Public Affairs

United Press International spoke with physicist Michael Nauenberg about the London conference he helped to organize on Isaac Newton. The science and history conference, held on March 21, attracted the world’s leading Newtonian scholars. The San Francisco Chronicle published a paean to Pioneer 10, the most distant spacecraft from Earth. A diagram showed the famous…

SANTA CRUZ, CA–In 1892, wealthy railway magnate Charles T. Yerkes of Chicago set out to "lick the Lick"–the University of California’s Lick Observatory–by financing "the largest and best telescope in the world." Five years later, his ambitions took concrete form in Williams Bay, Wisconsin, when astronomers dedicated Yerkes Observatory, home to a mammoth 40-inch refracting…

SAN FRANCISCO, CA–The University of California Board of Regents voted today (March 21) to approve the initial stages of the master plan for the UC Monterey Bay Education, Science, and Technology (MBEST) Center, a regional economic development initiative based at the former Fort Ord military reservation near Monterey. The action clears the way for UC…

SANTA CRUZ, CA–"Astrobiology," an intriguing new interdisciplinary research field spanning the origins and evolution of life on Earth and elsewhere, will be the focus of a "gathering of minds" at UC Santa Cruz on Saturday, March 22. The daylong workshop will begin at 8:30 a.m. in room B206, Earth and Marine Sciences Building. The meeting…

SANTA CRUZ, CA–Biological oceanographer Bess Ward, a professor of ocean sciences at UC Santa Cruz, has received one of the top awards in her field: the 1997 G. Evelyn Hutchinson Award from the American Society of Limnology and Oceanography. Ward, age 42, is both the youngest recipient and the first woman to receive the prestigious…

To my UC Santa Cruz colleagues: It is with great sadness that I share news of the death of one of the legends of UC Santa Cruz. Siegfried "Sig" Berthold Puknat died March 17, in San Francisco, at age 83. A memorial service to honor his memory will take place at 11 a.m. on Saturday,…

I realized that I was not, in fact, pressing the computer’s buttons at all–the computer was pressing mine. — Scott Seguin SANTA CRUZ, CA–That comment, excerpted from e-mail written by a student in his Semiotics and Psychoanalysis class, was exactly what Earl Jackson Jr. wanted to hear. A literature professor at the University of California,…

Classical, Medieval, and Renaissance studies are traditionally taught as separate subjects–students in a classics course are likely to read Trojan Women, but usually won’t learn about Italian Renaissance painting or Medieval political systems without taking an art history or history course. A group of scholars at UCSC want to change that tradition and examine these…

Neferti Tadiar: Assistant Professor of History of Consciousness Neferti Tadiar comes to UCSC from the University of the Philippines, where she taught in the English Department for the past two years. Her areas of interest are race and gender in the Asia Pacific, Third World feminism, and cultural studies with an emphasis on contemporary Philippine…

With pencils and notebooks in hand, 13 fourth and fifth graders from Aromas School recently marched into Chancellor Greenwood’s office to interview her about her experience as chancellor. One of the first things they noticed were the new photographs on the wall. For most of the youngsters, their visit with Greenwood marked a return trip…

Over the past few weeks more than 200 elementary and high school students have come to the campus to see performances and art exhibits, present their own performances, and take tours of Arts Division facilities. Steve Miller, who helped coordinate these visits along with other arts division staff, hopes that the students will be back…

Biological oceanographer Bess Ward, professor of ocean sciences, has received one of the top awards in her field: the 1997 G. Evelyn Hutchinson Award from the American Society of Limnology and Oceanography. Ward, age 42, is both the youngest recipient and the first woman to receive the prestigious honor, which the society has bestowed annually…