UCB holds online high school class
Today college-bound students at Vallejo High School will tap
into an innovative online chemistry class at UC Berkeley in the
campus’s first attempt to provide local high schools with
access to introductory college courses.
As part of a new outreach effort to California schools, UC
Berkeley will extend the reach of its Digital Chem 1A program to
local high schools.
The first to benefit will be students in VHS’s advanced
placement chemistry class, who will “virtually” join
students from Berkeley in the class lecture by watching a real-time
Webcast of the class.
This trial dovetails with a new UC effort to develop advanced
placement high school classes from university courses in areas such
as calculus, biology and chemistry.
UC sets account for retirement
In an effort to mitigate this year’s disappointing salary
shortfall, the UC Regents on Thursday approved a modified deferred
compensation program that will give all eligible employees
additional financial reward by way of a special retirement
account.
“All our employees work very hard to help keep UC a
premier educational institution, and they deserve to be recognized
accordingly,” said Joseph P. Mullinix, senior vice president
for business and finance.
“And even though this won’t change employees’
incomes this year, it does give eligible employees throughout all
of UC a financial boost later on,” he continued.
Due to the recent economic downturn and resulting decline in
state revenues, the University of California received significantly
reduced state funding for 2001-02 salary increases.
The special account, called a Capital Accumulation Provision,
will be available to all eligible UC employees who are members of
the UC Retirement Plan.
The CAP being proposed will put the equivalent of 3 percent of
the employee’s salary into a separate retirement account in
UCRP, where it will earn a specified rate of interest ““
currently 7.5 percent ““ until the employee begins to draw on
retirement funds.
UCSD simulates galaxy’s first star
New cosmological simulations performed on a UC San Diego
supercomputer have provided astrophysicists with the best
indication to date of how the first star in the universe
formed.
The simulations, detailed in a paper in the Nov. 16 issue of
Science, suggest that the first star resulted from the
gravitational collapse of a cloud of hydrogen and helium some 100
times more massive than the sun.
Reports from Daily Bruin wire services.