduate

• Frances Dolan, professor, Department of English — Teaching is central in her work and in her own scholarship. Describing her as a “dazzling lecturer” and mentor for students, English professor Margaret Ferguson said: “Whether teaching a course of 200 or mentoring a single MURALS (Mentorships for Undergraduate Research in Agriculture, Letters and Science) student, Fran pays extraordinary attention to the details of pedagogy; she is interested not only in introducing students to new texts, genres and critical questions, but also in strengthening their ability to read closely and to ask big questions of what they read.”

• Ari Kelman, associate professor, Department of History — He shines at the front of a lecture hall in a way that few others do, said David Biale, professor and chair, Department of History. “Working largely without notes, responding frequently to student questions without losing the thread of his own thought, he proceeds through a lecture, crafting a clear narrative and analysis as he goes along.” He added: “While he sometimes ventures into theater — his lecture on the caning of Sen. Charles Sumner is legendary — students appreciate his lectures most for their combination of sophistication and accessibility.”

• David Osleger, lecturer, Department of Geology — He has “an exceptional ability to get students involved in the course material,” his faculty colleagues wrote in nominating him. In evaluating his classes, students use words like “fascinating,” “fun” and “enlightening.” For many students, taking a general education geology class from Osleger led them to either take more geology classes, or to become geology or natural sciences majors. Osleger also is committed to recruiting students, especially from underrepresented groups, into natural sciences and geology, and mentoring undergraduates on career choices in geological sciences.

• Jay Stachowicz, associate professor, Department of Evolution and Ecology — He is a motivator, engaging and entertaining in the classroom, and “an incredible mentor,” encouraging students to participate in his lab. “He teaches students more than just the skills needed to run different marine ecology experiments,” Natalie Caulk, Elise Hinman and Kristen Kelley wrote in a nomination letter. “He teaches the process of scientific inquiry.” Faculty colleagues Artyom Kopp and Rick Grosberg said Stachowicz’s research experience energizes all of his classes: “His teaching embodies all that a great research university stands for.”

Distinguished Teaching Award: Graduate and Professional

• Richard Sexton, professor and chair, Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics — He is a master of his subject matter, communicates well and is remarkably adept at maximizing classroom participation. In addition, he has played an integral role in curriculum development, especially earning praise for master’s-level macroeconomic theory, which he began teaching in 1994 and later expanded into a two-course sequence. Those courses now attract students from many other disciplines. Sexton pioneered the incorporation of industrial organization concepts into instruction on agricultural market analysis.

• Richard Tucker, professor of cellular biology and human anatomy, School of Medicine — He is the primary instructor for the single largest course in the four-year curriculum: “Gross, Radiologic and Developmental Anatomy,” which includes foreign terminology and physically demanding laboratory sessions. Students laud his caring and motivational style, “fantastic ability to present a large amount of developmental information in a short period of time,” and his knowledge of the material, which he “can explain at any level of detail the moment demands.”

Distinguished Scholarly Public Service Award

• Liz Applegate, senior lecturer, Department of Nutrition — She puts as much effort into public service as she does to her teaching, notably Nutrition 10, which draws rave reviews, owing to her philosophy of making nutrition and fitness education actionable and pertinent. Off campus, she gives countless lectures and workshops to a broad range of community groups, particularly those comprising underrepresented populations — people who are disabled or chronically ill, for example. She also works with state and national organizations, and youth sport groups. In addition, she is a valuable resource for the media.

• John Largier, professor, Department of Environmental Science and Policy, and the Bodega Marine Laboratory — He has played a notable and sustained role in service to the public by providing scientific advice on matters related to the health of marine and coastal environments via media events and interviews, membership on assessment and advisory teams, participation in working groups and on task forces, and presentations at public meetings. His efforts are across the spectrum from service intended to spur development of science beyond the university, to the application of science in policy, advising agencies and informing the public.

• Mark J. Mannis, professor and chair, Department of Ophthalmology and Vision Science, and director, Eye Center — Recognized for his efforts to increase the number of high-quality ocular tissues available for transplant, as well as the number of ophthalmologists and technicians trained in the latest corneal transplant and eye-banking methodologies — thus restoring sight for tens of thousands of people with blinding diseases around the globe. Starting 30 years ago, Mannis and the UC Davis Medical Center turned the Lions Club’s fledgling eye bank into the well-established Sierra Eye and Tissue Donor Services.

• Robert K. Washino, emeritus professor, Department of Entomology — Throughout his academic career and now in retirement, he gives freely of his time and expertise to local, state, federal and international agencies, as well as the private sector. He served on U.S. Department of Agriculture and California Department of Food and Agriculture task forces targeting such insects as the Africanized honeybee and Mediterranean fruit fly. He added breadth and depth to such organizations as the Entomological Society of America and the World Health Organization.

ACADEMIC FEDERATION

Excellence in Teaching

• Eric Mann, lecturer, Department of Microbiology — His faculty colleagues said he is enthusiastic about his teaching and strives to stimulate his students to think independently. In their evaluations, students praise his clear lecture style, meticulous organization and remarkable sense of humor. His extensive work in curriculum development included a revamp of introductory microbiology to meet the needs of preprofessional students, and a reorganization of the MIC 101 labs so they could be offered in the summer. His dedication is astounding, said his colleagues, noting that he supervises lab instruction 18 hours a week in a typical quarter.

• John Rundin, lecturer, Classics Program — He is described as being abundantly generous to students inside the classroom and out, keeping an open door for those in need of assistance in one of the most difficult subjects: Latin. “His office is next to mine, so I can hear him patiently explaining Latin forms or grammar — never losing his sense of compassion and his conviction that every student can grasp the language — and also offering encouragement and advice,” wrote Emily Albu, associate professor and Classics Program director. “I see the academic results in the number of students who continue to a classics major or minor.”

Excellence in Research

• Wei Yao, assistant adjunct professor, School of Medicine — Her most recent work, published in Nature Medicine earlier this year, involved the development of a novel technique (using the molecule LLP2A-Ale) to enhance bone growth — offering a potential treatment for osteoporosis. Nancy E. Lane, who holds the Endowed Chair in Healthy Aging and Geriatric Medicine, said Yao has made a number of seminal scientific discoveries at UC Davis. “The scope of inquiry, the importance of the topic matter, the methodical construction of a unified approach to the questions and the gratifying results all speak for themselves,” Lane said.

Lighting innovator assumes first Rosenfeld Chair in Energy Efficiency

Thu, 03 May 2012 08:50:00 -0700

Michael Siminovitch, director of the California Lighting Technology Center, has been named the first Arthur H. Rosenfeld Chair in Energy Efficiency at the University of California, Davis.

The designation honors both Siminovitch, a professor of design whose work is revolutionizing lighting throughout California, and Rosenfeld, considered the “father of energy efficiency.”

“I am absolutely delighted that Michael has received this recognition,” said Jessie Ann Owens, dean of the Division of Humanities, Arts and Cultural Studies, which encompasses the Department of Design. “He is a visionary leader and the perfect person to inaugurate this chair.”

Siminovitch has directed the CLTC since it was established in 2003, under the UC Davis Department of Design. It has since become one of the most respected lighting research centers in the United States. Working with industry partners, utilities, government agencies, and others, CLTC is dedicated to advancing energy-efficient lighting and daylighting design.

High-efficiency lighting developed at CLTC now illuminates buildings statewide, as well as UC Davis parking lots and garages, the Richmond Department of Public Health and other state agencies, higher education campuses outside UC Davis, such as California State University-Long Beach, and Raley’s supermarkets.

The lighting retrofits at UC Davis are part of the university’s Smart Lighting Initiative co-developed by Siminovitch to reduce the campus’s electricity use for lighting by 60 percent by the end of 2015. When the initiative is complete, the campus is expected to reduce its carbon footprint by about 10,000 metric tons of CO2 equivalent and save an estimated $3 million each year. The CLTC also advised developers of UC Davis West Village, the nation’s largest planned zero net energy community.

CLTC is part of the UC Davis Energy Efficiency Center, of which Rosenfeld is a founding advisory board member. Rosenfeld is currently a professor emeritus of physics at UC Berkeley, co-founder and former director of the Center for Building Science at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and retired California Energy Commissioner.

“We’re thrilled to recognize both Art Rosenfeld and Michael Siminovitch — two extraordinary people who are doing good things for California and the world,” said Nicole Biggart, Chevron Chair in Energy Efficiency, director of the Energy Efficiency Center, and professor in the Graduate School of Management.

In the 1970s, Rosenfeld was one of the first in the nation to propose that conserving energy was cheaper and smarter than building new power plants and finding more nonrenewable energy sources. His contributions to energy efficiency are so profound that a new unit to describe energy saved — the Rosenfeld — was named after him in 2010.

While working as a student researcher at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Siminovitch was mentored by Rosenfeld, whose ideas left a deep impression on him.

“He was an enthusiastic champion of this thing called energy efficiency,” said Siminovitch, recalling those early years. “At the time, he was one of the few in the country linking technology, design and human behavior all together with energy efficiency. The California Lighting Technology Center is based on those cornerstones, which I learned from him.”

Like Rosenfeld, Siminovitch is intent on using science and design to make an impact. In addition to teaching the next generation of lighting designers and helping to develop new energy-efficient technologies, he has helped to shape public policy in California. He often advises regulatory agencies, manufacturers and architects, all with a focus on bringing energy efficient technologies to the public. His efforts to make adaptive lighting a standard in building design helped shape changes to Title 24 codes and standards.

“The Rosenfeld Chair is about the can-do culture of UC Davis and the California Lighting Technology Center — a culture of innovation and cooperation,” Siminovitch said. “We’re creating real change and moving ideas from the laboratory to the marketplace by working collaboratively with industry.”

The new chair was endowed by more than 70 individuals and organizations. Major donors include Pacific Gas and Electric Company, Sempra Energy, Southern California Edison, the California Clean Energy Fund, Chevron, ClimateWorks Foundation, Exelon Corporation, Goldman Sachs, Power Integrations Inc., and Wendy and Eric Schmidt. A full list of donors is online at: http://eec.ucdavis.edu/events/rosenfeld_donors.php.

The endowment will help the chair holder promote the EEC’s mission to develop and commercialize energy-efficient technologies, teach future leaders in energy efficiency, and conduct critical policy-supporting research.

Siminovitch is a graduate of Carleton University in Canada and received his master’s degrees in both industrial design and architecture from the University of Illinois. He earned his doctorate degree in architecture and human factors engineering from the University of Michigan.

UC Davis dean elected to Johns Hopkins Society of Scholars

Tue, 17 Apr 2012 14:30:00 -0700

Immunologist James Hildreth, dean of biological sciences at the University of California, Davis, has been elected to the Johns Hopkins Society of Scholars.

Hildreth, a leading AIDS researcher, came to UC Davis in 2011 upon his appointment as dean. He left Tennessee’s Meharry Medical College, where he was a professor and director of the Center for AIDS Health Disparities Research.

Before that he served on the faculty of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, where he began his research on HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.

His work at Johns Hopkins University qualified him for the Society of Scholars. Established in 1967, it includes former postdoctoral fellows, postdoctoral degree recipients, house staff, and junior or visiting faculty who served for at least one year at Johns Hopkins and later gained marked distinction in their fields of physical, biological, medical, social or engineering sciences, or in the humanities.

Hildreth earned a bachelor’s degree from Harvard in 1979; his doctorate in immunology from Oxford in 1982, as a Rhodes scholar; and his medical degree from Johns Hopkins in 1987.

•••

Newly awarded fellowships are supporting a half-dozen University of California, Davis, faculty members in their research and writing.

Simons Foundation fellowships went to Anne Schilling, professor, and Dan Romik, associate professor, both of the Department of Mathematics; and Warren Pickett, professor of physics.

The awards provide support to extend academic leaves for up to a year, allowing recipients to focus solely on research.

The American Council of Learned Societies is supporting three faculty members in their book projects on medieval French farces, Mark Twain and human rights in the Middle East. The recipients:

• Noah Guynn, associate professor, Department of French and Italian, who is writing The Many Faces of Farce: Ethics, Politics, and Urban Culture in Late Medieval and Early Modern France, challenging assumptions that such farces were used to entertain the masses while reconciling them to lives of subservience. Instead, Guynn reveals evidence of cultural resistance and political risk in the genre.

• Hsuan L. Hsu, professor, Department of English, who is writing Sitting in Darkness: Mark Twain and America’s Asia. Hsu describes it as “the first book-length study of Mark Twain’s responses to trans-Pacific historical phenomena such as Chinese immigration, diplomatic relations with China, the annexation of Hawaii and the U.S. regime in the Philippines.”

• Keith David Watenpaugh, associate professor, Department of Religious Studies, who is writing Bread from Stones: The Middle East and the Making of Modern Humanitarianism, the first major study of the history of human rights and international humanitarianism in the Middle East.

•••

Professor John Eadie of the University of California, Davis, has been honored for his waterfowl conservation efforts.

The waterfowl biologist, affiliated with the Department of Wildlife, Fish and Conservation Biology, received the awards at the 77th North American Wildlife and Natural Resources Conference.

Ducks Unlimited presented a Wetland Conservation Achievement Award, commending Eadie for his research on food resources for migrating ducks in the Central Valley’s seasonally flooded wetland and rice land — data that contributed to a conservation model for these critical wintering grounds.

Eadie received the National Blue-Winged Teal Award from the North American Waterfowl Management Plan, a joint project of the United States, Canada and Mexico.

Eadie, who runs the Avian Conservation and Ecology Lab, joined UC Davis in 1995 as the first holder of the Dennis G. Raveling Professorship.

•••

Composer-musician Kurt Rohde of the faculty at the University of California, Davis, has scored two commissions and two residencies.

One commission is from the Lydian String Quartet at Brandeis University, and the other is from the independent and nonprofit Meet the Composer, part of New Music USA. For the latter, Rohde is collaborating on a work for small ensemble, with narrator and projected images.

Rohde’s residencies will be at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University, where he will work on the chamber opera projects during the 2012-13 academic year; and the Montalvo Arts Center, Saratoga (Santa Clara County), where, during the summers of 2013 and 2014, he will collaborate on a film project.

•••

With a swearing-in ceremony in Washington, D.C., physics professor Robin Erbacher of the University of California, Davis, officially became a member of the federal government’s High Energy Physics Advisory Panel.

It advises the government on research in theoretical and experimental physics, reporting jointly to the Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation.

Erbacher earned her doctorate from Stanford University and joined the UC Davis faculty in 2004. She is a member of the Compact Muon Solenoid experiment at the Large Hadron Collider near Geneva, Switzerland.

•••

Professor Laura Marcu of the University of California, Davis, has been elected a fellow of the professional organization SPIE, in recognition of her achievements in biomedical optics.

For example, she developed handheld probes for identifying the edges of tumors during surgery, and probes that can be inserted through catheters to investigate atherosclerotic plaques in heart disease.

SPIE began in 1955 as the Society of Photographic Instrumentation Engineers, and has changed names twice. It is now known simply as SPIE, the international society for optics and photonics.

•••

Nancy McTygue, executive director of the California History-Social Science Project, based at the University of California, Davis, has taken a seat on the California Instructional Quality Commission, by appointment of the state Board of Education.

The Instructional Quality Commission, known as the Curriculum Commission up until Jan. 1, 2012, serves in an advisory capacity to the state board, on issues related to kindergarten through grade-12 curriculum and instruction.

This is McTygue’s forte. The only panel member with a university-affiliated post, she oversees seven regional sites, each a collaborative of teachers (kindergarten through four-year college) and scholars dedicated to improving history and social science curriculum and instruction in the state’s schools.

The sites range from the UCI History Project at UC Irvine in the south, to The History Project at UC Davis in the north.

Nobel-winning physicist and his art critic son debate creativity

Tue, 17 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0700

April 26, Thursday -- Martin Perl, winner of the 2005 Nobel Prize in physics, and his son, Jed Perl, art critic for The New Republic, will discuss the creative process in science and the arts beginning at 8 p.m. at the UC Davis Conference Center. Their discussion will be moderated by Dean Simonton, distinguished professor of psychology at UC Davis. The event is free and open to the public.

Martin Perl is a professor at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center and Stanford University. He shared the 1995 Nobel Prize in physics for his discovery of a subatomic particle, the tau lepton. Jed Perl has been art critic for The New Republic since 1994. He is the author of a number of books, including "New Art City: Manhattan at Mid-Century" (2005), which was an Atlantic Monthly best book of the year and a New York Times notable book. Jed Perl is currently a visiting professor of liberal studies at The New School in New York City.

Simonton has written extensively on genius and creativity in science and art. Among his current projects is an upcoming book, the "Handbook of Genius," to be published by Wiley-Blackwell. He is also president of the Society of General Psychology.

The event is sponsored by the UC Davis College of Letters and Science, the Office of University Development, Department of Physics, and the Art Studio Program.

Environmental superstar Bill McKibben, author Chris Mooney, physicist Lisa Randall to speak

Wed, 11 Apr 2012 09:20:00 -0700

April brings three renowned authors, including environmental leaders and a leading physicist, to the UC Davis campus for free, public presentations.

Chris Mooney

On Friday, April 13, science and political journalist Chris Mooney will present “The Republican Brain: The Science of Why They Deny Science and Reality, ” which is also the title of his new book.

Mooney is the bestselling author of three other books, including "Unscientific America: How Scientific Illiteracy Threatens Our Future," and "The Republican War on Science." During his presentation, he will discuss the psychological factors that contribute to today’s polarized political environment. Climate change and evolution are two classic scientific issues where views tend to fall along party lines. In his lecture, Mooney will review research that suggests that liberals and conservatives are fundamentally different, with different ways of processing information, particularly when it comes to science with political implications. He will explain why understanding these differences is critical to building a society grounded in reality and reason.

Mooney’s presentation and book signing will be held from 10:30 a.m. to noon, in the Activities and Recreation Center at UC Davis. The event is free and open to the public. It is hosted by the UC Davis John Muir Institute of the Environment, Institute of Government Affairs, Department of Geology, and Division of Mathematical and Physical Sciences.

Bill McKibben

On Monday, April 16, environmental superstar Bill McKibben will visit UC Davis to give a presentation hosted by the UC Davis John Muir Institute of the Environment and Capital Public Radio.

McKibben is the author of a dozen books about the environment, including "The End of Nature." Published in 1989, it was one of the first books to warn a general audience about climate change. More recently, his 2011 book "Eaarth" describes a planet that has reached its tipping point and is nearly unrecognizable from the world we know. McKibben is also a frequent contributor to The New Times Magazine, The Atlantic Monthly, Harper’s, Orion Magazine, Mother Jones, Rolling Stone and Outside.

As much as he is a writer and speaker, McKibben is one of the country’s preeminent environmental activists. He founded the grassroots climate campaign 350.org, which has coordinated 15,000 rallies since 2009. A Schumann Distinguished Scholar at Middlebury College in Vermont, he helped lead a five-day walk across Vermont in 2006 to demand action on global warming. In 2007, he founded stepitup07.com to demand that Congress enact curbs on carbon emissions to cut global warming pollution 80 percent by 2050. With six college students, he organized 1,400 global warming demonstrations across the country on April 15, 2007 — considered the largest day of protest about climate change in U.S. history.

McKibben will speak from 9:30 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. in the UC Davis Conference Center Ballroom. The event is free, but participants must RSVP. For more information and to RSVP, visit http://www.capradio.org/events/2012/04/capital-public-radio-presents-bill-mckibben.

Lisa Randall

On Tuesday, April 17, Lisa Randall, a professor of physics at Harvard University, will give a public lecture based on her recent book, "Knocking on Heaven's Door: How Physics and Scientific Thinking Illuminate the Universe and the Modern World." Her talk will begin at 8 p.m. in the ARC Ballroom on the UC Davis campus. Admission is free.

“Knocking on Heaven's Door” is an exhilarating and accessible overview of recent developments in physics, and an impassioned argument for the significance of science, according to the Department of Physics website. Randall, bestselling author of "Warped Passages" (2006), is an expert in both particle physics and cosmology. In her new book, she explores how we decide which scientific questions to study and how we go about answering them. She examines the role of risk, creativity, uncertainty, beauty and truth in scientific thinking, and explains with wit and clarity the latest ideas in physics and cosmology.

The event is sponsored by the UC Davis High Energy Frontier Theory Initiative and the Department of Physics.

More information: http://particle.physics.ucdavis.edu/hefti/lectures/randall/index.php

Human Rights Watch director to speak March 5

Wed, 29 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0800

March 5, Monday — The inaugural UC Davis Provost’s Lecture in Human Rights features Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director of the Middle East and North Africa Division of Human Rights Watch. The lecture is free and open to the public, and will begin at 7:30 p.m. at the Walter A. Buehler Alumni and Visitor’s Center, AGR Room. Whitson’s talk “At last, an Arab Spring: Black Swans of the Middle East; Human Rights Watch Reports from the Ground,” will address the role of the international community in Arab uprisings and challenges ahead.

The lecture opens UC Davis’ celebration of Human Rights and Humanities Week March 5-9. More information: http://humanrightsinitiative.ucdavis.edu/human-rights-and-the-humanities-week-march-5-9-2012/.

Whitson is an expert on Middle East and North Africa issues, having led landmark investigations of human rights conditions in Libya and Saudi Arabia since joining Human Rights Watch in 2004. She graduated from UC Berkeley and Harvard Law School. Whitson is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Whitson’s full bio: http://www.hrw.org/en/bios/sarah-leah-whitson.

The Provost’s Lecture in Human Rights demonstrates UC Davis’ commitment to human rights, said Ralph J. Hexter, UC Davis provost and executive vice chancellor and a longtime advocate of human rights on college campuses.

"A commitment to human rights has always been central to UC Davis — to what we believe as an institution, and to our mission of public service," said Hexter. "In recent years, the subject of human rights has not only gained a new prominence, and urgency, around the globe, but also received a growing amount of scholarly attention — a key component in the advancement of this cause. I am personally delighted to contribute to our campus’ work in this crucial area through the establishment, this year, of the Provost’s Lecture in Human Rights."

Monogamous societies have fewer social problems than polygamous ones, UC Davis researcher says

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0800

Compared to monogamous societies, polygamous cultures see more rape, kidnapping, murder, assault, robbery, fraud, child neglect and child abuse, a new UC Davis study suggests.

The reason: When men take multiple wives, the competition for fewer available women results in greater levels of strife, the researchers hypothesize.

The findings may explain the global rise of monogamy as the dominant marriage institution in recent centuries, replacing the polygamy once practiced by 85 percent of the world’s societies, said Peter Richerson, an environmental science professor at UC Davis and co-author of the study, which appears in the January issue of the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society.

“We wanted to understand both why monogamous societies have been economically more successful in the last few centuries and why monogamy has spread to many formerly polygamous societies in the course of modernization,” he said.

Criminological data suggest that unmarried men, particularly unmarried men of lower social status with lesser prospects of attracting wives, are disproportionately responsible for violent and other seriously disruptive behavior, he said.

Polygamy continues to be practiced in parts of Africa, Asia, the Middle East and North America.

“The emergence of monogamous marriage is also puzzling because multiple marriage is mostly practiced by the economic and political elite who should be in a position to defend the practice,” Richerson said. “South African President Jacob Zuma, for example, is proud of having several wives.”

But, Richerson pointed out, what seems good for the man who has many wives does not work out as well for the rest of society.

“Our findings suggest that institutionalized monogamous marriage provides greater net benefits for society at large by reducing social problems that are inherent in polygamous societies,” he said.

By shifting male efforts from seeking wives to paternal investment, institutionalized monogamy increases long-term planning, economic productivity, financial savings and child investment, the study found.

Monogamous marriage also results in significant improvements in child welfare, including lower rates of child neglect, abuse, accidental death, homicide and intra-household conflict, the study found. These benefits result from greater levels of parental investment, smaller households and increased direct “blood relatedness” in monogamous family households, according to the researchers.

Joseph Henrich, a cultural anthropologist at the University of British Columbia, led the study, working with Richerson and Robert Boyd, a UCLA anthropology professor.

The study, “The Puzzle of Monogamous Marriage,” is available online: http://rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/367/1589/657.full.pdf.

UC Davis faculty members win art, music prizes

Mon, 06 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0800

University of California, Davis, faculty members recently received prestigious awards in art and music.

The New York City-based Joan Mitchell Foundation named art professor Annabeth Rosen among the 25 recipients of $25,000 awards in the 2011 Painters and Sculptors Grant Program.

Rosen, who joined the art studio faculty in 1997, holds the Robert Arneson Chair in Ceramic Sculpture. She received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the School of Art and Design at Alfred University, N.Y., in 1978, and a Master of Fine Arts from Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Mich., in 1981.

The Joan Mitchell Foundation is named after the abstract expressionist painter and strives to fulfill her ambitions — to assist the needs of contemporary artists, and to demonstrate that painting and sculpture are significant cultural necessities. Mitchell died in 1992, and the foundation came into being the next year.

The Painters and Sculptors Grant Program dates back to the foundation’s first year, serving to acknowledge artists for creating works of exceptional quality.

Sam Nichols, a lecturer in the Department of Music, received one of two 2011 Suzanne and Lee Ettelson Composer Awards for New Chamber Works.

Honoring the best in American music, each award comes with a $1,000 prize and a prominent forum: a performance in the Composers Inc. concert season in San Francisco.

The Left Coast Chamber Players are set to perform Nichols’ award-winning work, Refuge, for string quartet, during the Concerts Inc. Rifts and Refuge concert April 24.

UC Davis experts: 10th anniversary of Guantanamo Bay

Wed, 11 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0800

Jan. 11 is the 10th anniversary of the opening of the U.S. military detention camp for terrorist suspects at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. UC Davis experts can comment on the following aspects of the detention camp:

DETAINEE POETRY -- Flagg Miller, an associate professor of religious studies, is the author of "Forms of Suffering in Muslim Prison Poetry" in the 2007 book "Poems from Guantanamo: The Detainees Speak," edited by Marc Falkoff. A linguistic and cultural anthropologist, Miller can speak broadly about the roles of language ideology and poetry in contemporary Muslim reform in the Middle East, as well as what Guantanamo detainees' poems reveal about the men who wrote them. "The ultimate reception of the detainees' verse is likely to be as varied as the aims of the poets, rendered in as many strains as an anthem can have," Miller writes. "However construed, the poets strike a deep chord with many audiences, reminding them of the stunted nature of justice at Guantanamo." Miller's newest book project is based on his study of an audiocassette collection formerly owned by Osama bin Laden and now held at Yale University. Miller, who is fluent in Arabic, is translating the collection and exploring its implications for deepening our understanding of bin Laden’s intellectual development and the development of al-Qaida. Contact: Flagg Miller, Religious Studies, fmiller@ucdavis.edu, (530) 574-3758.

JUVENILE DETAINEES, TORTURE -- Linguistics professor Almerindo Ojeda, who directs the UC Davis Center for the Study of Human Rights in the Americas and its Guantanamo Testimonials Project, can talk about his efforts to compile and archive information related to Guantanamo from sources worldwide. He is launching a "Virtual Site of Remembrance for Camp X Ray" (the first camp for detainees) and has posted on a number of subjects, including dryboarding and "Guantanamo's Children," in which he concluded that the U.S. Department of State underreported to the United Nations by 50 percent the number of juveniles seized and sent to the prison. The volunteer-staffed Guantanamo Testimonials Project also gathers accounts of torture of Guantanamo Bay prisoners found in news media reports, e-mails, diaries and other sources worldwide. In addition, the project has published a book, "The Trauma of Psychological Torture," that contains the proceedings of a September 2006 conference sponsored by the UC Davis Center for Mind and Brain, which drew psychologists, psychiatrists, neurobiologists, lawyers and historians from nine institutions in the U.S. and Germany. More information is available at http://humanrights.ucdavis.edu/. Contact: Almerindo Ojeda, Center for the Study of Human Rights in the Americas, aeojeda@ucdavis.edu, (530) 752-9933.

DECONSTRUCTING THE "AGE OF TERROR" -- Scott Shershow, professor of English, focuses his work on contemporary legal and political issues, including the Guantanamo detainees, illegal detention, torture, sovereign power and the laws of war. He is the author of "Does Torture Have a Future?" in the fall 2006 issue of the journal Boundary 2 and "Beyond or Before the Law at Guantanamo" in the fall 2004 issue of the journal Peace Review. He is at work on a book tentatively titled "Dignity, Sovereignty, Sacrifice: Rethinking a Fatal Triangle in the Age of Terror." Contact: Scott Shershow, English, scshershow@ucdavis.edu, (530) 752-3269.

About UC Davis

For 100 years, UC Davis has engaged in teaching, research and public service that matter to California and transform the world. Located close to the state capital, UC Davis has 31,000 students, an annual research budget that exceeds $500 million, a comprehensive health system and 13 specialized research centers. The university offers interdisciplinary graduate study and more than 100 undergraduate majors in four colleges -- Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, Biological Sciences, Engineering, and Letters and Science -- and advanced degrees from five professional schools: Education, Law, Management, Medicine, and Veterinary Medicine. The UC Davis School of Medicine and UC Davis Medical Center are located on the Sacramento campus near downtown.

Napa vintner donates $10 million for new museum of art at UC Davis

Fri, 16 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

The University of California, Davis, has received a $10 million gift to name a new art museum that will serve as a teaching and cultural resource for the region and provide opportunities to share the university’s artistic legacy, enhance its fine arts collection, and create new partnerships and collaborations.

Slated for completion in 2015, the museum will be named for donor Jan Shrem, proprietor of Clos Pegase winery in Napa Valley, and his friend and arts patron Maria Manetti Farrow.

The Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Farrow Museum of Art will provide approximately 40,000 square feet of contemporary space for galleries, seminars, research and public gatherings. It will also house the university’s fine arts collection, which contains more than 4,000 works of art including works by former art department faculty such as Wayne Thiebaud, Robert Arneson, Roy De Forest and William T. Wiley.

The museum, part of a long-range master plan for the university’s new south entrance, will be constructed on a 1.6 acre site adjacent to the Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts, the UC Davis Conference Center and Maurice J. Gallagher Jr. Hall, home of the university’s Graduate School of Management.

“The museum will build upon the university’s long tradition of excellence in the arts, serve as a source of rich learning opportunities for our students, and provide inspiration to generations of artists,” said Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi. “We are very grateful for this extraordinary commitment and for Jan and Maria’s vision and partnership in the creation of a museum of art at UC Davis.”

Shrem has always held a deep passion for making great art widely accessible, which is reflected in his famous Clos Pegase winery. The signature building, designed by renowned architect Michael Graves, features a collection of nearly 1,000 works by Henry Moore, Richard Serra, Mark Di Suvero and others.

Born in Colombia of Jewish-Lebanese heritage, Shrem grew up in Jerusalem and moved to the U.S. as a teenager. After studying at UCLA, he built a successful publishing business in Japan, studied enology at the University of Bordeaux and later created the 450-acre wine estate, Clos Pegase. Shrem is now a member of the Director’s Circle for the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and serves on the board of the Family Winemakers of California.

“After our dear friend, Margrit Mondavi, introduced the idea of the new museum, we decided it would be an honor to join her in supporting this extraordinary university and in sharing its vision for the future,” Shrem said. “Our philosophy of giving rests on simple concepts: We believe that education and the arts should be accessible to all people. And we believe that a curious and open mind should be nurtured and supported. Fortunately, the project at UC Davis has introduced us to people who profoundly share this philosophy. It is with deepest pleasure that we are able to help bring this new museum to life.”

An international businesswoman, Manetti Farrow was born in Italy and moved to the U.S. in 1973, making her home in Northern California. In the 1980s, Manetti Farrow revolutionized the high-end accessory market by creating and managing U.S. and Canadian distribution for premium leather goods by designers such as Gucci, Fendi and Mark Cross.

Manetti Farrow is a grower and collector of fine wines and produces premium balsamic vinegar and award-winning olive oils served at some of the finest restaurants in the country. She is involved in numerous philanthropic, civic and performing arts organizations in San Francisco, New York, Washington D.C., Los Angeles, Florence, London, Paris and St. Petersburg.

“Both Jan and I came to this country as young people, more or less the same age as the students at UC Davis,” Manetti Farrow said. “And we both remember what it was like to begin life all over again in a new world where education was our salvation and the arts were our greatest joy. Everything that is being planned for the new museum of art suggests it will become an integral part of the university, the curriculum and the community. We also believe it will become the heart of the campus, a place where people can come to study, to learn, to look and to be moved by the beauty and strength of the arts.”

Mondavi has been a champion of the art museum project at UC Davis. “The excellent teaching artists of the past, the prominent faculty at UC Davis today, and the impressive collection of renowned California artists deserve a great home for art, which is an ongoing love affair of my life,” Mondavi said. “I’m thrilled that my friends Jan and Maria are joining me in fulfilling the dream of a new art museum for this great university.”

According to Jessie Ann Owens, dean of UC Davis’ Division of Humanities, Arts and Cultural Studies, the museum could fuel new academic programs for students such as museum studies, curatorial and preservation studies, and also house a scholarly archive of artists’ papers and materials that would be invaluable in the study of art and artists.

Dean Owens added, “Both Jan and Maria have demonstrated a love for the arts throughout their lives. They understand what a university art museum can do and will do at UC Davis, to be a living educational resource, and a place for the public to enjoy.”

Wayne Thiebaud, painter and professor emeritus of art at UC Davis, emphasized the value of the museum for students. “A university museum will allow students to experience works of art first-hand in a way that is not possible with reproductions,” he said. “It is this kind of experience that is essential to the university’s teaching mission. As a teacher, I am delighted to know that this gift will make the museum a reality.”

The contribution allows the university to begin the design phase of the $30 million construction project and spurs fundraising efforts for the museum. Half of the total construction costs, $15 million, will be funded by private philanthropic gifts. Including the Shrem gift, $12.1 million has been raised to date. The university will use tax-exempt bond financing for the remaining $15 million, which will be paid from campus funds such as short-term interest earnings. The university will not use student tuition, student fees or state funds for construction of the museum. UC Davis plans a campaign to raise between $5 million and $20 million in additional private gifts for the museum, including an endowment to support museum programs.

Shrem’s gift will be counted as part of The Campaign for UC Davis, a universitywide initiative launched in 2006 to inspire 100,000 donors to contribute $1 billion in support of the university’s mission and vision. To date, $749 million has been raised from 85,000 donors. The gift is one of the largest ever received for the arts at UC Davis, and is the largest gift received to date by the College of Letters and Science. It is the fourth largest cumulative gift from an individual donor to The Campaign for UC Davis, and the sixth largest gift from any donor to the campaign.

UC Davis offers innovative new majors, minors

Mon, 31 Oct 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Responding to increased student interest in sustainability, UC Davis this fall introduced a new major, sustainable agriculture, and a new minor, sustainability in the built environment. The innovative fields of study are among an array of new undergraduate and graduate programs planned for the campus, which is known as one of the nation’s most comprehensive universities.

“UC Davis is innovating in response to the evolving interests of students and faculty in ways that will enable us to better achieve our mission of addressing society’s most critical issues,” said Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor Ralph Hexter. “Our curriculum is dynamic and innovative — and will be even more so in the decade ahead, as we increase undergraduate student enrollment and add several hundred new faculty.”

Also new this fall: a minor in human rights and a doctoral program in communication. A master's degree in professional accountancy, now in the final states of review, is expected to admit students for fall 2012. And beginning in fall 2013, the university will offer new master’s and doctoral programs in the study of religion.

Meanwhile, the UC Davis Office of Graduate Studies is tracking proposals for about 15 additional new graduate programs.

"UC Davis is the most academically innovative campus in the University of California system, and one of the most innovative anywhere," said Jeffrey Gibeling, dean of graduate studies, who oversees proposals for graduate and professional degree programs as they move through campus and University of California approvals.

Today, UC Davis offers about 90 graduate programs, 100 majors and 108 minors.

But students don’t need to limit themselves to one field of study. UC Davis prides itself on its interdisciplinary programs, which give students the freedom to explore outside traditional disciplines and areas of research.

According to Gibeling, about two-thirds of the graduate programs at UC Davis are offered as interdisciplinary graduate groups, a greater proportion than at any other UC campus.

Patricia Turner, vice provost for undergraduate studies, said new academic programs reflect a need or interest among students, graduate schools or employers.

"Changes in curriculum signify our institution keeping up with what is going on in society," she said.

Proposals for undergraduate majors come through individual colleges and are vetted by committees of the Academic Senate as well as the Council of Deans and Vice Chancellors. In times of budget constraint, majors might be developed from existing courses, build on an existing minor or leverage external funding.

For example, a $180,000 federal grant helped build a Middle East/South Asia major in 2008 from a minor. This year, the program will establish its first visiting lecturer in Iranian/Persianate studies, a move that could be a step toward a minor in Iranian studies.

Neal Van Alfen, dean of the College of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences, said the newest undergraduate major, sustainable agriculture and food systems, reflects a change in how scientists think about food and agriculture. The major will provide students with a multidisciplinary understanding of issues facing modern farming and food systems.

The new undergraduate minor in human rights is a combined effort of the Department of History, the Religious Studies Program and other academic units. It encourages students to link their major fields of study with the history, theory, practice and promotion of human rights.

The sustainability in the built environment minor, offered though the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, will educate those who will design and maintain human-made surroundings in the challenges and potential solutions for improved sustainability.

Frank Loge, professor of civil and environmental engineering and director of the UC Davis Center for Water-Energy Efficiency, helped create the minor.

"So much of sustainability requires people from different disciplines to work together," he said. "This minor creates the opportunity for an array of disciplines to come together to design things for the built environment."

A total of 32,654 students started classes at UC Davis this fall.

By 2020, UC Davis expects to add 5,000 additional undergraduates, part of a plan announced by Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi during fall convocation to achieve financial stability and bring 300 new faculty to campus.