Summer '96 Newsletter
President's Message
- by Gail Anikouchine
Summertime has arrived! While school is out for the year, the Cal Alumni Club of Santa Barbara is definitely not taking a break. Some of the activities we have planned include the Annual Dinner in July, Wine Tasting in August while the grapes are still on the vine, and a trip to the Santa Barbara Museum of Art.
We also have a lot of ideas for the Autumn, and certainly want your input as to what to schedule. I look forward to seeing and meeting you at the next Events Planning Meeting and at the scheduled events.
Of all the club activities, the leadership scholarship interviews are by far the most rewarding. To listen to the dreams and hopes of our county's best youth is an incredible experience. The desire to give all of them financial assistance is quite overpowering. Currently, the Cal Alumni Association allocates scholarships to our Club based upon the number of applicants, but unfortunately, the quantity is never enough to give a scholarship to each leader we interview.
Each year the panel of interviewers looks forward to the day we can award an additional scholarship from our own endowment to one more person from Santa Barbara.
I want to thank all of you who have contributed $25, $50, $100 or more to our endowment fund. I hope all of you will be motivated to give this year as we strive to reach 60% of our goal by the end of December.
Chancellor Tien to retire by June 1997
In case you haven't heard, Chang-Lin Tien announced in early July, his desire to retire after seven years as head of the nation's top-ranked public University.
In his resignation letter, the Chancellor wrote "While the campus is at a high point in its history, we must ensure that the university has strong leadership to carry it into the the new millennium. The capital campaign and other initiates which we have begun will require another long-term commitment. It is time for me to pass the baton to a new generation of leaders. I have made no firm decisions about my future plans. For the moment, I expect to return to the research and teaching that I love and to spend more time with my family."
Born in Wuhan, China and raised in Shanghai and Taiwan, Tien came to the United States as a graduate student in 1956. Tien's entire professional career, with the exception of a two-year stint as executive vice chancellor at UC Irvine, has been spent at UC Berkeley. A professor of mechanical engineering at UC Berkeley for 37 years, he has maintained an active laboratory. He continues to publish in his field and do research — often late at night after completing his administrative duties.
He and his wife of 37 years, Di-Hwa, have three children, all graduates of UC Berkeley.
Tien has played a prominent role in building ties between the U.S. and Asia, particularly in helping to bridge the thorny gap between mainland China and Taiwan. In May, at the White House's request, he went to Taiwan as a member of the U.s. delegation to the Inauguration of newly elected president, Lee Teng-Hui.
Tantalizing Trivia & Tasty Tidbits
San Jose State takes over the Alumni Association?
In case you haven't heard, the President-Elect of the California Alumni Association is Irene Miura, chair of San Jose State's Academic Senate. She will take office in July '97.
Sports:
In its first year of existence as an NCAA varsity sport, the Cal women's water polo team almost pulled off the amazing feat of wining the national crown.
The Golden Bear fell to UCLA, 8-4, in the title match of the Collegiate Women's Water Polo National Championship May 12 in Davis. Cal finished the season 32-6 overall and served notice to the water polo community that the Bears wasted little time in establishing themselves as a national power.
Speaking of water polo, California freshman Brad Kittredge, former Santa Barbara High water polo standout played with his older brother Nick for the Golden Bears this year. Another Cal freshman, Lompoc's Brent Albright was all-Pac10 and tried out for the Olympic team.
For the first time in school history, Cal produced a pair of first round NFL draft choices with defensive end Regan Upshaw going to Tampa Bay as the No. 12 slot, and shortly thereafter, the Minnesota Vikings opted for end\linebacker Duane Clemons at No. 16.
People:
Former California Athletic Director and Olympian Dave Maggard was seen carrying in the Olympic flag during the Olympic's opening ceremonies on Friday July 19th along with former Cal Swimmer Mary T. Meagher.
English Professor Robert Hass was appointed the nation's next poet laureate by the U.S. Library of Congress. Hass is the first poet laureate from the western United States since the office was created in 1936. As poet laureate, Hass will spend much of the year at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., striving to bring attention to the many great works of American poets.
"Independence Day" has real life counterpart at Berkeley:
The fourth generation of a 20-year search for extraterrestrial life is getting under way this summer at the Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico. The SERENDIP project, which monitors radio waves from space, is directed by astronomer Stuart Bowyer of UC Berkeley. The new instruments can scan the sky 40 times more efficiently than previous equipment.
Online Corner
- by Mike Wondolowski
The number of new sources of information available on the World Wide Web continues to grow every single day! In fact, it is just a matter of days until the Cal Alumni Club of Santa Barbara (that's us) officially unveils its new Web site. The event will be the Club event planning meeting on Tuesday, August 6. There will be a tour of the Club's new Web site, as well as a tour of a few other locations on the Web.
Once we get our Web presence established, we need to know from you, our members, what information will be the most useful to you. On our Web site, we plan to have event information posted, an archive of past newsletters, links to important California Alumni Association and U.C. Berkeley Web sites, and much more. But this Web site is a service to you, and so we need your feedback!
Another recently unveiled Web site is the U.C. Berkeley Library's Web page. The U.C. Berkeley Library Web serves as the entry point to campus library information and resources as well as information resources around the world on the Internet. The library says that a guiding principle in creating this invaluable service was that the campus community should be able to go to one location to find information on all the campus libraries. The Web address is:
http://www.lib.berkeley.edu
And don't forget that California Alumni Association members have special library privileges — for detailed information, refer to the CAA's Web page at:
http://www.alumni.berkeley.edu
Now we have to remember that beyond providing access to information directly related to Cal, the Internet can be useful in a myriad of other ways (and I don't just mean for reading some of your favorite comics at:
http://www.unitedmedia.com/comics
or checking on the latest events at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History:
http://www.rain.org/~inverts).
One type of information resource becoming more and more available on the Web is governmental information. This can be of special interest to Cal Alumni who are concerned about how pending legislation (including budgets) may affect Cal and the University of California system.
You can keep up with the status of proposed legislation at the state or even federal levels. Or you can even contact your representatives to express your views on proposed legislation. All this is possible on the Internet.
Excellent gateways to the California state government are the California state senate and assembly Web pages. These pages provide access to the current status of bills, their history, and even the full text of the bill. The addresses are:
http://www.sen.ca.gov
http://www.assembly.ca.gov
Information on federal legislation (both House and Senate) can be found through the U.S. Congress Home page:
http://thomas.loc.gov
Then once you surf through this seemingly infinite amount of information, you can contact the players via email:
U.S. Federal Government:
President Bill Clinton: president@whitehouse.gov
U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein: senator@feinstein.senate.gov
U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer: senator@boxer.senate.gov
U.S. Rep. Andrea Seastrand: andrea22@hr.house.gov
California State Government:
State Sen. Jack O'Connell: senator.oconnell@sen.ca.gov
Assemblyman Brooks Firestone: firestba@assembly.ca.gov
And the Winners Are...
As usual, it was difficult selecting this year's freshman California Alumni Leadership Scholarship winners. The field of applicants was strong. Please give a hearty congratulations to these fine freshmen:
Chad Sorensen - Buellton
Ryan Clevenger - Lompoc
Kirsten Garey - Santa Barbara
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