UCR Magazine Spring 2013

UCR Spring 2013 | 1

SP

RIN

G 2

01

3 V

OL

.8 N

O. 2

THE MAGAZINE OF UC RIVERSIDE

Play the Game of Happiness Online at

MAGAZINE.UCR.EDUNOW AVAILABLE ON THE IPAD!

10 Ways to Find Happiness UCR Research Leads You to Joy Page 8

The UCR School of Public Policy: Research to Serve the Inland Community and the WorldPage 24

I N T E R I M C H A N C E L L O R

Jane Close Conoley

V I C E C H A N C E L L O R , A D V A N C E M E N T

Peter Hayashida

P U B L I S H E R

James Grant

E D I T O R

Lilledeshan Bose

W R I T E R S

Vickie ChangTed KissellLitty MathewSean NealonPhil Pitchford

S E N I O R D E S I G N E R

Brad Rowe

P R O D U C T I O N M A N A G E R

Luis Sanz

C O N T R I B U T O R S Alyssa CotterKonrad NagySusan Straight

E D I T O R I A L A S S I S TA N T

Bethanie Le

I L L U S T R AT I O N S

Colin HayesAlex Eben MeyerMike Tofanelli

P H O T O G R A P H E R S

Lonnie DukaCarlos PumaPeter PhunCarrie Rosema

D I S T R I B U T I O N

Virginia Odien

UCR Magazine is published by the Office of Strategic Communications, University

of California, Riverside, and it is distributed free to the University community.

Editorial offices: 900 University Ave., 1156 Hinderaker Hall, University of Califor-

nia, Riverside, Riverside, CA 92521, telephone (951) 827-6397. Unless otherwise

indicated, text may be reprinted without permission. Please credit University of

California, Riverside.

USPS 006-433 is published four times a year: winter, spring, summer and fall by

the University of California, Riverside, Riverside, CA 92521-0155.

Periodicals postage rates paid at Riverside, CA.

POSTMASTER: Send address changes to UCR, Subscription Services (0063),

900 University Ave., 1156 Hinderaker Hall, Riverside, CA 92521.

In accordance with applicable federal laws and University policy, the University of

California does not discriminate in any of its policies, procedures or practices on

the basis of race, color, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, age or handicap.

Inquiries regarding the University’s equal opportunity policies may be directed to

the Affirmative Action Office, (951) 827-5604.

Questions? Concerns? Comments? Change of address?Contact Kris Lovekin at [email protected]

UCR Spring 2013 | 1

T H E M A G A Z I N E O F U C R I V E R S I D E S P R I N G 2 0 1 3 V O L U M E 8 N U M B E R 2

Water WorksProfessor Sharon Walker talks about why her endowed chair is hugely important for her research

La Reina An excerpt from Susan Straight’s latest novel, “Between Heaven and Here”

From Mind to Market Yadong Yin’s research on nanoparticles has put color in a whole new light

The School of Public PolicyUCR hopes to work with the Inland community to solve local and national problems

DE

PA

RT

ME

NT

SF

EA

TU

RE

SC

OV

ER

ST

OR

Y

2422

03 | R ViewA message from Interim Chancellor Jane Close Conoley

04 | R SpaceCatch a glimpse of the latest news at UC Riverside

27 | How I See ItIncoming freshmen tweet and hashtag their joy upon getting accepted into UCR

28 | Page Turners

30 | Alumni Connection

31 | Class ActsNurse practitioner Darlene Tyler (‘82) and theater founder Wayne Scott (‘81) tell how UCR helped them find their unexpected career paths

36 | C ScapeDon Carey (‘70), football official for the National Football League

10 Ways to Happiness

08

1 A B C D

2 A B C D

3 A B C D

A B C D

C D

UCR research reveals steps that can guide you along the path to joy

2018

Play the Game of Happiness online:

MAGAZINE.UCR.EDU#UCRgrad13 Celebrate the Class of 2013!Use hashtag #UCRgrad13 for your favorite UCR photos and memories on Instagram and Twitter.

Feeling nostalgic? Relive graduation on commencement2013.ucr.edu!

2 | UCR Spring 2013

For more on UCR events, visit www.ucr.edu/happenings

This exhibit looks at the recontextualization of the World Trade Center towers alongside the issues of memorialization and the meanings associated with sites and images post-9/11. Through the photos, we, as the viewers, see the towers in a different aesthetic light that forcefully defamiliarizes us with the subject.

Presented on two floors of the California Museum of Photography, “Geographies of Detention: From Guantánamo to the Golden Gulag” combines historical and contemporary photography, film and first-person audio interviews to examine how the naval base has been “closed” and reopened for more than a century leading up to the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. These new perspectives on Guantánamo’s history as a “legal black hole” provoke discussions about the limits of democracy and the meaning of mass incarceration in a global present and future.

Celebrating the CMP’s 40th anniversary, “Around the World in Forty Pictures” takes as inspiration the classic novel “Around the World in 80 Days” by Jules Verne, first published in 1873. The exhibition culls 40 pictures from the Keystone-Mast Collection (part of the CMP permanent collection) to retrace the steps of Verne’s colorful characters as they circumnavigate the globe.

The UCR Studio for Mexican Music and Dance features student vocals and instrumentation in Mexican ranchera-style music, with UCR’s Mariachi Mexicatl performing live with the UCR Ballet Folklorico. The ballet company will perform choreography from the Mexican regions of Michoacán and Nayarit.

Experience a variety of Indonesian gamelan music from profound to lighthearted and serious to sentimental. A gamelan is an ensemble of instruments that includes a set of tuned bronze gongs suspended from a carved serpentine dragon, metal-keyed instruments, xylophones and drums. The UCR Gamelan Ensemble performs traditional and contemporary Indonesian music.

UCR will hold seven commencement ceremonies June 14 through 17 on the Pierce Hall lawn, near the bell tower. More than 3,000 students are expected to make their way across the stage during the four days of the 59th annual event.

Learn about UCR Extension’s Specialized Professional Program in Video Game Design and Content Creation Summer Academy. For serious participants, the full program offers approximately 100 hours of professional-level instruction. Parking is free for attendees.

Save the date! The fifth annual Chancellor’s Dinner will be held on Oct. 19 at the Highlander Union Building. Enjoy the company of UCR friends, alumni, students and community members as we come together in support of our best and brightest scholars, artists, leaders and volunteers.

HAPPENINGS

EV

EN

TS

www.artsblock.ucr.edu“Monuments of Void: Wolf Von Dem Bussche’s Photographs of

the Twin Towers”6.1-7.6

www.artsblock.ucr.edu“Geographies of Detention”

6.1-9.7

www.artsblock.ucr.edu“Around the World in Forty

Pictures”6.1-7.27

www.music.ucr.eduConcert of Mexican Music and

Dance6.6

www.music.ucr.edu Music of Indonesia: UCR

Gamelan Ensemble 6.7

www.commencement.ucr.eduCommencement 2013

6.14-6.17

www.extension.ucr.eduVideo Game Design and Content Creation — Information Session

6.15

www.chancellorsdinner.ucr.edu Chancellor’s Dinner

10.19

UCR Spring 2013 | 3

The best gift any university can give to its alumni is to

grow in excellence and prestige. Our graduates should

be proud of their alma mater. As our alumni read

through this edition of UCR Magazine, I think they will

find themselves even prouder of UC Riverside than they

were on graduation day.

UCR has come a long way in a very short time.

Faculty research has gained significant recognition, as

evidenced from the large number of awards won by

faculty, increasing grant support, prestigious publications

and media attention. Student applications are way up

(almost 43,000 for fall 2013) while student qualifications

are also improving. UCR has been ranked highly by

national magazines as a best value and as a place where

students contribute to community service.

We are a university with a mission to be excellent,

diverse, engaged and accessible. Our incoming freshman

class is likely to be as diverse as in years past and to

reflect greater readiness for success as university students.

The relationship we have with Riverside and Inland-area

communities is a model for the entire UC system. We are

making a difference in the lives of citizens in our region

and in our world.

A clear sign of this engagement is the fall 2013

opening of the UCR School of Medicine. The school is

conceived from a completely different paradigm than

that of other medical schools. We will prepare

physicians who are committed to this region, to

prevention and wellness, and to the finest in cutting-edge

medicine. This is so exciting.

Another sign of our commitment to engagement is the

opening of our new School of Public Policy. (Read about

it on page 24.) This will bring together faculty from

across campus and partners from across the world to

study health, population, environmental, immigration

and social mobility issues. We accept the challenge of

translating our research into meaningful public policy.

Accessibility is another matter altogether. Tuition has

risen substantially since many of our readers have

graduated. Although we do not anticipate another rise

in tuition for a year or so, the state’s disinvestment in its

educational commitments is pushing the burden of

university tuition and fees onto students and families.

The University of California remains affordable for

low- and middle-income families, but we recognize that

it’s a strain to take on any new debt in this tenuous

economy. Don’t forget to keep telling your legislators the

story of UCR and its ability to change lives and energize

the economy.

We remain optimistic, however, that our energetic

focus on private philanthropy for student scholarships

will assist many students to earn a degree with low levels

of debt. Our award-winning psychologists have

illustrated the power of optimism; it can be dynamic and

useful, especially when paired with positive motivation

and hard work.

Jane Close Conoley

Interim Chancellor

R

V

IEW

A Positive Outlook for a Growing Campus

Congratulations to the Class of 2013 – the newest additions to our alumni family!

4 | UCR Spring 2013

R

S

PA

CE

Mark G. Yudof is stepping down as president of the University of California system; his five-year tenure will end on Aug. 31. “The moment comes with a mixture of emotions,” he said in a statement. “UC remains the premier public university system in the world, and I was both honored and humbled to serve as its president.”

Yudof cited taxing health issues as the reason for his decision, and he plans to return to the Berkeley campus to teach law. “I will leave it to others to judge

what difference my leadership made, if any, but I will say that I entered each day with a laser focus on preserving this great public treasure, not just in the present day, but for generations of Californians to come. And in the end, what matters most is what still remains: a vibrant public university system, the envy of the world, providing California with the beacon of hope and steady infusion of new thinking that are necessary for any society to flourish.”

President Yudof to Step Down

Milestones in 2013 Application Pool

More than 30,000 potential freshmen were part of a record-breaking 42,178 applications received by UCR during the application period for the 2013-14 academic year.

UCR exceeded the 40,000 mark in total applications and the 30,000 mark in freshman applications for the first time in school history. The pool of 42,178 was composed of 33,809 freshmen, a 13.2 percent increase from 2012, and 8,369 transfers, an 8.3 percent increase from 2012.

“The numbers show that UCR continues to grow as a campus of choice,” said Emily Engelschall, director of under-graduate admissions.

UCR Spring 2013 | 5

Universities that maintain higher levels of “critical mass” have African-American and Latino students who are more likely to feel respected on campus. This is according to a study by William Kidder, assistant provost at UCR. The study, “Misshaping the River: Propo-sition 209 and Lessons for the Fisher Case,” analyzed surveys from nearly 10,000 African-American and Latino undergraduates.

Published in the Journal of College

and University Law, a peer-reviewed journal at the University of Notre Dame Law School, the study found that on campuses with more African-Americans in the student body, including UT Austin and UCR, between 72 percent and 87 percent of African-Americans felt students of their race were respected on campus.

Former Riverside Mayor Heads UCR Research Center

Ronald O. Loveridge, the former Riverside mayor who has played an active leadership role in local, regional and state government for more than 30 years, was named director of the Center for Sustainable Suburban Devel-opment at UCR in January.

“The center will support, and connect, the best of academic research with important policy choices for a sustainable future for this region and Southern California,” Loveridge said.

Loveridge has been an associate professor of political science at UCR since 1965. With his retirement as mayor of Riverside, he will focus his attention at UCR on research related to the growth of suburbs, public policy, urban planning, transportation, air quality and the intersection of cities and natural lands.

By contrast, on campuses with fewer African-Americans in the student body, including UC Berkeley, UCLA and UC San Diego, between 32 percent and 71 percent of African-Americans felt respected on campus. Latino under-graduates were also more likely to feel respected on campuses where there were higher levels of diversity.

The racial interactions on campus can be influential in academic success, according to Sylvia Hurtado, a professor at UCLA and director of the Higher Education Research Institute. “Lower racial diversity not only results in increased reports of campus incidents but members of underrepresented groups and majority students show lower scores on college outcomes as a result of negative cross-race encounters,” she said.

Study Finds Link Between ‘Critical Mass’ and Respectful Racial Climate

6 | UCR Spring 2013

R

S

PA

CE

Tohoku University in Sendai, Japan, Riverside’s sister city since 1957, expanded its relationship as one of UCR’s strongest international partners by opening the Tohoku University Center at UCR Extension in February. The center is funded by a $10 million grant that Tohoku received from the Japanese government to develop global skills for its students by expanding international educational opportunities, said Bronwyn Jenkins-Deas, associate dean of UC Riverside Extension and director of international education programs.

Tohoku University plans to send 160 students to UCR each year. The first 44 students came to UCR at the beginning of February and enrolled in three programs: environmental sciences, where students will do service-learning

UCR Has New University Librarian

Steven Mandeville-Gamble, the former associate university librarian of Washington University in Washington, D.C., joined UCR in March as the campus’s ninth university librarian. He replaced Ruth Jackson, who recently retired.

Early on, Mandeville-Gamble impressed staff and faculty with his leadership skills and friendly, outgoing personality. But Mandeville-Gamble made an even better impression at his welcome reception, held on March 22 at the Raymond L. Orbach Science Library. He presented the UCR Special Collections with a first American edition copy of Charles Darwin’s “The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals” from his personal collection.

Published in 1873, the rare book is a classic — and a very generous gift — said Melissa Conway, head of special collections at the Rivera Library.

Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost Dallas Rabenstein said Mandeville-Gamble distinguished himself with his vision, enthusiasm,

depth of knowledge and commitment to creating a 21st century library. He added, “It became very clear that Steven was the one who could provide leadership for the library moving into the future.”

projects with Riverside community and government groups; economics, where they will spend five weeks learning English and a week visiting Japanese-American companies in Los Angeles; and engineering to introduce students to alternate energies, which are important for Japan to consider as it faces issues with nuclear power.

The grant money also allows 20 UCR students to take part in a 10-day study-abroad experience at Tohoku each year; 30 Tohoku employees to go to UCR Extension to learn how to set up interna-tional education programs and provide support services to students; and a part-time student exchange coordinator to be hired to facilitate the relationship between Tohoku and UCR.

Japanese University Expands Presence at UCR

UCR Spring 2013 | 7

UCR Nanotechnologists Help Launch New National Center Devoted to Microelectronics

Roland Kawakami, a professor of physics and astronomy; Ludwig Bartels, a professor of chemistry; and Cengiz Ozkan, a professor of mechanical engineering, are members of a new national research center—the Center for Spintronic Materials, Interfaces and Novel Architectures (C-SPIN) — focused on developing the next generation of microelectronics. All three are part of the Materials Science and Engineering Graduate Program at UCR.

C-SPIN is aimed at developing technologies for spin-based computing and memory systems. Unlike today’s computers with their electrical charges

moving across wires, the spin-based

computing systems will

process and store infor-mation through

spin, a funda-mental property

of electrons. Spin-based computing

can combine memory and logic at the device and circuit level, and if it is based on the hybridization of magnetic materials and semiconductors, it has the potential to create computers that are smaller, faster and more energy-efficient.

Led by the University of Minnesota, C-SPIN is being supported by a five-year, $28 million grant awarded by the Semiconductor Research Corp. and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Out of that grant, about $3 million is allocated to UCR.

A New Leader for UCR Alumni Relations

Following a yearlong, nationwide search, UC Riverside found the new head of its Office of Alumni and Constituent Relations about 40 miles west, in the city of Irvine.

Jorge E. Ancona has been appointed as the new assistant vice chancellor for Alumni and Constituent Relations and executive director of the UC Riverside Alumni Association. He has served as assistant vice chancellor for alumni relations, and executive director of the UCI Alumni Association since 2002.

At UCR, Ancona will lead a staff of 12 full-time employees and oversee the management of hundreds of volunteers and advocates. He will also be responsible for stewardship of the Alumni Association’s endowment funds, and for further developing fundraising for the alumni association and alumni relations programs.

Highlights of his career at Irvine include establishing the UCI Student Alumni Association; growing the association’s scholarship endowments from $1.5 million to $4 million; and increasing the association’s assets from $3.4 million to $8 million. Under hi s leadership, the association earned 18 Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) district awards for outstanding alumni events and communications as well as national honors from CASE for its alumni appreciation program in 2004.

Ancona succeeds Kyle Hoffman, who held the position for 23 years before leaving in May 2012 to become vice chancellor for Development and Alumni Relations at UC Merced.

New wasp species named after UCR. Serguei V. Triapitsyn, principal museum scientist at the Entomology Research Museum on campus, discovered several tiny female fairyflies in Russia and named them Gonatocerus ucri.

UCR’s natural sciences and engineering spot in the annual Leiden ranking of the top 500 major univer-sities in the world.

UCR’s overall ranking in the sciences worldwide, also from the Leiden ranking.

The number of times Ian Whitelaw, music director of the UCR pipe bands, has placed at the Western United States Pipe Band Association.

The number of UCR faculty members who are part of the prestigious American Philosophical Society. Plant geneticist Susan Wessler was given the honor in April.

The number of UCR faculty who are members of the National Academy of Sciences. Xuemei Chen, a professor of plant cell and molecular biology, was elected into the academy in April.

1

10

35

1

6

8

Numbers Show Achievement at UCR

8 | UCR Spring 2013

FE

AT

UR

E

MAGAZINE.UCR.EDUPlay the Game of Happiness online and watch the “Happiness at UCR” video at

Illustrations by Alex Eben Meyer

11

Whetheryoubelieveindestiny,divineinterventionorjust

pureluck,obtainingandmaintainingablissfullifemayseem

likeatotalshotinthedark.However,inrecentyearsscience

hasincreasinglydemonstratedthathappinesscanbecontrolled.

Happiness,afterall,isn’tmerelyanemotion.Happypeople

oftenenjoygoodhealth,goodsocialrelationships,evengood

salaries.AtUCR,theresearch,understandingandcultivationof

happinessisseriousstuff.(TheCollegeofHumanities,Arts,and

SocialScienceshasevenmadehappinessitstheme,holding

yearlongconversationsonthetopicofbliss.)Thefindingsare

sobeneficialthatgovernmentsandplacesofemploymentare

listeningcarefully–andsoshouldyou.

FINDINGHAPPINESS

There’s a science to attaining joy, and researchers at UC Riverside say

it could be as easy as 1 to 10.

B Y V I C K I E C H A N G

UCR Spring 2013 | 9

11What you believe about happiness may be getting

you down.Some people believe finding happiness is

contingent on certain events happening first — say, landing a dream job or getting married.

But according to Sonja Lyubomirsky, a professor of psychology and the director of the UCR Positive Psychology Laboratory, this thought process actually gets in the way of finding happiness.

“When we have a baby, when we get married, when we get a new job, when we earn more money, of course, that makes us really happy initially, but then we adapt to those experiences. And our happiness eventually returns to its original baseline.”

Lyubomirsky, who defines happiness as “the experience of joy, contentment, or positive well-being, combined with a sense that one’s life is good, meaningful, and worthwhile,” is one of the world’s leading researchers on happiness. The author of “The Myths of Happiness: What Should Make You Happy, but Doesn’t, What Shouldn’t Make You Happy, but Does,” she has

dubbed these the myths of happiness. A person might think something is wrong if their dreams come true and they aren’t as happy as they thought they would be. They may then think that changing a relationship or a job would solve the problem. “Those

things really do make people happy, but they don’t make people happy for as long or as intensely as they think they will,” Lyubomirsky says.

Living with a less restricted notion of happiness may end up for the better — and can help you properly determine the (really) good from the (really) bad.

The other myth has to do with resilience. Lyubomirsky’s research reveals that people often underestimate their own ability to recover from disastrous events.

“We often think that, ‘Oh my God, my life will be over if I get a divorce, if I don’t find a life partner, if I don’t have as much money as I want, if I don’t accomplish what I want to with my life,’” Lyubomirsky says.

That’s not actually the case. Lyubomirsky says, “Research

shows that when people experience adversities — even when they fall ill, even when they get divorced — they recover and rebound incredibly well.”

“When we get married, when

we get a new job, that makes us

happy initially, but we adapt to

those experiences.”

Dispel the Myths of Happiness

10 | UCR Spring 2013

22 Think Big

Careful: Those lowered expectations you label as realistic can be more harmful than you think.

People who achieve ambitious goals attain a larger level of satisfaction compared with those who set and achieve more conservative goals, according to a study by Assistant Marketing Professor Cecile K. Cho and co-author Gita Venkataramani Johar, a professor at Columbia University. In other words, aiming high leads to a larger quantity of happiness.

“Our finding shows that people who set low goals and achieve them end up feeling like they fell short, because people often compare their performance to what could have been,” Cho says.

For example, a student who aims for a B in a highly challenging class

and achieves it is unlikely to be content with the grade and will wonder whether she could have done better, Cho says. It’s difficult to predict how happy your performance will make you, so it’s better to set high goals and strive for them regardless of whether you achieve them.

The happiness from higher achievement in turn can trigger motivation to raise work performance and even enhance one’s personal life.

So think big – your happiness may be at stake.

“People often compare their

performance to what could have

been.”

UCR Spring 2013 | 11

33 Eat That Not-so-Negative Slice of Humble Pie

Humility isn’t the most sought-after of virtues. But in addition to making someone much more likable, it may just have a direct relationship with happiness.

“People don’t often talk about the emotional benefits

of humility,” says UC Riverside

psychology graduate student Elliott Kruse, “but it’s possible that it may be one way to become more content.”

Kruse, along with fellow grad student Joe Chancellor, is studying the effects of humility and how people attain that quality.

“We felt that some of the popular views of humility didn’t fit well with our own experiences interacting with the humble people in our lives,” Kruse says. “Many folks assume that the humble are overly modest,

perhaps boring and even weak, or that the experience of humility is somehow negative.”

From that perspective, Kruse says you’d think that humility might make people unhappy, because they’re not expected to like themselves. But Kruse and Chancellor have discovered the opposite: Feeling humble is related to

feeling secure—and experiencing fewer negative emotions in general.

“Humility may lead to happiness [by] making it easier for people to experience gratitude,” Kruse explains. “Which may in turn increase satisfaction with life.”

“Humility may be

one way to become

more content.”


44 55Be Positive On Purpose

Want to hear something really uplifting?

Being intentionally positive – that is, performing acts of kindness, employing optimism, counting your blessings – may lead you not only to happiness, but out of clinical depression as well.

Psychology Professor Lyubomirsky says there’s a connection between doing intentionally positive actions and depression.

“Research shows that people can become happier by engaging in positive activities,” she says. “We have found, for example, that people who are prompted to express gratitude on a regular basis, or who are instructed to do kind acts on a regular basis, become happier.”

Depression affects about 100 million people worldwide — and more than 16 million adults in the United States alone. In approximately

70 percent of reported cases in the United States, the person suffering from depression either fails to pursue recommended treatment or declines any treatment.

Intentionally positive acts are a novel option for those who do not respond to antidepressants or refuse to take them. They are inexpensive,

less time-consuming, carry little to no stigma and have no side effects. “Studies suggest that people with mental health conditions can supplement their treatment by engaging in a variety of happiness-increasing strategies. There are probably hundreds of such strategies they can do,” Lyubomirsky says.

For example, acting prosocially – helping others — has been found to lift negative moods and bolster self-esteem.

“Who lives long, healthy and happy lives … and why?”

This was the driving question behind the study called The Longevity Project (www.howardsfriedman.com/longevityproject). The project, which began in 1921, followed 1,500 Americans their entire lives — from childhood to death.

“It turns out that always being cheery and fun-loving was not healthy,” says Howard S. Friedman, distinguished professor of psychology at UCR. “The thrivers were those people who were conscientious — they were prudent, planful and persevering.”

That meant they were less likely to abuse drugs, smoke or drink to excess. They were more likely to do things like wear seat belts or even follow doctor’s orders. Being conscientious, Friedman found, also meant having healthier experiences and relationships, from the workplace to the home.

“These were the people who had stable marriages, got a better education, succeeded in their careers and gave back to their communities. They became mature, flourishing

Being good to others, is actually

good for you.


6655 Feeling Blue? Hold on to Your Wallet

Live Conscientiously (to Live Longer)

If you’re feeling blue after a traumatizing workweek, treating yourself to a new purchase – a bag, a pair of heels – may make you feel better. Ye Li, assistant professor of management at the School of Busi-ness Administration, has found that sadness makes people want to spend money immediately. And while the idea of buying stuff to lift your spirits — commonly known as retail thera-py — seems relatively harmless, the concept is very real. (It doesn’t just happen in bad episodes of “Sex and the City”!) “When people feel sad, they want to restore their devalued feelings about themselves by going out and acquiring new things – and to do so as soon as possible,” Li says.

In the study Li co-authored, re-searchers found that people who are sad are willing to relinquish greater future monetary gains to receive instant financial gratification. Those in distress have less patience to spare

and, thus, are more likely to opt for immediate incentives. Unfortunately, that could come with considerable financial loss. “Sad people are espe-cially attracted to instant gratifica-tion. ... Our research suggests that people should be aware of these effects and avoid making major financial decisions and purchases when sad,” says Li.

Sadness affects you in more ways than you know. When you’re sad, it’s best to take a step back from any vital decision-making. So that shiny new iPhone you’ve been eyeing? Don’t buy it if you’ve had a bad day. In the long run, avoid-

ing buyer’s regret will make you happier.

adults, not self-centered happiness seekers! We also found that good social relationships are a major contributor on the road to health and fulfillment.”

Friedman also found that conscientious people got involved in worthwhile activities and stuck with them – but a certain intricate balance was required: “It was not the partiers

and retirees, nor those who chilled out and played golf, who stayed healthy and lived long,” he says.

“In fact,” adds Friedman, “I just went to visit one of the participants, who is now 101 years old. He still works part time – and he volunteers by raising money for a medical foundation.”

“It turns out that always being

cheery and fun-loving was not

healthy.”

“Sad people are especially

attracted to instant

gratification.”


77 Sleep More

What can help you look younger, lose weight, reduce stress, enhance your sex life, and — best of all — is free? Napping.

According to research performed by Sara C. Mednick, author of “Take a Nap! Change Your Life” and assistant professor of psychology at UCR, naps can improve your everyday life. They help you think better and more clearly, and have no side effects.

“The research that we’ve been doing has been looking at memory consolidation and creativity,” Mednick says. “We know that sleep is important for memory consolidation and has other cognitive benefits. The question is whether a short 60- to 90-minute nap has all the same ingredients as a full night of sleep. ...

What we’ve been showing is that, in fact, it can.”

Mednick’s research has found that naps improve cognitive performance even better than caffeine, so next time you’re in need of a boost, don’t reach for that second mug of bad coffee – take a

little snooze. After all, Mednick

points out, there are many advantages to taking a breather once in a while. The culture in the American workplace is to persevere and work on, she says, but that doesn’t improve productivity.

“You do better after working for an amount

of time and then taking a break – even if it’s just taking

a walk or switching tasks.” Taking breaks, Mednick says,

is “incredibly restorative and allows you to come up with new ideas.”

“A short 60- to 90-minute nap

has all the same

ingredients as a full night of

sleep.”


88 Be a Parent

Despite the cell phone bills, the late nights and endless saving for college, parents aren’t an unhappy bunch. This is what UCR Department of Psychology doctoral candidate and member of the Positive Psychology Lab Katie Nelson and her colleagues have found in their research.

“Most parents I talked to said that becoming a parent was one of the best things they had done with their lives,” Nelson says. “I wanted to

understand why [previous] scientific studies didn’t match personal accounts of parenthood.”

In investigating the emotional experiences of both nonparents and parents, Nelson and her colleagues found that parents reported higher global happiness,

life satisfaction and thoughts about meaning in life.

“Parents reported greater positive emotions and meaning in life when they were spending time with their children than during their other daily activities,” Nelson said.

Nelson has also looked at what kinds of parents are happier: “We found that parents’ happiness depended on a few key factors: marital

status, age and gender.”For parents, the level of

happiness depends on many additional factors, which may change over the life course. For example, parenting very young children or adolescents appears to be a trying time, but parenting adult children may have well-being benefits.

“Parents reported greater positive

emotions ... when they

were spending time

with their children.”


99 1010Money can’t buy happiness.Or, at least, that’s what the research

says. Spectrem Group, a consulting firm that covers affluent and retirement markets, recently released a survey that found that only 20 percent of affluent investors say money can buy happiness. Almost half of those surveyed disagreed with the statement.

Why, then, do so many people believe that acquiring wealth would also mean acquiring happiness?

That’s a question UCR alumnus and San Francisco State University Assistant Professor of Psychology Ryan Howell set out to answer.

“It struck me as odd,” Howell says. “Either money has to have a positive effect on quality of life or we should really try to figure out why people think it does. ... Everyone will tell you that they think if they have more money they will be happier.”

So Howell — co-founder of beyondthepurchase.org, a site that educates people on how their spending habits impact happiness — focused his research on asking people how they

spend their money to be happier.He found that people with cash

on hand opt to purchase one of two things: an object or a thing to do. In Howell’s research, he found that experiential purchases – such as dining out or tickets to the theater – resulted in an increased sense of well-being because they fulfill the human desire

for social connectedness and vitality.

As objects deteriorate over time (say, a car or an iPad 1, iPad 2 or iPad 3), so does your happiness level. Keeping up with the Joneses may become an issue as well:

“Comparison happens. If you get a new pair of shoes, part of your decision on how nice your

shoes are is based on how nice other people’s shoes are,” Howell says.

The same kinds of comparisons don’t occur with nonmaterial life experiences, he says. “Life experiences are unique to us ... we don’t really compare them to other people’s memories. There’s really no way to do that.”

Consider this: Facebook has 1 billion users.

YouTube garners more than 4 billion views every day.

Twitter boasts more than 140 million users. Instagram has more than 80 million registered users – and 4 billion photos. Tumblr plays host to around 60 million blogs. Pinterest, despite launching just three years ago, has 20 million users.

These impressive figures have prompted UCR professors of marketing and co-directors of the Sloan Center for Internet Retailing Donna Hoffman and Tom Novak to examine how feelings of closeness and connectedness may arise from different types of social media. In short, how does social media impact happiness?

“It’s clear that social media is not

Invest in Experiences, Not Worldly Possessions

“Life experiences are unique to us ... we don’t really compare them

to other people’s memories. “

“Social media has the potential to

meet people’s fundamental

needs.”


1010only an activity that appeals to the troubled and lonely,” Hoffman says, “but also has the potential to meet people’s fundamental needs in some positive and important ways.”

A not-so-surprising finding is that when people use social media to interact with others, they’re likely to feel more related to others, she says.

However, Hoffman and Novak have also found that when people use more content-focused social media (for learning new things or spreading information), that behavior also has the potential to trigger a feeling of connectedness.

The next question, though, is whether both these paths lead equally to positive outcomes like happiness and satisfaction. According to Hoffman and Novak’s research, the answer is yes. This suggests that the reasons people use social media have a large impact on whether these uses will lead to positive outcomes.

Get Connected on Social Media

11Questioning Happiness: Why Proving Joy Scientifically

Is So Important

Happiness is a common goal among people around the world

— defying social strata, age, geography, gender, ethnicity and

nationality.

“But happiness is not just a simple, hedonistic pleasure,”

Sonja Lyubomirsky says. “People who are happy have been found

to be more productive; they make more money, they have better

relationships, they’re healthier, they’re more charitable, they’re

better leaders, and they’re more creative.”

Happiness is not just about feeling good. Multiple benefits

accrue if you are happier.”

That’s why investigating and analyzing happiness has be-

come an important field of research — not just for psychologists,

but for economists and policymakers as well. The way personal

happiness is manifested in daily lives is slowly becoming a ba-

rometer by which countries measure their achievements. Before

the science of happiness was taken seriously, countries usually

measured their success in monetary terms, such as the gross

domestic product (GDP). Now, governments know that the well-

being and betterment of their inhabitants are as fundamental as

their monetary health. This is why a United Nations committee

has recently proposed that governments begin measuring the

happiness index levels in their countries.

Bhutan, France and Britain have long kept track (it turns out

that France is pretty miserable). The United States government is

now considering doing the same.

But how do you calculate something so seemingly subjective?

“Happiness is subjective, of course. No one else can tell you

if you’re happy. Only you know if you’re happy,” Lyubomirsky says.

“But researchers measure a lot of things in life that are sub-

jective — a lot of things that we can’t see,” Lyubomirsky says.

“For instance, physicists study quarks even though no one has

ever seen one. Medical scientists study features of the body that

they have to infer. Just because something is subjective doesn’t

mean we shouldn’t study it.”


Go With the Flow

SHARON WALKER’S RESEARCH ON

OPTIMIZING EFFECTIVE WATER TREATMENT

AND DISTRIBUTION HAS LED HER THROUGH

A SERIES OF SERENDIPITOUS EVENTS


Sharon Walker, an associate professor of chemical and environmental engineering in the Bourns College of Engineering, is a native of Los Angeles who moved east to earn her master’s and Ph.D. at Yale University. She returned to California in 2005 when UCR offered her the John Babbage Chair in Environmental Engineering.

What has the John Babbage Chair allowed you to do?

A number of things, but perhaps two are the most significant.

It has allowed me to pay a couple Ph.D. students when they were doing projects that wouldn’t have been funded anywhere else. It’s great when a student comes to you and you can say, ‘Great idea, let’s do it.’ That’s the intellectual freedom that the Babbage Chair has given me.

It also provides travel money. If I have travel money on a grant, I want to send my student. I want them to have the exposure. So I use my Babbage Chair money to cover expenses for travel. While traveling, I make a point of getting the UCR name out. I try to recruit graduate students and I have had some really successful research collaborations develop from the relationships I have made.

How did you end up at UC Riverside?After earning my Ph.D. at Yale, I was set to

do a post-doc in Germany when I decided — because I am from California — [to] throw my name in the hat for a few positions that were open in California. I had absolutely no expectation of getting an interview. And wouldn’t you know, Riverside called me up and invited me to interview.

I came out here nervous as all get-out. But it was such a wonderful day. I remember meeting people and thinking what an amazing group of faculty in the department. I was really blown away. I remember getting back to the Mission Inn after a very exhausting, rigorous day and thinking, ‘Gosh, I hope I get the job.’ I was really shocked. I don’t think I realized how much I wanted it until after I had been here and met everybody. I was flabbergasted when they called and said they wanted to offer me a position.

Can you talk about the program you developed that brings Riverside Community College District students to your lab?

I work with Heather Smith at Riverside City College. Each year we select two students. They spend an intensive summer internship in my lab. We put them up in the dorms. They participate in wonderful professional development programming. And they just get absolutely immersed in collegiate life. I’ll tell you, there is nothing like that to turn a young student around and say, ‘Wow, I want to go to a four-year college, I want to go on in science.’ After that intensive summer, we continue to pay them as a research intern during the academic year. So, instead of being a barista at Starbucks, they keep going in science.

To date, 100 percent of the students have gone on to a four-year institution. Two are in Ph.D. programs and the other is in a nursing program.

In 2009-10, you spent the academic year in Israel on a Fulbright scholarship studying how the country uses and reuses water. Why did you apply for the Fulbright?

My husband and I were looking for a bit of adventure. I was putting in my tenure file. Someone gave me the brilliant advice when your tenure file is in, get out of Dodge – because nothing is more stressful than sitting around waiting to be reviewed. We thought, ‘We don’t have kids yet, this is the time to go.’ And, funny enough, I got pregnant. So, we knew we were going to be having a baby while we were away.

Because my daughter was born in Israel, we wanted to give her an Israeli name. So her name is Ma’ayan, which means a spring of water, which is fitting for my research area.

Talk about your current research.The biggest thing I’m working on now is the

fate of nanomaterials that are getting into our environment. Nanomaterials are being used in everything from cosmetics to food to paints to tennis rackets. Gym socks don’t smell because there are silver nanoparticles in there. They are what make our cell phones small and light. They are part of our new lifestyle.

The problem is that these materials get released into the water as they are produced and used. I’m looking at how traditional engineering approaches can remove nanomaterials and, if they don’t, how to change the design of treatment plants to make sure our water is safe.

B Y S E A N N E A L O N

MAGAZINE.UCR.EDUFor a video on Sharon Walker’s research go to


1A

BC

D

2A

BC

D

3A

BC

D

AB

CD

CD

La ReinaSeventeen-year-old Victor loved his beautiful, troubled mother, who wasn’t like any of the other mothers in school. But he knew she loved him, too, because she always bought him ramen and orange juice.

His mother knew trees. Showed him how to find bees in the pepper tree trunks, spiders in the eucalyptus bark shedding long flat sheaves.

In fourth grade, they studied California Indians, and Victor found a perfect piece of bark for his project. She took him to the riverbed, where the paddle-shaped cactus grew everywhere, and on the smooth green skin were cottony white insects. Their blood was magenta, a color he’d never seen, even among her eyeshadows and nail polish. She showed him how to paint the bark with designs in bug blood.

She used to keep the bark picture in her trunk. The lock had been busted over and over, when

people broke into it, but they threw the bark aside looking for money or rock or jewelry. Then someone got pissed when he couldn’t find anything, and he broke the bark in half and threw it on the floor.

So she glued it together, and wrapped magenta ribbon from Rite Aid around each end, and hung it on the wall. No one would care about it then. And he saw her staring at it sometimes, when she lay on the couch. At each apartment, she hung it on the wall near the door.

The bug was cochineal. An SAT word.

AN EXCERPT FROM SUSAN STRAIGHT ’S LATE ST NOVEL , “BET WEEN HEAVEN AND HERE .”

UCR Spring 2013 | 21MAGAZINE.UCR.EDUSusan Straight talks about real places in the city of Riverside that served as inspiration for her novel. Read the interview at

Seventeen-year-old Victor loved his beautiful, troubled mother, who wasn’t like any of the other mothers in school. But he knew she loved him, too, because she always bought him ramen and orange juice.

* * *Brown-haired girl

Logan had green eyes like olives, one of those girls who wore her hair in a ponytail and it was thick and long so you could see the reason they called it that. She asked him all casual as often as she could without seeming insecure, “So what’d you get on the test?”

“What I always get.” Victor loved saying that. He didn’t even have to give her the percentage. It was always 97 or 98. Mrs. Mumbles had to take off two or three points for everyone—even if she had to make up some shit about one word being awkward or you forgot a comma or a space in MLA format.

But he loved Mrs. Mumbles. Mumford.

Mrs. Mumbles didn’t buy into all the hype, and the old families and fundraisers and the right mom or wrong mom at Back to School Night. She never looked any of them in the face. She stared at some spot in the room and mumbled about funeral art of India and Impressionists and Cubism. She didn’t give a shit that Victor’s mother, who came to Open House because he’d told her it was the last time she could ever do that, sat in the back like the most beautiful zombie statue in the history of the world.

She was luminous. In winter, the nights shitty

and cold, her skin got dulled like the gold-leaf frame of a painting if soot and years laid a patina of darkness or haze. Then she would sleep for two days, and when the sun came out, they’d go out to the orange groves. Eat gumbo and oranges, see the grandparents, and she’d take a long shower and put almond oil in her hair.

She’d be gilt again. And the other moms at Open House hated the way she gazed bemusedly at their fleece vests and mom jeans for two seconds before dismissing them and staring at the paintings on the classroom walls.

The SAT plan was to get number-three scores. Logan had taken it twice, Amitav three times. Logan

got a 1500, perfect score, and Amitav 1490, in October. Victor didn’t have the money in October, and in November she got pneumonia after a cold windstorm when she stood in the alley too long. His aunt Famine helped him one weekend with vocabulary words. He chanted to himself all day and most of the night.

Luciferous. Loquacious. Lucid. Lucent.

Susan Straight is a distinguished professor of creative writing at UCR. “Between Heaven and Here” is her eighth novel.

Back on the first Saturday in May, he was registered to take the SAT. His high school history teacher, Marcus Thompson, had paid for it—and he’d left ten dollars for Victor to buy the number two pencils and some coffee for that morning.

“Make sure you eat,” Marcus said, awkwardly.

Victor said, “We got plenty of food.”

He remembered being really hungry when he was three. She didn’t come home. He sat on the balcony. Maybe Jessamine Gardens. He couldn’t remember anything except his stomach was eating his backbone. He could feel something creeping up there. Vertebrae. He couldn’t breathe and so he sat outside, and his uncle Reynaldo found him because they were looking for his mother.

Kindergarten? When he coughed really hard and finally she came home and put him in the shower with her and they sat in there all night, the moisture beading up on her hair like pearls and then collapsing into nothing. The water going inside his lungs and somehow cleaning out the burn.

But now she had it down. He was seventeen. So she left ramen, orange juice (and she bought Tropicana, not that Sunny Delight shit), and pistachios in the kitchen. The staples. And most nights, she brought home the scheduled items from El Ojo de Agua. He said to her, “Shrimp burrito

from the Eye?” The Eye of Water. Jesus

Espinoza, this guy in AP History, said that was from a town in Michoacan, where his father was born. Some shrine.

The shrimp burrito had beans, rice, cabbage, tomatoes, sauce, and fried shrimp. $3.99. It was the size of a small log. A dusty white log. And Victor ate one every Tuesday. Wednesday was fish tacos. Thursday was tamales.

Friday was Chess, and Saturday she was gone until dawn. Sunday she slept. He ate whatever his grandfather brought from Sarrat — gumbo or beans and rice or ham. Always oranges.

She had her part as down as she could, and Victor had his part down cold. Perfect 4.0. Registered for the May 6, 2000 SAT. Last one of the year.

Everybody else would be juniors, but he could finish college apps late and Marcus would help him.

It must have pissed those other moms, when their kids mentioned him. This black dude with weird hair and he’s really light so he’s like, not even really black, and his mom is, like, a crack ho—that’s just what everybody says, okay, she is—and he gets like, 97 or 98 on everything. Like, never lower. For reals.

He had the second-highest grade in the class in AP European History, the second-highest in AP US History, and the third-highest in AP Art History.


B Y T E D B . K I S S E L L

23

1

FROM MIND TO MARKET: COLOR

TECHNOLOGY

Thinking small — as in nanoparticle small — has led Yadong Yin into

developing COLR Technology for a world of unlimited possibilities

Yin created his colloidal nanocrystal clusters in 2006. He wanted the 100- to 200-nanometer diameter particles, which he describes as “spherical, with a rough surface,” to be able to bond to certain proteins. Once the particles had been created through a chemical reaction in liquid, Yin had what looked like rusty water. Hardly surprising: The particle essentially is rust, just very small, and in a very specific shape.

But when his assistant put it on the magnetic stirrer, he called Yin over, saying, “We have something kind of strange here,” Yin recalls. The liquid had begun to change color into beautiful, iridescent hues. Yin quickly realized that the color of the particles varied based on the strength of the magnetic field: Weaker fields made red, and then on up the visible-light spectrum to violet, as the field got stronger. “It’s basically an optical effect—it follows everything you know about optics,” he says.

Almost immediately after his paper was published in 2007, “We got a lot of phone calls and emails,” Yin says. “Everyone had different ideas.” One of the earliest notions: Creating anti-fraud banknotes by embedding the particles into the bills so they could change color in a magnetic field. Other ideas flowed from numerous sources, from toy companies to car manufacturers, all of whom were interested in offering completely customizable colors for their products.

MAGAZINE.UCR.EDUTo find out more about Yadong Yin’s research go to


Illustrations by Colin Hayes

45

6

When Yadong Yin, an associate professor of chemistry at UCR, developed a new kind of nanoparticle from iron oxide, he was aiming for some kind of medical application. He was not trying to invent a new kind of futuristic nail polish. And yet that’s one possible application now being explored for what has been dubbed COLR Technology, through which the material changes color as it is exposed to a magnetic field. Yin, a compact

39-year-old with a gift for explaining scientific concepts in plain language, earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in his native China before getting his doctorate from the University of Washington. Ranked by Thomson Reuters as second in the world among materials science researchers and a top 100 chemist of the decade, it wasn’t long after Yin’s arrival at UCR in 2006 that he made his serendipitous discovery.

But what if someone wanted to pick a color and stick with it in a “dry” application like a tunable paint? Not long after the initial discovery, Yin figured out that by zapping the solution with UV light, a particular color could be set permanently — which would be ideal for things like car paint color.

All of these discussions were interesting, but none of them led to a firm deal to develop the particles for the market. Then, in early 2010, Yin heard from Idea Zoo, a firm based in Silicon Valley. They had their own, very sci-fi idea: programmable nail polish, where you could change nail polish in a second like in Arnold Schwarzenegger’s “Total Recall.” (“I have that movie!” Yin offers with a chuckle.) While Idea Zoo didn’t have much experience with chemistry, Yin was impressed with how seriously they took his idea and its potential applications, so he soon signed a licensing agreement with them.

In his dealings with large companies, Yin notes, he generally ends up talking to technical people about the process. Idea Zoo was able to present his invention not to the techies, but to the decision-makers at large firms. Idea Zoo’s efforts led, in 2012, to a partnership with chemical giant BASF to help bring Yin’s nanoparticles, now trademarked as COLR Technology, to the marketplace. Yin says that the process is now at the “scaling up” stage as BASF and Idea Zoo do some “serious R&D” into the most viable and sellable forms of COLR. Could be toys, could be cars, could be shoes—and yes, the nail polish concept is still in the works.



KNOWLEDGETHROUGH

SERVING

B Y P H I L P I T C H F O R D

From traffic on Highway 91 to air pollution in Mira Loma and poverty in Coachella, the Inland Empire is wrestling with many of the same problems that face emerging countries around the world.

The new UC Riverside School of Public Policy aims to train the policy professionals who can help identify potential solutions to such problems. Their work could help governments across the globe with problems like water quality and access to health care, while also providing much-needed guidance to decision-makers closer to home.

“We need people who can determine which public policies are going to be the most cost-effective because many of these issues are quite complex,” said Anil Deolalikar, an economics professor and the school’s founding dean. “A lot of the policies we have in place now are a knee-jerk reaction to some situation that has occurred. We need people who are able to distill that knowledge, determine what the options are and what the likely (intended and unintended) outcomes are.”

The School of Public Policy, currently scheduled to admit its first students in fall 2014,

The newly launched UCR School of Public Policy will bridge the university and the Inland

community by generating research-based solutions to local and global problems


“Public policy as a discipline pertains to almost everything we do on this campus, which is why this is such an exciting program for so many people at UCR.”

Anil Deolalikar, an economics professor and the school’s founding dean

way for us to underscore the importance of what we do on campus to the community that has been so supportive of us.”

Graduate students will be able to pursue a Master of Public Policy (M.P.P.) and an M.D./M.P.P. in conjunction with the UCR School of Medicine. A Ph.D. and a Ph.D. minor in public policy are planned. A 15-month Executive M.P.P. program will be available for experienced professionals already working in related fields. Nondegree certificate programs will enable existing public employment professionals to pursue career enhancement.

Four areas of specialization are planned: environmental and sustainable development policy, population and health policy, higher education policy, and immigration policy. In the same way the new School of Medicine aims to improve health outcomes in the Inland area, the School of Public Policy is being designed to play an active role in the region.

“The public policy school will serve as a bridge between the university and the public,” said Ken Baerenklau, an associate professor of environmental science and an associate environmental economist. “They will have a better understanding of what we do, and we will have a better understanding of what they want.”

Students who pursue an advanced degree in public policy will carry on the UCR tradition of treating the surrounding area as a “living laboratory” that generates research-based solutions to problems here and abroad.

“It’s not just learning from the rest of the world, but also teaching the rest of the world,” said Deolalikar, who is known internationally for his work on poverty, malnutrition and illiteracy. “Public policy as a discipline pertains to almost everything we do on this campus, which is why this is such an exciting program for so many people.”

The school is expected to strengthen the overall mission of UCR by bringing together academics from many disciplines across campus, including some that rarely interact with one another.

“Right now, there is kind of a disconnect between the science side of campus and the social sciences and the humanities,” said Kevin M. Esterling, an associate professor of political

science and associate dean of the Graduate Division. “Science has a lot of practical applications, but it takes an interdisciplinary approach to determine what those applications might be. This school will bring people together and foster interaction between the colleges.”

Ron Loveridge, an associate professor of political science who recently completed a 33-year career as Riverside mayor and councilman, said the Inland counties will need sound policy planning more than ever since they are expected to be two of the largest counties in the state by 2060, trailing only Los Angeles County.

“So much of what [our] faculty does is research for each other,” Loveridge said. “It’s important to get that research into the policy arena, and a School of Public Policy will do that.”

will be designed to produce just such problem-solvers for jobs in local, state and federal governments and in nonprofit organizations. Depending on pending curricular approvals, the school will begin accepting students in early 2014 and eventually will have 30 doctoral and 120 master’s degree candidates.

“The professionals that we are going to be producing here will be trained to take positions across the United States as soon as they leave school and contribute at a very high level,” said Joseph Childers, English professor and dean of the Graduate Division. “It also creates another

“Science has a lot of practical applications, but it takes an interdisciplinary approach to determine what those applications might be. This school will bring people together and foster interaction between the colleges.”

Kevin M. Esterling, an associate professor of political science and associate dean of the Graduate Division


That Time I Got Into UC Riverside!HAPPINESS IS …

Remember how happy you were the moment you got your UCR acceptance letter? We found tweets from potential Highlanders this fall, and they seem pretty stoked to be going to UCR.

Kenny Kostiv @SickWhiteMamba

Got accepted into UC Riverside! Yee that’s wassup! #goingtocollege

Autumn Crisantes @CrisantesAutumn

First UC acceptance letter to UC Riverside #firstUCacceptance#college #yay #finally #hardworkpaysoff

Jess Oh @JessItaliaOh

My ID and UC Riverside acceptance letter came [in] the mail. (: It made my night.

David Thomas @dsthomas94

I got into UC Riverside. Yip-a-dee-doo-dah-hey-wah-way.

Eakta Sharma @esharma_

AHHHHH I got accepted to UC Riverside! Hollllaaaaaaa

Aaron Rodriguez @Slushy_KiddXD

When you get accepted to UC Riverside >>>>>> #AmazingFeeling

Marina Quinonez @MarinaQ17

I was just minding my own business when I received an acceptance letter from UC Riverside. I’m so proud of myself.

Joshua Gomez-Zavala @mrjogo2j

OMG UC Riverside!!! I am so beyond happy right now. Thank you to everyone who has helped me reach this!

Tom Amir @tomsabovearth

Just got accepted into UC Riverside cuz I worked for it

Berhan Eskinder @BerDaddy

Accepted to UC Riverside :) Thank you God.

Claudia Jimenez @cloud_y_ahh

So I got a special email today. I’ve been accepted to UC Riverside; I need March to get here quick.

Maluh Costa @Niallbeminex

I got accepted into UC Riverside, who wants to party with me?

Calvin Kwan @calvinhkwan

Got into my first choice, UC Riverside @UCRAdmissions

Alex Velasquez @Suuuupalex

Got accepted to UC Riverside!!!!! Sw@q Sw@q Sw@q Sw@q

Sam Garrison@sam_garrison04

Got accepted into UC Riverside!!! Pretty pumped that one of my top 3 universities accepted me!

Michael Mashigian @mashigian

Got accepted to UC Riverside with a scholarship!!


These books are available for purchase at the UCR Campus Store and online at www.ucrcampusstore.ucr.edu They have been discounted

up to 30 percent.

UCR Goes

Around the

World in Page

Turners: From

the Kibbutzim

of Israel to

Metaphors in

the Chinese

Language to

the Music of El

Salvador

Term Limits and Their Conse-quences: The Aftermath of Legis-lative ReformBy Stanley Caress (’78) and Todd KuniokaState University of New York PressSeptember 2012, 205 pages

Legislative term limits remain a controversial feature of the American political landscape. This book provides a clear, compre-hensive and nonpartisan look at all aspects of this contentious subject. Stanley M. Caress and Todd T. Kunioka trace the emergence of the grassroots movement that supported term limits and explain why the idea of term limits became popular with voters. Utilizing a blend of quantitative data and interviews, Caress and Kunioka thoughtfully discuss the impact of term limits, focusing in particular on the nation’s largest state, California. They scrutinize voting data to determine if term limits have altered election outcomes or the electoral chances of women and minority candidates and reveal how restricting a legislator’s time in office has changed political careers and ambitions.

Stanley Caress is professor of political science at the University of West Georgia.

The Renewal of the Kibbutz: From Reform to TransformationBy Raymond Russell, Robert Hanneman and Shlomo GetzRutgers University PressMay 2013, 192 pages

In Israel, a kibbutz is a communally owned agricultural settlement, governed under collectivist principles by its members. Starting in the late 1980s, many kibbutzim — whose members work, reside, eat together and share income — underwent varying degrees of reform. Members could work outside of the organi-zation, but wages went to the collective. Apartments could be expanded, but housing remained kibbutz-owned. In 1995, change accelerated. Kibbutzim began to pay salaries based on the market value of a member’s work. As a result of such changes, the “renewed” kibbutz emerged. By 2010, 75 percent of Israel’s 248 nonreligious kibbutzim fit into this new category.

This book explores the waves of reforms since 1990. Looking through the lens of organizational theories that predict how open or closed a group will be to change, the authors find that less successful kibbutzim were most receptive to reform, and reforms then spread through imitation from the economically weaker kibbutzim to the strong.

Raymond Russell and Robert Hanneman are professors of sociology at UCR.

The Myths of Happiness: What Should Make You Happy, but Doesn’t, What Shouldn’t Make You Happy, but Does By Sonja LyubomirskyPenguin PressJanuary 2013, 320 pages

In “The Myths of Happiness,” Sonja Lyubomirsky isolates the major turning points of adult life, looking to both successes (marriage, children, wealth) and challenges (divorce, financial ruin, illness) to reveal that our miscon-ceptions about the impact of such events are perhaps the greatest threats to our long-term well-being.

Lyubomirsky argues that we have been given false promises — myths that assure us that lifelong happiness will be attained once we hit the culturally confirmed markers of adult success. Because we expect the best (or the worst) from life’s turning points, we short-sightedly place too much weight on our initial emotional responses. “The Myths of Happiness” empowers readers to look beyond their first response, sharing scientific evidence that often it is our mindset — not our circum-stances — that matters.

A corrective course on happiness and a call to regard life’s twists and turns with a more open mind, “The Myths of Happiness” shares practical lessons with life-changing potential.

Sonja Lyubomirsky is a professor of psychology at UCR.

PA

GE

TU

RN

ER

S


Senegal Taxi (Camino del Sol) By Juan Felipe HerreraUniversity of Arizona PressMarch 2013, 128 pages

“I wish I could find the words to tell you the story of our village after you were killed.” So begins “Senegal Taxi,” the new work by one of contemporary poetry’s most vibrant voices, Juan Felipe Herrera. Known for his activism and writings that bring attention to oppression and injustice, Herrera turns to stories of genocide and hope in Sudan. “Senegal Taxi” offers the voices of three children escaping the horrors of war in Africa.

“Senegal Taxi” weaves together verse, dialogue and visual art created by Herrera specifically for the book. Phantom-like televisions, mud drawings, witness testimonies, insects and weaponry are all storytellers that join the siblings for a theatrical crescendo. Each poem is told from a different point of view, which Herrera calls “mud drawings,” referring to the evocative symbols of hope the children create as they hide in a cave on their way to Senegal, where they plan to catch a boat to the United States.

Juan Felipe Herrera is a professor of creative writing at UCR. He is currently the California poet laureate.

An Anatomy of Chinese: Rhythm, Metaphor, PoliticsBy Perry LinkHarvard University PressJanuary 2013, 376 pages

During the Cultural Revolution, Mao exhorted the Chinese people to “smash the four olds”: old customs, old culture, old habits and old ideas. Yet when the Red Guards in Tiananmen Square chanted, “We want to see Chairman Mao,” they unknowingly used a classical rhythm that dates back to the Han period and is the very embodiment of the four olds. “An Anatomy of Chinese” reveals how rhythms, conceptual metaphors and political language convey time-honored meanings of which Chinese speakers themselves may not be consciously aware and contribute to the ongoing debate over whether language shapes thought, or vice versa.

Inquiry into the workings of Chinese reveals convergences and divergences with English, most strikingly in the area of conceptual metaphor. Particularly provocative is Link’s consideration of how Indo-European languages, with their preference for abstract nouns, generate philosophical puzzles that Chinese, with its preference for verbs, avoids. The mind-body problem that has plagued Western culture may be fundamentally less problematic for speakers of Chinese.

Perry Link is a distinguished professor of comparative literature and foreign languages at UCR.

M E E T

M I N G L EN E T W O R KCONNECT

Join UCR alumni in your area for

a fun evening of casual

conversation and refreshments, and welcome

the new Class of 2013 alumni!

Hosted by the UCR Alumni Association, members in attendance will receive a gift and a chance to win two tickets to the Hollywood Bowl or Del Mar Races alumni events.

Save the date for the event in your area!

Los Angeles . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7/11Riverside . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7/17Orange County . . . . . . . . . . . . 7/24San Francisco . . . . . . . . . . . . 7/30

The event is free for all alumni to attend.Registration required. Sign up at

alumni.ucr.edu/meetgreet or call 951-827-2586.


The Student Alumni Association was recently honored with a Gold Award from the Council for Advancement and Support of Education for its Career Conference Series.

Co-sponsored by the Alumni Association, the Conference Series brings alumni in the fields of business, medicine and law back to campus to speak to students about their potential careers.

To volunteer to participate in the Conference Series or to get involved in any other student outreach programs, please visit the alumni website (www.alumni.ucr.edu) and click on “Get Involved.”

The UCR Alumni Association travel program offers a mix of exploration, education and adventure in partnership with reputable, prescreened tour operators.

• Villages and Vineyards of Italy: Take part in educational programs and fun excursions, Sept. 10 to 20

• Spain: Immerse yourself in the local culture and lifestyles of northern Spain, Oct. 6 to 15

Visit the Alumni Association website (www.alumni.ucr.edu) to view pricing and details of these two upcoming trips.

Tour participants, whether UCR alumni or not, must be members of the UCR Alumni Association. Each member may bring one travel companion as a guest.

Alumni Association Awards

Travel the Globe and Expand Your Horizons

J U L Y 2 7

L.A. Chapter Annual Hollywood Bowl Event: “Chicago: The Musical”

Alumni and friends are invited to join the L.A. chapter at its annual Hollywood Bowl outing. Come early for a preconcert picnic and meet fellow Highlanders. This year’s program is “Chicago: The Musical” — a brilliantly sexy tale of fame, fortune and all that jazz, set amid the razzle-dazzle of the 1920s. This winner of six Tony Awards will come to decadent life with a sensational all-star cast in a one-of-a-kind Bowl production. Tickets are $44 for Alumni Association members and guests, $49 for nonmembers. Order tickets online at www.alumni.ucr.edu/hollywoodbowl.

A U G U S T 4

Sixth Annual Alumni Day at the Races – Del Mar, Calif.

Join alumni and friends in a private sky room where one can watch and wager on exciting thoroughbred horse racing. Tickets are $40 for UCRAA members, and $45 for nonmembers. Space is limited; this event has sold out every year. Order tickets online at www.alumni.ucr.edu/delmar.

O C T O B E R 1 9

Fifth Annual Chancellor’s Dinner The UCR community comes together at

the Chancellor’s Dinner to support our best and brightest, but it’s also a time to honor our notable alumni. The 2012 UCR Medallion will be presented to Randy and Manuela (’66) Sosa. Virginia Phillips (’79), Ronald Stovitz (’64) and Ernesto (Ernie) Rios (’07 MBA) will also be honored as the recipients of the 27th Annual Alumni Awards of Distinction. For more information, go to www.chancellorsdinner.ucr.edu.

How to contact the UCR Alumni Association: Website: alumni.ucr.eduE-mail: [email protected] Phone: (951) UCR-ALUM or (800) 426-ALUM (2586)

CALENDARgh

ALU

MN

I C

ON

NE

CT

ION


CLA

SS

AC

TS

Names printed in blue indicate members of the UCR Alumni Association.To update your membership, visit www.alumni.ucr.edu

Philately,” which includes a complete list of music-related postage stamps issued by the U.S. Postal Service from 1898 to the present. He is married to fellow alumna, Frances Fry ’63 (’69 M.A.).

’66 Michael Kraft is the co-editor and contributing author of “The Oxford Handbook of U.S. Environmental Policy,” released in

October 2012. The book is a collection of state-of-the-art reviews of key topics in U.S. environmental policy and politics by more than 40 of the nation’s leading scholars in the field. It is intended to summarize scholar-ship over the past four decades and set research goals for new work in the field.

70s’72 Juan Ulloa, a Superior Court judge in Imperial County, is the recipient of the 2012 Aranda Access to Justice Award. The award, named for the founding chair of the Judicial Council’s Access and

50s’57 Hal Durian was a UCR charter student, one of the first 125 students who enrolled in February 1954. After he graduated, Hal taught history and government for 41 years at Chaffey High School in Ontario. From 2005 to 2012 he worked for The Press-Enterprise, writing weekly columns on history. Recently, he wrote “True Stories of Riverside and the Inland Empire,” a book that highlights the remarkable stories of Inland Southern California’s forebearers.

60s’64 Gloria Macias is a newly elected member of the San Bernardino Community College District Board of Trustees. Prior to that, she was president of Crafton Hills College from July 2000 until her retirement on July 2, 2012. She was also the vice president of instruction at Crafton Hills College for six years and dean of humani-ties at San Bernardino Valley College for three years. Gloria has more than 20 years of teaching experience.

’64 Stephen Fry retired as UCLA’s music librarian with emeritus status in 2002 after a 30-year career at UC. While retired, he wrote a book on the English country dances published in The Gentleman’s Magazine (London) from 1737 to 1757, complete with music and dance instructions. He was also a contributor for “The Grove Dictionary of American Music” (second edition), for which he wrote the article “Musical

T A K E F I V E

Wayne Scott

B.A. POLITICAL SCIENCE AND

RELIGIOUS STUDIES ‘81

Wayne is the founder and president of

LifeHouse Theater, a nonprofit community

theater in Redlands that puts on original plays and musicals for more than 30,000 guests

each year.

1

2

3

4

5

What’s your favorite memory of UCR?I was very fortunate to have classes with Ron Loveridge, who later became the mayor of Riverside. His leadership in the class and his caring attitude meant a lot to me. Even [though] everyone knew he was brilliant, he remained extremely down to earth and relatable. He would even go out of his way to write detailed comments on papers that we submitted and I really appreciated that individualized relationship.

Can you name a defining moment in your life?While working at the state Capitol one summer near UC Davis, I watched a revival of the movie “Mary Poppins.” I saw this unique mixture of acting, music and animation, all combined to tell a story with a potent message, and I thought, “I want to do something along those lines.” While I was grateful for my job at the Capitol, there was something missing. I realized that I needed to release the creative side dwelling within me. I want to use the arts to influence people positively. While good government is extremely important, I feel that the real battle in life is influencing the hearts and minds of men and women.

What’s the best part about your job?Maybe it’s the teacher in me, but my greatest joy is seeing young people discover their hidden talents, something valuable that they didn’t know they could do, and then taking that newly attained skill and parlaying it into making their dreams come true.

What are some of the awards that LifeHouse Theater has won?We’re a part of the Inland Theatre League and we’ve received countless wonderful awards from them in almost all areas of theater, especially in writing and music composition, but also in costuming, scenic design and acting. We’ve been really blessed with tremendous talent here.

What are you most proud of?I am blessed to be working with people that I’ve seen transform because of [LifeHouse Theater]. These people, who were about to – frankly – take their lives and were going down a path that they may have not have returned from, discovered that they are valuable and that there is something they can do. They have been able to make a complete turnaround and that’s what I’m most proud of, that I could be used in a small way to help someone else.

gh

gh

Watch an interview with Wayne Scott — and other notable alumni — at MAGAZINE.UCR.EDU


Fairness Advisory Committee, Benjamin Aranda III, honors a trial judge or an appellate justice whose activities demonstrate a long-term commitment to improving access to justice. He was recognized for establishing a collaborative relationship with court and consulate officials from Mexico to better serve the legal needs of his community, and for being a leader in court reform efforts and working to improve access to justice for all Imperial County residents. Through the Imperial County Blue Ribbon Commission, Juan used interna-tional collaboration to improve the services to binational families in the juvenile and family court systems. They worked with the state government of Baja California, the family court and court-appointed counsel, the university and the Mexican government to remove jurisdic-tional and informational barriers and resolve cases. Juan has also participated in the Judicial Council’s California Tribal Court/State Court Forum working group with Claudette White, chief judge of the Quechan tribal court, to establish protocols for coordi-nating, transferring and moni-toring cases that involve Quechan families in Imperial County. The Judicial Council, the State Bar, and the California Judges Association co-sponsor the award in association with the California Commission on Access to Justice.

’74 Michael Bartee, coach at Riverside North High School, recently became one of only 26 coaches in California to mark 600 basketball game victories. Michael came back to coaching after retiring in 2011. He began his coaching career in 1973, first as a freshman coach and then as a junior varsity boys basketball coach, before accepting his first teaching position at Perris Valley Junior High School.

’75 John Samson was the construction coordinator for this year’s Academy Award-winning Best Picture “Argo.” John has

worked as a construction coordinator for movies such as “The Hangover” (I & II), “The Back-up Plan,” “Spider-Man 3,” “Just Married,” “Stuart Little” and “Iron Man 3.” … Yolanda Moses received the Frederick Douglass Medal from the Institute for African and African-American Studies at the University of Rochester. This medal is the highest award given by the university for work pertaining to matters of diversity. She dedicated three years to the exhibit, “RACE: Are We So Different?” seeking to understand the rationalizations that support racial discrimination in the United States and abroad.

’79 Marshall Johnson, UCR Extension specialist, entomologist and lecturer, has received the Distinguished Scientist of the Year Award from the International Organization for Biological Control — Nearctic Regional Section. Only one individual is recognized annually for the award. Nominees must have spent most of their career in the Nearctic Region, which encompasses the United States and Canada, and have made significant contributions to the area of biological control. In his research he has explained the relationships between economi-cally important pests and their natural enemies, and used this information to enhance biological control, thereby improving pest control and reducing reliance on insecticides. He has also been a leading contributor to under-standing and mitigating negative effects of pesticides on pest control, including pesticide resistance, pest resurgence and secondary pest outbreaks. His many awards and honors include being named a fellow of both the Entomological Society of America and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He is a recipient of the C.W. Woodworth Award from the Pacific Branch of the

CLA

SS

AC

TS

Less than 3 percent of emancipated foster youth

graduate from college. Donor support helped Kassy beat the odds.

After graduation in June, Kassy’s joining Teach America, where

she’ll share the value of her education with inner city youth.

Change lives! Make a gift today to the UCR Foundation using the envelope included in this issue, or online at www.ucr.edu/giving.

Use code 13AFMAG03.

Make a difference.Make a gift.

Scholarships Change Lives

“Without scholarships, I would not be in college — end of story.”

- emancipated foster youth Kassy Peterson, explaining the impact of scholarship support.


Entomological Society of America and the Entomological Society of America Recognition Award for Contributions to Agriculture.

80s’84 Darren Johnson serves as the chair of the Department of Orthopedic Surgery and Sports Medicine at the University of Kentucky and the head orthopedic surgeon for UK Athletics. He was named the 2012-13 Southeastern Conference Team Physician of the Year by the Southeastern Conference (SEC) member institution athletic training staff, as announced by the Southern Orthopedic Association (SOA). He will be honored at the 2013 SEC Men’s Basketball Tournament when the SOA has its annual meeting at the 2013 SEC Sports Medicine Committee Meeting in Opelika, Ala.

’84 (M.A.) Kevin Enns-Rempel was recently appointed director of the Hiebert Library at Fresno Pacific University. After completing his degree at UCR in the program for historic resources management, Kevin has served as the Fresno Pacific University archivist for more than 25 years.

’86 Froukje Schaafsma-Smith is an artist and arts educator with more than 20 years of experience. Recently, her work was on display at the Walter’s Mercedes-Benz showroom at the Riverside Auto Center. Her autobiographical art has been featured in one-person and group exhibitions and is in the public collections of UCR and UCLA. She received the Curatorial Award, Members’ Art Exhibition 2012, Riverside Art Museum and The Fred Bird Memorial Award, Artist Council Exhibition 2011 and Palm Springs Art Museum awards.

CLA

SS

AC

TS

T A K E F I V E

Darlene Tyler

B.A. MUSIC, ‘82

Darlene is a nurse practitioner who works for the Riverside County

Regional Medical Center.

1

2

3

4

5

How did you end up working with the medically underserved in the Inland region? Was it something you always wanted to do? It was just a real fluke. In 2003 I got a part-time job as a nurse practitioner with the UCLA School of Nursing Health Center in downtown Los Angeles, where we provided health care to uninsured, homeless and indigent people. It was a really good learning experience for me; eight years later, due to reorganization, I left my position with UCLA and began looking for a similar position closer to home. I got an invitation from Riverside County. I put in an application and they called me and said, “We’d like to interview you for our Mobile Health Clinic.” So here I am, again, doing what I love, which is providing health care to people who don’t have any health care access.

But you graduated with a bachelor’s in music. That’s quite a leap — from music into medical sciences! My first bachelor’s degree was in respiratory therapy before I was given the opportunity to study music at UCR. My third bachelor’s degree, from Cal State San Bernardino, was in nursing, and I have a master’s degree in nursing from Loma Linda University, a post-master’s nurse practitioner credential from Azusa Pacific University, and my doctorate in nursing is from UCLA. I have gone to graduation too many times! What was it about higher education that attracted you so much? I started [my career] as a respiratory therapist and when I got my bachelor’s, I wanted to go back to school to do what I really loved doing — playing the cello. I knew I couldn’t make a living playing music, which is why I was a respiratory therapist. But I still wanted to study music. After I got my degree at UCR, I decided that medical school was a good avenue because I like science and I like technology. I was doing all my prerequisites for medicine when I was offered a spot at the [then] brand-new nursing program at Cal State San Bernardino. As soon as I got done, I was told that I was so good with working with the patients that I really needed to be a nurse practitioner so that I could use all of my science and technology courses. I went into the nurse practitioner program and that’s how I ended up at UCLA. In my first interview for the position, my boss asked, “Do you have a Ph.D.?” And his second question was, “Do you want one?” He said we needed more people who are nurse practitioners who have Ph.D.s., who are able to do research but also have a clinical background working with patients. … Yes, I have a lot of degrees, but they have built one skill on top of another. What kind of advice would you have for people who don’t know what to do with their lives right after graduating from university? I think it’s important for people to find out what they are passionate about. And when they find that out, to follow that passion as far as it will take them. What’s the best part of your job? Being a nurse practitioner allows me to do patient counseling and treat patients as human beings, holistically, with names and stories, with a past, present and a future. That’s the nursing aspect that I really like. And I get to impact that! The staff of the Mobile Health Clinic goes out daily with a 40-foot mobile home, loaded up with our medicine and charts and equipment. Once we park at our site, we just open the door and the clinic is open. I can change people’s futures. Wherever we go, the whole community comes in and they can get treatment. In a typical day, we get into a van, we go some place, we do our thing and we come home. And every day is different because we’re at a different place every day. Riverside County is the fourth-largest county in California. And we cover all 7,000 square miles.

gh

As the sole provider for the

Riverside County Mobile Health

Clinic, she covers 11 sites —

from downtown Riverside to

Mecca in the Coachella Valley

to Temecula — providing basic

health care and chronic disease

treatment. “[Our clients] may

be U.S. citizens or they may be

undocumented; our care is given

for free to people who don’t have

access to health care in any other

capacity,” she explains.

gh


’89 K.T. Leung was elected to serve as secretary/treasurer in November 2012 for the California Board of Accountancy. He currently serves as principal of the Leung Accountancy Corp. He previously served as manager of several investment groups, as principal of Leung and Wong Accountancy Group, and Leung and Associates. He also serves on the boards of various philanthropic and business organizations.

90s’90 Renato Izquieta received the 2012 Humanitarian of the Year Award for his contributions to the Homeless Outreach Court Program at the Orange County Superior Court. A longtime UC Irvine Extension instructor, Renato was recognized for his dedication to expanding the program, which now serves more than 1,300 people (up from 322 in the past two years). Every Wednesday, he assists the homeless and veterans with direct representation in the areas of family law, Supplemental Social Security income, public benefits, landlord/tenant, consumer, tax and other civil matters. At UC Irvine Extension, he teaches civil litigation, family law, torts and legal writing.

’92 Rigoberto González is an associate professor of English at Rutgers University - Newark. He is the author of 13 books of poetry and prose and is the editor of “Camino del Sol: Fifteen Years of Latina and Latino Writing.” He is the recipient of Guggenheim and NEA fellowships and a grant from the New York Foundation for the Arts, and winner of the American Book Award, The Poetry Center Book Award, and The Shelley Memorial Award of The Poetry Society of America. He is

contributing editor for Poets & Writers Magazine and a member of the executive board of the National Book Critics Circle.

’92 Francis B. Allen completed his doctorate in clinical psychology at Palo Alto University, Pacific Graduate School of Psychology, and is the director of the Transitional Program, a community mental health program, also based in Palo Alto.

’99 Nathan Gonzales (’06 Ph.D.) is the archivist and head of special collections at the A.K. Smiley Public Library and curator of the Lincoln Memorial Shrine in Redlands. Prior to this he served as associate archivist at Smiley Library. He is also involved in the community, serving as president of the Redlands Area Historical Society, the University of Redlands Town & Gown and the Redlands Association of Mid-Management Employees. He is the founding chairman of Redlands Modern, a committee of the Redlands Conservancy. He is also the liaison to the Redlands Historical Museum Association and is on the boards of the Rotary Club of Redlands, Kimberly-Shirk Association and the Zamorano Club of Los Angeles. Nathan has co-authored three books with former Smiley Library director Larry Burgess: “Images of America: Redlands” in 2004, “Redlands in Transition” in 2008 and “Faithfully and Liberally Sustained: Philanthropy in Redlands” in 2010. He also has written scholarly articles appearing in historical journals.

00s’03 Dominick Povero was hired by the Redlands Police Department in 2005 and has worked various assignments, including patrol, investigations and the Multiple

Are you celebrating a milestone event? Maybe you published your latest book, you got elected to office or you just turned 100. Tell us all about it, send a picture, and we’ll celebrate with you! Email us at [email protected] and we’ll include it in the next UCR Magazine.

Enforcement Team. In 2011, he was named the Footprinters Association Police Officer of the Year. This year, Dominick was promoted to corporal. … Carol (Preston) Nickoson recently married Mike Nickoson. She has worked as a campus fraternity/sorority adviser for eight years at Wittenberg University in Ohio. She is also an international volunteer for Gamma Phi Beta, serving as sorority director of Panhellenic Development, and serves as the editor for Connections, a quarterly fraternal leadership publication of the Association of Fraternal Leadership & Values.

’05 Sid Dixit recently began a new adventure at Nokia and welcomed a new baby boy.

10s’10 Jasmine Hester stars in a new Web series called “Redwood.” The six-episode series premiered on Jan. 15, and filming for season two is already under way. Jasmine co-produced this series with creator Alisha Peats. She has held roles in other shows, such as “Touye Pwen,” “I Didn’t Know I Was Pregnant,” “Ghostwriter” and “The List.” She has also appeared in music videos and a Kentucky Fried Chicken commercial.

’11 John Huerta has received the 2013 Levi L. Conant Prize from the American Mathematical Society (AMS) along with UCR Professor John Baez. They were awarded the prestigious prize for their article, “The Algebra of Grand Unified Theories,” which appeared in the Bulletin of the AMS in July 2010. He is currently a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for Mathematical Analysis, Geometry and Dynamical Systems at Instituto

Superior Tecnico in Libson, Portugal. … Serena Abeyta is in her second year at Southwestern Law School in Los Angeles. Serena ranks in the top 30 percent of her class, is a member of the Law Journal Honors Program and is the recipient of the Wildman Schumacher Scholarship. During her first semester, Serena earned the Witkin Award for receiving the highest grade in her Legal Analysis and Writing course. During her second semester, Serena placed as a quarterfinalist in the Intramural Trial Advocacy Competition. She works at the midsize firm Kimball, Tirey & St. John LLP in downtown Los Angeles. Serena was also recently engaged to be married.

’12 D. Xavier Medina Vidal is an assistant professor of political science at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. … Rey Martinez was commissioned to paint an Egyptian-themed mural for the College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences at UCR a few years ago. Recently, after graduating from UCR with a master’s in special education, his two loves of art and helping others with disabili-ties have come full circle: He will paint a mural for a school called Villa Esperanza, located in Pasadena, for children with autism. It is an interactive mural with a reusable surface, allowing students to write and paint their own dreams right into the mural.


W E R E M E M B E R

Faculty

John B. “Jack” Vickery Distinguished professor

emeritus, John B. “Jack” Vickery, 87, died on Feb. 7. Vickery was a passionate and effective advocate for the UCR Writing Program. Colleagues respected him for combining tough-mindedness with fairness and integrity. Students praised his lucidity, his savvy and his interesting lectures.

Vickery was born on Aug. 20, 1925, in Toronto, Canada. He received a master’s from Colgate University in New York and a Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He joined the UCR English department as an associate professor in 1966.

He was known for his work on myth and 20th century literature. His published work includes “Robert Graves and the White Goddess” (University of Nebraska Press, 1972); “The Literary Impact of The Golden Bough” (Princeton, 1973); “Myths and Texts: Strategies of Incorporation and Displacement” (Louisiana University Press, 1983), as well as more than 50 book chapters, journal articles and reviews.

In addition to being a faculty member of UCR’s English department, Vickery was associate executive vice chancellor from 1984 to 1988, and vice chancellor of faculty relations and academic support from 1988 until his retirement in 1993. After retiring from UCR, he maintained an office in the English department and was a regular visitor to campus.

His daughters, Anne E. Floto and Elaine C. Shankar, and a stepson, Daniel Carter, survive him.

Lowell S. JordanLowell S. Jordan, professor

emeritus of horticultural science and a plant physiologist in the Department of Botany and Plant Sciences, died on March 2. He was 82.

Jordan’s research interests were in the areas of herbicide efficacy, herbicide physiology and the mode of action of herbicides. Among his achievements was explaining the way herbicides work. It was once thought that herbicides killed weeds by inhibiting their photo-synthesis. Jordan showed that the chemicals impair the manufacture of proteins within plant cells.

Jordan was named a fellow of the Weed Science Society of America and of the Western Society of Weed Sciences, and in 1982 he received the Outstanding Teaching Award of the Weed Science Society of America. He was active in professional societies and on university committees.

Born on April 23, 1930, in Vale, Ore., Jordan received his B.S. in agriculture from Oregon State College (now University) in 1954 and his Ph.D. in agronomy and agricultural biology from the University of Minnesota in 1957. He joined the Department of Horticulture at UCR in 1959 as assistant plant physiologist. In 1967 he received professorial rank in addition to the Cooperative Extension title. He retired in 1993.

Jordan is survived by his wife, Catalina; daughters Diane Hankla of Santa Cruz and Sharon Luster of Riverside; sons Gary of Riverside and James of Murrieta; and stepdaughter Luralyn Montecillo-Cruz of North Carolina.

Victor ShapiroVictor Shapiro, professor

emeritus of mathematics, died on March 1.

An expert on trigonometric series and differential equations, Shapiro was internationally recognized for several solutions to specific problems in mathematics. One reviewer wrote that he was “this country’s leading authority on Multiple Trigonometric Series.” He was the author of more than 80 research articles, and continued to conduct research, write and teach after his retirement in 1994.

Shapiro was born on Oct. 16, 1924. He received a B.S. in 1947, an M.S. in 1949 and a Ph.D., all in mathematics, from the University of Chicago. Before joining UCR in 1964 as a full professor, Shapiro spent five years on the faculty at Rutgers, four years at the University of Oregon and three years at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. In 1978, he was selected by the Academic Senate to deliver the Faculty Research Lecture.

He is survived by his wife, Florence; two daughters; and two sons.

Robert H. McDonaldRobert Herwick McDonald died

from complications of old age in Berkeley on Jan. 16. He was 80.

Born in Philadelphia on Jan. 13, 1933, McDonald will be most remembered for his tenure as a museum professional. He worked at the Berkeley University Art Museum, the La Jolla Musem of Contemporary Art, the Art Museum of Santa Cruz County, the Laguna Art Museum and the de Saisset Museum at Santa Clara University.

A UC Berkeley graduate, McDonald taught European history and Western civilization at UCR and UC Berkeley before leaving academia to become gallery director at Daniel Weinberg Gallery from 1974 through 1976.

McDonald was passionate about contemporary art and championed the work of a number of West Coast artists in exhibition reviews. He authored numerous catalog essays, most notably for an exhibition he’d curated of Christo’s work at the La Jolla Musem and for a catalog of the Rene Di Rosa Art Collection. McDonald was also a proud advocate for gay rights.

Staff

Oscar ClarkeOscar Clarke, the first curator of

UCR’s Herbarium, died on March 2 of prostate and bladder cancer. He was 93.

“He was the expert on local flora,” said Andy Sanders, who took over from Clarke in 1979 as the second curator and knew him for 40 years. “He had a great breadth of natural history knowledge. Oscar put the Herbarium on the map as a public institution. He connected the place to the larger community.”

Clarke was born in Colton, Calif., in 1919, and was the tree climber for noted ornithologist Wilson Hanna as a youth. He attended San Bernardino Valley College and joined the Citrus Experiment Station in 1941. He was drafted into the Army soon thereafter and served until the end of World War II, when he returned to the Experiment Station. Once UCR was founded, Clarke worked for the Department of Nematology until 1966, when he was named curator of the recently established Herbarium. He retired in 1979, but continued to volunteer at the Herbarium until shortly before his death. Also during his retirement, Clarke researched and was the main author of “The Flora of the Santa Ana River and Environs” (2007).

Clarke is survived by his wife, Marsia; and children, Taffy, Ken and Diane.

CLA

SS

AC

TS


Don Carey (‘70) The Football Official

L I T T Y M A T H E W

There was a time when UCR had a football team, and National Football League (NFL) official Donald Matthew Carey was on it. “The coaches were Pete Katella and Gary Knecht, who, like all good coaches, were good teachers first,” says Carey. “I learned a lot about how the game is coached and played by observing them.”

Carey caught football fever as a child growing up in San Diego, Calif. He

remembers watching the 1958 NFL championship game between the Baltimore Colts and the New York Giants on TV. It was the first playoff game that went into sudden death during overtime — and Carey still refers to it as “the greatest game ever.”

The love for the game led Carey into officiating. Encouraged by his brother, Michael, an NFL referee, Carey started in his hometown by joining the San Diego County Football Officials Association in the mid ‘70s and worked his way up to the Pacific Coast Athletic Association Big West Conference. In 1995, Carey officiated his

first regular season NFL game between the San Diego Chargers and the Oakland Raiders. It was a coincidence that his first assignment was officiating his hometown team.

“When I started, my dream was to be a high school varsity referee,” says Carey. Today, he has completed 18 NFL seasons and has officiated 12 games. Seventeen seasons were spent as a back judge, where he was responsible for calls 20 yards into the defensive backfield on the wide receiver’s side. In the 2009 season, he worked as a head referee, supervising the six other officials on the field with the final authority on all rulings.

Being an NFL official is a part-time job, but it requires a constant, high level of focus and a depth of knowledge that only comes with time on the field. While the basic NFL requirement is 10 years of experience at the major college level, working in front of at least 50,000

spectators, it requires 15 to 20 years to achieve the proper experience. This was

the challenge that replacement officials faced during the 2012 referee strike while NFL

C

SC

AP

E

officials negotiated pension and retirement benefits. “When referees reach the NFL, they’re faced with a new and complicated rule book and officiating philosophy,” says Carey.

And like everyone, Carey has made mistakes. “On most occasions, I learn more from examining the causes of an incorrect call,” he says. “There’s a tendency in all walks of life to take success and accuracy

for granted. This is not the path to improved performance.”

Carey, who graduated from UCR with a degree in history, just retired from the United States Department of Defense after a 30-year career as a contracting officer and program integrator for advanced cruise missiles. He’s found an uncanny parallel between his two careers: “In my business career, I learned the value of unbiased analysis, preparation and execution. Those lessons have influenced my NFL career and the rest of my life,” says Carey.

Illustration by Mike Tofanelli

“THERE’S A TENDENCY IN ALL WALKS OF LIFE TO TAKE SUCCESS AND ACCURACY FOR GRANTED. THIS IS NOT THE PATH TO IMPROVED PERFORMANCE.”


Sustainable AgricultureInvasive SpeciesGreen EnergyPreserving Ecosystems

Explore more sustainability impactspromise.ucr.edu

LIVING THE PROMISE

Real World Solutions

Health Sustainability Policy Technology

Clearing the air: Using the world’s largest indoor atmospheric research

chamber, UCR engineer Akua Asa-Awuku studies air-polluting black carbon

particles and the role they play in cloud formation and global warming.

Come home to your alma mater and enjoy a day of great food, good friends, fond memories and a chance to cheer on your Highlander Men’s Basketball Team as they kick off the 2013-14 season.

Watch for more details at www.alumni.ucr.edu/homecoming

Calling theU C R TARTAN ARMY!

is moving to the fall, so save the dateUCR Homecoming

November 16, 2013UCR vs. Montana State

Documents

UCR Magazine Spring 2013