UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, RIVERSIDE

News for Faculty and Staff of the University of California, Riverside

September 25, 2013

By Ross French

Alumnus Matthew Moser promises to get a UCR tattoo. Staff member Alex Cortez promises to run around the campus in a kilt. And Chancellor Kim A. Wilcox promises to host a pancake breakfast for students at the Highlander Union Building.

All to support accessible higher education at the University of California.

These promises, and dozens more like them from alumni, students, faculty, staff, fans and friends of the UC, will soon be appearing on a Facebook wall or Twitter feed near you as part of the new UC-sponsored crowd-funding campaign, Promise for Education.

The program, which is the UC system’s first foray into crowd-sourced fundraising, runs through Oct. 31. It encourages everyone connected to the UC to solicit support from their social networks and help raise scholar-ship funds for UC students from California who have demonstrated a financial need.

“We’ve established this program to ensure UC’s doors continue to remain open to the next generation’s leaders and to underscore the role we all play in helping young people achieve their aspirations and in advanc-ing California’s culture of innovation and civic engagement,” said Daniel M. Dooley, UC systemwide senior vice president for external relations, in a press release.

To participate, individuals select an amount that they are trying to raise, then share a promise of what they are willing to do in exchange for support from their friends, family and co-workers via their social media accounts. Anyone may make a promise or a pledge to support and participants can earmark their funds to a specific campus or to the general campaign fund.

Promise for Education already has garnered the participation of celebrities and notables such as Gov. Jerry Brown; actors Jamie Foxx, David Spade, Wilmer Valderrama, Gabrielle Union, and Sasha Alexander; film-maker Catherine Hardwicke; basketball player Matt Barnes; rapper and spoken word poet Watsky; Mike Love,

University of California Launches Crowdfunding Campaign‘Promise for Education’ is a six-week campaign that brings to-gether supporters to raise money for UC student scholarships

lead singer of the Beach Boys; and members of the UC Board of Regents. Public service announcements will highlight promises and encourage participation.

Lily Barger, associate director of the UCR Fund and the campus contact person for the Promise for Educa-tion program, has promised to give up caffeine for two months. She said that crowdfunding via social media will help the university reach out to some of its newest alumni.

“Although crowdfunding has been around for quite a while, it has been challenging for the university to develop a cohesive way to harness its power,” Barger said. “The development of the Promise platform allows us to leverage our constituents’ social media networks to reach a wider audience for the appeal, raising funds for scholarships, building awareness of the need for philanthropy within the UC system, and increasing the alumni participation rate.”

The promises run the gamut from silly to serious, whimsical to meaningful. For example, Robert Wolfer, president of the UCR Staff Assembly and director of Information Technology in the Graduate School of Educa-tion, has promised to wear a full suit of medieval armor to the Staff Assembly fall meeting. But while the pledge to wear the armor is strictly for fun, Wolfer is very serious about his personal goal of raising $5,000 for schol-arships.

“As a UCR student, I benefited from financial aid. This is my opportunity to give back to other UCR stu-dents that want to enhance their lives through education,” he said. “As a staff member with over 20 years of service, I am invested in the mission of this institution and have had the opportunity to meet many different students over the years who are working towards a better life. This cause is another way that I can support UCR students.”

Promise for Education was created in partnership with noise, a creative agency focused on engaging 18- to 34-year-olds. Numerous sponsors are supporting Promise for Education, including Facebook, Bank of Ameri-ca, Spotify and Muzik, the creators of the Smart HeadPhone.

Introducing UCR’s New FacultyI. College of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences

Marissa Brookes, assistant professor of political science

Brookes earned her Ph.D. in political science from Northwestern University in 2013. Her research investi-gates the relationship between labor and capital in the context of economic globalization, the impact of labor transnationalism on national industrial relations and labor market institutions, and the role of global produc-tion networks, national institutional frameworks, and social relations in shaping workers’ power. She teaches courses in international relations, comparative politics, and international political economy.

Cecilia Cheung, assistant professor of psychology

Cheung received her doctorate in psychology from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Her research focuses on children’s development across cultures, with a special emphasis on how the environment shapes children’s motivation and achievement in school. Her recent research examines how teachers’ relation-ships with children in the classroom may influence children’s achievement in 54 countries varying in national individualism.

Charmaine Craig, assistant professor of creative writing

Craig studied literature at Harvard University and received her M.F.A. in fiction from UC Irvine. Her first novel, “The Good Men,” published by Riverhead Books (Penguin), was a widely reviewed national bestseller and translated into six foreign languages. Craig is interested in the relationship between fiction, fact, and free-dom, and brings to the classroom secondary areas of expertise in historical fiction and narratology.

Ashon Crawley, assistant professor of ethnic studies

Crawley earned his doctoral degree from Duke University in the English department with a certificate in African and African-American studies. His research and teaching experiences are in the areas of black studies, performance theory and sound studies, philosophy and theology, black feminist and queer theories.

William Dunlop, assistant professor of psychology

Dunlop received his doctorate in developmental, personality, and social psychology from the University of British Columbia, in Vancouver, Canada. His research explores the ways in which people make sense of them-selves and the lives they lead. Dunlop is the recent award recipient of the Society for Research on Identity For-mation’s dissertation award, and his research has appeared in scholarly outlets including Health Psychology, the Journal of Personality, and the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

Laura Harris, assistant professor of media and cultural studies

Harris received her doctorate in social and cultural analysis from New York University. Her research areas are hemispheric American studies, African diaspora studies, gender and sexuality studies, and visual, perfor-mance and literary studies. She is completing a manuscript on the Trinidadian writer C. L. R. James and the Brazilian artist Hélio Oiticica and the experiments each participated in while living in the United States. She is also beginning a manuscript on the exploration of movement and tenuous forms of habitation in performance and film in postwar New York.

Dongwon Lee, acting assistant professor of economics

Lee did his graduate training at the University of Washington and will receive his Ph.D. in June 2014. His fields of research and teaching interests are international finance and macroeconomics. Lee’s research focuses on understanding the potential economic determinants that drive various exchange rate responses of major commodity exporters to fluctuations of global commodity prices.

David Lloyd, distinguished professor of English

Lloyd has worked primarily on Irish culture and on postcolonial and cultural theory. His most recent books in that field are “Irish Times: Temporalities of Modernity” (Field Day Books, 2008) and “Irish Culture and Colonial Modernity: The Transformation of Oral Space” (Cambridge University Press, 2011). He recently completed a book on Samuel Beckett and the visual arts. He is also a poet and playwright: his book “Arc & Sill: Poems 1979-2009” was published by Shearsman Books in the U.K. and New Writers’ Press, Dublin, 2012. His play, “The Press,” premiered at Liverpool Hope University in 2010.

Yunhee Min, assistant professor of art

Min received an M.A. in design studies from the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University. Her pri-mary practice is in painting and site installations. She is interested in painting as material practice (of studio) as well as in spatial experiences of architecture and built environments. She sees her work as experiments in abstraction, color, and gesture that generate new spatialities. In her installations, she explores new materials and building technologies to bring about subtle spatial perceptions. She is also a co-founder of Silvershed, an artist-run space in New York City.

Nicholas Mitchell, assistant professor of ethnic studies

Mitchell’s research and teaching explore the social arrangements of knowledge and the ways that knowl-edge and its institutional practices arrange social worlds. He is working on a book tentatively titled “Disciplin-ary Matters: Black Studies, Women’s Studies, and the Neoliberal University,” that places the institutional proj-ects of black studies and women’s studies not at the margins but the heart of the consolidation of the post-civil rights U.S. university.

Fred Moten, professor of English

Moten received his Ph.D. in English from UC Berkeley. He is a student of Afro-diasporic social and cultural life with teaching, research and creative interests in poetry, performance studies and critical theory. His books include “In the Break,” “Hughson’s Tavern,” “B. Jenkins,” “The Undercommons” (with his frequent collabora-tor Stefano Harney) and “The Feel Trio. “

Hiroki Nishamura, assistant professor of economics

Nishamura received his Ph.D. from New York University in 2013. His research interest lies on microeco-nomics through theoretical and mathematical methods. In particular, his recent research focuses on behavioral welfare economics, and it investigates decision maker’s welfare without making idealized assumptions such as all decision makers are fully rational. He is currently working on applications of behavioral welfare economics in policy evaluations and social management.

J.P. Park, assistant professor of art history

Park has previously taught at Columbia University and the University of Colorado at Boulder. He is work-ing on a new book project, “The Age of Vicissitudes: Transformations and Negotiations in the Art of the Late Chosŏn Korea (1650–1850),” in which he will provide the first in-depth study of early modern Korea’s art-mak-ing in the wider web of the era’s socio-cultural dynamics.

Megan Robbins, assistant professor of psychology

Robbins received her doctorate in psychology from the University of Arizona. Her research focuses on un-derstanding how people’s daily social interactions are related to health and well-being. Her ultimate goal is to understand the implications of mundane interactions and automatic behaviors to elucidate effective strategies and interventions people can naturally incorporate into their daily lives.

Sarita Echavez See, associate professor of media and cultural studies

See received her Ph.D. from Columbia University in 2001. Her research and teaching interests range across the interdisciplines of empire and postcolonial studies, critical race studies, and minoritized art, media, and performance. She is founder and executive director of the nonprofit, Web-based organization the Center for Art and Thought.

Joel Smith, assistant professor of dance

Smith received his M.F.A. in experimental choreography from UCR. His research and teaching interests in-clude developing compositional strategies for creating critical dance as a form of performance, and challenging representations of gender and sexuality embedded in male/female partnerships. He is the co-artistic director of casebolt and smith, a contemporary dance/theater duet company, with artistic partner Liz Casebolt. Through collaboration and a shared sense of humor, the two combine speaking, singing, gesture, contemporary move-ment vocabularies and improvisational structures to demystify how dances are made.

Travis Stanton, associate professor of anthropology

Stanton received his Ph.D. in anthropology from Southern Methodist University. His training and research interests are in Mesoamerican archaeology with a focus on the Maya region. He has published and edited sev-eral books as well as numerous journal articles on topics including the origins of Maya civilization, landscape archaeology, cultural memory, ancient warfare, and ceramic technology. He currently co-directs a project in central Yucatan, Mexico, that is researching the nature of social integration from the Paleoindian through the Early Colonial periods.

II. College of Natural and Agricultural Sciences

Emma Aronson, assistant professor of plant pathology and microbiology

Aronson earned her Ph.D. in ecology and evolution from the University of Pennsylvania. She was a post-doctoral fellow at UC Irvine. Aronson’s lab has two primary research goals: to investigate whether and when microorganisms act as invasive species into novel habitats, and to scale up from microbial diversity, abun-dance, and activity measurements to ecosystem-scale processes, particularly ecosystem fluxes of greenhouse gases.

Christopher Clark, assistant professor of biology

Clark earned his Ph.D. in integrative biology from UC Berkeley and was a postdoctoral fellow at Yale Uni-versity. He studies the sounds that animals make when they fly. He also studies why animals perform physi-cally demanding courtship displays.

Jeffrey Diez, assistant professor of botany and plant sciences

Diez earned his Ph.D. in ecology from the University of Georgia and was a postdoctoral fellow at Lincoln University (New Zealand); University of Michigan; and Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule (ETH) Zürich (Switzerland). Diez’s research addresses two of the most pressing challenges presented by global environ-mental change: predicting ecological responses to climate change, and forecasting the success and impacts of introduced species.

Nathaniel Gabor, assistant professor of physics and astronomy

Gabor earned his Ph.D. in physics from Cornell University and was a postdoctoral fellow at the Massachu-setts Institute of Technology. He is interested in the discovery of new quantum phenomena in atomically thin electronic materials, such as graphene, boron nitride, and tungsten diselenide.

W. Hill Harman, assistant professor of chemistry

Harman earned his degree in inorganic chemistry from UC Berkeley, and was a postdoctoral fellow at the California Institute of Technology. The global need for carbon-neutral energy and chemical technologies of reduced environmental impact insure that catalysis will remain at the forefront of chemical research for the foreseeable future. Harman studies the fundamental reactivity of inorganic complexes toward the development of new catalysts to meet these challenges.

Bangti Jin, assistant professor of mathematics

Jin received his Ph.D. in mathematics from the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Bremen in Germany and Texas A&M University. He works in the area of applied and computational mathematics. His main research interest lies in inverse problems and numerical analysis for partial differential equations.

Fedor Karginov, assistant professor of cell biology and neuroscience

Karginow received his Ph.D. in chemistry/biochemistry from the University of Colorado, and was a post-doctoral fellow at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. Karginov’s research focuses on gene expression, and understanding the overall mapping and principles of its interactions.

Erin Wilson Rankin, assistant professor of entomology

Rankin received her Ph.D. in biological sciences from UC San Diego; she was a postdoctoral fellow at UC Davis and the University of Maryland, College Park. Wilson Rankin’s research focuses on investigating species interactions and their effects on trophic dynamics and ecosystem services.

Hai-Bo Yu, assistant professor of physics and astronomy

Yu received his Ph.D. in physics from the University of Maryland, and was a postdoctoral fellow at the Uni-versity of Michigan and UC Irvine. Yu, a theorist, works at the interface of particle physics with cosmology and astrophysics. His current research is focused on dark matter and new physics signatures at the Large Hadron Collider.

III. Bourns College of Engineering

Ming Liu, assistant professor of electrical engineering

Liu was a postdoctoral researcher at UC Berkeley, where he also earned his Ph.D. in applied physics in 2010. His current research interests include investigating the electrical and optical properties of advanced ma-terials for the purpose of developing novel optoelectronic devices and energy-conversion solutions.

Fabio Pasqualetti, assistant professor of mechanical engineering

Pasqualetti was a postdoctoral researcher at UC Santa Barbara, where he also earned his Ph.D. His research interests are in the area of multiagent, large-scale, and networked systems, such as power grids, social net-works, and cooperative robotic systems. A second line of interest is in mobile robotics, and specifically in the design of coordination and surveillance strategies for teams of autonomous robots.

Ruoxue Yan, assistant professor of chemical and environmental engineering

Yan was a postdoctoral fellow at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. She received her Ph.D. in chem-istry from UC Berkeley in 2010. Her current research interests are in synthesis, characterization and device implementation of advanced materials for biological and energy applications, with an emphasis on nanowire-live cell interface, nano-catalysis and solar energy conversion.

IV. Graduate School of Education

Cixin Wang, assistant professor

As a licensed psychologist, Wang worked with children with severe behavioral and emotional difficulties and their families during her postdoctoral fellowship at Kennedy Krieger Institute and Johns Hopkins Univer-sity School of Medicine. Her research emphasizes the contextual factors in children’s social emotional develop-ment, the real-life application of research findings, and an interdisciplinary approach.

V. School of Business Administration

Boris Maciejovsky, assistant professor of management

Maciejovsky received his Ph.D. in marketing from the Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts

Institute of Technology and his doctoral degree in psychology from the University of Vienna. His research interests are in the area of decision-making in economic, social, and organizational contexts. He is particularly interested in developing novel laboratory paradigms that help to isolate important aspects of real-world phe-nomena in order to study how such features influence decisions, processes, and outcomes.

Marlo Raveendran, assistant professor of management

Raveendran earned her Ph.D. from the London Business School. Her research interest is in the area of corporate strategy, with a particular focus on organization design. Specifically, she is interested in the impact of prior interactions among employees on the choice and effectiveness of new organizational structure and the micro-foundations of organization design, such as the division of labor, coordination and interdependence.

Yawen Jiao, assistant professor of finance

Jiao received her Ph.D. in finance from the Carroll School of Management at Boston College. Prior to join-ing UCR, she was an assistant professor of finance at the Lally School of Management & Technology at Rensse-laer Polytechnic Institute. Her research interests include information transmission in financial markets, corpo-rate finance and corporate governance.

Chancellor Wilcox Joins First-years at ConvocationUCR Chancellor Kim A. Wilcox was joined by members of the faculty and administration at the annual Con-

vocation for New Students on Monday, Sept. 23, at the Student Recreation Center. During his address, Wilcox told the students that, like them, he was also a “first-year” and was learning his way around the campus and community.

Wilcox also said he looked forward to seeing all of them at commencement in four years. Other speakers at the convocation included Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs James W. Sandoval and Associated Students Presi-dent Sahil Patadia. After the convocation the students attended the annual R’Side Rally at the bell tower, which included food, music and carnival-style games.

Start the Year Off with a Town Hall and a ReceptionThis year’s first Town Hall with Chancellor Kim A. Wilcox will be held at 3 p.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 8 in the

University Theatre. The entire campus is invited. A reception will follow in the courtyard outside the theater.

Attendees are advised to arrive early as space is limited. For those unable to attend in person, the dis-cussion will also be webcast in real time at chancellor.ucr.edu. (The link will not be active until the event starts.)

Any questions and comments for the chancellor to address at the Town Hall may be sent to townhall@ucr.edu.

Riverside Hometown Heroes Honor Run to Support Fallen Police OfficersOfficer Andrew Tachias, a former UCR student-athlete who was wounded in a February shooting, is the in-spiration behind the 5K and 10K runs

By Ross French

Several hundred runners are expected to take to the streets around the Arlington Heights Sports Park in Riverside on Saturday, Oct. 12, for the inaugural Hometown Heroes Honor Run. All proceeds from the 5K and 10K races will go to the Riverside Police Officers’ Assistance Fund, which supports Riverside police officers who have been injured or killed in the line of duty and their families.

The Honor Run 5K race will begin at 7 a.m. The 10K race will begin at 8 a.m. The races are sponsored by the Riverside Police Officers Association. The day will also feature the Hometown Heroes True Blue Community Fair featuring information and product booths, live music and fitness demonstrations.To register or for more information, visit their website at hometownheroesrun.com.

The inspiration for the run is UCR alumnus and current Riverside Police Officer Andrew Tachias. A dis-tance runner on the UCR cross country and track and field teams during his undergraduate years, Tachias was on patrol with Training Officer Michael Crain on Feb. 7 when they were shot by Christopher Dorner, a disgrun-tled former Los Angeles Police Department officer. Crain was killed in the attack; Tachias was hit eight times, suffering injuries, including nerve damage, to both arms.

“We wanted an event that could show Andrew how much support he had in the community, and at the same time raise funds to assist him and others officers in the future,” said Riverside Police Detective and Riverside Police Officers’ Association Vice President Aurelio Melendrez, who is race director for the Honor Run.

“With his background as a runner, holding a race as a fundraiser seemed like a no-brainer,” said UCR Asso-ciate Head Track and Field and Cross Country Coach Nate Browne, one of Tachias’ former college coaches who also served on the Honor Run’s organizing committee.

Tachias graduated from UCR in 2009, attended the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department Academy and worked for the Inglewood Police Department before joining the Riverside Police Department in 2012. He said he was thankful for the overwhelming amount of support that he received during his recovery and rehabilitation of nerve damage in his hands.

“The Riverside Police Department, UCR Athletics Department, UCR Police Department, the city of River-side, all the sponsors and the community — I could never thank them enough,” he said.

“I grew up loving to run,” Tachias said. And while he feels undeserving of something so great, Tachias says, “It’s an awesome feeling to have a race in the honor of Officer Crain.”

The Honor Run also carries a personal significance for many participants, including Detective John En-riquez, a 2006 graduate of UCR who is one of three members of the UCR Police Department currently signed up to participate. Enriquez worked with Tachias as a community service officer while they were both students and was friends with Crain after they worked a joint UCR-Riverside police patrol together for three years. Finally, Enriquez was dating Nikki Bonaminio, the sister of Riverside Police Officer Ryan Bonaminio who was shot and killed while chasing a suspect on Nov. 7, 2010. The couple were married on Sept. 15.

“I am doing the Hometown Heroes Honor Run because it’s important to support injured officers as well as fallen officers,” Enriquez said. “They are real-life heroes, not Hollywood actors.”

Melendrez said that about 200 runners are currently registered, but that they have space for as many as 3,000 participants.

“That may be ambitious for a first-year event,” he said. “But this community has never been short on sup-port for our officers.”

Organizers are hoping to have a large turnout of law enforcement personnel at the Honor Run. “The re-sponse from the law enforcement community has been great,” Melendrez said. “Each day and night it seems I am fielding calls from local police associations who want to get involved and help or sponsor the event. It is a wonderful feeling to be a part of such a special community such as law enforcement.”

Electric Vehicle Charging Stations Installed at UCR Units are part of new grid project supported by South Coast Air Quality Management District

By Ross French

Eight electric vehicle-charging stations have been installed at UCR as part of the College of Engineering – Center for Environmental Research and Technology’s (CE-CERT) New Grid project.

The new charging units have “level one” and “level two” charging capability and are located in parking lots 1, 6, 15 and 30. Four additional “level two” chargers are located at the CE-CERT parking lot at 1084 Columbia Avenue in Riverside. The on-campus units are overseen by the UCR Office of Transportation and Parking Ser-vices and are part of the Chargepoint network.

According to Irma Henderson, alternative transportation program manager in Transportation and Parking Services, drivers will need to have a valid parking permit to use the space, though any permit that is valid for that time of day will be allowed, regardless of the lot that the stations are in.

“For example, the station in Lot 1 is located in the red spaces, but a person with a blue permit can park there as long as they are participating in an active charging session,” Henderson said.

The cost to charge a vehicle will be $1 per hour for the first four hours, then $3 per hour thereafter.

Henderson said that UCR-affiliated individuals will be able to enter a special code into the system that will provide a $1 per hour discount at the campus charging stations, making the service free for the first four hours.

The New Grid project is a two-year, smart-grid deployment supported by the South Coast Air Quality Man-agement District. The project involves a number of public and private partners and will include solar arrays, advanced battery storage, vehicle charging stations, an electric trolley, and a grid management system to utilize renewable energy to charge electric vehicles efficiently.

As part of the program, 13 additional charging stations are being installed throughout the City of Riverside.

UCR Lauded for Diversity, Value in Annual U.S. News & World Report College Guide Overall ranking of 112th places UCR among top universities in the nation

By Ross French

UCR has once again been recognized as a Best Value School, and was lauded for its diversity in the U.S. News & World Report’s 2014 Best Colleges Guide, released on Sept. 10.

“We know that rankings like the U.S. News & World Report and Washington Monthly surveys are widely followed by potential students as well as current students, alumni, faculty and staff,” said Executive Vice Chan-cellor and Provost Dallas Rabenstein. “As a result, we are pleased to once again be ranked as one of the nation’s top research universities.”

Overall, UCR is ranked 112th overall among national universities, and 55th among public universities. The numbers mark a slight decline from the 101st and 47th rankings in the 2013 survey.

The rankings, which are based on categories developed by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, placed UCR as 35th among the 50 schools on the best value list, which considers academic quality and affordability. UCR was 24th in the category in the 2013 survey.

The university once again appeared on the list of the most diverse schools in the nation, placing in a tie for 12th overall. The score of 0.70 was identical to the 2013 survey, where UCR finished in a tie for 8th place.

Rabenstein said he wasn’t concerned with UCR’s slightly lower placement when compared to past years, cit-ing the example of the ethnic diversity category, in which just seven-hundredths of a point separated the top 17 schools in the category.

“Because the differences between campuses can be so incremental, it’s not unusual to see volatility in the rankings from one year to the next,” he said.

The annual rankings by U.S. News & World Report, first issued in 1983, are frequently used by families as they decide where to target applications. The rankings combine reputation-based rankings with the hard-data outcomes related to graduation rates, tuition costs and level of donor support.

The University of California, Working Smarter UC’s Working Smarter initiative, which seeks to redirect money from administration to academics and re-search, has produced $461 million in cost savings and new revenue so far

By Katherine Tam

The University of California has generated $460.9 million in cost savings and new revenue by operating more efficiently over the past three years and funneled that money directly to campuses to support the univer-sity’s core academic and research missions.

Whether by buying insurance in bulk or rethinking the way campuses invest working capital, UC has found $294.3 million in cost savings and produced $166.6 million in fresh revenue since launching the Working Smarter initiative three years ago. The initiative is on track to reach or exceed its goal of producing $500 mil-lion in positive fiscal impact over five years.

In its third year, the initiative produced $171.3 million in administrative efficiencies through 10 different projects, making it Working Smarter’s best year so far. Successful projects included negotiating discounted rates for employees traveling on UC business to save $7.9 million and better managing liabilities to save $32.0 million in insurance and workers compensation claims.

“Working Smarter is a critical investment in our future,” said Nathan Brostrom, executive vice president of business operations. “These projects save UC money, generate new revenue and help the university become a more efficient, financially sustainable public institution. Although we are proud of our progress so far, we know there is a lot more work to be done systemwide.”

Brostrom and Chief Financial Officer Peter Taylor discussed Working Smarter’s progress at the Board of Regents meeting on Sept. 18.

UC launched Working Smarter in 2010 to improve its administrative operations and generate cost savings and new revenue — often by updating antiquated systems or pooling resources — as the state cut back funding for the university. The initiative currently consists of 34 projects, many of which are still in the early phases of development or implementation and have not yet realized cost savings or generated new revenue. In the 2012–13 fiscal year, Working Smarter produced $94.1 million in cost savings and $77.2 million in fresh revenue from about a third of the initiative’s projects.

“Given the uneven nature of state funding in recent years, we’re working hard to do everything we can to preserve the quality and excellence of the university,” Taylor said. “Every dollar from these projects goes di-rectly to the campuses for academics and research.”

Among the projects is the Statewide Energy Partnership, in which the university negotiates with California utilities for grants that, combined with other resources, help pay for hundreds of lighting, heating and air con-ditioning upgrades at its campuses. The improvements created a safer and more comfortable environment for students, faculty and staff while lowering utility costs by $18.5 million last year.

Through the Liquidity Management Program, campuses adopted a coordinated strategy to move some of their money into a longer-term investment pool that generated higher returns. The strategy, which involved studying historical trends and ensuring that campuses would have enough short-term liquidity on hand to meet operational needs, paid off and UC generated an additional $33.2 million in investment income in 2012–13.

Some Working Smarter projects may not produce significant cost savings, but lead to better coordination

across the system and allow the university to meet its strategic goals.

UC TRIPS, for example, enables the university to buy travel insurance for researchers and students travel-ing on UC-related projects, regardless of which campus they are from. Before, campus departments purchased their own coverage for individual trips. By consolidating, the university reduces costs and can buy a more com-prehensive policy that offers better protection.

Through UC TRIPS, the university has safely evacuated researchers and students from dangerous situations in foreign countries. For example, staff members have been evacuated from Haiti and Chile following earth-quakes, Europe after a cloud of volcanic ash fell over the continent, and Egypt and Yemen when political unrest threatened security. UC TRIPS also assists when an employee or student has a medical emergency that requires treatment. By assessing the risk of traveling somewhere before the trip happens, the program can sometimes prevent the need for these emergency evacuations, which also helps reduce costs. In the 2012–13 fiscal year, UC TRIPS provided medical assistance or safely evacuated more than 700 employees and students.

UC also is looking to its counterparts for ideas. The university is partnering with California State University for opportunities where the two can share services and improve operational effectiveness. Building on existing cooperation, the two universities began exchanging ideas at their first shared services conference in July.

In Working Smarter’s fourth year, the university will continue to look for systemwide administrative effi-ciencies but will also turn its attention to campus-specific projects.

“All of our campuses work hard to find ways to streamline the day-to-day operations and better serve their students, faculty and staff,” said Cathy O’Sullivan, director of Working Smarter. “What works at one campus might work at another location, too. We’ll look closely at these smaller-scale projects and see where we can produce efficiencies at the local level.”

Katherine Tam is a communications coordinator at UC’s Office of the President.

The Best Thing I Did This SummerWelcome to Inside UCR’s newest feature, The Top!

Now that the new school year has started, we can look back at this summer fondly. We asked UCR staff and faculty members to tell us the best thing they did over their summer vacation.

1. Camping

“There’s a private camping site in the San Bernardino mountains. It was really nice and I got to bring my kids. We actually got to see the house that Christopher Dorner stayed in, which was burned down. The first day it was really hot, but the second day it was raining and our tent got flooded, which made it so fun! There was lots of thunder and lightning. Also, a bear attacked our food tent so we had to throw it out.” — Leslie Renee Settle, desk coordinator, Rivera Library.

2. Beach Trips

“Taking my 4-year-old daughter to the beach at Capistrano for the first time was very exciting; she had the time of her life because she got to go into the waves for the first time.”— Monica Kays, academic advisor for the

departments of anthropology and sociology

3. Family Time

“The most memorable and interesting part of my summer was visiting Sea World; it has been over 10 years since I’ve been. and I went with my 2-year-old son and my wife. We had the opportunity to see a lot of marine life and got to feed the sea lions.” — Alex Ruiz, associate director of undergraduate admissions

4. Extreme Sports

“The best part of my summer was four-wheeling in Big Bear.” — Richard Munoz, financial analyst for the Department of Sociology

“My favorite summer activity right now is kayaking.” — Jamie Massaro, academic advisor for the Depart-ment of Psychology

5. Travel

“The best summer activity I did was going to Antigua, out in the Caribbean. I was out there for a week and did snorkeling, zip-lining, and downtown shopping. It was nice to be with the locals and see the beautiful area.” — Alyssa Harris, senior public event manager, HUB Scheduling

“I took a trip to Santa Fe. It was awesome. I went to lots of museums, art galleries, ate lots of wonderful food, did lots of shopping, and enjoyed the Native American culture a lot.” — Robin Clark, analyst in Govern-mental and Community Relations

Getting PersonalAdam Daniels, student organization and orientation advisor, student life

by Katrina Honer

Adam Ryen (“With an “e,” it’s Norwe-gian.”) Daniels has a hybrid job. He organiz-es student orientation during the summer, and he is also the advisor for more than 100 student organizations on campus.

When he is not juggling those two re-sponsibilities, he remains busy coordinating Commuter Programs.

“My job is to connect the 14,000 com-muters that go here to the campus,” he said. He gives these students a reason to want to stay on campus and become more involved, instead of worrying about the traffic they need to beat. Adam Daniels

“We used to try doing social events to get commuters to come out and they just don’t. So instead, we go to them.” Daniels goes to the parking lots and sets up a Pit Stop, where he offers free granola bars, planners, and information about on-campus events and transportation alternatives to commuting students.

The variety suits him. “I love it,” he said. “And I think it reflects on my personal life as well. Every day is all over the place, but that’s the way that I work,” he added. “I’ll meet with a student group, then immediately go to orientation leader training. Or I’ll do a Commuter Pit Stop at 7 in the morning but then I’ll stay until 10 p.m. for an org’s meeting that they’re having. It’s fun. Every day I’m meeting with different people. It keeps it fresh.”

His life outside of Student Life is just as eclectic as the work he does.

With a master’s degree in creative writing from Azusa Pacific University, and a longtime dream of making movies, Daniels explains that what drew him from Oregon to Southern California originally was a chance to find an agent and work in Hollywood.

His two lives came together when he made a film for Student Life. “The Last One,” a moody and visually beautiful eight-minute film about UCR school spirit, sparked an epidemic of school spirit on campus. While he works toward his Hollywood dream, Daniels spends time writing movie and video game reviews on his blog, Ia-myourtargetdemographic.wordpress.com.

“I do all kinds of things. I create mash-ups of Disney and hip-hop songs. I glowstring [dance with glow sticks on strings]. I paint miniature models from games and sell them on eBay. And I write.” He also watches about two movies each week. “Until I can make my own, I get my kicks by watching and critiquing what works and what doesn’t work.”

DID YOU KNOW?The Long Night of Arts and Innovation

UCR faculty, staff and students will showcase highlights of campus arts and sciences at the 2013 Long Night of Arts and Innovation, which starts in downtown Riverside at 4 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 10. Inspired by the Long Night of Science in Erlangen, Germany, this free event will showcase projects from UCR that range from spider silk genetics to “Gangnum Style” dancing. La Sierra University, California Baptist University, Riverside Commu-nity College, the Riverside Unified School District and the Alvord Unified School District will also bring exhibits. Nearly 6,500 people attended the event last year. Free shuttles will run from UCR Lot 1 to the UCR ARTSblock in downtown Riverside from 5:30 p.m. to just after midnight. A full schedule of events at the Long Night of Arts & Innovation can be found on http://longnightriverside.com/?p=events.

The Loveridge Legacy

Ron Loveridge, Riverside’s former mayor and a longtime UCR political science professor, was honored Sept. 10 at City Hall with the dedication of Loveridge Plaza. Chancellor Kim A. Wilcox and others gathered to take stock of Riverside’s many improvements during Loveridge’s 32 years in local, regional and state politics.

UCR Athletics All-Sport Faculty/Staff Gold Card Available For $50

The UCR Athletics All-Sport Faculty/Staff Gold Card is now available for $50 — which amounts to more than $650 in savings. A Gold Card gets you in 100 regular-season home athletic events such as men and women’s soc-cer, women’s volleyball, cross country, men’s and women’s basketball, baseball, softball, and track and field. For a list of all athletic events, go to gohighlanders.com. To purchase your Gold Card, contact Bryan Avolio at (951)

827-4653 or bryan.avolio@ucr.edu. This offer is for UCR faculty and staff only; each member can purchase up to two gold cards.

UC Faculty & Staff Appreciation Day at the Rose Bowl

UCLA Athletics is hosting UC Faculty and Staff Appreciation Day at the Rose Bowl on Saturday, Oct. 12, for the UCLA vs. California football game. Discounted tickets are available and cost $10 to $25. To or-der, go to https://oss.ticketmaster.com/aps/uclaathletics/EN/link/promotion/home/a94bb-be665944beac0f5fd9d7443e5ff9150f08a, enter promo code UCRFCST, and verify that you are a UCR faculty or staff member by signing in using your UCR email address. Tickets can also be purchased by calling the UCLA Central Ticket Office at (310) UCLA-WIN (825-2946).

Who Says?“Photography is an index of a lived life. There’s a lot of continuity and discontinuity. There are lots of threads,

but I’m skeptical of a universal summation.”

John Divola, professor of art, on his latest photography exhibition, “John Divola: As Far As I Could Get”

LOS ANGELES TIMES

“We had a student from UC-Santa Barbara who came to us in tears because they did not feel safe. I had this moment as a director of a center going, whoa, this was not even on my radar. My personal opinion is change is driven by student voices.”

Nancy Tubbs, director of the LGBT center on campus, recalling the moment she realized there was a need for gender-neutral housing

INSIDE HIGHER ED

“We don’t expect organizations to select their CEO based on the shape of their face, but first impressions do matter.”

Elaine Wong, assistant professor of management, on a recent UCR study that shows how interacting with men with wider faces causes others to behave more aggressively and selfishly

FOX BUSINESS NETWORK

“There is a difference between individual and aggregate experiences of people in a population. If you ask 100 people to flip a coin 100 times, for example, over time, you can expect that the average result for the group will be 50 heads and 50 tails. But within the group, individuals may have more heads than tails, or vice-versa. … If we think of heads as good and tails as bad, a few people will have a sequence of mostly good outcomes, and others will have mostly bad ones.”

Rami Zwick, professor of business, on how notions of bad luck are sometimes rooted in a misunderstanding of mathematics and probability

DISCOVERY NEWS

“UCR is well known for its long history of service and support to veterans, active duty military and military families. These men and women have given so much of themselves to support this country and it is important

that we give something back.”

Chryssa Jones, veterans services coordinator in Student Special Services, on UCR’s recognition as a mili-tary friendly school for three years in a row

INLAND NEWS TODAY

“He served those interests of the Spanish Crown; economic exploration, acquisition of new territory, cre-ation of new citizens for Spain that they could tax and raise a revenue but those weren’t Serra’s interests. His personal desire was to convert Indians to Catholicism.”

Steven Hackel, professor of history, on controversy surrounding Junipero Serra

KPCC-FM

Awards and HonorsAlexander Balandin Wins Medal for Graphene Research

Alexander A. Balandin, who is also the founding chair of the materials science and engineering program at the Bourns College of Engineering, will receive the MRS Medal Dec. 4 at the 2013 MRS Fall Meeting in Boston. The MRS Medal is awarded annually by the Materials Research Society for a specific outstanding recent discov-ery or advancement that has a major impact on the progress of a materials-related field. It is one of the highest recognitions a materials scientist can receive.

UCR Again Recognized as Military Friendly School

For the third year in a row, UCR has been recognized as a Military Friendly School by Victory Media. The honor recognizes the university for its efforts to assist America’s military service members and veterans as students. UCR is included among the top 20 percent of colleges, universities and trade schools in the list, which will be published in the annual “Guide to Military Friendly Schools.”

UCR Alumni Awarded Prestigious Scholarship

Louie F. Lacasella graduated from UCR as a double major in political science and history. He was recently named one of the recipients of the Wes McClure Scholarship from the California City Management Foundation.

Two UCR Entomologists Honored

The Entomological Society of America has honored two UCR entomologists with awards. The 2013 awards will be presented at the society’s annual meeting in Austin, Texas, in November.

Richard Stouthamer, a professor of entomology, was honored with the Recognition Award in Entomology, which recognizes entomologists who are making significant contributions to agriculture. The award is spon-sored by Syngenta Crop Protection.

Stouthamer is the author of more than 120 peer-reviewed papers and fifteen book chapters. During his Ph.D. studies at UCR, he discovered the involvement of Wolbachia bacteria in causing complete parthenogen-esis in parasitoid wasps. Much of the work in his lab involves the application of molecular genetic tools to easily distinguish cryptic species and determine the area of origin of invasive species.

Timothy Paine, a professor of entomology, is the recipient of the Distinguished Achievement Award in Teaching, presented annually to the member of the Entomological Society of America deemed to be the most outstanding teacher of the year.

Paine is a distinguished teaching professor in the Department of Entomology. His research contributions on insect herbivores of woody plants in urban landscapes and forest systems were recognized with both the En-tomological Foundation’s Recognition Award in Urban Entomology and the Entomological Society of America’s Distinguished Achievement Award in Horticultural Entomology. He was recognized as a National Academies Education Fellow in the life sciences in 2008-09. Paine is a Fellow of both the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences and the Entomological Society of America.

Research and ScholarshipNalo Hopkinson Kicks Off Harvard University’s Canada Seminar Series

Nalo Hopkinson, award-winning author and associate professor of creative writing, kicked off Harvard University’s Canada Seminar series on Sept. 16 with a lecture titled “But What Should I Call You Then, if Not African-American?”

The Canada Series, presented by Harvard’s Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, examines Cana-dian social, economic, cultural and political issues. Previous speakers have included a Canadian Supreme Court justice, political leaders, artists and scholars.

Hopkinson, born in Jamaica, lived in Canada for 30 years before joining the UCR faculty in 2011.