Archive: Colleges

Entries in this category going back awhile
 

'In on merit' at USC

usc-on-merit.jpg The trolling hits of the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books at USC this weekend were three guys in Trojan colors selling t-shirts mocking the admissions cheating scandal rocking the school.

USC sells Coliseum name to United Airlines

coliseum-1932oly-lapl.jpg Gag on this, Angelenos: United Airlines Memorial Coliseum.

LA Times' USC story is a real talker

lat-usc-inves-grab.jpg Investigation into the secret drug life of the dean of the Keck School of Medicine proves a bevy of stunning revelations. Kudos roll in.

Willow Bay named dean of USC Annenberg School

Willow_Bay_usc.jpg Bay has been director of the journalism school at USC. Also: Notes on James Rainey, Tronc and more.

Josh Kun, 4 other Angelenos win MacArthur grants

josh-kun-macarthur.jpg This year's local genius grant winners have ties to USC, Caltech and CalArts.
ernest-wilson-2013-usc.jpg Ernest Wilson will return to the faculty at USC Annenberg. Martin Smith leaving Orange Coast. Donna Wares leaving the Register. And more.

Lucy Jones is retiring from USGS and quakes

lucy-jones-bridge.jpg She remains at Caltech and will work more on the effects of climate change and global warming.

Einstein's gravitational waves heard for the first time

grav-waves-grafic-caltech.jpg Big science news today from Caltech and other institutions: Ripples in the fabric of spacetime directly observed.

Computer science now the top major for women at Stanford

stanford-students-file.jpg In the heart of Silicon Valley, a milestone has been reached. Plus more progress at Harvey Mudd.

USC to let Fox Sports sell naming rights to LA Coliseum

coliseum-early-lapl.jpg Fox Sports has been tapped to sell naming rights, for the first time, to Los Angeles' most historic sports venue, according to a report.

Michael Connelly visits the LA crime lab

connellyheader-csula.jpg In a piece for the Cal State LA campus magazine, Connelly goes to the lab that provides many scenes for his books and Amazon original series, "Bosch."

New policy magazine from Jim Newton and UCLA

blueprint1-cover.jpg Mayor Garcetti helps UCLA launch a new journal edited by former LA Times reporter and editor Jim Newton, with help from some former LAT colleagues. The first topic: policing and the science of safety.
nyt-screen-grab-gay-study.jpg Columbia co-author questions data provided in last year's news-making study by a UCLA co-author.

Secrets of the LA mountain lions

p-32-as-kitten.jpg How long P-22 was under the house in Los Feliz, the lion cubs who crossed the 101 freeway and how many pets have been found at lion kills in the Santa Monica Mountains.

Pulitzer winner Rob Kuznia explains his move to USC

breeze-winners.jpg "Print journalism, especially at the local level, is a scary place to be right now."

When Martin Luther King spoke in Los Angeles

MLK-ucla-janss-steps.jpg Three more of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s speeches in the Los Angeles area are in the news this MLK Day.

Jim Newton signs off with some suggestions for Los Angeles

jim-newton-lat.jpg The LA Times veteran devotes his final column to a menu of proposed fixes, such as expanding the City Council, abolishing the school board and doing away with term limits.

Cal State LA hires another ex-LA Timesman

peter-hong-release.jpg The Eastside campus has been hiring to raise its public affairs profile under a new president. Peter Hong is senior deputy for Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas.

A.J. Langguth, author and USC journalism professor was 81

ajlangguth-usc.jpg The emeritus professor at Annenberg was a prolific author and had been a correspondent for the New York Times and Look, and a writer for the late Valley Times newspaper.

LAT's Robert J. Lopez leaves for communications job at Cal State LA

robertjlopez-fb.jpg Robert J. Lopez has been an investigative reporter and on the cops and street action beat for the Los Angeles Times for 22 years. An early convert to digital journalism, he's also a prolific tweeter of breaking news @LAJourno.

USC player Josh Shaw admits he made up hero story

josh-shaw-usc.jpg The Trojans cornerback has been suspended from the football team and he has retained a lawyer. Shaw says he was injured in an unspecified fall and lied about it.

Another angry American loner with guns

ucsb-iv-shootings-vigil-may-24.jpg UC Santa Barbara has cancelled Tuesday classes for a “Day of Mourning and Reflection," and will hold a memorial service on campus at 4 p.m. All six of the victims of Elliot Rodger who died were students.

Angela Davis makes a return to UCLA

Angela+Davis-ucla.jpg She was a member of the Communist Party, a participant in the militant Black Panthers, and was prosecuted (and acquitted) for murder and conspiracy for a courthouse shootout. At 70, Davis is back as a regent's lecturer after a long career at UC Santa Cruz.

LA Weekly adds new details on Oxy-Felch story

The LA Times maintains its silence despite fair questions about what else Jason Felch was reporting on and whether the editors and lawyers botched handling of Occidental College stories.
oxy-quad.jpg Woman identified only as "a faculty member critical of Occidental’s administration" alleges a messed-up situation at the college. Oxy disagrees. Plus more details.

Willow Bay named director of USC journalism school

willow-bay-twitter.jpg For several years Bay has been senior editor of the Huffington Post Los Angeles operation, but her roots are in television news. She takes over in July. Took a long time to fill this one.

Jason Felch statement, and a clarification on Occidental College

jason-felch-book-site.jpg Felch disputes a lot of what Occidental says about him. The college makes a point with me. And this whole story is starting to be a perfect storm of interlocking acquaintances.

Occidental College adds its own take on the Jason Felch incident

oxy-quad.jpg Oxy statement disputes claims made by fired LAT reporter. Plus: A Washington Post blogger weighs in.
jason-felch-book-site.jpg Jason Felch was dismissed for what the editor of the Times calls "an inappropriate relationship" with a source on the Oxy stories. We'll note, because the editor didn't, that Oxy retains Felch's former investigative reporting partner at the Times.

Volokh Conspiracy bloggers sign up with the Washington Post

eugene-volokh-ucla-mag.jpg UCLA Law professor Eugene Volokh — he graduated from college at age 15 — takes his popular center-right law, culture and politics blog to the Post, which loses Ezra Klein.

Susan Rasky, journalist and mentor at Berkeley was 61 *

susan-rasky-grab.jpg The lecturer in the Graduate School of Journalism at UC Berkeley covered Congress for the New York Times and helped train a generation of government reporters. She died on Dec. 29 after a long illness.

UCLA women win national championship in soccer

ucla-soccer-women-win.jpg It's the first time the Bruins have a won a national title in women's soccer, despite regularly placing women on Olympic teams. It's the 110th national athletic title overall for UCLA, an NCAA record.

Some USC students wish they were invited to Bush speech

george-laura-bush-usc.jpg There is some unhappiness on campus that more students weren't invited to Tuesday's appearance by the ex-president and Laura Bush. But not a lot of unhappiness.

Villaraigosa chooses USC: to be professor in Price School

villaraigosa-usc.jpg One of Villaraigosa’s first projects will be to lead the newly-formed USC Villaraigosa Initiative for Restoring the California Dream.

Art Center receives its largest gift ever

art-center-sign.jpg Philanthropists and classic car enthusiasts Peter and Merle Mullin have donated $15 million to the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena.

Author Gina Nahai sues USC alleging job discrimination

gina-nahai-jj.jpg Nahai alleges that USC and the head of the Master of Professional Writing program have “derailed [her] career, livelihood, and spirit” and that she has been “systematically discriminated against because she is an Iranian Jew.” USC says the case is "wholly without merit."

Caltech ranked top university in the world

caltech-fountain.jpg Britain's Times Higher Education magazine has put Caltech in Pasadena at the very top of its list of the best universities in the world for the third year in a row.

Photo: Venice Beach [not] in 1947 *

venice-beach-1947-mb.jpg Historian Michael Beschloss posted this image to Twitter and said it was Venice in 1947. It looks to actually be in Santa Monica. Inside: UCLA under construction around 1928.

Five Californians are new MacArthur Foundation fellows

baran_2013.jpg This year's 24 MacArthur Fellows receive $625,000 strings-free over five years. That's more than in the past.

Erin Aubry Kaplan on USC's place in South LA

Thumbnail image for usc-sign-600.jpg When she was growing up in South Central, no one she knew attended or worked at USC. That has changed, but the students still don't know the South Central she does.

Press release o' the day: suggestive enough for Huffington Post

arrangement-finders-board.jpg The release flacking a raunchy billboard for a sexual service says the sign is near UCLA and targets students — but it's three miles away and never mentions students. Works for HuffPo.

Sandra Tsing Loh takes her science gig to UC Irvine *

stloh-uci.jpg UC Irvine has announced that Sandra Tsing Loh will now produce "The Loh Down on Science" with the Orange County campus, as well as KPCC. She will also do some teaching.

Student paper dispute, round 3: Taranto disputes the facts

csun-matador.jpg James Taranto, the editor of OpinionJournal, does not agree with the version of his suspension from the Daily Sundial 20+ years ago offered by the former publisher.
cynthia-rawitch-sundial.jpg Back in the 1980s, James Taranto — today the editor of OpinionJournal.com at the Wall Street Journal — was a news editor at the Daily Sundial, the student newspaper at Cal State University Northridge. He was a conservative even then and published a cartoon about affirmative action that led to his suspension. Two decades and 7,300 words later, the two sides still disagree.

Jimmy Iovine, Dr. Dre fund new music academy at USC

dre-and-jimmy-iovine.jpg They are donating $70 million for USC to create a new academy for students "who challenge conventional views of art and industry." The unveiling will officially be tomorrow at Interscope Geffen A&M Records in Santa Monica, but USC put out the release tonight.

She rides 22 miles to work at UCLA (video)

rugg-map-ucla.jpg UCLA staffer Annelie Rugg bicycles to her job from West Hills, over the Santa Monica Mountains via Sepulveda Pass. Her route takes her two and a half hours -- or three minutes on video. Check it out.

Gen. David Petraeus joins faculty at USC

petraeus-usc.jpg USC announced tonight that Gen. David Petraeus will be a Judge Widney Professor, "a title reserved for eminent individuals from the arts, sciences, professions, business and community and national leadership." In March Petraeus picked a USC event as the venue for his speech apologizing for the affair that cost him the top job at CIA.

New director at USC Annenberg changes his mind *

fosterDouglas.jpg Last Friday, Northwestern University journalism professor Douglas Foster accepted USC's offer to head up the journalism program here. On Sunday, he withdrew. Foster so far has had no public comment on the change of heart, or whatever it was.

Let's take a trip down Wilshire Boulevard

BW-lao-daylight.jpg LA Times architecture Christopher Hawthorne continues his survey of changing Los Angeles area boulevards with Wilshire — a street that he writes "has always stood apart from the city it slices through." Let's see what he says.

Online Journalism Review relaunched by USC Annenberg

ojr-newhome-screenshot.jpg The Online Journalism Review fell off my radar, and I suspect that of other news types, a few years ago. Now USC Annenberg has given it a new look and a new view of its role.

USC professor on being both successful and schizophrenic

elyn-saks-usc.jpg USC law professor Elyn R. Saks, author of the memoir, “The Center Cannot Hold: My Journey Through Madness,” writes in Sunday's New York Times from her perspective that "the seeds of creative thinking may sometimes be found in mental illness." Her experience as a sufferer of schizophrenia is that while she needs medication and professional care, she also needs to work. "My mind, I have come to say, is both my worst enemy and my best friend."

USC adds security gates, ID checks to enter at night

usc-sign-600.jpg The fallout continues from the Halloween night shooting of four visitors at a party on the South LA campus of the University of Southern California. New rules take effect Jan. 14.

From Ravi Shankar's living room to Occidental College

ravi-shankar-music-circle.jpg Oxy posts a little remembrance today that connects the small size of Shankar's living room in Beverly Hills in the 1970s with a 40-year tradition of live Indian classical music at the Eagle Rock campus.
Three federal grand jury indictments led to the arrest of 18 members of the Harpys, which claim territory just north of USC and are "one of more than a dozen Latino gangs across a wide swath of South Los Angeles allegedly controlled by Mexican Mafia member Danny Roman."

Exit-polling the mayor's race tells us not much *

lmu-poll-cover.jpg When the Center for the Study of Los Angeles sent out undergrads to conduct exit polling of voters on Nov. 6, the center had them tack on questions about next year's mayor's race. Meanwhile: Garcetti wins the endorsement of Valley Democrats.

Birther case against Oxy laughed out of court

obamaoxy.jpg A lawsuit against Occidental College and President Barack Obama by Obama conspiracy-theorist Orly Taitz provided some eye-rolling amusement in the courtroom before it was tossed out by the judge.

UCLA 38, USC 28

ucla-beats-usc-2012-espn.jpg Another year of the cross-city football rivalry is in the books. Yes, that's right: UCLA won.

Overholser to leave USC-Annenberg next year

overholser.jpg The Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism at USC announced this morning that Geneva Overholser, director of the School of Journalism since 2008, will step down in June. She said she will return to New York with her husband, Annenberg faculty member David Westphal. USC's release says it will launch a recruitment campaign for a successor to Overholser.

USC library repurposes card catalog drawers

doheny-card-catalog-drawers.jpg The unused drawers in Doheny Library now have locks on them and can be used by university donors to leave gifts for their families — just the right shape for wine bottles, apparently.

Photos: New Pauley Pavilion

pauley-pavilion-front-sign.jpg If you remember Pauley Pavilion as dark and dated, look again. UCLA's renovated arena reopens in November, newly encased in glass and bathed in light. LA Observed photos.
guardian-grab-latinovote.jpg The Guardian in the UK today published the first in a 7-part series on the Latino vote produced by USC Annenberg grad students over the summer as part of the News21 fellowship. "Across America an electoral giant is stirring."

Writer calls BS on the right's Obama mythology

young-obama.jpg Peter Hong, the former Los Angeles Times reporter who now works as a deputy to county Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas, grew up by coincidence on the Barack Obama path. He too was born and raised in Honolulu — has the same style of birth certiifcate — and also went to Occidental College. He observes in a piece for Zocalo that it gives him a certain perspective on the more hysterical claims being fed to conservatives about the president's past.

Curiosity lands on Mars to cheers and tears *

Confirmation of the craft's complex soft landing on the surface of Mars came in to Pasadena at 10:31 p.m. PDT, about 14 minutes after it happened. (It takes that long for the communications data to burst across space.) The first thumbnail photos flowed a couple of minutes later, including scenes of the Mars horizon and a picture of a shadow cast on the surface by Curiosity.

Schwarzenegger, USC form policy think tank

nikias-arnold-usc.jpg The new USC Schwarzenegger Institute for State and Global Policy will be housed in the Price School of Public Policy. Initial members of the board of advisors include Henry Cisneros, Vicente Fox and George Shultz.

Caltech professor gets $3 million phone call

kitaev-caltech.jpg Alexei Kitaev is among the first winners of the new Fundamental Physics Prize, funded by a Russian millionaire. It's worth three million bucks, but first you have to give your bank info to a guy on the phone with a Russian accent.

Freeway signs for colleges: out of control

loyola-fwy-sign.jpg Good Bob Pool story in the Times: the busiest stretch of freeway for signs that, in theory, help drivers find their way to a nearby college is now the 101 in the west Valley. The latest institution to get a sign is Tarzana's Hypnosis Motivation Institute, "which has classrooms on the third floor of a Ventura Boulevard office building."

Elinor Ostrom, LA woman who won Nobel in economics was 78

elinor-ostrom-ucla.jpg Elinor Ostrom, the first woman to win a Nobel Prize in economics, has an interesting personal story in addition to being highly accomplished in her field. She came to economics later in life, after putting her first husband through law school and working in the HR department at UCLA.

Two arrested in killing of USC students from China *

The LAPD says robbery was the motive for the April 11 killings of Ming Qu and Ying Wu as they sat in a car about a mile from the USC campus. Two men were arrested Friday, possibly based on cellphone signals and forensic evidence tying the gun to other recent crimes.

USC control of the Coliseum approved

The Coliseum Commission voted 8-1 Monday to give up day-to-day control of the historic facility to neighboring USC. Commissioner Bernard Parks, the City Council member who has been skirmishing with the commission for years, voted no.

Riding the Expo Line to USC 'just magical'

USC professor of physics and astronomy Clifford Johnson has been waiting for a train line to campus. He's been known to pedal his bike to USC and to ride transit all over Los Angeles. On Saturday he finally rode the Expo Line and shot a video.
lmu-bluff-sign.jpg Since 2000, drivers to Loyola Marymount University have parked for free. That's about to change, but not without controversy.

LAPD, Trutanich add more muscle around USC

usc-students-killed-nt.jpg Think this is serious? Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, LAPD Chief Charlie Beck and the president of USC, C.L. Max Nikias, all threw a press conference this morning to try to assure parents, students and potential students — here and abroad — that the neighborhood around the campus is safe. More cops and prosecutors are among the steps.

Chinese students murdered near USC 'were nearly inseparable'

ying-wu-ming-qu.jpg Ying Wu and Ming Qu are profiled at USC's Neon Tommy by a Chinese journalism student who was able to gather information in Mandarin from social media. Corrina Shuang Liu writes that the pair came from humble backgrounds, unlike the image some believe that they were spoiled rich kids.

Two students from China, 23, shot and killed near USC *

usc-students-killed-nt.jpg The graduate students in electrical engineering were in a BMW about a mile from campus when both were shot early this morning, possibly in a robbery or carjacking attempt.
Republican candidate Rick Santorum claimed he read somewhere that 7 or 8 UC and CSU campuses don't even offer U.S. history — and isn't that outrageous, angry real Americans?

Harvey Mudd turns around ebb in female computer scientists

maria+klawe+skateboard.jpg The president of the college gets credit for drawing more women into computer science, the main STEM field where they were most obviously lagging.

Prepare to hear a lot about Woody Guthrie

woody+guthrie+la+graphic.jpg Next month there will be a major conference at USC and a star-studded concert at L.A. Live of Guthrie's music, all for the centennial of his birth.

Sports Illustrated lands big story on UCLA basketball

George Dohrmann, the Pulitzer-winning senior writer for Sports Illustrated, has a story in the March 5 issue detailing alleged recreational drug use and other disciplinary problems he says were allowed to fester in recent years in the UCLA men's basketball program.

City librarian bails for USC

Martin Gomez, the head librarian for Los Angeles since 2009, will become vice dean in the USC Libraries on April 2.

Pomona College 'deep into consuming debate' over immigration

bridges-pomona-college.jpg Since 17 immigrant workers lost their jobs because they could not prove they were in the U.S. legally, Pomona College has been rocked by introspection on "what it means to...

Mark Gold leaves Heal the Bay for UCLA

mark-gold-blog.jpg The 23-year veteran of Heal the Bay and the group's president for many years is stepping down to become associate director of UCLA's Institute of the Environment and Sustainability. He will stay on the group's board.

UCLA in the 1940s — in color

royce+hall+construction.jpg
royce-quad-1940s-lrg.jpg
A new history book, UCLA: The First Century, has hundreds of photographs of the campus through the years, but this might be my favorite.

Robert O'Rourke, Caltech spokesman was 72

robert-orourke-caltech.jpg Rourke, familiar to many journalists as the head of Caltech's communications office from 1986 to 2009, died at home in Pasadena after battling pulmonary fibrosis.

Volleyball women win UCLA's 108th national title

ucla-wvb-fingers.jpg Tonight at the Alamodome in San Antonio, UCLA's women's volleyball team beat Illinois to win the NCAA national championship.

ESPN Films does Todd Marinovich story

The producers of the documentary on the troubled life of USC football phenom Todd Marinovich premiering tonight on ESPN write that "for six months we tried to track him down and were greeted with radio silence."

Sonenshein named to head Pat Brown Institute

Raphael J. Sonenshein, the Cal State Fullerton professor, author and analyst of Los Angeles politics, has been named executive director of the Edmund G. “Pat” Brown Institute of Public Affairs.

Expo Line turned over to MTA

jeans-shack.jpg The Expo Line has taken its next big step on the path from construction project to actual light-rail transit line.

Davis photog on how she got the pepper spray picture

pepper-spray-davis-hodzic.jpg Jim Romenesko contacted Jasna Hodzic after her photo of campus police Lt. John Pike using pepper spray on passive students hit the web.

Neuheisel out at UCLA

UCLA athletic director Dan Guerrero relieved football coach Rick Neuheisel of his duties this morning.

USC 50, UCLA zippo

neuheisel-lao-file.jpg The Los Angeles Newspaper Group papers are reporting, based on "multiple sources close to the program," that UCLA coach Rick Neuheisel will be let go after the Pac-12 Conference championship game on Friday.

Choice of Bratton not popular with UC faculty

Why bring in a cop, and pay his consultants' fee, when there's a whole university worth of independent scholars who could recommend how to revisit the use of pepper spray against UC Davis students.

Bratton called into UC Davis situation

pepper-spray-cave.jpg Former LAPD chief William Bratton has been tapped by the University of California to lead the official examination of the UC Davis pepper spraying of passive student protesters.

Videos of the events at UC Davis

The national focus of the Occupy activities has suddenly become the University of California at Davis, showing the massive power (once again) of YouTube to capture relatively unfiltered events and disseminate them widely to great effect.

Occupy East L.A. College into third week

occupy-elac-lu.jpg A small but determined group of students has been occupying tents outside the East Los Angeles College administration building.

Arrests at CSU offices in Long Beach

csu-protest-49er.jpg The Daily 49er at Cal State Long Beach covered the arrests Wednesday of protesters at the Cal State trustees' meeting.

Student gunman shot at UC Berkeley dies

A 32-year-old student shot Tuesday by UC Berkeley police after he brandished a handgun in a computer lab has died at a hospital.

Harry Pachon, educator and Latino advocate

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa today announced the death of USC professor of public policy Harry Pachon, founding board member and past executive director of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials Educational Fund.

Quite a tumultuous UCLA game in Arizona

First a fake referee stops play and takes off his clothes, then UCLA and Arizona players brawl on the field.

LA Observed on KCRW: Nerds and surfers in the blue sky metropolis

The line of California nerd-dom remains unbroken from Howard Hughes and hotrodders to Steve Jobs and the aerospace engineers who made surfing culture possible.

Time to break up Caltech

caltech-water-polo.jpg This time the water polo team has broken a nine-year winless streak.

Villaraigosa applauds passage of California Dream Act

av-swork.jpg Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa issued a statement praising Gov. Brown for signing the law that lets California high school grads who are undocumented apply for college financial aid.

Brown signs Dream Act, bans shark fins

Gov. Jerrry Brown has been busy disposing of the bills sent to his desk by the Legislature.

UCLA kid back from Libya, has home movies

Chris Jeon shows video he shot with the Libya rebels and reveals them to be fans of Justin Bieber.

'The Shame of College Sports'

Cover story in The Atlantic by Taylor Branch is the longest piece the magazine has run in four years.

Afternoon news notes

chria-jeon-libya-national.jpg UCLA student in Libya, a light quake, a professor selling meth, big waves and more.

Lost creeks of Westwood

ucla-bridge.jpg Blogger Militant Angeleno explores the four arroyos that used to direct runoff from the Santa Monica Mountains across UCLA and on toward Ballona Creek.

Artest, other NBA players in pickup games at UCLA

The Lakers' Ron Artest and former Clippers star Elton Brand are among the NBA players taking part in informal workouts this summer.

Lonnie White: I took cash while playing at USC

lonnie-white-wearesc.jpg Former L.A. Times sportswriter Lonnie White has posted a remarkable first-person story for Fox Sports disclosing for the first time how he accepted a brown bag with $5,000 cash — and took a total of $14,000 — while he was a star wide receiver and kick returner for the Trojans in the 1980s.

LAT creates new beat: local research and intellectual trends

Metro reporter Scott Gold will focus on stories about "the scientific and technological breakthroughs of the modern era" — and also earthquakes. The challenge of the beat will be to...

Video: Meet UCLA Live's new director

Kristy Edmunds, who comes to UCLA from Australia, talks about programming the performing arts and how she intends to get to know what Los Angeles audiences want.

Here's what goes when a college library cuts 30,000 books

Ronald Macaulay, an emeritus professor of linguistics at Pitzer College, is the author of last year's "Seven Ways of Looking at Language." When he heard that the Claremont Colleges Library...

Stieg Larsson and Scandinavian crime fiction at UCLA

lisbeth-salander.jpg Lisbeth Salander is all over the agenda for a two-day symposium in Royce Hall on the late Larsson's works and the larger genre.

Illness forces Dalai Lama to cancel UCLA appearances too

dalai-lama-tokyo.jpg The Dalai Lama had two sold-out appearances scheduled Monday in UCLA's Royce Hall.

Big week already for L.A. philanthropy

It's just coincidence I'm sure, but the same week that Eli Broad is profiled for his philanthropy on "60 Minutes," three major local gifts have been announced.

Freedom of speech week on 'SoCal Connected'

'SoCal Connected' ties together two stories — on the animal rights activists who terrorize UCLA researchers and the clashes involving movie and TV characters who wait for tourists outside Hollywood and Highland — into an episode with a limits-of-free-speech theme.

Joel Wachs' legacy at UCLA

joelwachsphoto.jpg Turns out that former Los Angeles City Councilman Joel Wachs was instrumental in getting Ackerman Student Union built.

Why doesn't Hope Street go through?

normal-school.jpg One of the little quirks about Downtown L.A. is that a major north-south street, Hope Street, stops at the Central Library. Yet Hope Street predates the library.

They still dream of space flight out in the Mojave

Mojave_Launch_Lab3.jpg Nice feature in Smithsonian Air & Space on the private and amateur rocket teams figuring out space flight of the future way out in the Mojave Desert.

Jimmy Wong as Internet savior

jimmy-wong-grab.jpg Jimmy Wong is the 24-year-old Los Angeles performer whose amusing video answer to UCLA student Alexandra Wallace's anti-Asian rant set a high bar for video responses and helped defuse an...

From Bruin to CIA shooter

company-we-keep-cover.jpg Dayna Baer, one of the co-authors of "The Company We Keep: A Husband-and-Wife True-Life Spy Story," joined the CIA while a grad student at UCLA.

Report: UCLA student who made 'Asians' video won't return

Alexandra Wallace, the UCLA political science student whose video mocking Asian students and their families became a huge social media sensation, says in a letter to the Daily Bruin that...

Talk of the web: UCLA student's video slams Asians

Video goes viral and sparks angry comments, death threats, official denunciations and mocking remixes.

USC receives $200 million gift -- no limits

The gift of $200 million from David and Dana Dornsife is the largest ever to USC, surpassing the $175 million from George Lucas.

Caltech wins! No prank

caltech-celebration.jpg Caltech broke its 310-game losing streak with a one-point win tonight over rival Occidental in the final game of the season. It's the Beavers' first basketball win in the conference since, oh, 1985.

Center for Social Cohesion to open between L.A. and AZ

Zocalo Public Square is joining with Arizona State University and the New America Foundation to launch the non-partisan Center for Social Cohesion, "dedicated to studying the forces that shape our sense of social unity."

Professor removes camera his body rejected

camera-in-head-wsj.jpg The NYU arts professor who had a Los Angeles tattoo parlor embed a web camera in the back of his head has changed...focus...and is now wearing the camera around his neck.

Map of running tweets from Egypt: anger

hypercities-egypt-graphic.jpg UCLA's HyperCities Egypt project displays and archives tweets as they come in from Cairo and Alexandria.

Caltech's man in Egypt calls for Mubarak to step down

a_zewail_0206.jpg Ahmed Zewail, a Nobel prize winner in chemistry who is a professor at Caltech, returned to Egypt Sunday as a potential leader of his native country and called on Hosni Mubarak to give up power.

KNBC lottery winner funds USC journo scholarship

wells-cisneros.jpg Jacki Wells Cisneros and her husband have put $1 million into a scholarship fund at the USC Annenberg School of Communications and Journalism, her alma mater.

Denis Dutton, Arts & Letters Daily founder was 66

arts-letters-header.jpg Denis Dutton in 1998 created the well-read Arts & Letters Daily, which the New Yorker's Blake Eskin today calls "the first and foremost aggregator of well-written and well-argued book reviews, essays, and other articles in the realm of ideas. Denis was the intellectual’s Matt Drudge."

Exploring Elks Lodge #99, better known as the Park Plaza

Park-Plaza-117.jpg Journalism students at USC Annenberg have put together a website exploring the two blocks around MacArthur Park, with one focus on the Park Plaza hotel at Park View and 6th Street.

JPL flies by a comet, grabs a quick pic

jpl-comet-hartley.jpg Jet Propulsion Lab scientists and NASA's EPOXI mission captured this image of comet Hartley 2 in a fly-by today.

USC Annenberg announces new fellowship for journos

Applications are being accepted until Dec. 17 for the Knight Luce Fellowship for Reporting on Global Religion.

Two new MacArthur grants in the L.A. area

Installation artist Jorge Pardo, who is a graduate of Art Center, and Caltech biophysicist John Dabiri, who studies the theoretical engineering behind jellyfish propulsion, have been named 2010 MacArthur Foundation fellows.

Times moving Festival of Books to USC *

L.A. Times publisher Eddy Hartenstein and USC just jointly announced that next year's Festival of Books will be moving from UCLA, where it started and was held for 15 years.

Weekend obits: Keith Richman, Jon Douglas

In the San Fernando Valley secession election in 2002, state Assemblyman Keith Richman received the most votes and would have become the first mayor of the newly formed sixth-most populous U.S. city if voters had allowed the split.

USC names Pat Haden to be athletic director

The former Trojan and L.A. Rams quarterback takes over from Mike Garrett on Aug. 3, the same day that USC's new president takes office.

Gustavo Arellano's graduation speech at UCLA

The author and OC Weekly "Ask a Mexican!" columnist gave the keynote address at tonight's main UCLA commencement ceremony.

LAT source: USC gets bowl ban, loses 20 scholarships

The NCAA has given USC a two-year bowl ban and stripped more than 20 football scholarships after a four-year investigation into allegations involving Reggie Bush and O.J. Mayo, the L.A. Times' Gary Klein reports.

Impromptu Wooden shrine shows up at UCLA

wooden-memorial-bear.jpg Flowers and messages honoring John Wooden were piled up this morning at The Bruin sculpture on campus at UCLA.

John Delloro, labor leader, reportedly dies

I noticed quite an outpouring of grief and and surprise on Facebook from friends, labor activists and colleagues on today's death of John Delloro, reportedly of a heart attack.

USC names new president

It will be C. L. Max Nikias, currently executive vice president and provost at USC. He will succeed Steven Sample, who previously announced he would retire on Aug. 2.

Ken Starr leaves Pepperdine to run Baylor

Former U.S. Solicitor General Kenneth Starr is leaving as dean of Pepperdine University Law School to become president of Baylor University in Waco, Texas.

SoCal Connected & Annenberg to partner on web

Ten USC Annenberg graduate students who work on the Annenberg News21 team will produce Web-exclusive multimedia reports for the SoCal Connected website at KCET.

Phil Agre, missing ex-UCLA professor, found safe

phil-agre-ucpd.jpg The former UCLA assistant professor of information sciences and Internet culture figure was located by the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department on January 16 — but the news is only now getting out.

Sign of the (L.A.) Times

I have to wonder if the Times' near-total surrender of its award-winning tradition of covering a major local industry — cutting-edge science — helps explain why the New York Times beat the locals on the apparent suicide of a world-class Caltech scientist.

Another journalist jumps to UC Irvine law school

jonathon-glater.jpg Jonathan Glater, a legal affairs writer for the New York Times, has joined the UC Irvine School of Law as interim director of academic support. He's the fourth ex-journalist on staff.

Tritia Toyota writing books and grading papers

tritiatoyotabook.jpg Former KNBC anchor Tritia Toyota, an adjunct assistant professor of anthropology and Asian American studies at UCLA< has a new book on Chinese American political power in the San Gabriel Valley.

Grazergate and Andres Martinez make the j-ethics syllabus

L.A. Times editor-at-large Jim Newton is now teaching a course in journalism ethics at UCLA, part of his appointment as a senior fellow in the School of Public Affairs. In...

End of the Aerospace Century in SoCal

Earhart at Lockheed.jpg Northrop Grumman's decision to leave Los Angeles marks the end of an era, say scholars William Deverell, Daniel Lewis and Peter Westwick in a Visiting Bloggers post at LA Observed.

Who killed Manchester Square?

manchestersquareneontommy.jpg Neon Tommy checks in on the long-suffering effort to relocate residents of the LAX-adjacent neighborhood where you can stand at the corner of 99th and 99th.

USC basketball takes a tough hit

Phil Wallace got into the details of the Trojans' self-imposed sanctions at Native Intelligence, and also wonders whether it will be enough to keep the NCAA from coming down harder....

He invented the language in 'Avatar'

paulfrommerusc.jpg Paul Frommer, a professor of clinical management communication at the USC Marshall School of Business, got the gig to create about 1,000 words for the Na'vi, who inhabit the moon...

Mexico's biggest university now in L.A.

The National Autonomous University of Mexico, said to be the largest in the western hemisphere, has operated out of the Mexican consulate here for three years. But now UNAM has...

USC 28, UCLA 7

The Trojans dominated in a sloppy game by both sides, but what they'll be talking about for days (at least) is this: USC throwing a touchdown bomb one play after...

Spot.Us names editor for L.A.

Anh Do, a former columnist for the Orange County Register and vice president of Nguoi Viet Daily News (the largest Vietnamese-language newspaper in the U.S.), will be the managing editor...

60% don't want to vote again on marriage

The first L.A. Times/USC poll will run in Sunday's and Monday's papers and will cover a bunch of topics. Some of the findings the Times is teasing: 51% of Calfornia...

L.A. Times to do polls with USC

Six statewide polls will be conducted between now and the November 2010 election, to be called the University of Southern California College of Letters, Arts & Sciences/Los Angeles Times Poll....

Other weekend stuff

Clearing the decks for the new week: USC president Steven Sample announced that he would step down in August, after 19 years. Honors student Melody Ross, 16, was shot and...

USC hit-and-run victim's alcohol level

When USC freshman Adrianna Bachan was struck and killed by a hit-and-run driver at 3 a.m. last spring, the 18-year-old had a high level of alcohol in her system, according...

UC protests expected today

With fall quarter classes starting today, protests over budget cuts and employee furloughs are expected at many University of California campuses, including at UCLA. LAT...

Gratitude for saving Mt. Wilson

Firefighters from Tuolumne and Calaveras counties knew well the history and scientific treasure that was at stake when the Station Fire threatened the Mount Wilson Observatory. They made it their...

McOsker takes a gig*

Tim McOsker, who was the chief of staff for Mayor James Hahn, is taking a leave from the Los Angeles law office of Mayer Brown to become Senior Director for...

Rachlis to USC Annenberg center

rachlisthumbnail.jpg USC Annenberg plans to announce tomorrow that Kit Rachlis, the former editor of Los Angeles magazine, will be a Senior Fellow at the Center on Communication Leadership and Policy. As...

LA Sketchbook: Higher Ed

sgHigherEd.jpg Steve Greenberg picks up on the lost story of the California budget mess. The crunch and the political fallout of kids being kept out of college in California — and...

Best of LA, the blog

fromeditor_0809.jpg Los Angeles Magazine is out with its annual Best of LA issue, and #16 among its 101 favorite things is "Blog by an ex-LAT staffer." By that they mean Craig...

An African perspective on Michael Jackson

zeleza.jpg Paul Tiyambe Zeleza takes over August 1 as the dean of the Bellarmine College of Liberal Arts at Loyola Marymount University. He's also the editor of The Zeleza Post and...

JPL scientists win a round on privacy

A panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeal has sided with Jet Propulsion Lab scientists who are resisting a government requirement that they detail past and present financial...

New faculty hires at USC Annenberg

Both new assistant professors come billed as multi-media journalists. Seattle Times news producer Robert Hernandez and new media researcher and author Andrew Lih, whose new book is "The Wikipedia Revolution:...

An L.A. blog that aims high

SoCal Minds is a new blog that bills itself as presenting "Intriguing research, ideas, activity, people -- tracked from universities, cultural-intellectual institutions in Southern California." Recent posts have come out...

USC names its digital journalism trainees

Fifteen digital journalists from 10 states have been selected for the inaugural class of the Knight Digital Media Center’s News Entrepreneur Boot Camp. Local fellows are Julia Scott, who blogs...

USC hit-and-run suspect arrested

Josue Luna, husband of the woman charged in the hit and run death of USC student Adrianna Bachan, was arrested Friday afternoon while entering the U.S. from Mexico at the...

Zot! UC Irvine law school gets their attention

Irvine's new law school — the one that was, then wasn't, and now is run by Erwin Chemerinsky — got a huge number of applicants for its first class and...

Times' Pete King ankles newspapers

Peter H. King has been the Los Angeles Times city editor, California columnist, roving reporter and a writer of big stories over almost 30 years at the paper. He's jumping...

USC not under attack from airborne pathogen

That's the good news, of course. The bad news is that it even came up — blame "an ill conceived and unfortunate prank." From: Office of the Provost Subject: Pathogen...

Daily Bruin 'financial situation is grim'

Editors at UCLA's student paper "begrudgingly" ran a full-page ad for Haagen-Dazs wrapped around today's front page, and say in an editorial that it's a "regrettable but relatively unavoidable consequence...

Worst voter turnout: USC precinct

Essentially nobody voted anywhere in this week's special election to pick Mark Ridley-Thomas's successor in the 26th state Senate district. But in the precinct that covers the USC campus, the...

NPR West's chief lands at USC

Cinny Kennard, Managing Director/Managing Editor of National Public Radios West Coast production center in Culver City, found a good exit gig. She's going to USC Annenberg as senior fellow at...

Checking out USC's new news operation

NeonTommy.com at USC Annenberg is an "online digital news Web site created to fill a void in local and national news while providing news and commentary across multiple platformsaudio, video...

Students...in dresses...playing rugby

The Bruin Rangers, UCLA's official women's rugby club team, held their annual Prom Dress Rugby game on Thursday. "I got into rugby because I got tired of getting yellow cards...

Daily Bruin goes to China

Credit to the UCLA student newspaper, which sent a reporter and photographer to China for two weeks for a series of stories that began today on UCLA's presence there as...

Mt. Wilson telescope turns 100 years old

One of my favorite assignments ever while at the Daily News (pre-web so I can't link) was a profile of Robert Jastrow, the brilliant physicist who, in addition to helping...

UCLA astronomer gets the MacArthur call *

Andrea Ghez, the UCLA professor of astronomy and physics who showed that a monstrous black hole resides at the center of our Milky Way galaxy, was named a 2008 MacArthur...

Sarah Palin has science on her side

Here's the most interesting blog post I read all day. Political scientists at UCLA who asked students to rate the faces of hundreds of American candidates found that Alaska Gov....

Broads break ground at USC

At noon today Eli and Edythe Broad will break ground on another local institution with their names on it: the Eli and Edythe Broad California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM)...

USC actors busking in NYC

On an average day, USC theater students Peter Vack and Troian Bellisario bring in $100 performing lines from "Romeo and Juliet" on the New York City subway. "Several people thanked...

What killed the Online Journalism Review

When OJR suspended publication last month, the move ended a ten-year run in which the University of Southern California's Annenberg School of Communications was a high-profile player in the emerging...

USC shuts down Online Journalism Review

The Online Journalism Review had survived for ten years under the stewardship of USC's Annenberg School of Communications. No more. Editor Robert Niles posted today: I'm pleased to say that...

Nailed the landing...on Mars

They were pretty happy out at JPL today after scientists guided the Phoenix lander to a spot near the north pole of Mars, just one degree of tilt off perfect...

Vin Scully on John Wooden

At yesterday's unveiling of a plaque for UCLA legend John Wooden at the Coliseum, Vin Scully told a fun story about how Wooden was one of the first people he...

I can't imagine why they're mad

Officials at the California Science Center in Exposition Park are reportedly miffed about an email from a top doctor at the UCLA Medical School, putting down the museum's skills as...

Daily Bruin editors win $275,000

Anthony Pesce, next year's editor in chief of the student newspaper at UCLA, and photo editor/columnist Dharmishta Rood won a Knight News Challenge award to "create online publishing software geared...

Kareem's blog goes indie

For the past few months Kareem Abdul-Jabbar posted to a blog on LATimes.com. As of Monday, it has moved to Abdul-Jabbar's own website (with sound, so turn down your speakers.)...

Long Beach's Jew-fearing professor

Cal State Long Beach psychology professor Kevin MacDonald is a hero of the anti-Semitic crowd for writing that Jews have evolved as a tribal elite that conspires against the interests...

Connie Martinson donates archives

The host of the long-running "Connie Martinson Talks Books" gave nearly 3,000 tapes of her cable show to Claremont Graduate University. "It's a pretty extraordinary gift," said Rick Wartzman, director...

Overholser official

As reported Saturday, Geneva Overholser was just announced as the new journalism director at USC Annenberg....

New journalism director at USC

Geneva Overholser, former editor of the Des Moines Register, will be introduced Monday as the new director of the journalism school at the USC Annenberg School of Communication, according to...

Loyola Law gets new dean

Loyola Law School Dean David Burcham has been named provost at Loyola Marymount, a new position at the law school's parent institution. The new interim law dean is Victor Gold,...

USC's position on the Coliseum *

An open letter from Athletic Director Mike Garrett. Excerpt: It gives me no pleasure to write a letter of this kind, but there are issues facing our university that you...

Sure, USC wants to play in the Rose Bowl

USC alumni don't want to gather on campus Saturday mornings, touch the statue then get on a bus. They want to walk to the stadium. Skepticism abounds over the Times...

OC loves Chemerinsky

The newly reinstated dean-to-be of the future UC Irvine law school will be next year's commencement speaker at the rival Chapman University law school. The dean there, John Eastman, has...

Irvine to Erwin: Never mind

Liberal legal scholar and pundit Erwin Chemerinsky will become dean of the new UC Irvine law school after all. Chancellor Michael V. Drake spent the week in North Carolina —...

George Ramos gives up chair in SLO

Former L.A. Times reporter and editor George Ramos has stepped down as chairman of the Cal Poly San Luis Obispo journalism department. No explanation was given in the report in...

Steve Lopez as grad speaker

Video of the columnist addressing journalism graduates at today's USC Annenberg commencement, at LAist....

What professors get paid

Full professors at Harvard average $177,400 a year, those at Yale $157,600. Which full professors in California do you think make the most? Here's the top 10 from the newest...

Here's a story you don't see every day

From Roy Rivenburg in Sunday's LAT: When a vampire expert allegedly seduced a tipsy UC Irvine student four years ago, he inadvertently set off a chain of events that now...

Lunch at The Athenaeum

Jonah at la.foodblogging got invited to the private club on a corner of the Caltech campus in Pasadena. The first formal dinner at The Athenaeum, in February 1931, celebrated the...

800,000 UCLA files hacked

Records containing the names, Social Security numbers and birth dates of students, faculty, employees and some applicants since the early 1990s may have been accessed. The online intrusion went on...

Daily Trojan editor might try again

USC says that Zach Fox, already elected once as spring editor of the Daily Trojan but blocked by administrators, can run again. He tells Jacob Soboroff on video over at...

USC fails entomology

The Grill downstairs in USC's Commons was shut down by the county health department after an inspection turned up insects. After closure for 48 hours and fumigation, the dining area...

Daily Trojan editor resigns in spat

Zach Fox edits the USC student paper this semester and was reelected by the staff to do it again in the spring, but he quit last night after the university...

USC still #1 in something

For the fifth year in a row the University of Southern California has more international students than any school in the United States. The Open Doors report says the 6,881...

Bay Area invasion alert

This weekend — apparently for the first time ever — both L.A. pro football teams play in the Bay Area on the same day: USC at Stanford and UCLA at...

Chiding USC from within

Cory Doctorow of BoingBoing writes extensively on what he sees as the abuses of copyright and the law's dampening effect on free exchange of ideas and art. Just because he's...

Glendale College paper squelched

After El Vaquero reported accurately last month on two suicides by students in the nursing program, Glendale College president John Davitt complained that the story reflected poorly on the institution....

USC 'song boys' may be history

Boi from Troy is checking out a report that the male yell leaders won't be back on the sidelines at Trojans football games this fall. Known officially as yell leaders...

Mayor's remarks at UCLA

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's commencement speech Friday at UCLA praised his mother Natalia for supporting him and addressed the news that African American enrollment is down. "I worry for the future....

UC names an interim for Westwood *

Unable to conclude the search for a chancellor at UCLA, the University of California today said that professor emeritus of law Norman Abrams will become acting chancellor. Abrams has been...

Etude, blogger?

My favorite blog reading is not about politics or Los Angeles (or even ice hockey.) What I enjoy is eavesdropping on aficionados in some field I know nothing about. Hence...

USC dean headed east

Joseph Aoun, a linguist and dean of USC's College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, will be announced later this week as the new president of Northeastern University, the Boston Globe...
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Clinton fundraises in LA
kermit-la-brea-closer.jpg Jim Henson Studios on La Brea became a presidential campaign stop on Thursday.
Brown declares disaster area
porter-ranch-sign.jpgThe natural gas leak above Porter Ranch now qualifies for various government actions. Story
Wet coyote
wet-coyote-vdt.jpgSpotted between the storms at Here in Malibu.
Performing arts with cheer
guys-dolls-kevin-parry.jpgDonna Perlmutter closes out 2015 with productions downtown and on the Westside.
Junkyard down
upick-firetruck-560.jpgAfter 53 years, Sun Valley's Aadlen Brothers and U-Pick Parts cleans out. Photos