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Monday, 4 March 2013
1. Obituary: Donald Glaser, 86, won Nobel for inventing chamber to detect subatomic particles
Washington Post
Donald Glaser, a Nobel Prize-winning Berkeley physicist who invented the bubble chamber -- a device for making the world of subatomic particles visible -- died February 28, at the age of 86. An emeritus professor, his research interests spanned nuclear physics, molecular biology, and neuroscience. Full Story
2. UC geologist Garniss Curtis remembered
San Francisco Chronicle
Earth and planetary science professor emeritus Garniss H. Curtis will be remembered at a memorial service this spring. He died December 18, at the age of 93. Professor Curtis was a geologist whose pioneering use of radioactive isotopes to date relatively young rocks provided the first solid timeline for human evolution. Full Story
3. L.A. Now Blog: UC seeks public input on hiring university's next president
Los Angeles Times Online
The UC regents have set up a website to solicit nominations of the next UC system president, as well as comments about the search. The current president, Mark Yudof, has announced that he will resign in August to become a law professor at UC Berkeley. Full Story
4. Across-the-Board Cuts Take Effect, but Their Impact Is Not Immediately Felt
New York Times & International Herald Tribune (*requires registration)
Officials at federally supported institutions nationwide are considering next steps in light of across-the-board spending cuts now taking effect after Congress failed to stop them. UC Berkeley warned that "as sequestration translates into fewer federal grants, the campus will be forced to hire fewer researchers." Another story on this topic appeared in the San Francisco Business Times, and public policy professor David Kirp discussed the topic on Bloomberg TV's Taking Stock with Pimm Fox--link to video. Full Story
5. Matier & Ross Column
San Francisco Chronicle
Retiring Chancellor Robert Birgeneau has announced that 4,700 nonunion staff members will receive a total of $10 million in annual raises, starting April 1 with 2 percent pay increases. Campus spokesman Dan Mogulof says the raises are long overdue and will be paid from investment income, not state money. He also says the university has made strides in improving its finances, having put off raises until other priorities were addressed, such as the expansion of financial aid to students from middle-income households. Full Story
6. Wonkblog: One study explains why it’s tough to pass liberal laws
Washington Post Online
David Broockman and Christopher Skovron, graduate students at Berkeley and Michigan, respectively, have co-authored a working paper based on a survey of state legislators about what they believe their constituents think about a range of policy issues. Their finding was that all legislators, regardless of party, believe their constituents are more conservative than they are. Conservative legislators especially overestimate constituent conservatism – by 20 points. “This difference is so large that nearly half of conservative politicians appear to believe that they represent a district that is more conservative on these issues than is the most conservative district in the entire country,” they wrote. Other stories on this topic appeared in the Huffington Post and Atlantic. Full Story
7. Economix Blog: Labs for Testing Fiscal Policy Positions
New York Times Online (*requires registration)
Economics doctoral student Owen Zidar discusses research that sheds light on the causes of the economy's slow recovery, including a Berkeley study led by economist Gabe Chodorow-Reich, which found that focused fiscal relief during hard times can effectively stimulate employment. Full Story
8. Op-Ed: The Business of the Minimum Wage
New York Times & International Herald Tribune (*requires registration)
Economics professor Christina Romer writes about President Obama's proposed increase in the federal minimum wage. Noting that it's an idea that tends to be more popular with the public than economists, she concludes: "If a higher minimum wage were the only anti-poverty initiative available, I would support it. It helps some low-income workers, and the costs in terms of employment and inefficiency are likely small. ... But we could do so much better if we were willing to spend some money. A more generous earned-income tax credit would provide more support for the working poor and would be pro-business at the same time. And pre-kindergarten education, which the president proposes to make universal, has been shown in rigorous studies to strengthen families and reduce poverty and crime. Why settle for half-measures when such truly first-rate policies are well understood and ready to go?" Full Story
9. Blog: What Obama Should Do Now
Huffington Post
Public policy professor Robert Reich recommends that President Obama should push to repeal the sequester, replacing it with a "'Build America's Future' Act that would close tax loopholes used by the wealthy, end corporate welfare, impose a small (1/10 of 1 percent) tax on financial transactions, and reduce the size of the military." Full Story
10. Wonkblog: The U.S. economy isn’t what it used to be. Why?
Washington Post Online
A roundup of research on the potential of the U.S. GDP links to a study by Berkeley economics professor Brad DeLong, suggesting that the economy is now in a place where efforts to reduce the budget deficit will actually make it larger. Full Story
11. Hard time understanding health reform law? Try figuring it out in Tagalog, Hmong or Vietnamese
Washington Post
A story about the challenges of implementing and communicating the Affordable Care Act in the many languages of immigrants mentions a joint study co-authored by Berkeley's Labor Center. The study found that in California two-thirds of the estimated 2.6 million adults who will be eligible for federal subsidies in the health care exchange will be people of color, while roughly 1 million will not be proficient English speakers.
The authors concluded that the success of health care reform “hinges in large part on how well the state conducts culturally and linguistically competent outreach and enrollment efforts.” An editorial citing this study appeared in the Los Angeles Times. Full Story
12. Pro sports leagues aim to put workers' comp out of play
Los Angeles Times
Frank Neuhauser, a project director at Berkeley's Survey Research Center, comments on a controversial workers' compensation bill in the state Legislature, which this columnist says "would be a total sellout to the major pro sports leagues and their billionaire team owners," while its victims would be the teams' damaged athletes. "The NFL is not terribly worried about cumulative knee trauma," Neuhauser says. "They understand what they're going to pay for that. But they're terrified of brain injuries, which can cost millions and result in complete disability." Full Story
13. Forget the pursuit of happiness -- striving for it will damage your friendships and make you feel lonely
Daily Mail (UK)
A new study co-authored by Berkeley researchers has found that individuals who are preoccupied by their pursuit of happiness are more likely to end up feeling lonely instead. The researchers believe this is due to their focus on themselves, rather than their relationships with others. Full Story
14. Marketplace Tech: A status update on women in tech
NPR
Business professor Kellie McElhaney discusses women in technology industries. "It's very complex why there aren't more women in industries like tech," she says. Link to audio. Full Story
15. The Numbers Guy Blog: The Upbeat Stats on Statistics
Wall Street Journal Online (*requires registration)
Statistics professor and department chair Philip Stark comments on growing interest in the field of statistics. “Fifteen years ago, if you said you were a statistician, people thought either you worried about baseball scores or about how many people died in New York last year,” he says. “Now there’s a recognition that there are statistical skills involved in everything from genomics to social media to targeted marketing.” He has proposed that Berkeley cope with increased demand for the major by adding academic requirements to enter the major — a minimum grade-point average in prerequisite classes. “We really have very limited resources right now,” he says. “We can’t accommodate everyone.” Full Story
16. Advertising: Guardian Aims to Turn American Readers’ Heads
New York Times & International Herald Tribune
Journalism lecturer Alan Mutter comments on the British newspaper The Guardian's new, global advertising plan. “Not very many people other than the news cognoscenti know about The Guardian," he says, and it's “very much a new, marginal entrant into an already very busy, very fragmented U.S. media market.” He believes the paper should focus on reporting, rather than advertising. “I would be looking for really big stories, gobsmacking stories that get people to tune in and get people to share that content. ... The kind of people they want to attract as customers are not going to stop and do a billboard poll.” Full Story
17. Yes, Virginia is O.K. But...
Inside Higher Ed
A commentary on university governance in "today’s kinetic higher education environment" includes the following statement: "To get a synoptic view of operations issues, trustees should read Bain & Company’s study of UC-Berkeley. Critics of American higher education have tried to use this important and well-done report as part of an effort to suggest that our colleges and universities are highly inefficient. But Bain’s work doesn’t say that at all: in situations where they recommend improvement, the consultants consistently cite not cases from business but exemplary practices at other universities. The conclusion isn’t that there’s rampant inefficiency in American higher education; it’s that some universities are doing well in some areas but all aren’t optimal in everything all the time." Full Story
18. Dean Strives to Recruit Minority Scholars to Liberal-Arts Colleges
Chronicle of Higher Education (*requires registration)
Shirley Collado, psychology professor, dean, and chief diversity officer at Middlebury College, writes about her efforts to diversify faculty. "Speaking with Josephine Moreno, graduate diversity director at the University of California at Berkeley's College of Letters & Science, made us realize that top research institutions like hers were eager to recruit more diverse graduate students with bachelor's degrees from liberal-arts colleges," she says. "They also wanted to send their graduate students on to promising places to do their teaching and scholarship. ... In 2008, we went to Berkeley and met with 150 graduate students across many disciplines who were on the market that year, most of them people of color, women, and students from nontraditional pathways to college. We explained what it means to be on the faculty of liberal-arts-college campuses like ours. They told us, 'Many advisers would never advise us to come there." So this has been a wonderful educational opportunity on both sides.'" Full Story
19. Mystery of the zombie Yalies: US schools step into inscrutable world of Chinese social media
Washington Post
A story about U.S. universities appealing to Chinese social media mentions that Berkeley has roughly 11,000 followers on Sina Weibo – a Chinese microblogging site like Twitter – although the campus hasn't posted anything new since March 21, 2012. Full Story
20. New street banners give Berkeley neighborhoods identity
Berkeleyside
The City of Berkeley is unfurling colorful new street banners to mark the character of different neighborhoods. The initiative involved UC Berkeley students interviewing local merchants. Full Story
21. California, Sonny Dykes complete $9.7 million, five-year contract
Washington Post
UC Berkeley has announced the terms of new head football coach Sonny Dyke's contract. He has a five-year deal worth $9.7 million. “Sonny Dykes is the right person to lead our football program, and I’m pleased to say that we have concluded this process, so we can focus on ‘winning everywhere’ in our football program.” athletic director Sandy Barbour said in a statement. Full Story
22. Art Review: Not Just ‘The Rose,’ but Also the Garden
‘Jay DeFeo: A Retrospective,’ at the Whitney
New York Times & International Herald Tribune (*requires registration)
The Whitney Museum of American Art is exhibiting a retrospective of the art of Jay DeFeo, an artist and UC Berkeley alum who died in 1989. She is most famous for a single work – The Rose – which she worked on "exhaustingly" for eight years. Full Story
23. 'Secret Garden' review: Child's delight
San Francisco Chronicle
Cal Performances and the San Francisco Opera have joined together to present composer and pianist Nolan Gasser's adaptation of the children's classic "The Secret Garden" at Zellerbach Hall. "The search for kid-friendly operas, the kind that will entertain and seduce the next generation of Verdi lovers, is a perennial one," this reviewer says. "It got a helpful boost in Berkeley on Friday night with the world premiere of "The Secret Garden," a wholly charming and inviting operatic treatment of the classic children's novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett. ... Friday's audience was full of kids, and there was not a peep during the performance. They were clearly entranced." The show continues next weekend. Full Story