Results tagged “college”

In an attempt to attract the thousands of USC students ready to spend money in downtown, AEG is funding a free weekend shuttle between the campus and the entertainment complex.

A press release from the University of California today announced a new revolutionary program wherein tuition will be free. Pretty cool, right? Too bad it's a fake press release from a fake website mocking University President Mark G. Yudof and the Regents. Here's a fun little sample:

UCLA Chancellor Gene D. Block yesterday wrote an open letter to the community in follow up to last week's stabbing incident. Although he offers no specific details on the case, he does explain how the process is supposed to work:

Following a handful of fellows arrested for attempted murder in a September stabbing, another one, likely unrelated, happened this afternoon on campus. At about 12:20 p.m., UCLA police were called about a stabbing on the sixth floor of Young Hall. They responded and have already taken a suspect into custody. So far, a connection between the victim, who was taken to the hospital, and suspect is unknown. Police are asking if you have information regarding this incident contact UCLA PD at (310) 825-9371. [Update: More details are coming out. A male student slashed the throat of a female student, leaving her in critical condition.]

Two of the three UCLA students arrested after an off-campus fraternity party that ended with a fight and multiple injuries were released from jail yesterday. Although police are continuing to investigate them, LA County County District Attorneys decided not to file charges against Justin Kim, 19, of La Crescenta, and Chris Yi, 19, of Huntington Beach. The other arrested student, Isaiah Hee Cho, 19, of Westminster, will remain behind bars, charged with with being an accessory to aggravated mayhem and added a gang enhancement.

Three UCLA students and four others have been arrested in connection with attacks that took place at an off-campus frat party in September. The incident happened in the early hours on Tuesday, September 22nd when police received a call about an assault with a deadly weapon at a Lambda Phi Epsilon fraternity residence on the 600 block of Midvale Avenue.

A new brush fire has started in the Crafton Hills area of Yucaipa, says the San Bernardino Sun. No evacuations have been ordered or structures damaged due to the 5-acre blaze, which was first reported at 4:39 p.m.

1,000 more acres have been burned since earlier reports this morning as the Guiberson Fire rages on in Ventura County. As the 600 firefighters on scene upped containment to 20 percent, a number of schools were closed as a precaution as the fire neared Moorpark. Moorpark College, Campus Canyon School and Walnut Canyon School are all closed today, according to the Ventura County Star.

The Huffington Post points out a course being offered at Eagle Rock's (and Pres. Obama alma mater) Occidental College that takes academia to perhaps a new low--or a new high in lows. It's Critical Theory and Social Justice (CTSJ) 180: Stupidity. The catalog description:

Stupidity is neither ignorance nor organicity, but rather, a corollary of knowing and an element of normalcy, the double of intelligence rather than its opposite. It is an artifact of our nature as finite beings and one of the most powerful determinants of human destiny. Stupidity is always the name of the Other, and it is the sign of the feminine. This course in Critical Psychology follows the work of Friedrich Nietzsche, Gilles Deleuze, and most recently, Avital Ronell, in a philosophical examination of those operations and technologies that we conduct in order to render ourselves uncomprehending. Stupidity, which has been evicted from the philosophical premises and dumbed down by psychometric psychology, has returned in the postmodern discourse against Nation, Self, and Truth and makes itself felt in political life ranging from the presidency to Beevis and Butthead. This course examines stupidity.

Local ecoblogger GreenLAGirl reports that Sierra magazine has published their annual list of the 10 colleges in the country that rank as the greenest, and our UCLA makes the cut at a respectable #9. However, at 60%, the campus' recycling rate is actually lower than the City of Los Angeles overall, who can boast we have "the highest recycling rate out of the 10 largest U.S. cities," at 65%.

Not all higher education news from the state is grim, thankfully. As a response to the new state budget's inclusion of hundreds of millions in cuts in our two university systems, the Cal Grant program announced late last week that they would adjust award monies to cover the student fee increases implemented at the California State University schools for the upcoming academic year. "The total State University Fee increase of $978 will be offset dollar-for-dollar for all 62,600 Cal Grant A and B recipients attending the CSU," a press release details.

The upcoming school year at California's two major public University systems continues to look bleak for students, faculty, and staff alike, as budget shortfalls are forcing school officials to recommend fee increases, furlough days, and enrollment stoppages in order to save costs.

During yesterday's California State University system's special Board of Trustees meeting, Chancellor Charles B. Reed said he will seek approval for "an additional student fee hike of 15% to 20% for this fall, and enrollment reductions of 32,000 students in the year to follow," reports the LA Times.

Occidental College, the private liberal arts school with its campus on the hills above Eagle Rock, is experiencing a marvelous surge in enrollment for the upcoming school year, reports the LA Times. They are "expected to enroll a freshman class of about 560 this fall -- up 100 students, or 21% -- from last year," and this has many wondering if the campus' popularity is because President Barack Obama began his post-secondary journey there in 1979.

There's going to be 6.8% fewer freshmen figuring out post-secondary life on the nine University of California campuses come fall, and that's precisely what the schools were hoping for, according to the LA Times.

Cuts to education are affecting, and will continue to affect, students at all levels here in California. From increased class sizes, teacher layoffs, program cuts, eliminating most summer school offerings at public K-12 schools, and enrollment caps or freezes, program cuts, and fewer courses offered at colleges and universities, the problems begin in Kindergartens and carry through each and every public school, college, and university classroom, and last beyond graduation, as students lucky enough to get in and get out face enormous debt.

Since Californians overwhelmingly rejected his propositions last week in the special election, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger released his latest budget plan detailing $5.5 billion in cuts from a deficit estimated to be $24.3 billion by July 1 (that's higher than the $21.3 billion that was touted in the last few weeks).

Who knew? The University of California has a television station (UCTV) that began airing in Los Angeles earlier this month for Time Warner Cable subscribers (it was already available on the Dish Network on channel 9412). "The goal is for this local channel to become a home for content produced by Los Angeles' higher education institutions -- both public and private -- as well as from local arts and cultural organizations," a press release states. Making that point, it's about 1 p.m. and a program filmed at UC Santa Barbara called Getting Wize: Making Sense of Web 2.0 is just beginning. They also have logged over 3,200 of their shows on YouTube and stream the channel live on the internet. If your curious, the channel numbers by neighborhood are listed below:

Let's just consider this an unintended early April Fool's joke. Students denied admission to the University of California, San Diego were sent an e-mail late last night congratulating them on their acceptance to the school. Unfortunately, that was a mistake. "The applicants had been denied admission by the university earlier in the month. Someone accidentally sent the e-mail to the entire applicant pool of 47,000 although it was intended for only the 18,000 students who got in," reported the LA Times. "The mistake was all the more dire because this year is shaping up as one of the toughest in recent years at San Diego and other UC campuses. In response to a UC-wide enrollment cap ordered because of the state’s budget crisis, San Diego reduced its freshman enrollment target by 520 students, to 3,775."

Oh, to be young and inclined to run around a campus at night in your underwear... The longing was put into action on the UC Irvine campus last week, as about 150 co-eds stripped down and sprinted out under the relative cover of night. "It's not illegal to run around in your underwear, as long as all the appropriate parts are covered," remarks the OC Register in their story on the run. They also note that the event is pretty huge here in Los Angeles, something UCLA students know very, very, very, very well. The UCI campus police hung back and watched, and made sure the students didn't run into the nearby shopping center--in case they ran into Irvine cops. Sure, it was cold, and sure, strangers were watching, but the bottom line was pretty straightforward, according to one student: "It felt really good to be free from all that stress, from finals and some issues at the dorm."

With off campus partying exasperating Westchester neighbors and garnering the attention of the local news, Loyola Marymount officials have come out with some new "party protocol," as the school's paper puts it. Off-campus students will not only have to register their address, but will be required do an online orientation to learn about city ordinances. This week at a forum for students to ask police and city attorneys questions, the LAPD gave the low-down on how responding officers are allowed to deal with parties "When responding to any party, officers have the discretion to do any of the following: warn and disperse the crowd, cite the responsible party giver for Disturbing the Peace and/or noise violations, file a Disturbing the Peace report with no arrest or citation given or physically arrest and then book the individual at Pacific Division." (photo: pink_fish13)

And that's not a bad thing. The New York Times yesterday looked into Eagle Rock's changing neighborhood dynamic, but change is not as easy as said in President Barack Obama's first college town: "The new residents brought prosperity and, the locals say, a little arrogance as well. 'They sounded the trumpets and announced a vision of something like Silver Lake or Los Feliz,' said Bob de Velasco, who runs Commercial Printing Network, a copy shop. 'But it’s not going to happen. Eagle Rock wasn’t meant to have that. Eagle Rock is an old-fashioned, atmospheric town.'" Ad to that SoCal historian D.J. Waldie: “The problem is this, if we truly believed that patronizing these places enlivened our neighborhoods, why aren’t we there — eating the omelets or shopping at the boutique?”

Jonathan Jarvis, a master's candidate at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, kept it more than a little bit real with "The Crisis of Credit Visualized." This 11-minute animation is just one part of Jarvis's thesis. May his grad school debt vanish with great haste.

Los Angeles-based college gossip website JuicyCampus.com has announced they will shut down. Founder and CEO Matt Ivester "announced his intention Wednesday in a message posted on the website. The message cited the national economic meltdown and falling ad revenue," reports USA Today.

University of California students waiting for their Cal Grants to come through will find their next payments are coming from another source--the UC schools. The UC announced today they "will provide funding to cover the value of UC students' Cal Grant awards for the spring term," using "resources from its short-term financial reserves," according to a UC news release. They're advancing the funds "with the expectation that the California Student Aid Commission (CSAC) will disburse Cal Grant funds to campuses once the state adopts a final budget." Sadly, that budget remains in limbo; this month many programs and residents will be receiving IOU's instead of checks. The UC system also issued temporary funding to their students last fall when the budget caused delays in Cal Grant payments.

The perilous state of the California budget has had a rippling effect on institutions and employees for months now. The California State University has been no exception, and now its officials have announced that things are about to get even chillier on their 23 campuses with the arrival of a salary and hiring freeze aimed at controlling costs.

In what apparently is a student prank at UCLA's Hedrick Summit, a residence building, was cause for alarm when the incident was reported as an explosion followed by a strong smell. "When our resources got on the scene, they found a quart sized soap bottle that appeared to have been tossed from an upper level of the building--based on the splash pattern," d'Lisa Davies of the LA Fire Department explained over the phone.

                

Downstairs in the sportsbook of the Flamingo, casual fans and degenerates alike are placing their bets on Thursday's BCS Championship game between Florida and Oklahoma, two teams that aren't meeting because they knocked off foes in a playoff system to reach the championship round. Upstairs on the conference room level of the Las Vegas hotel and casino, more than 400 teams from across North America are competing in tournament for a championship.

With the California state budget in peril, our university systems are struggling, which is why the University of California system is entertaining the idea of increasing how many out-of-state students they accept and decreasing how many in-state students, all in the name of profit. Since out-of-state students' tuition averages more than twice what a student with California residency pays, the UCs would be bringing in more money. According to a video report on MyFox Los Angeles, UC officials are mulling the possibility of upping their out-of-state enrollment to 15 to 20% from its current 6%, using schools in other states who take in more out-of-staters in general as inspiration. Some, however, see this as a bad move for the UC schools, that will come at the expense of California's students, including Lt. Governor John Garimendi, who calls this "bad public policy."

Back then, he was known as Barry. After graduating high school in Hawaii, Barack Obama headed off to college where he spent two years, from 1979 to 1981, at Occidental College in Eagle Rock. His times there is said to have where his public service mindedness began, especially in his sophomore year, "growing increasingly aware of harsh inequities like apartheid and poverty in the third world." Then he wanted a wider urban experience and applied to Columbia, moving himself East. In this week's TIME magazine, a new and very young-looking photo set from his Oxy years appear. The aspiring photographer, Lisa Jack, had no idea she would be digging those photos up again years later.