Tag Archives: UC Berkeley
Berkeley to help sister city in Cuba with clean water plan
By Tom Miller
Following Mayor Tom Bates and State Senator Loni Hancock’s December visit to Palma Soriano, Berkeley’s sister city in Eastern Cuba, plans are afoot for a community-built clean water solution for the entire city of 80,000 people.
For the past decade, UC Berkeley researchers have traveled to Palma to work with the community to develop a plan which will blend the deeply spiritual Afro-Cuban based affinity to land and nature with a low-tech, low cost green field sewage treatment plan. The people of Palma’s roots stretch back to Haiti when French slave owners brought slaves to Eastern Cuba when they fled Haiti’s slave rebellion over 200 years ago. … Continue reading »
Three arrested after robbery with gun near UC Berkeley
Update, 5:14 p.m. The Berkeley Police Department identified those arrested in connection with Thursday morning’s robbery as James Heater, 24, of Oakland; Stefon Simpkins, 21; and Bart Perrin, 22, of San Ramon. No city of residence was listed for Simpkins.
Original story, 4:25 p.m. Authorities arrested three young men they say are responsible for an early morning robbery with a gun near the University of California, Berkeley, campus on Thursday.
In a statement released Thursday afternoon by the University of California Police Department, police said a 19-year-old was walking near Warring Street and Channing Way just after 1:30 a.m. when two young men approached him.
One of them, who had a gun, demanded the victim’s backpack, cell phone and wallet, police said. … Continue reading »
UCPD creates night patrol unit for south of Cal campus
The University of California Police Department has created a new nighttime special duty unit in Berkeley to step up its efforts to address safety and security needs south of campus.
UCPD’s Lt. Eric Tejada said the move was prompted by a desire to be more agile in responding to crime trends.
“We’ve developed a special projects unit without affecting our normal staffing,” he said
The unit comprises one sergeant and four officers and will focus on issues such as underage drinking, robberies and drug dealing in People’s Park. The unit, which began patrolling on Jan. 7, will normally work from 4 p.m. to 2 a.m Wednesdays through Saturdays. … Continue reading »
Meat matters: Two new films focus on hot issues
Ashton Kutcher is the executive producer of a mini-documentary about Bay Area butcher shops which features Berkeley’s own The Local Butcher Shop, along with 4505 Meats and Avedano’s Holly Park Market in San Francisco.
The subject of meat, America’s industrial meat system and the growing movement towards more sustainable, humane practices is a hot one right now.
On Feb. 4 UC Berkeley is hosting a free screening of American Meat a pro-farmer documentary which takes a critical look at cattle, hog, and chicken production in the U.S. and examines the viability of moving the industry over to more sustainable practices. A discussion will follow the screening, moderated by Novella Carpenter, author of the best-selling memoir Farm City and co-owner of Berkeley’s BioFuel Oasis which, as well as selling bio-fuel to cars, offers urban farming classes. … Continue reading »
UCPD arrests one after vandalism hate crime on campus
Campus police at the University of California, Berkeley, have arrested one man, and are seeking another, in connection with several instances of graffiti found Saturday, authorities said.
According to police, “This crime is classified as a hate crime because while documenting the scene the officers noted derogatory graffiti towards sexual orientation.”
Saturday night at about 10:30, the University of California Police Department received a report of two males who were spray painting graffiti at the Li Ka Shing Center for Biomedical and Health Sciences. The center, on Oxford Street near Hearst Avenue, opened this semester after its dedication in October. … Continue reading »
Berkeleyan inducted in 2012 Ultimate frisbee Hall of Fame
Dennis “Cribber” Warsen, who calls Berkeley home, and Molly Goodwin who attended UC Berkeley, are two of four Ultimate frisbee players who have been selected for induction into the sport’s 2012 Hall of Fame.
Asked what the honor meant for him, Warsen told Berkeleyside: “For 20 years, I trashed my body and postponed adulthood to play this game. So having this honor given to me must mean that someone noticed, and that feels good. In a way, the Ultimate Hall of Fame is not just a list of players, it is a history of the sport and I am honored to be a part of that history.”
Warsen grew up in New York and went to SUNY Purchase, which is where he started playing Ultimate. After winning five world championships with New York, he was recruited by a San Francisco team and decided to move out west in 1996. In 2006 he moved across the bay and has been living in Berkeley ever since.
In the USA Ultimate’s write-up about Warsen, he is described as possibly ”the best player ever on the best team ever.” … Continue reading »
In memoriam: Stephan Jarjisian, loved and cherished
By Jackie Childers
Stephan Garabed Jarjisian, or Steve as everyone knew him, was a PhD student in the Department of Psychology at the University of California, Berkeley. He was known by many students, as he was a graduate instructor for several classes, including Animal Behavior and the Psychology of Sleep. He was finishing his doctoral dissertation under the advisement of Dr. Irving Zucker at the time of his tragic death.
He loved music. He loved playing his guitar on his balcony that overlooked the Bay, and he loved singing. When he whistled, which he did perfectly, you knew that he was happy in that moment (and he whistled often).
He loved jazz and listening to Rush, Taj Mahal, Pink Floyd (he once said that Dark Side of the Moon was the best album ever recorded), and Miles Davis. Every summer he would go to multiple Phish concerts near his hometown in Philadelphia with all of his friends, whom he cared for so much.
He loved cooking and had a special talent for creating culinary works of art. He loved fishing, here in the Bay as well as down in the Cayman Islands where he spent so much time with friends and family. … Continue reading »
UC pulls new logo amid criticism, ‘controversy’
The University of California released a statement Friday that it would cease use of a newly released logo following “a significant negative response by students, alumni and other members of our community.”
Daniel M. Dooley, senior vice president for external relations at the University of California Office of the President, released a statement Friday that was posted on UC Berkeley’s News Center website shortly after noon.
Dooley wrote that the response to the new logo had resulted in an unfortunate community controversy. … Continue reading »
New, modern UC logo evokes cries of ‘foul’
The University of California system has started using a modern logo intended to be easy to use on the Internet, Facebook, and social media.
It hasn’t gone down well.
While the University started using the modern logo in November, people only became widely aware of it after news organizations reported on it last week. Within days, a group of students and alumni had posted a petition on Change.org calling for the removal of the spanking-new logo. By Monday morning, 38,340 people had signed onto the protest. A Facebook page “Stop the UC Logo Change,” has 4,500 “likes.”
“The newly designed monogram of the University of California, while attempting to be modern, loses the prestige and elegance of the current seal,” reads the petition. … Continue reading »
Express thanks online, get happier with new Cal study
With gratitude on everyone’s mind this week, a recently launched online study at UC Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center makes it easy to, in one fell swoop, give thanks and contribute to a growing body of research on the subject.
The endeavor is based on the work of UC Davis psychology professor Bob Emmons, who has found that students who kept gratitude journals for a short period of time experienced strengthened resilience, became less vulnerable to daily stresses and suffered less from minor health complaints such as rashes and headaches.
Emmons teamed up with the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley to launch a new website, Thnx4.org, earlier this month. The website functions as an interactive, shareable gratitude journal, as well as an online database for researchers who are studying gratitude. Entries made by participants are kept private (for research purposes only) unless participants elect to share them, either via an anonymous public feed or through their own social networks. … Continue reading »
Cal football coach Jeff Tedford sacked after 3-9 season
Jeff Tedford, head coach of the Cal Golden Bears football team since 2002, was fired today after a 3-9 season and a combined 15-22 record over the last three seasons. Tedford was the highest paid state employee in California, with a salary of $2.3 million a year. His contract with Cal ran through the 2015 season.
“This was an extraordinarily difficult decision, one that required a thorough and thoughtful analysis of a complex set of factors,” Cal Athletic Director Sandy Barbour said in a press statement. “Ultimately, I believed that we needed a change in direction to get our program back on the right track. Cal football is integral to our department and our university, and its influence can be felt well beyond the walls of Memorial Stadium. The program clearly serves as an important part of the connective tissue that binds our community together, and it is imperative that Cal football be recognized as a leader in competitive success, academic achievement and community engagement.” … Continue reading »
UC Berkeley names Columbia dean as new chancellor
Nicholas B. Dirks, Columbia University’s executive vice president and dean of the faculty of Arts and Sciences, will succeed Robert J. Birgeneau as UC Berkeley’s 10th chancellor, the university announced Thursday.
Dirks is set to begin at Cal on June 1, 2013. Birgeneau announced in March that he would step down in December, but has agreed to serve through May, according to the university.
Dirks was born in Illinois but grew up in Connecticut, according to a statement released by UC Berkeley. He and his wife, Columbia history professor Janaki Bakhle, have a 13-year-old son, and Dirks has a grown daughter from a prior marriage.
Dirks taught in California earlier on his career and has family connections to the state as well; his late father served as vice chancellor and dean for humanities at UC Santa Cruz in the 1970s, and his mother is a longtime California resident.
“This is an opportunity I embrace with both excitement and humility,” Dirks said, via the university statement. “I have immense respect for the countless accomplishments of faculty, students and staff at what I consider to be the premier public research university in the world. I look forward to becoming part of the UC community and to contributing all that I can to the further evolution of a campus that is a beacon of excellence, innovation and aspiration for California, the nation and the world.”
The university’s Board of Regents will vote on the terms of the appointment at a special meeting in late November. … Continue reading »
UC Berkeley students take part in community work day
If you noticed an unusual number of young people engaged in some serious manual labor in Berkeley on Saturday, Nov. 3, chances are you came across a group engaged in work for The Berkeley Project, an annual event which sees UC Berkeley students working in the community.
The Berkeley Project began in 2006 as a giant, one-day service event and this year an estimated 1,800 students took part, painting and decorating, weeding, planting, cleaning and prettifying, at about 80 different indoor and outdoor sites across the city.
We sent Kaia Diringer out with her camera on Saturday to capture some of the students at work. She took photographs of students cleaning and maintaining the area around Ashby BART, weeding and planting at the Karl Linn Community Garden at Hopkins and Peralta, and painting the activities room at the Young Adult Center at 1730 Oregon Street. … Continue reading »
