Campus Update


Chancellor announces 'partnerships' program to ensure access

Chancellor Greenwood has announced a five-part initiative to ensure continued quality and diversity among the campus's student body. The new program, "Partnership to Ensure Access and Quality," has two objectives: to participate in the improvement of preparation for university eligibility; and to develop additional scholarship funds to ensure access to UCSC for qualified students regardless of their economic backgrounds.

In making the announcement, Chancellor Greenwood stated, "I call upon the entire UCSC community to join me in ensuring the continued open access and academic excellence which characterize UCSC today. In the confusing aftermath surrounding Proposition 209, it is more important than ever that UC Santa Cruz communicates--and demonstrates--that we are accessible to all qualified students, and that we accept responsibility to join with our partners in all segments of education to prepare today's students for tomorrow's challenges."

Specific elements of the initiative include plans to:

Commit a $1 million endowment to ensure in perpetuity the Karl S. Pister Leadership Opportunity Awards Program. The program provides a two-year ($10,000 per year) scholarship for each recipient. The scholarships are awarded to students transferring from each of the region's thirteen community colleges.

Focus on scholarship fundraising. This includes a commitment of the UCSC Alumni Association to build its scholarship endowment from $200,000 to $1 million, as well as a plan to hire a development officer to generate more scholarship funds for campuswide use.

Enhance coordination and UCSC involvement in K­12 educational issues. The Chancellor's Educational Outreach Council, a newly appointed group chaired by UCSC social sciences dean Martin Chemers, will recommend approaches for expanding UCSC's partnerships with k­12 schools and community colleges.

Expand the successful "Take UCSC Home" program. Begun last spring, this program encourages current students to visit their high schools as ambassadors of UCSC, giving them a chance to develop professional skills while sharing information about the campus's programs and services from the student perspective.

Increase partnerships with schools and community colleges throughout California and increase communications with prospective students, their parents, and counselors. Utilizing the existing online application system, "Pathways," and expanding UCSC's innovative Success Team approach (see story, page 4), UCSC will ease student application and admissions processes and help students transition to the campus.

Chancellor Greenwood emphasized that these initiatives represent the further development of ongoing efforts. "Drawing qualified students, including women and minorities, to UCSC is not about righting past wrongs. Rather, it is all about developing the talent we will need as a society to thrive in the next century."

"In the confusing aftermath surrounding Proposition 209, it is more important than ever that UC Santa Cruz communicates--and demonstrates--that we are accessible to all qualified students."

--M.R.C. Greenwood

 



(artwork courtesy SRG Partnership)

New visitor center for Long Marine Lab

Thousands of visitors at the Long Marine Lab's annual open house in October saw one new building under construction--the state Department of Fish and Game's Oiled Wildlife Veterinary Care and Research Center--and learned about the latest plans for the long-awaited $4.4 million Visitor Education Center (artist's rendering, above). Staff and volunteers showed the proposed "footprint" of the center on a parcel of land adjacent to Long Marine Lab. They also answered questions about the need for the project and its relationship to other possible expansions at the site.

 



Barry McLaughlin (photo: Don Harris)

Grant boosts study of vocabulary growth in bilingual children

Psychology professor Barry McLaughlin is teaming up with 24 fourth- and fifth-grade teachers--several from local schools--to conduct a major three-year study of the vocabulary development of bilingual children.

McLaughlin has received a $900,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Educational Research to conduct the investigation. Working with colleagues from Boston and Washington, D.C., McLaughlin will develop a program for enhancing the vocabulary and literacy of children whose first language is not English. The program will be distributed nationally, an effort that will be overseen by Sharon Maxwell, a teacher at DeLaveaga Elementary School in Santa Cruz.

"Vocabulary is a key to successful reading and to successful academic learning generally," says McLaughlin. "In spite of excellent programs and devoted teachers, many children for whom English is a second language have trouble doing well in American schools."

Studies of native English-speaking children show that they make enormous strides in vocabulary growth during elementary school. Researchers estimate that children learn around 3,000 new words every year during their school career, says McLaughlin, adding that the average fifth grader encounters almost 10,000 different words that he or she does not know.

"Imagine the burden this places on a child learning English as a second language," McLaughlin said. "These children have to catch up with classmates who are constantly learning more and more words. We want to see to what extent they succeed in doing this."

 


Physics ranks highly in national analysis of citation rates

Scientific papers published in the 1980s and early 1990s by UCSC physicists were among the most highly regarded in the country, according to a recent study.

The Physics Department ranked seventh for the "citation impact" of papers published between 1981 and 1994. Some analysts view this measure--the average number of citations per paper--as the most objective way to gauge the quality of a department's research.

When researchers publish a journal article, they must cite previous papers by other authors that set the stage for their work. Generally, a paper earns more citations when scientists accept the work as important and well done.

Physicists at Tulane University compiled the statistics and published their results in the October 1996 issue of Physics Today. They claimed that other methods to rank departments, such as a major National Research Council (NRC) study released in 1995, overlook the high-quality research often done at relatively small universities. The NRC surveyed researchers across the country to rank the reputations of departments in numerous disciplines.

UCSC has also fared well in broader analyses of citation rankings. For example, the campus placed third among U.S. universities for the citation impact of papers published between 1981 and 1991 in all physical-science disciplines, trailing only Harvard and Princeton.

Impact (citations/paper)

1. Princeton University 20.7

2. Harvard University 20.4

3. Tulane University 20.1

4. UC Santa Barbara 19.3

5. University of Chicago 18.8

6. Brandeis University 18.5

7. UC Santa Cruz 18.4

8. Calif. Institute of Tech. 18.0

9. Univ. of Pennsylvania 17.7

10. Rockefeller University 16.4

 


Three receive Alumni Association honors

l-r, Carol Freeman, Geoffrey Marcy, Brenda Brown (Photos by Don Harris, SFSU Office of Public Affairs)


An innovative teacher, a trailblazing scientist, and a supportive employee have won the three top awards given annually by the UCSC Alumni Association.

Carol Freeman, chair of UCSC's Writing Program and provost of Cowell College, won the Distinguished Teaching Award for 1996. A dedicated and inspiring teacher, Freeman has delighted in teaching writing to UCSC students and helped determine the curriculum for UC students systemwide.

Geoffrey Marcy won the Alumni Achievement Award. He is part of a team recognized worldwide for its success in finding planets around stars in other solar systems. (See profile, page 27.)

Brenda Brown, an academic adviser at UCSC's Crown College, won the Outstanding Staff Award for her 25 years of personal service to students.

The three were nominated for the awards by students, alumni, faculty, and staff, and were selected by the UCSC Alumni Association Council, the association's governing body.They were honored at a campus ceremony on February 1.

 


MBEST Center receives $1 million boost

UC's Monterey Bay Education, Science, and Technology (MBEST) Center at the former Fort Ord military base will soon take another step toward recruiting new educational and research tenants, thanks to a $1 million grant from the Economic Development Administration of the U.S. Department of Commerce.

The new arrivals will join tenants such as Systems West, a satellite weather-technology company; UCSC Extension, which offers classes in environmental remediation and other topics; and the Pacific Cetacean Group, a nonprofit education and research organization.

The grant, announced last fall by then-White House Chief of Staff Leon Panetta, was part of a $15 million Fort Ord redevelopment package from the Economic Development Administration. UCSC, lead campus for the MBEST Center, will use most of the grant to plan and construct a new building at the center's site, near the Marina Municipal Airport. The building will become the second permanent MBEST facility.

Construction should begin by early 1998 and will last about eight months.

 


Katzman telescope is fully robotic

Computers have taken total control of a 30-inch telescope at UCSC's Lick Observatory, making it the most sensitive fully robotic telescope anywhere. The Katzman Automatic Imaging Telescope (KAIT) is named for the Sylvia and Jim Katzman Foundation of Saratoga, which donated $50,000 toward the telescope's development. KAIT will devote itself to checking the night sky for flaring supernovas, to following the changing brightnesses of variable stars, or to observing any object that changes over short or long periods.

 


Faculty members fill two new UCSC chairs

Four members of ucsc's faculty have been named to fill two recently created endowed chairs.

Murray Baumgarten, a professor of English and comparative literature, and Peter Kenez, a professor of history, were named cochairs
of the Neufeld-Levin Chair in Holocaust Studies--established by a gift from Anne Neufeld Levin.

Dan Doak and Daniel Press, both assistant professors of environmental studies, have been appointed cochairs of the Pepper-Giberson Chair in Environmental Studies-- created by a gift from Alan G. and Margaret S. Lyons Giberson.

 


Chemistry between them

Ph.D. candidate Cliff Harris helped Los Gatos first grader Stephanie Zitman drop salt into a saturated solution of sodium acetate to demonstrate rapid crystal growth. The demonstration--at the Children's Discovery Museum in San Jose--is one of many that the UCSC student has conducted for elementary schoolchildren in recent years.

 


Fall enrollment up; total reaches 10,215

The number of new students who entered UCSC last fall increased by more than 200 over fall 1995, and the total number of students is also up.

UCSC enrolled 3,288 new students last quarter, compared to 3,042 new students in fall 1995. A total of 10,215 students were enrolled, compared to 9,923 in 1995.

"We were very aggressive in making sure that our admitted students knew about the academic quality of UCSC and our commitment to undergraduate education," says Francisco Hernandez, vice chancellor for student affairs.

It's important for enrollment to increase next year, adds Hernandez.

A change in University of California budgeting means that UC campuses will receive $6,800 in block-grant funding for each new student they enroll, regardless of whether a student is an undergraduate or graduate student.

"In this new budget environment, it's critical for us to maintain and increase our enrollments, in order to continue to increase our capacity to offer a high-quality academic experience," says Hernandez.

 


Chancellor named to national science posts

Chancellor Greenwood will fill two prominent positions in the national scientific arena during the next several years: president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and member of the National Science Board.

Greenwood was the top vote-getter in national mail balloting last fall for the position of president-elect of AAAS, the world's largest general science organization. Her one-year term as president-elect begins in February, followed by one-year terms as president and as chair of the board of directors.

AAAS advocates for improved public education in science, enhanced career prospects for young scientists, and strong federal support for scientific research. It also publishes the prestigious weekly journal Science.

President Clinton nominated Greenwood to a six-year term on the 24-member National Science Board, which recommends overall national policies for promoting basic research and education in the sciences. Board members are drawn from industry and universities.

 


Admissions' 'High Tech for High Touch' campaign

High school seniors know firsthand how overwhelming it is to apply to college. UCSC has tapped the World Wide Web to make the process more friendly.

Since last fall, college-bound students seeking information about UCSC have been using the Web to create their own personal "Success Team"--a group of UCSC professionals dedicated to providing each student with guidance on everything from deadlines to meal plans.

Success Teams build a bridge to personal contact by introducing students electronically to the UCSC staff members who will help usher them through the admissions process--even linking them to the admissions counselor who will read their application,
if they decide to apply.

Success Teams are one of the new services introduced recently as part of the campus's "High Tech for High Touch" campaign. The idea is simple: Use World Wide Web­based technology to build on UCSC's reputation as a campus that is friendly and supportive of prospective and enrolled students.

Although the notion of using technology to provide personalized service may at first seem an oxymoron, the tools are convincing. Other Web-based outreach efforts launched last fall include Chat Rooms, Discussion Forums, and Pathways, the UC system's online application pilot project.

"These new tools enable us to expand our outreach dramatically and reach more students than ever before," says J. Michael Thompson, associate vice chancellor for enrollment management and director of admissions at UCSC. "This won't supplant our ongoing efforts--we'll still visit 350 schools this year--but this enables us to make contact anywhere that there's Web access. Enrolled students are encouraged to use the services, too."

"With this effort, we are building on UCSC's reputation as a campus of innovation," says Thompson.

 


In memoriam

William Burke, professor of astronomy and astrophysics and physics, died in July in a Las Vegas hospital from complications following surgery. He had sustained major injuries when his truck overturned in high winds while he was returning from a rafting trip through the Grand Canyon. He was 55.

Burke came to UCSC in 1969 after earning a B.S. and a Ph.D. in physics from Caltech. During his career he was involved in the study of gravity waves and the use of quasars as probes of the universe, and he wrote two textbooks in his field. He will be remembered by his colleagues for his multidisciplinary explorations of scientific issues and his extraordinary physical agility and grace and by his students for his rewarding teaching style, which demanded complete intellectual engagement.

Bryan Strong, a lecturer in psychology at UCSC since 1981, died at his home in Felton in August after a three-year fight with cancer. He was 53.

Strong received his B.A. in humanities from Claremont McKenna College and a Ph.D. in history from Stanford University. He wrote college texts on marriage, family, and human sexuality, as well as a two-volume work on the Unix computer system. He was a popular teacher and is remembered by his friends as optimistic and good-natured.