Spotlight on…

Common SensePhoto: Linda P.B. Katehi

Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi launched her Common Sense blog a week ago to initiate and encourage a dialogue with the UC Davis community and beyond. In yesterday's entry, she shares one of her recent "Ask Katehi" columns from The California Aggie, answering the question, "Do you think and dream in English or Greek?" [ More… ]

NEWS SUMMARY

More stories at Dateline UC Davis and UC Davis News and Information

Retirement plan rate increase to show on your bottom line

When staff and faculty started contributing again to the UC Retirement Plan in April 2010, most of them saw no change in take-home pay (the university simply transferred the roughly 2 percent that the employees were already putting into the defined contribution plan). That 2 percent will no longer be enough July 1 when the UCRP contribution rate climbs to 3.5 percent. [ More… ]

Daily, monthly parking rates go up July 1

Parking rates on the Davis campus are going up July 1 for daily and monthly permits, Transportation and Parking Services announced. The new charge for a daily permit will be $7, an increase of $1, while monthly permits for most people who drive to the campus will cost $1 more a month. TAPS last raised the monthly parking rates in 2009 and the daily parking rate in 2003. [ More… ]

Organizational Excellence: Offices split, survey goes out

Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi formally announces the split of the Offices of the Chancellor and Provost, and notes a savings of at least $3.4 million over the last three years in administrative costs in the executive offices. Also this week, the Katehi administration launched a survey of all employees, asking them to identify "unnecessary bureaucracy, redundancies and inefficiencies." By improving or doing away with such processes, "we can all be more successful in managing our work," she said. [ More… ]

Personalized chemotherapy innovation wins Big Bang! Business Plan Competition

A technology that could allow cancer specialists to better determine the most effective chemotherapy treatment for a given patient won the $10,000 first prize in the 11th annual Big Bang! Business Plan Competition, run by students in the Graduate School of Management. [ More… ]

Vitamins lower risk of autism

Women who reported not taking a daily prenatal vitamin immediately before and during the first month of pregnancy were nearly twice as likely to have a child with an autism spectrum disorder as women who took the supplements, a study by researchers at the UC Davis MIND Institute has found. [ More… ]

Alum makes record gift to UC Davis athletics

A UC Davis alumnus who says that some of his most powerful college experiences took place on the athletics field has made a $2 million commitment to Intercollegiate Athletics — the largest single philanthropic contribution to athletics in the university's 102-year history. [ More… ]

An 'amazing' afternoon: Huell Howser day in Aggie land draws crowd, support

It was all Huell Howser — and UC Davis — as more than 400 people joined the TV personality last Saturday (May 21) for a reprise of his popular "road trip" to UC Davis in 2007. This time, people paid for the privilege of going along, in a fundraiser that brought in $35,000 for public television station KVIE. Howser and the donors visited the Robert Mondavi Institute for Wine and Food Science, the arboretum and the Bohart Museum of Entomology, among other campus destinations. [ More, with slide show… ]

News briefs: Campus crime, band scam and more

Ex-employee surrenders in embezzlement case. … Former student arrested on charges of groping women. … Scammers make up story about the Cal Aggie Marching Band-uh! … The UC Davis Health System has raised $231 million in The Campaign for UC Davis. … Lansing to lead Board of Regents. [ More… ]

DIRECTIVES and ANNOUNCEMENTS

Announcements: Forums for VP-Academic Affairs; CAES faculty meeting

Public forums for the candidates for vice provost of Academic Affairs are scheduled for May 31, and June 1, 6 and 8. … The College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences' Spring Faculty Meeting will be held next Thursday (June 2). [ More… ]

EVENTS

Farm-to-College Night

Wednesday, June 1, 4:30-7:30 p.m., Segundo Dining Commons

We hear a lot about UC Davis' sustainable food system. Now we have a chance to taste it, during Dining Services' Farm-to-College Night, an all-you-can eat meal open to the campus community and the general public. No RSVPs are required; the cost is $11.20 for UC Davis employees with identification and $14 for everyone else. … Also next week: Pick your own greens for lunch at the PES Salad Bowl Garden's Spring Garden Party. [ More… ]

Speaker: Sheffrin lecture looks at secrecy

Wednesday, June 1, 5 p.m., AGR Room, Buehler Alumni and Visitors Center

Harvard's Peter L. Galison is due on campus next week to deliver a lecture in which he will trace the history of secrecy from the Espionage Act to WikiLeaks, in the 2011 Sheffrin Lecture in Public Policy. [ More… ]

Earth Songs: A concert and an exposition

Wednesday, June 1, 6 p.m. (expo), 7 p.m. (concert), Mondavi Center

There is more than music in store when the Concert Band and Campus Band present Earth Songs — a concert saluting the biological, ecological and agricultural sciences — with some bicycling thrown in. The concert will be preceded by an exposition featuring such campus organizations and units as the Bio Boosters, the Department of Wildlife, Fish and Conservation Biology, and the Horse Barn and the Equestrian Team. [ More… ]

More calendar listings…