UC Santa Cruz students and alumni describe the incredible impact Smith Society volunteers have had on their lives as the organization turns 25. For students with little or no family, the society helps with all that the new college experience can throw at them.
Education
Posted inEducation
Commencement ceremonies kick off at UC Santa Cruz
UC Santa Cruz began commencement ceremonies on Friday morning, launching four days of events to honor the more than 5,000 graduating students this year. Noting that protesters had interrupted recent events they had attended, Chancellor Cynthia Larive and Campus Provost Lori Kletzer bowed out of graduation ceremonies, saying they wanted students to be the focus.
Posted inEducation
Can the smell of fog help fight climate change? UCSC professor thinks we need art to get serious about climate change
Jennifer Parker writes research papers with algae. Yes, you read that right. The UC Santa Cruz professor of digital media (and her partners) consider algae a collaborator and teacher. But learning from nature is only one of her creative methods. Parker founded OpenLab at UCSC 10 years ago to inspire interdisciplinary collaboration, because, she believes, it will take both science and the senses to explain climate change to the public and inspire action to protect the planet. Scientists, she says, have been in charge for the past 100 years, “and it’s not working.”
Posted inEducation
Live Oak School District board approves new superintendent Patrick Sánchez, moves ahead with workforce housing bond measure
Patrick Sánchez, 57, will start serving as Live Oak School District superintendent on July 1. The governing board, with member Jeremy Ray absent, voted unanimously both to approve Sánchez’s one-year contract and to move forward in placing a $45 million workforce housing development bond measure on the November ballot.
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
Shutting UCSC campus down won’t help Gaza – let’s take constructive action
Protesters at UC Santa Cruz need to take it down a notch, writes humanities professor Kirsten Silva Gruesz. She understands the need to disrupt business as usual to make a point, but believes the disruptions have missed their mark. “The rhetoric of many student protesters and some of their faculty allies comes disturbingly close to a moral absolutism that divides the world into good and evil sides,” she writes. That won’t lead to an understanding of our ethical responsibility for the suffering of others, she says, calling for a full investigation of the police intervention on May 30 and 31 rather than a rush to judgment.
Posted inEducation
Live Oak School District board to vote on hiring Patrick Sánchez as new superintendent and on workforce housing bond
The Live Oak School District governing board will vote at its Wednesday meeting on the selection of a new superintendent, Patrick Sánchez, after Daisy Morales resigned in March. Her last day is June 30.
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
Pop quiz: My UCSC students understand free speech — do you?
UC Santa Cruz lecturer Ryan Coonerty has spent the year teaching on newsy topics, including antisemitism and free speech. Coonerty, a former Santa Cruz mayor and member of the county board of supervisors, says he’s buoyed by his students’ attitudes and aptitude. He also offers his final exam. Could you pass it?
Posted inEducation
Eight arrested at UCSC after brief protest at University House; grad students poll on whether to continue strike
Though there were no graduate student picketers Monday at UC Santa Cruz, eight protesters were arrested after a group of more than 20 occupied the unused University House on campus. Meanwhile, UCSC leaders of the union representing grad student workers are polling members to decide on next steps after a restraining order Friday stopped their strike.
Posted inEducation
Professor James Lindholm has found a way to get the public interested in marine science: He writes action thrillers
James Lindholm is a distinguished professor of marine biology at California State University Monterey Bay. But he is also the author of four books (so far) in the Chris Black adventure series, which take readers on a globe-trotting adventure across the world, from Carmel-by-the-Sea to South Africa, the Galapagos Islands and more, with science at the base. The idea, Lindholm tells Lookout, is to teach readers about science and to imagine a world where scientists don’t back down.
Posted inEducation
UCSC readies to break ground on Student Housing West, offering relief from housing shortage while raising new concerns
UC Santa Cruz erected construction fences last week along a stretch of the East Meadow for its long-awaited, and heavily litigated, Student Housing West project. Those first signs of construction prompted a wide range of responses from campus community members.
