Media coverage of top UCI stories: Oct. 29, 2007

1. The Times (London), Oct. 28, 2007
Governator walks tall amid the flames
UCI MENTIONED:     Locals say that they enjoy four seasons – earthquake, mud-slide, riot and, every autumn, Santa Ana fires. Some, like former resident Mike Davis, history professor at the University of California, Irvine, argue that it might be wiser to let the multi-million-dollar mansions burn and build elsewhere.

First Paragraph:     It is the role Arnold Schwarzenegger was born to play – “the governator”, striding tall against a scarlet sky, cheering on heroic firefighters, comforting the dispossessed with a fresh twist on his worn catchphrase: “I’ll be back – with money.”

2. The Sydney Morning Herald (Australia), Oct. 28, 2007
Playing with fire, now nature hits back
UCI MENTIONED:     The cost of fighting the fires may top $US100 million, while the price of repair will be above $US1 billion for an event that was an echo of many just like it, in years and decades past. Which was why Mike Davis, author and professor of environmental and urban history at the University of California, Irvine, wondered whether it might be better to let Malibu burn, so that the history of this place, his home, might be better learned.

First Paragraph:     Three kilometres away, as seen through Bob Weirich’s binoculars from the deck of his house in the back country north-east of San Diego, the flames danced, leered and lurched in the darkness, like some otherworldly cinematic effect.

3. Los Angeles Times, Oct. 27, 2007
Pediatric hot line (brief)
FULL TEXT:     UC Irvine pediatricians have launched an advisory phone line and Web site for families affected by the Southern California wildfires. Topics such as the long- term effects of smoke inhalation on young children and what precautions will help a child with asthma will be addressed, says UCI’s Susan Mancia. The pediatric advisory line, (714) 456-2300, will be staffed from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. every day. The Web site is www.ucihealth.com.

4. The Orange County Register, Oct. 28, 2007
Eight UCI professors elected to AAAS (blog)
UCI MENTIONED:     Eight UC Irvine professors — whose work ranges from figuring out the nature of global warming to developing better biosensors — have been elected fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, one of the world’s oldest, largest and most distinguished scientific societies.

Second Paragraph:     AAAS, which publishes the influential journal Science, announced the new fellows this week. The appointments increase the campus’ number of AAAS fellows to 87, giving the campus strong representation in an organization whose ranks, over the years, have included such luminaries as anthropologist Margaret Mead, biologist Stephen Jay Gould and Nobelist Leon Lederman.

5. Daily Pilot, Oct. 26, 2007
UCI faculty honored for scientific contributions
UCI MENTIONED:     The American Assn. for the Advancement of Science has chosen six UC Irvine faculty members to be among its fellows, school officials announced Friday. The six are being honored for their efforts in advances to science or its applications.

Second Paragraph:     In alphabetical order and with their disciplines they are: Donald Blake, chemistry; Robert Corn, chemistry; Jean-Luc Gaudiot, electrical engineering and computer science; Michael Goodrich, computer science-computing, Scott Rychnovsky, chemistry; and Athan Shaka, chemistry.

6. OC Metro, Oct. 25, 2007
Master motivator
UCI MENTIONED:     How did John Speraw, head coach of the UCI men’s volleyball team, become only the 2nd person in sports history to win a national volleyball championship as a player, assistant coach and head coach? Talk with Speraw for only a few minutes, and the answer is obvious: his focused determination, stellar leadership skills and technical mastery of the sport.

Second Paragraph:     Thanks to Speraw, UCI’s meteoric rise to national attention was capped with the 2007 NCAA Championship. “One of my proudest moments was watching our guys dog-pile on the court after they won the title,” says Speraw. “We came close the previous year, so this year’s championship was really gratifying.”

7. OC Metro, Oct. 25, 2007
Stem cell scientist
UCI MENTIONED:     Hans Keirstead knew from the age of 11 that he wanted to work on spinal cord injuries. After completing his first year of medical school, he realized research was the best way to do this and switched from an M.D. program to a Ph.D. When interviewed on “60 Minutes” in February 2006, it was said, “If paralyzed people will walk again – it may be because of him.” What an endorsement.

Second Paragraph:     After receiving his doctorate from the University of British Columbia, he did 4 years of postdoctoral research at Cambridge University. He came to UCI in 2000 – 2 years after the isolation of the human stem cell in ‘98 – and has since been published more than 30 times. He currently he holds 17 worldwide patents (though he’s developed many more).

8. Chicago Sun-Times, Oct. 29, 2007
Wrongly accused
UCI MENTIONED:     Ruben Rumbaut, a sociology professor at the University of California at Irvine, wrote in a recent study that “immigrants have the lowest rates of imprisonment for criminal convictions in American society.” But arrests and incarceration increase when it comes to immigrants’ American-born children, Rumbaut noted. Immigrants, Rumbaut told the Sun-Times, “don’t have time to mess around. But their U.S.-born children have time to pick up a lot of bad habits of American society.”

First Paragraph:     Some say undocumented immigrants – illegal aliens, as they’re often called – spread crime when they come to the U.S. Others say that is a myth.

9. The Chronicle of Higher Education, Nov. 2, 2007
Plagiarism, prayer, and fraud play roles in lawsuit against professor
UCI MENTIONED:     When does criticizing another scholar’s work cross the line into libel? Bruce L. Flamm has to go to court to find out. The volunteer clinical professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of California at Irvine is being sued by a prominent South Korean researcher, Kwang Y. Cha, who accused him of defamation in statements he made this year in a medical newspaper called OB-GYN News.

Second Paragraph:     The row between Dr. Cha and Dr. Flamm goes back to a controversial 2001 paper in which Dr. Cha and two co-authors described the medical power of prayer. The three researchers reported that when women in the United States, Canada, and Australia prayed for patients in South Korea undergoing in vitro fertilization, the patients’ chances of getting pregnant went up, even though they were unaware of the prayers.

10. The Chronicle of Higher Education, Nov. 2, 2007
4 challenges to free speech in academe (op-ed)
UCI MENTIONED:     The deanship offer at the University of California at Irvine provides a useful starting point. The university system had authorized the establishment of the first new public law school in California in 40 years and needed an inaugural dean. Irvine’s chancellor, Michael V. Drake, followed the counsel of a faculty committee and offered the position to Erwin Chemerinsky, a professor of law and political science at Duke University.

First Paragraph:     Free speech in American higher education was sorely tested by three bizarre events in the waning days of September and another incident in early October. Each one has potentially grave implications for free expression and academic freedom, and thus merits closer scrutiny.

11. The Baltimore Sun, Oct. 29, 2007
Science, tradition at war in forensics
UCI MENTIONED:     “For all this time, the argument was made that because all fingerprints are unique, fingerprint examiners are accurate at detecting the source of a fingerprint,” said Simon A. Cole, a professor at the University of California, Irvine and the author of Suspect Identities: A History of Fingerprinting and Criminal Identification.

First Paragraph:     Law professor David Faigman was teaching at a national school for judges the week that a ruling to limit testimony about fingerprint evidence was issued in a murder case in Philadelphia.

12. The Huffington Post, Oct. 28, 2007
The contagion theory on happiness
UCI MENTIONED:     On a more happy note... Howard Friedman, a psychologist at University of California at Irvine thinks “emotional contagion” this is also why some people can move and inspire others to positive action – like a good coach or a powerful preacher – or a joyous/exuberant partner in a romantic coupling. Friedman believes it’s because the happy person’s happy facial expression, happy voice, happy gestures and happy body movements all together conspire to transmit happy emotions to all those around the happy person!

First Paragraph:     Have you ever noticed how being around nutsy/negative people can make you feel nutsy/negative? Psychologists call this “emotional contagion” – and there’s even evolutionary reasons for why someone else’s curmudgeonly ways can infect you.

13. KSBY online (NBC 6) (San Luis Obispo), Oct. 26, 2007
Halloween on Isla Vista: Patrols team up to stop parties from getting out of control
UCI MENTIONED:     200 law enforcement officers including police from UCLA and UC Irvine will be on hand to help keep the peace.

First Paragraph:     Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Deputies and UC Santa Barbara Police officers team up to stop Halloween parties from getting out of control.

14. The San Diego Union-Tribune, Oct. 28, 2007
Fires reveal limitations of technology
UCI MENTIONED:     “I think things are generally better than they were during the Cedar fire in 2003,” said Ron Graham, chief scientist for the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information, a multidisciplinary research partnership between the University of California San Diego and UC Irvine.

First Paragraph:     In times of calamity, information is everything: What’s happening? Where’s the fire headed? Is my family safe?

15. Inland Valley Daily Bulletin (Ontario, Calif.), Oct. 29, 2007
New gangs move into I.E.
UCI MENTIONED:     Alfonso J. Valdez, an adjunct professor at UC Irvine and former gang unit supervising investigator for the Orange County District Attorney’s Office, said gangs also travel to new areas when families with gang-related children leave an inner city area for a rural area.

First Paragraph:     A growing number of gangs with roots outside the Inland Empire are moving into the area, adding to gang-related activity and, in two cities, actually outnumbering homegrown members, according to local law enforcement agencies.

16. The Orange County Register, Oct. 29, 2007
Pulitzer Prize winner to discuss ghost hunting at UCI (blog)
UCI MENTIONED:     Author Deborah Blum, who won the Pulitzer Prize for examining how primates are used in research, will visit UCI’s Beckman Center at 7 p.m. Tuesday to give a free public talk titled “Ghost Hunters: Can Science Explain the Supernatural?”

Second Paragraph:     The title is partly drawn from Blum’s highly praised 2006 book, Ghost Hunters: William James and the Search for Scientific Proof of Life After Death. James was a pioneering Harvard psychologist and philosopher who joined with colleagues in applying scientific techniques to explore claims of the paranormal.

17. GlobeSt.com, Oct. 26, 2007
UCI meets population growth with new projects
UCI MENTIONED:     UC Irvine is frequently referred to as “Under Construction Indefinitely” for good reason. Being one of the fastest growing UC schools in the system, this 1,475-acre campus has taken on approximately 18 significant construction projects since early 2005 to accommodate for current and future growth.

Second Paragraph:     One of the campus’ most important undertakings was a student center expansion, which held its Phase IV grand opening celebration Oct. 25 and 26. “The last expansion that the student center had undergone was in 1990,” Marc Tuchman, director of the student center, tells GlobeSt.com. “When we opened that facility up in 1990 it didn’t take too many years before we recognized that we were outgrowing our space. The demand was greater than the facility we had.”

18. Orange County Business Journal, Oct. 29, 2007
Universities in building boom to accommodate students
UCI MENTIONED:     UC Irvine counts roughly 25,000 enrolled students and has plans for more than $1.3 billion in construction projects including academic buildings, parking structures and sewers, roads and seismic projects during the next 10 years.

First Paragraph:     Orange County’s top three universities are in the middle of a development boom. Growing student populations, money from tuition and private donations as well as state funds are driving the building of classrooms, dormitories, student recreation centers and an athletic complex at California State University, Fullerton, the University of California, Irvine and Chapman University.

19. Orange County Business Journal, Oct. 29, 2007
Universities forge relationships with businesses to raise money
UCI MENTIONED:     Thomas Mitchell, vice chancellor of university advancement at UC Irvine, shares the sentiment. “We’re focused on proving to the community that they have a world-class university in their own backyard,” Mitchell said.

First Paragraph:     It’s not that Orange County’s top three universities don’t emphasize that every dollar can help their fundraising efforts—it’s just that every $1 million can help faster.

20. Orange County Business Journal, Oct. 29, 2007
Media storm doesn’t cloud new UCI law dean’s vision
UCI MENTIONED:     Now that the media storm has settled, University of California, Irvine’s Donald Bren School of Law can get back to business. The university suffered an embarrassing frenzy of bad publicity in recent months after Chancellor Michael Drake revoked and then reinstated Duke University law professor Erwin Chemerinsky’s job as founding dean of its new law school, set to open in 2009.

Second Paragraph:     Chemerinsky is looking on the bright side. “I can honestly say that we’re the best publicized new law school, everyone knows about us now,” he said. These days, Chemerinsky is juggling his teaching job at Duke while laying the groundwork for the startup law school, which includes recruiting faculty and administrators and managing funds.

21. Daily Pilot, Oct. 27, 2007
On campus at UCI: UCI director at work (column)
UCI MENTIONED:     UC Irvine’s search for a founding director for its new nursing science program led all the way to Pittsburgh. There, Ellen Olshansky was working as professor and chair of health and community systems in the University of Pittsburgh’s nursing school — one of the top-10 nursing programs nationwide.

Second Paragraph:     “I was at the perfect point in my career to take the next step. I’m attracted to the idea of building something from the ground up,” said Olshansky, whose experience as a nursing administrator, educator, researcher and practitioner spans more than 30 years.

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