A Sampling of Clips for
May 3 rd, 2007
* UCSD faculty and staff may obtain a copy of an article by e-mailing the University Communications Office
No Satisfaction: Why What You Have Is Never Enough
Wall Street Journal, 2 May -- We may have life and liberty. But the pursuit of happiness isn't going so well. As a country, we are richer than ever. Yet surveys show that Americans are no happier than they were 30 years ago. The key problem: We aren't very good at figuring out what will make us happy. (Quotes David Schkade of UCSD.) More
Deciding When Student Writing Crosses the Line
New York Times, 2 May -- In the wake of the Virginia Tech killings, creative writing teachers across the country have been wondering what they would have done if the gunman, Seung-Hui Cho, had been writing troubling stories in their classrooms. (Quotes Sarah Shun-lien Bynum of UCSD.) More
Inquiry or Indoctrination?
Inside Higher Ed: 3 May -- Let’s face it: Comp 101 doesn’t tend to be the most controversial of courses. But at the University of California at San Diego, a campaign officially begun last month to alter a required freshman writing and social science curriculum has already claimed two casualties. More
Healthy Ambition
San Diego Union-Tribune, 3 May -- Jeff Jordan underwent emergency surgery for an acute case of appendicitis at 6 a.m. on a Monday in March. After regaining consciousness about 10 a.m., the 23-year-old asked to be released by 4 p.m. to give a presentation for his doctoral program at the University of California San Diego. “The doctor refused to sign the release form,” said Jordan's mother, Annarella Jordan. “That's the only way to stop Jeff.” More
UCSD Math Professor Elected to National Academy of Sciences
San Diego Daily Transcript, 3 May -- Harold M. Stark, a professor of mathematics at the University of California, San Diego, has been elected to the National Academy of Sciences, the academy announced Tuesday. Stark joins 63 current members of the UCSD faculty who had been named to membership in the academy. More
Making Conservation Make Sense
The Scientist (U.K.), 3 May -- Les Kaufman claims his interest in science might have begun in utero. "I remember at age 3, I got a book about the moon," he says. "At about 4, my father started bringing home herpetiles: frogs and turtles and things from vacant lots that actually used to exist in Brooklyn. At 5, I got my first microscope." (Quotes Jeremy Jackson and Enric Sala of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UCSD.) More
Battle over Venezuela's Oil Industry Heats Up
San Francisco Chronicle, May 2 -- The tug of war between international oil companies and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez intensified Tuesday, as his leftist government took over the nation's last privately run oil fields. The carefully choreographed symbolism of Tuesday's ceremony in Jose, an oil complex in eastern Venezuela, invoked high historical drama. Revolutionary flags flew over refinery stacks as newly bought, Russian-made fighter jets streaked through the sky, while Chavez shouted "Down with the U.S. empire!" to thousands of red-clad oil workers. (Quotes David Mares, a political science professor at UC San Diego.) More