Currents (November 1993; Vol. 4, No. 2)

              News
Following the discovery in
September of financial misconduct by a staff member,
the Office of Student Affairs
has been reorganized under
the leadership of University
Registrar James Quann. Page 2.
Calendar
The Grapes of Wrath opens this
month under the direction
of Mark Rucker. Members of
the Joad family, who inspired
Steinbeck's novel, are shown in
the Horace Bristol photograph
at right. Page 5.
Digest
It's November, which means
it's time to review your
benefits selections. Open
Enrollment is described in a
new Currents column highlighting news from the
Benefits Office. Page 6.
Sign up now!
UNIVERSITY   OF   CALIFORNIA,   SANTA   CRUZ
VOL. 4, NO: 2
Published monthly by the Office of Public Information for the campus community
November 1993
Chancellor's seminar series on 'Mission, Quality, and
Diversity' debuts; Howard Adams is guest speaker
Howard Adams
To encourage dialogue on
themes that he views as
critical to the success of the
campus, Chancellor Pister has
established the Chancellor's
Distinguished Seminar Series on
Mission, Quality, and Diversity. The
seminar series is the public part of a
quarterly program in which
prominent women and minorities
will spend a day with faculty and
students at UCSC to discuss how to
improve the quality of higher
education in the United States.
The first speaker under the new
program will be Howard Adams,
executive director of the National
Consortium for Graduate Degrees
for Minorities in Engineering, also
known as GEM (Graduate Education
for Minoriries). Adams will visit
the campus on Novembet 17; his
seminar, entitled "Mentoring: A
Critical Element in the Development of Minority Science and
Engineering Students," will begin at
4 P.M. in Room 152 of the Applied
Sciences Building.
According to Pister, the chang
ing ethnic makeup of California's
student body makes it imperative
that the campus community reexamine how best to satisfy UCSC's
mission. The university's charter, he
notes, states that UC must adapt to
the people of the state, but in terms
of diversity that adaptation has not
yet occurred. Within two years, no
single ethnic group will constitute a
majority of the state's high school
graduating class. "Placing [this
statistic] alongside of the present
composition of the students, faculty,
and staff presents in the starkest
possible terms the challenge facing
us, if we are to be true to the charter
of our university," Pister says. "It is
my hope that these seminars will
provide examples and lead to action
agendas to incorporate more
See Seminar series on page 8
Photos: Victor Schiffrin
Eight of the nine students attending UCSC through the Leadership Opportunity Awards
program gathered at a reception at University House on October 11 to meet with their deans,
board chairs, and other officials. The Leadership Opportunity Awards program was established last winter by Chancellor Pister to support outstanding community college students
who might not otherwise have been able to attend the university. Above: with UCSC
Foundation president-elect Stoddard Johnston, Chancellor Pister, and Foundation trustee
and past president Anne Levin are (back row, l-r) Victor Enriquez, Raymond Miranda,
Anthony Perry; (front row, l-r) Wei Yang Leung, Norma C6rdwa, Catalina Berumen,
Virginia Alvarado, and Donna Kenney. Recipient Dolores Tavera is not pictured. With
her husband Paul Levin, Levin provided support for the first named scholarship, the
Neufeld Levin Leadership Opportunity Award. Inset: Virginia Alvarado receives a certificate from Johnston and Levin (who co-chair the award advisory committee), and Pister.
Feminist scholar establishes
Women's Studies Library
Bettina Aptheker
Feminist scholar Bettina
Aptheker has donated her
personal library to the Board of
Women's Studies and to Kresge
College. The gift, appraised at
more than $30,000, establishes the
Women's Studies Library—a
noncirculating special collection of
books and journals that is available
at Kresge College by appointment to
scholars, faculty, staff, students, and
the public.
Aptheker, a professor of
women's studies and a leading
scholar in the field, is hopeful that
the library-will spur the creation of a
women's studies research center. "I
believe we have an extraordinary
community of women at UCSC
as scholars, students, and staff,
and that a women's studies research
center can both flourish and be a
useful resource to those in the field
wherever they may be located," says
Aptheker.
The collection includes more
than 2,000 books, periodicals, and
pamphlets.
Aptheker, who served as
chair of the Board of Studies in
Women's Studies, began a two-
year leave from the university on
July 1.
—Jennifer McNulty
Recent events boost UCSC's
proposal for Fort Ord center
CSC's visions for a collaborative
research center at the Fort Ord
military base near Monterey
marched forward significantly
in recent weeks, bringing
planners closer to embarking on a
thorough two-year feasibility study
of the ambitious project. Before the
study can be launched, one final
hurdle must be cleared: conveyance
of 1,220 acres of land to the
university.
The following developments
boosted campus plans that will turn
Fort Ord's swords into plowshares:
• UCSC received roughly
$725,000 from federal Department
of Commerce grants to Monterey
County. State and local matching
funds will swell UCSC's coffers for
the project to nearly $1 million.
• Deputy Secretary of Defense
William Perry proclaimed the
region's overall blueprint for Fort
Ord—including the research center
and a new California State University (CSU) campus—as one of four
Department of Defense "model projects" fot the conversion of former
military bases to civilian uses.
• The UC Regents gave the go-
ahead for projecr planners to apply
to the federal government for land at
Fort Ord.
The result of that application was
uncertain as Currents went to press.
UCSC's Fort Ord team—led by professor of earth sciences James Gill,
director of science development Lora
Martin, and director of community
planning and land development
Michael Houlemard—is pursuing
several avenues to obtain the land at
little or no cost. Legislation introduced in the House of Representatives by former congressman Leon
Panetta and redrafted by his
successor Sam Farr is one such
avenue. Ideally, the university will
acquire the land in a manner that
allows both public agencies and
private industries to participate in
building the center..
Whatever the outcome, UCSC's
Fort Ord plans have gained much
attention since first discussed less
than two years ago. As the plans
have matured, several areas of research
have come into focus: global environmental change, especially in coastal
regions; environmental restoration,
including the use of Fort Ord itself
as a laboratory; agriculture and aqua-
cultute; biorechnology and biodiversity; and transportation. Within
each area, planners are emphasizing
information technology, instrumen-
See Fort Ord on page 8
Three who helped
shape UCSC die
Founding librarian Donald Clark
Three longtime supporters of
UCSC have died in the past
two months. The three—
Donald Clark, Louise Cain,
and Grant McConnell—made
lasting contributions to the campus.
Founding librarian Donald
Thomas Clark, the first academic
appointee under founding chancellor
Dean McHenry, died October 24 at
his Scotts Valley residence. Clark,
who died of heart failure after a brief
illness, was 82.
UCSC didn't open to students
until fall 1965, but Clark's tenure as
founding librarian began on
September 1, 1962. In an interview
with the UC Santa Cruz Student
Guide last year, Clark recalled that
very first day at UCSC: "My job was
to plan the library so it would be
ready when the students came in
1965. There were no plans for the
See Clark, Cain, and McConnell on page 8
Currents / November 1993