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October 17, 2019 /in Box 1, College News, Featured Stories /by Chris Ibarra
This video for Carrying Our Ancestors Home features interviews with UCLA leadership and tribal cultural heritage and repatriation practitioners.
As a quiet darkness descended over the several thousand people gathered between Royce Hall and Powell Library eagerly waiting to celebrate UCLA's Centennial, a voice broke the silence:
"UCLA acknowledges the Tongva peoples as the traditional land caretakers of the Los Angeles basin. As a land grant institution, we pay our respects to the ancestors, elders and relations of the past, present and emerging."
Those 15 seconds of alumna Cari Champion's narration for the "Lighting the Way" light and projection show were a culmination of years of work and advocacy from dozens of people, including members of the Tongva community who collaborated with the UCLA American Indian Studies Center. It was also an opportunity for UCLA to demonstrate a commitment to acknowledging the history of the indigenous peoples of Southern California.
"It is an important gesture in Native tradition to 'place yourself,'" said Mishuana Goeman (Tonawanda Band of Seneca), who in 2018 was named special advisor to UCLA Chancellor Gene Block on Native American and Indigenous affairs. "Introductions and acknowledgements place us in relationship with specific families, nations, geographies, cultural and political lineages. It is something we are taught to do from a young age as an anti-colonial tool to find connections between one other and remember that we are the result of bitter survival."
The inclusion of the message in such a high-profile public forum — "Lighting the Way" capped the biggest UCLA Alumni Day ever — was for Goeman, who is chair of the American Indian Studies interdepartmental program and former associate director and interim director of the American Indian Studies Center, and her colleagues just a part of their tapestry of the center's achievements.
The center's work is not limited strictly to campus, of course. Over the years, people in the American Indian Studies Center have been at the forefront of efforts to build bridges between UCLA as an institution and members of local and state communities of people from indigenous backgrounds, especially the Gabrielino/Tongva, whose ancestors called the Los Angeles basin home for thousands of years before UCLA existed.
Shannon Speed (Chickasaw), director of the center, and Goeman were instrumental in convincing the Los Angeles City Council to replace Columbus Day with Indigenous People's Day in 2018.
This year marks the 50th anniversary of the founding of UCLA's four ethnic studies centers, which together make up the Institute of American Cultures. All four were launched in 1969 and designed to invest in research and projects that illuminate the struggles and uplift the experiences of people from marginalized communities.
For the American Indian Studies Center, known as the AISC, that involves embracing students and faculty from multiple indigenous backgrounds, those who continue to make up the smallest numbers in UCLA's diverse population. Part of the AISC's inclusive mission is to empower a strong campus community that helps recruit Native students and faculty and once here, support their academic success.
UCLA recognizes the cultural history of the region
Goeman shepherded the creation of the official statement that acknowledges the Tongva people. In August, Block encouraged all campus groups to adopt a form of the following statement at significant public events. (Click on links to hear the Tongva words spoken aloud):
UCLA acknowledges the Gabrielino/Tongva peoples as the traditional land caretakers of Tovaangar (Los Angeles basin and So. Channel Islands). As a land grant institution, we pay our respects to Honuukvetam (ancestors), 'Ahiihirom, (elders) and 'eyoohiinkem (our relatives/relations) past, present and emerging.
The land acknowledgment was used on behalf of UCLA officially for the first time at Bruin Day in April, an event that invites thousands of admitted high school students and their families and caregivers to campus, and the "Lighting the Way" centennial launch in May. American Indian Studies Center leaders and some campus units and professional schools had been incorporating it into their events and materials for a year before that.
"Sometimes if feels like very small steps, but they are important nonetheless, because for many decades, universities didn't even take small steps at recognitions like this," Speed said. "And this builds momentum for other policies and programs that consider the needs and desires of tribal communities."
The American Indian Studies Center is hosting a conference on Oct. 15–16 titled, "Lighting a Path Forward: Land Grants, Public Memory and Tovaangar." The first day is open to the public and includes a series of presentations on the history of land grant institutions, of which UCLA is one. Other presentations and panel discussions will highlight the state of American Indian education and consider how all of the University of California campuses can continue to forge stronger relationships with tribal communities.
A California tribal listening session includes representatives from the Gabrielino/Tongva, the Fernandeño Tataviam Band of Mission Indians, Chumash, and Acjachemen communities, as well as from the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, the Pechanga Band of Luiseño Indians and Wintu.
"We want people to come away feeling like they made new connections and collaborations around important issues, and that they understand the responsibility of land grant institutions" Speed said.
A second day of closed workshops, as part Goeman's special advisor programming, will hopefully yield ideas for white papers that will lay the groundwork for how universities might embrace those responsibilities, by prioritizing best practices that benefits indigenous people to establishing tangible government-to-government relations with tribal nations.
Leading efforts to return remains
For much of its 50-year history, faculty and students affiliated with the American Indian Studies Center have been deeply involved in efforts to return human remains of indigenous people to their ancestors. UCLA has been a leader in repatriations, much of its efforts led by Wendy Teeter, curator of archaeology in the Fowler Museum at UCLA and a lecturer in UCLA's American Indian studies interdepartmental program.
A website launched this summer called "Carrying Our Ancestors Home" includes a timeline tracking UCLA's path to almost complete repatriation. Videos featuring interviews with campus leadership and tribal cultural heritage and repatriation practitioners help underscore the powerful impact of repatriation. A large part of this project is giving communities their own space to work out tribal matters around repatriation and providing archival source material online, Goeman said.
The site is meant to help tribes and indigenous people navigate a process that is extremely complex and often met with resistance, Teeter said in May at an event during which she and Goeman launched the website.
In one of his final events as UCLA's executive vice chancellor and provost of UCLA, Scott Waugh commended the efforts of the AISC to an invited audience from the Native community at that event.
"I know it is important for us to acknowledge where we are in place as well as time, to acknowledge the responsibilities of our shared history," Waugh said. "I am also well aware that the history between Native peoples and institutions like ours can often be painful. While we cannot ignore our past, we can take steps to shoulder with respect and obligations that history places upon us. We can remember that the beauty of our state — the rivers, the ocean, mountains and deserts — was first experienced by the native and indigenous peoples who watched it before us and were the caretakers of it."
Geography is something AISC-affiliated faculty take very seriously, knowing that Los Angeles and California are both home to some of the largest populations of humans of American Indian and indigenous descent.
Speed's approach is to also invite students and faculty to also consider the nature of North American indigeneity at large and for scholars to confront ideas and stories about the indigenous people of Mexico and how their experiences with colonization are interconnected with American identities.
The center has offered critical support in recent years to scholars working on a web project called Mapping Indigenous Los Angeles, which seeks to tell layered stories from the city's original inhabitants, especially the Gabrelino/Tongva and the Tataviam, as well as indigenous peoples who have come to call Los Angeles home by using digital maps and oral histories.
The AISC is about to embark upon one of its most ambitious research projects to date thanks to a $1 million grant from the National Science Foundation that will help a team of researchers affiliated with the center tackle issues of race and water.
Speed, along with professor of anthropology Jessica Cattelino and Aradhna Tripati, professor in the UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability, will conduct community engaged research on water in the context of global warming in the southwestern United States.
"We're really hoping this project brings together many disparate communities," Speed said. "As a community collaboration project, part of what we are trying to do is decolonize the STEM field. With this research we're bringing de-colonial methodologies into the sciences."
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September 30, 2019 /in College News, Featured Stories /by Chris Ibarra
UCLA consistently performs well in a broad range of national and international rankings.
UCLA once again tops the list of U.S. public universities in the U.S. News & World Report "Best Colleges" rankings, which were published today. This is the third year in a row UCLA has captured this honor.
At just 100 years old, UCLA, which placed No. 20 among all private and public institutions, is the youngest of any public or private institution in the ranking's overall Top 33.
"We are thrilled to once again be ranked the nation's top public university, particularly as we celebrate our first 100 years," Chancellor Gene Block said. "Even as UCLA becomes more competitive, we work hard to remain accessible to exceptional students, faculty and staff from all backgrounds who will help ensure our continued success in UCLA's second century."
UCLA also excelled in category-specific rankings published as part of the report. UCLA was ranked No. 1 for economic diversity among the top 25 universities, based on the number of undergraduate students receiving Pell Grants (36 percent at UCLA).
In addition, UCLA was named as the No. 1 public institution among the "best colleges for veterans," and No. 4 among all universities. In 2018–2019, there were 572 members of the military enrolled at UCLA, the highest among the top 26 schools ranked in the category. UCLA is also among the list of colleges where students incur the least amount of debt.
Four other University of California campuses were among the top 10 public universities in the overall rankings: UC Berkeley (No. 2), UC Santa Barbara (7, tied), UC Irvine (9), and UC San Diego (10). UC Davis placed No. 11.
The top 19 institutions on the list are private universities, led by Princeton and Harvard, with Columbia, MIT and Yale tied for third.
The publication's methodology includes factors that tend to favor private universities, such as endowment size, rate of alumni giving and student-faculty ratio. It also includes data related to academic reputation, student excellence and student retention and graduation rates, with a particular interest in students from lower income households.
UCLA tied for No. 7 among U.S. public universities (tied for 11 overall) for ethnic diversity.
UCLA tied for No. 8 among public universities' engineering schools that offer doctorates (tied for 15 overall)
Earlier this month, UCLA was named the No. 1 U.S. public institution in the Wall Street Journal/Times Higher Education College Rankings — also for the third year in a row. In addition, UCLA was recently ranked No. 2 among American public universities and No. 11 worldwide among public and private universities in the Academic Ranking of World Universities and the No. 2 U.S. public university (9 overall) in the Times Higher Education Reputation Rankings. In April, UCLA was ranked the No. 4 best-value university by Forbes.
https://www.college.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/RoyceQuad_91c6277d-4277-42e0-b87d-aedcf49e070c-prv.jpg 799 1200 Chris Ibarra https://www.college.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Uxd_Blk_College-e1557344896161.png Chris Ibarra2019-09-30 10:23:492019-09-30 10:23:49UCLA named No. 1 U.S. public institution by U.S. News & World Report for third consecutive year
For the third consecutive year UCLA has been selected as the No. 1 public institution in the nation in the Wall Street Journal/Times Higher Education College Rankings.
In addition, of the more than 800 public and private institutions that were assessed, UCLA placed fifth among all public and private colleges in the area of environment, No. 11 overall in the engagement category, No. 16 in terms of outcomes, and No. 25 overall.
The rankings focus on student success and learning in four key areas: student resources, student engagement, educational outcomes and learning environments. The results are based on data from the Times Higher Education U.S. Student Survey, which collected the opinions of more than 170,000 current university students, government data sources and findings from the Times Higher Education Academic Reputation Survey.
Leading the overall list of colleges were Harvard (No. 1), the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (No. 2) and Yale (No. 3). Among leading public universities, UCLA was followed by the University of Michigan, second (No. 27 overall), and the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, third (No. 33).
Other University of California campuses included in the Top 10 public universities were UC Berkeley, fourth (No. 34 overall), followed by UC Davis, fifth (No. 36), and UC San Diego, sixth (No. 37).
UCLA consistently performs well in multiple rankings regardless of methodology or criteria. In 2018, UCLA was named the No. 1 U.S. public university in both the U.S. News & World Report's Best Colleges ranking and Wall Street Journal/Times Higher Education survey. UCLA was also named the No. 2 U.S. public university (17 overall) by Times Higher Education in its 2019 World University Rankings and No. 2 (No. 9 overall) in its 2019 World Reputation Rankings.
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September 30, 2019 /in College News, Students /by Chris Ibarra
UCLA College senior Maripau Paz has been selected as the first ever recipient of the 2019-2020 Arthur Ashe Jr. Scholarship, established to recognize and support students who exemplify the attributes, values, commitment to service and pioneering spirit of the legendary Arthur Ashe '66.
Since arriving at UCLA as a first-generation college student, Paz has committed herself to inspiring others on campus. Paz has worked in various leadership roles to aid student retention and enhance the undergraduate experience for her peers at UCLA, all while pursuing a double major in political sciences and global studies.
Paz spent three years as the head administrative clerk for New Student Programs in UCLA's Academic Advancement Program, a federally funded diversity-outreach program that supports low-income students, students of color, first-generation students, and students with disabilities, by connecting them to the resources they need to succeed. In addition, she served for two years as a new student advisor for the incoming Freshman and Transfer Student class, providing academic counsel to more than 200 students and their families.
Paz also served as professional outreach director in the Student Alumni Association, where she helped prepare students for the world post-graduation by hosting workshops on resume building, applying for internships and interview skills. During her senior year, Paz is serving as executive director of the professional development committee on the board of directors for the Student Alumni Association.
On the academic front, Paz presented her research on immigration and public opinion at UCLA's Undergraduate Research Week in May and is starting work on an honors senior thesis that will further expand on this topic. Following graduation, she plans to pursue a joint Law and Master's degree in Public Policy and work on issues pertaining to human rights, refugees and immigrant communities.
Read more: https://www.college.ucla.edu/2019/08/23/arthur-ashes-most-impactful-serve-the-national-junior-tennis-league/
https://www.college.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/68b47856-e4e4-441e-a545-e2f428307fc4.jpg 271 600 Chris Ibarra https://www.college.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Uxd_Blk_College-e1557344896161.png Chris Ibarra2019-09-30 10:01:172019-10-01 14:00:13Maripau Paz, Inaugural Arthur Ashe Scholar
September 30, 2019 /in College News, Faculty & Research /by Chris Ibarra
Rendering of a star called S0-2 orbiting the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way. It did not fall in, but its close approach could be one reason for the black hole's growing appetite. Photo credit: Nicolle Fuller/National Science Foundation
The enormous black hole at the center of our galaxy is having an unusually large meal of interstellar gas and dust, and researchers don't yet understand why.
"We have never seen anything like this in the 24 years we have studied the supermassive black hole," said Andrea Ghez, UCLA professor of physics and astronomy and a co-senior author of the research. "It's usually a pretty quiet, wimpy black hole on a diet. We don't know what is driving this big feast."
A paper about the study, led by the UCLA Galactic Center Group, which Ghez heads, is published today in Astrophysical Journal Letters.
The researchers analyzed more than 13,000 observations of the black hole from 133 nights since 2003. The images were gathered by the W.M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii and the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope in Chile. The team found that on May 13, the area just outside the black hole's "point of no return" (so called because once matter enters, it can never escape) was twice as bright as the next-brightest observation.
They also observed large changes on two other nights this year; all three of those changes were "unprecedented," Ghez said.
The brightness the scientists observed is caused by radiation from gas and dust falling into the black hole; the findings prompted them to ask whether this was an extraordinary singular event or a precursor to significantly increased activity.
"The big question is whether the black hole is entering a new phase — for example if the spigot has been turned up and the rate of gas falling down the black hole 'drain' has increased for an extended period — or whether we have just seen the fireworks from a few unusual blobs of gas falling in," said Mark Morris, UCLA professor of physics and astronomy and the paper's co-senior author.
The team has continued to observe the area and will try to settle that question based on what they see from new images.
"We want to know how black holes grow and affect the evolution of galaxies and the universe," said Ghez, UCLA's Lauren B. Leichtman and Arthur E. Levine Professor of Astrophysics. "We want to know why the supermassive hole gets brighter and how it gets brighter."
► UCLA astronomers discussed the project in a Keck Observatory video
The new findings are based on observations of the black hole — which is called Sagittarius A*, or Sgr A* — during four nights in April and May at the Keck Observatory. The brightness surrounding the black hole always varies somewhat, but the scientists were stunned by the extreme variations in brightness during that timeframe, including their observations on May 13.
"The first image I saw that night, the black hole was so bright I initially mistook it for the star S0-2, because I had never seen Sagittarius A* that bright," said UCLA research scientist Tuan Do, the study's lead author. "But it quickly became clear the source had to be the black hole, which was really exciting."
One hypothesis about the increased activity is that when a star called S0-2 made its closest approach to the black hole during the summer 2018, it launched a large quantity of gas that reached the black hole this year.
Another possibility involves a bizarre object known as G2, which is most likely a pair of binary stars, which made its closest approach to the black hole in 2014. It's possible the black hole could have stripped off the outer layer of G2, Ghez said, which could help explain the increased brightness just outside the black hole.
Morris said another possibility is that the brightening corresponds to the demise of large asteroids that have been drawn in to the black hole.
No danger to Earth
The black hole is some 26,000 light-years away and poses no danger to our planet. Do said the radiation would have to be 10 billion times as bright as what the astronomers detected to affect life on Earth.
Astrophysical Journal Letters also published a second article by the researchers, describing speckle holography, the technique that enabled them to extract and use very faint information from 24 years of data they recorded from near the black hole.
Ghez's research team reported July 25 in the journal Science the most comprehensive test of Einstein's iconic general theory of relativity near the black hole. Their conclusion that Einstein's theory passed the test and is correct, at least for now, was based on their study of S0-2 as it made a complete orbit around the black hole.
► Watch a four-minute film about Ghez's research
Ghez's team studies more than 3,000 stars that orbit the supermassive black hole. Since 2004, the scientists have used a powerful technology that Ghez helped pioneer, called adaptive optics, which corrects the distorting effects of the Earth's atmosphere in real time. But speckle holography enabled the researchers to improve the data from the decade before adaptive optics came into play. Reanalyzing data from those years helped the team conclude that they had not seen that level of brightness near the black hole in 24 years.
"It was like doing LASIK surgery on our early images," Ghez said. "We collected the data to answer one question and serendipitously unveiled other exciting scientific discoveries that we didn't anticipate."
Co-authors include Gunther Witzel, a former UCLA research scientist currently at Germany's Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy; Mark Morris, UCLA professor of physics and astronomy; Eric Becklin, UCLA professor emeritus of physics and astronomy; Rainer Schoedel, a researcher at Spain's Instituto de Astrofısica de Andalucıa; and UCLA graduate students Zhuo Chen and Abhimat Gautam.
The research is funded by the National Science Foundation, W.M. Keck Foundation, the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, the Heising-Simons Foundation, Lauren Leichtman and Arthur Levine, and Howard and Astrid Preston.
https://www.college.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/AndreaGhezblackholeartbyNicolleFullerfinal2019_3f356069-a011-4b89-8983-b3cb3ea118b6-prv.jpg 860 1200 Chris Ibarra https://www.college.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Uxd_Blk_College-e1557344896161.png Chris Ibarra2019-09-30 09:52:372019-09-30 09:53:12Black hole at the center of our galaxy appears to be getting hungrier
September 26, 2019 /in Box 5, College News, Featured Stories /by Chris Ibarra
Biologist Blaire Van Valkenburgh has spent more than three decades studying the skulls of large carnivores. Here she displays a replica of a saber-toothed cat skull. At left are the skulls of a spotted hyena (in white) and a dire wolf (the black skull). Photo credit: Christelle Snow/UCLA.
UCLA evolutionary biologist Blaire Van Valkenburgh has spent more than three decades studying the skulls of many species of large carnivores — including wolves, lions and tigers — that lived from 50,000 years ago to the present. She reports today in the journal eLife the answer to a puzzling question.
Essential to the survival of these carnivores is their teeth, which are used for securing their prey and chewing it, yet large numbers of these animals have broken teeth. Why is that, and what can we learn from it?
In the research, Van Valkenburgh reports a strong link between an increase in broken teeth and a decline in the amount of available food, as large carnivores work harder to catch dwindling numbers of prey, and eat more of it, down to the bones.
"Broken teeth cannot heal, so most of the time, carnivores are not going to chew on bones and risk breaking their teeth unless they have to," said Van Valkenburgh, a UCLA distinguished professor of ecology and evolutionary biology, who holds the Donald R. Dickey Chair in Vertebrate Biology.
For the new research, Van Valkenburgh studied the skulls of gray wolves — 160 skulls of adult wolves housed in the Yellowstone Heritage and Research Center in Montana; 64 adult wolf skulls from Isle Royale National Park in Lake Superior that are housed at Michigan Technological University; and 94 skulls from Scandinavia, collected between 1998 and 2010, housed in the Swedish Royal Museum of Natural History in Stockholm. She compared these with the skulls of 223 wolves that died between 1874 and 1952, from Alaska, Texas, New Mexico, Idaho and Canada.
Yellowstone had no wolves, Van Valkenburgh said, between the 1920s and 1995, when 31 gray wolves were brought to the national park from British Columbia. About 100 wolves have lived in Yellowstone for more than a decade, she said.
In Yellowstone, more than 90% of the wolves' prey are elk. The ratio of elk to wolves has declined sharply, from more than 600-to-1 when wolves were brought back to the national park to about 100-to-1 more recently.
In the first 10 years after the reintroduction, the wolves did not break their teeth much and did not eat the elk completely, Van Valkenburgh reports. In the following 10 years, as the number of elk declined, the wolves ate more of the elk's body, and the number of broken teeth doubled, including the larger teeth wolves use when hunting and chewing.
The pattern was similar in the island park of Isle Royale. There, the wolves' prey are primarily adult moose, but moose numbers are low and their large size makes them difficult to capture and kill. Isle Royale wolves had high frequencies of broken and heavily worn teeth, reflecting the fact that they consumed about 90% of the bodies of the moose they killed.
Scandinavian wolves presented a different story. The ratio of moose to wolves is nearly 500-to-1 in Scandinavia and only 55-to-1 in Isle Royale, and, consistent with Van Valkenburgh's hypothesis, Scandinavian wolves consumed less of the moose they killed (about 70%) than Isle Royale wolves. Van Valkenburgh did not find many broken teeth among the Scandinavian wolves. "The wolves could find moose easily, not eat the bones, and move on," she said.
Van Valkenburgh believes her findings apply beyond gray wolves, which are well-studied, to other large carnivores, such as lions, tigers and bears.
Extremely high rates of broken teeth have been recorded for large carnivores — such as lions, dire wolves and saber-toothed cats — from the Pleistocene epoch, dating back tens of thousands of years, compared with their modern counterparts, Van Valkenburgh said. Rates of broken teeth from animals at the La Brea Tar Pits were two to four times higher than in modern animals, she and colleagues reported in the journal Science in the 1990s.
"Our new study suggests that the cause of this tooth fracture may have been more intense competition for food in the past than in present large carnivore communities," Van Valkenburgh said.
She and colleagues reported in 2015 that violent attacks by packs of some of the world's largest carnivores — including lions much larger than those of today and saber-toothed cats — went a long way toward shaping ecosystems during the Pleistocene.
In a 2016 article in the journal BioScience, Van Valkenburgh and more than 40 other wildlife experts wrote that preventing the extinction of lions, tigers, wolves, bears, elephants and the world's other largest mammals will require bold political action and financial commitments from nations worldwide.
Discussing the new study, she said, "We want to understand the factors that increase mortality in large carnivores that, in many cases, are near extinction. Getting good information on that is difficult. Studying tooth fracture is one way to do so, and can reveal changing levels of food stress in big carnivores."
Co-authors are Rolf Peterson and John Vucetich, professors of forest resources and environmental science at Michigan Technological University; and Douglas Smith and Daniel Stahler, wildlife biologists with the National Park Service.
The research was funded by the National Science Foundation and National Park Service.
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UCLA historian Kelly Lytle Hernández awarded MacArthur Fellowship
September 26, 2019 /in Box 3, College News, Faculty & Research, Featured Stories /by Chris Ibarra
Kelly Lytle Hernández, a 2019 MacArthur Foundation Fellow, is one of 14 UCLA faculty to be chosen for the honor. Photo credit: John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation
UCLA professor Kelly Lytle Hernández, an award-winning author and scholar of race, mass incarceration and immigration, was announced today as a recipient of a prestigious MacArthur Fellowship from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.
Lytle Hernández, who is a professor of history and African American studies, is the director of UCLA's Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies, which under her leadership has focused on supporting research into two critical themes in the modern black world — work and justice. The Bunche Center is home to Million Dollar Hoods, which maps the fiscal and human cost of mass incarceration in Los Angeles. Lytle Hernández is the director and principal investigator on the project.
"Lytle Hernández's investigation of the intersecting histories of race, mass incarceration, immigration, and cross-border politics is deepening our understanding of how imprisonment has been used as a mechanism for social control in the United States," the foundation said.
The MacArthur Fellowship is a $625,000, no-strings-attached award to people the foundation deems "extraordinarily talented and creative individuals." Fellows are chosen based on three criteria: exceptional creativity, promise for important future advances based on a track record of accomplishments, and potential for the fellowship to facilitate subsequent creative work. Lytle Hernández is one of 26 individuals the foundation selected for fellowships in 2019.
"As a scholar, I both work deeply alone and deeply in community, but until very recently the scholarly communities I've worked in — immigration and the carceral state — have been fairly separate," said Lytle Hernández, who holds the Thomas E. Lifka Chair in History at UCLA. "I hope my work has helped people understand immigration as another aspect of mass incarceration in the United States and that my award further helps people understand that these two regimes are intertwined. This award will help us continue this work across communities and shine a light on this kind of thinking that unites these two crises that others often see as distinct."
Lytle Hernández, 45, received a her bachelor's degree from UC San Diego in 1996 and earned her doctorate in 2002 from UCLA.
For her first book, "MIGRA! A History of the U.S. Border Patrol," Lytle Hernández pored over historical records to illuminate the border patrol's nearly exclusive focus on policing unauthorized immigration from Mexico.
In "City of Inmates: Conquest, Rebellion, and the Rise of Human Caging in Los Angeles," she began zeroing in on another dimension of race and law enforcement, specifically what forces shaped Los Angeles so that it came to operate the largest jail system in the United States.
"What I found in the archives is that since the very first days of U.S. rule in Los Angeles — the Tongva Basin — incarceration has persistently operated as a means of purging, removing, caging, containing, erasing, disappearing and otherwise eliminating indigenous communities and racially targeted populations," Lytle Hernández said in an interview about the book.
The MacArthur Fellowship, which is commonly referred to as the "genius grant," is according to the foundation, intended to encourage people of outstanding talent to pursue their own creative, intellectual and professional inclinations. Recipients may be writers, scientists, artists, social scientists, humanists, teachers, entrepreneurs, or those in other fields, with or without institutional affiliations.
Lytle Hernández joins 13 other UCLA faculty as MacArthur fellows, including mathematician Terence Tao, choreographer Kyle Abraham, director Peter Sellars, astrophysicist Andrea Ghez and historian of religion Gregory Schopen.
While unsure of her specific plans for the award, Lytle Hernández said that she will continue to expand the scope and scale of her social justice scholarship, including with partners outside of UCLA.
"I'd like to create a space for myself and others — especially community organizers and movement-driven scholars — to write," she said, noting that these people's calendars tend to be jammed by the "urgency of their work." "I'd like to create space that allows myself and others to process the work that we're doing and to share it."
https://www.college.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Lytle-355x237.jpg 237 355 Chris Ibarra https://www.college.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Uxd_Blk_College-e1557344896161.png Chris Ibarra2019-09-26 10:11:192019-09-26 10:11:19UCLA historian Kelly Lytle Hernández awarded MacArthur Fellowship
UCLA receives $20 million to establish UCLA Bedari Kindness Institute
Jennifer and Matthew C. Harris '84.
The Bedari Foundation, established by philanthropists Jennifer and Matthew C. Harris, has given $20 million to the UCLA College to establish the UCLA Bedari Kindness Institute.
The institute, which is housed in the division of social sciences, will support world-class research on kindness, create opportunities to translate that research into real-world practices, and serve as a global platform to educate and communicate its findings. Among its principal goals are to empower citizens and inspire leaders to build more humane societies.
"Universities should always be places where we teach students to reach across lines of difference and treat one another with empathy and respect — even when we deeply disagree," UCLA Chancellor Gene Block said. "The UCLA Bedari Kindness Institute will bring the best thinking to this vital issue and, I think, will allow us to have a real social impact on future generations."
The institute, which will begin operating immediately, will take an interdisciplinary approach to understanding kindness — through evolutionary, biological, psychological, economic, cultural and sociological perspectives. It will focus on research about the actions, thoughts, feelings and social institutions associated with kindness and will bring together researchers from across numerous disciplines at UCLA and at external organizations.
The inaugural director of the institute is Daniel Fessler, a UCLA anthropology professor whose research interests include exploring how witnessing acts of remarkable kindness can cause an uplifting emotional experience that in turn motivates the observer to be kind. Studies by Fessler and his colleagues have shed light on why some people are open to that type of "contagious kindness" experience.
The Bedari Foundation is a private family foundation whose aim is to enable significant cultural shifts in the fields of health and wellness, community displacement and environmental conservation.
"Our vision is that we will all live in a world where humanity discovers and practices the kindness that exists in all of us," said Matthew Harris, the foundation's co-founder and a 1984 UCLA graduate. "Much research is needed to understand why kindness can be so scarce in the modern world. As we seek at Bedari to bridge the divide between science and spirituality, through the establishment of the UCLA Bedari Kindness Institute we hope to educate and empower more and more people in the practice of kindness."
Already, a range of researchers at UCLA are studying the types of questions that will be the basis of the institute's work. For example, UCLA anthropologists are examining how kindness spreads from person to person and group to group. UCLA sociologists are analyzing how people who regularly act unkind might be encouraged to engage in kind acts instead, and UCLA psychologists are researching how kindness can improve people's moods and reduce symptoms of depression. Others are pursuing research on changes in neurobiology and behaviors resulting from mindfulness, and how those changes can influence kindness and people's mental, physical and social well-being.
"In the midst of current world politics, violence and strife, the UCLA Bedari Kindness Institute seeks to be an antidote," said Darnell Hunt, dean of the UCLA division of social sciences. "Rooted in serious academic work, the institute will partner and share its research on kindness broadly in accessible formats. The Bedari Foundation's extraordinary gift is truly visionary and we are grateful for its support and leadership."
The Kindness Institute will provide seed funding for research projects that examine the social and physical mechanics of kindness and how kindness might be harnessed to create more humane societies. It also will provide mindfulness awareness training to students, faculty and staff and in underserved Los Angeles communities, and host an annual conference at which presenters will examine new discoveries in kindness research, among other activities.
"The mission of the Kindness Institute perfectly aligns with that of the division of social sciences, where engaging the amazing diversity and social challenges shaping Los Angeles routinely inspires research that has the potential to change the world," Hunt said.
The gift is part of the Centennial Campaign for UCLA, which is scheduled to conclude in December.
https://www.college.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/MattandJenniferHarris_hero.jpg 779 1170 Chris Ibarra https://www.college.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Uxd_Blk_College-e1557344896161.png Chris Ibarra2019-09-25 07:45:162019-09-25 16:00:52UCLA receives $20 million to establish UCLA Bedari Kindness Institute
Minds Matter: Raising the Curtain on Depression and Anxiety
August 22, 2019 /in Box 4, College News, Featured Stories /by UCLA College
Cleveland Cavaliers basketball player Kevin Love and UCLA College's Clinical Psychology expert Michelle Craske.
UCLA students, community members and supporters joined Cleveland Cavaliers basketball player Kevin Love and UCLA College's Clinical Psychology expert Michelle Craske for a standing-room only hybrid class and public lecture on Monday, August 19, for "Minds Matter: Raising the Curtain on Depression and Anxiety," a free hour-long discussion on the causes of depression and anxiety, public stigma, and potential advances for the future. The series was the first in an ongoing exploration of brain health that will continue with additional events focusing on bullying, aging well, and other topics.
Love, an NBA Champion and five-time NBA All-Star for the Cleveland Cavaliers, has publicly discussed his struggle with panic attacks and anxiety and his decision to seek therapy, and has become a leading voice in mental health advocacy and founded the Kevin Love Fund in 2018 with the mission of inspiring people to live their healthiest lives while providing the tools to achieve physical and emotional well-being.
"Mental health isn't just an athlete thing, it's an issue that affects everyone in some way. The more we can normalize the conversation around mental health, the more we can do to help those that are struggling," said Love. "My goal in sharing my personal experience is to connect with others who are going through something and keep this dialogue top of mind."
Michelle G. Craske is a UCLA Professor of Psychology, Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences, Director of the Anxiety and Depression Research Center, and Associate Director of the Staglin Family Music Center for Behavioral and Brain Health. Craske has published extensively in the area of fear, anxiety and depression.
"We need to work together to bring anxiety and depression out of the dark. People who suffer will only seek help when they can do so without fear of shame. Event series such as 'Minds Matter' aim to shed a light on these critical issues, and to help make a positive breakthrough," said Craske.
Craske also is Director of the Innovative Treatment Network within the UCLA Depression Grand Challenge, a campus-wide effort to cut the global burden of depression in half. The innovative treatment component, which Craske leads, seeks to develop novel and more effective treatments for depression and anxiety and increase the scalability and accessibility of existing evidence-based treatments.
The "Minds Matter" series leverages the strengths of UCLA College's Psychology faculty as well as high-profile guests who provide specialized insight about the discussion topic. Upcoming sessions will include discussions on addiction, adolescent brain development and behavior, bullying, healthy aging, and thriving under stress. The "Minds Matter" series is made possible through the longstanding UCLA College and Geffen Playhouse partnership and the generous support of donors.
Check back for information on future "Minds Matter" events at https://www.college.ucla.edu/minds-matter/.
https://www.college.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/KevinLove_MichelleCraske.jpg 237 355 UCLA College https://www.college.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Uxd_Blk_College-e1557344896161.png UCLA College2019-08-22 08:31:062019-10-04 14:02:39Minds Matter: Raising the Curtain on Depression and Anxiety
Addressing Africa's Pressing Challenges: Anthony and Jeanne Pritzker Family Foundation Gives $1 Million to UCLA's Congo Basin Institute
August 15, 2019 /in College News, Featured Stories /by UCLA College
The Congo Basin Institute creates a bridge between UCLA and Africa, which is expected to be home to 40% of the world's population by the end of the century.
UCLA has received a $1 million donation from the Anthony & Jeanne Pritzker Family Foundation to support UCLA's Congo Basin Institute.
The funds will advance the institute's core mission of finding sustainable solutions to food and water insecurity, climate change, biodiversity loss, public health concerns and emerging diseases.
"The Anthony & Jeanne Pritzker Family Foundation's generous gift will help establish UCLA as one of the world's university leaders in developing solutions to some of Africa's greatest challenges," said Thomas Smith, co-director of the institute. "It also will aid in leveraging efforts such as UCLA's Sustainable LA Grand Challenge on an international scale
Established in 2015 in Cameroon by UCLA and the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture, the Congo Basin Institute brings together faculty from the UCLA College and four professional schools, two UCLA research institutes and numerous academic departments, as well as leading thinkers from institutions in the U.S., Europe, Asia and Africa. Operating programs in five African countries, the institute creates a bridge between UCLA and Africa, which experts forecast will be home to 40% of the world's population by the end of the century.
"Our foundation aims to enrich humanity not just for the present, but for generations to come," said Tony Pritzker, the foundation's president, and the chairman and CEO of Pritzker Private Capital. "By supporting UCLA's Congo Basin Institute, we are investing in research that will help sustain the future of our planet."
The gift furthers the foundation's commitment to the Centennial Campaign for UCLA, which is scheduled to conclude in December 2019 during UCLA's 100th anniversary year. Tony Pritzker is a co-chair of the campaign, and in 2018, the foundation gave $10 million to establish the UCLA Pritzker Center for Strengthening Children and Families, a hub for research, prevention and intervention efforts that works to support families so that fewer children are at risk of entering our nation's child welfare system.
Funds from the gift will be used in part to support UCLA undergraduates and graduate students studying and conducting research in Africa, where they will investigate a variety of critical issues that affect the continent and the planet as a whole.
The Pritzkers' gift was matched by a $1 million grant from the Global Challenges Research Fund's Research and Innovation Fund, which is directed by the government of the United Kingdom.
"As UCLA celebrates its centennial and the incredible work accomplished over the last century, this forward-thinking investment in the Congo Basin Institute very much positions UCLA to be a leader in the study of climate change and biodiversity in Africa," said Scott Waugh, UCLA's former executive vice chancellor and provost. "The institute gives UCLA a permanent presence in one of the planet's most biodiverse areas, allowing researchers the opportunity to pioneer solutions to critical challenges that affect the future of humanity. The Pritzker Foundation's gift extends this important work."
The Congo Basin Institute's work aligns on an international scale with the goals of UCLA's Sustainable LA Grand Challenge, a university-wide research initiative to develop clean energy, local water solutions, and preserve biodiversity in order to transition the Los Angeles region to 100 percent renewable energy, 100 percent local water and enhanced ecosystem health by 2050.
The Congo Basin Institute is supported by UCLA's Institute of the Environment and Sustainability. It is co-led by UCLA and the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture, with more than a dozen institutional partners from Africa and around the world, including UC Davis and UC Riverside.
For more than a decade, the Anthony & Jeanne Pritzker Family Foundation has been investing in strengthening many of the unique institutions that define Los Angeles. The foundation aims to enrich the community not just for the present, but for generations to come, with a particular focus on medicine, higher education, the environment and the arts. In 2014, the foundation launched the Pritzker Foster Care Initiative to highlight its commitment to supporting transition-age foster youth and the families that care for them.
https://www.college.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Baka-Children.jpg 2848 4288 UCLA College https://www.college.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Uxd_Blk_College-e1557344896161.png UCLA College2019-08-15 08:02:342019-09-25 11:08:43Addressing Africa's Pressing Challenges: Anthony and Jeanne Pritzker Family Foundation Gives $1 Million to UCLA's Congo Basin Institute


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Tom M., Freelance 3D Animator, Animator, Motion Graphic Designer Product skills include Premiere Pro CC, Cinema 4D, After Effects CC.
Tom M. 3D Animator, Animator, Motion Graphic Designer.
Tom is a talented Motion Graphic Designer and Animator, with several years' freelance experience and a keen eye for detail.
He is equally happy working in 2D or 3D (or often a mixture of the two). He can take on multiple problems and give back simple thoughtful solutions that fit the brief, and is always adaptable to whatever timescales the project needs to work to.
Tom loves to work as part of a team and is a natural people-person, but is more than happy to fly solo and take on a whole project workflow when the need arises.
Tom is an experienced Cinema 4d Artist.
Talent Similar to Tom M.


Whether or not you're sold on the tech, it seems that virtual reality is here to stay.
The world's first virtual-reality cinema has opened in Europe, and it looks pretty weird.
The project – built by &samhoud media – showcases a number of VR experiences, and is open to the public.
Each seat in the cinema is equipped with a Samsung Gear VR, and the requisite Samsung Galaxy S6 smartphone docked inside too. You'll also be supplied with Sennheiser HD 201 headphones.
Even the seating isn't conventional; everyone sits on swivel chairs, for full 360-degree spinning.
The cinema, based in Amsterdam, can hold up to 50 viewers at any one time.
It's worth noting, however, that a number of other cities will also be getting their own VR cinemas. These include Madrid, Berlin, Paris and London.
Tickets for the experience currently cost 12.50 euros, which works out at about £10.
It still isn't clear whether VR can put a dent in the market share of conventional cinemas.
What do you make of the world's first VR cinema? Let us know in the comments.


text:
INTERNATIONAL CRISIS GROUP - NEW REPORT Myanmar: Storm Clouds on the Horizon
Jakarta/Brussels, 12 November 2012: Even as Myanmar's democratic transition continues apace, ethnic violence in Rakhine State represents a threat to national stability. It demands decisive moral leadership from all the country's leaders as they strive to find long-term solutions to the many challenges that lie ahead, including longstanding discrimination of the Rohingya and other Muslim minorities.
Myanmar: Storm Clouds on the Horizon, the latest report from the International Crisis Group, tracks the broad changes that have continued to move the country away from authoritarianism despite the recent and serious backward step of intercommunal violence between Buddhists and Muslims in the west of the country.
"The Myanmar government and legislature have demonstrated that they possess the vision and leadership to shift the country decisively away from its authoritarian past", says Jim Della-Giacoma, Crisis Group's South East Asia Project Director. "But they will inevitably face major challenges, including containing and resolving the intercommunal conflict that has engulfed Rakhine State and reaching a ceasefire in Kachin State".
In May 2012, the rape and murder of a Buddhist woman by Muslim men ignited long-simmering tensions between the Buddhist Rakhine and the Muslim Rohingya communities in Rakhine State. Since June, rioting, violence and mass displacement have become too common. It has not helped that some local authorities have been seen to take the Rakhine side in the conflict. They have for decades actively discriminated against the Rohingya, leaving many without citizenship that they may have long ago qualified for if the law had been applied more fairly.
Unrest in Rakhine State may also be a by-product of the reform process. The transition has created unprecedented space to organise that has been denied for decades, including for long-suppressed ethno-nationalist causes. There is a real risk that the localised conflict in Rakhine State could take on a more general Buddhist-Muslim dimension and spread to other parts of the multi-religious and multi-ethnic country.
The unrest has taken place in the context of President Thein Sein continuing to introduce more democratic policies and consolidating power among reformers. Prisoners have been released, protests allowed, censorship abolished, and cabinet reshuffled to remove or sideline ministers who were seen as too conservative or ineffective.
But challenges lie ahead in advance of the 2015 elections, in which Aung San Suu Kyi and the National League for Democracy (NLD) will compete for seats as a fully fledged opposition party. Greater freedom to organise could lead to more confrontational social movements. It will be a challenging time, as the legislature is not always in step with Thein Sein's administration and has tested its authority, and the NLD has its eye on the next poll. The NLD will have to ensure that its expected electoral success in 2015 does not come at the expense of the broad representation needed to reflect the country's diversity and support an inclusive and stable transition.
"Social tensions are rising as more freedom allows local conflicts to resurface", says Paul Quinn-Judge, Crisis Group's Acting Asia Program Director. "Moral leadership is required now to calm tensions and new compromises will be needed if divisive confrontation is to be avoided".
Rob Carter November 12, 2012 at 11:58 PM
I am hoping Burma wakes up in time but fear drug Money is the driving motivation behind the Shan Army residual of Khun Sa and some Muslim factions trying ethnic cleansing for the poppy lands as the sales to china have doubled each of the past 6 years as Mexican drug war slows that alternative PRC drug supply and closer too. It's not religion as last attach left the friendly Muslim houses not fired. In the same Rohingya areas.
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