Davis faculty member survives Taipei crash
A family member has confirmed that a member of the UC Davis
faculty, Kevin Rice, was injured in the crash Tuesday of a
Singapore Airlines jet bound from Taipei to Los Angeles.
Kevin Rice’s brother, Barry Meyers-Rice, said late Tuesday
that Kevin Rice had telephoned him at his Davis home Tuesday and
left a message saying that he was hospitalized with burns but
“generally all right.”
Meyers-Rice said his brother had traveled from Davis to
Indonesia about three weeks ago to visit his wife, who is a
doctoral candidate at UC Davis and doing field research in
Indonesia. He was expected to return to Sacramento International
Airport tonight.
Kevin Rice, 47, is a professor of agronomy and range science. He
joined the UC Davis faculty in 1986 after completing his doctorate
here in 1984.
His research specialty is restoration ecology; he studies native
species in efforts to restore disturbed lands and damaged
ecosystems.
Singapore Airlines said late Tuesday that 66 people were
confirmed dead after the accident at Taipei’s Chiang Kai Shek
Airport. The airline said 159 passengers were on board Flight SQ
006.
Quick school districts get funding
advantage
Needy, fast-growing school districts are missing out on state
construction money that instead is going to districts that can
build quickly, a newspaper’s analysis has found.
More than 100 of the state’s fastest growing district
received none of the $6.8 billion in state school construction
funds handed out over the last decade, the Los Angeles Times
reported.
The money has gone instead to the districts that have most
quickly obtained land and prepared construction plans.
For instance, the Indian Diggings Elementary School District
east of Sacramento received $538,000 to build a multipurpose room
and kitchen, even though enrollment in its only school fell from 32
to 25 over the last decade.
Meanwhile, Downey Unified School District in southeast L.A.
County has been unable to get state construction money despite a 43
percent enrollment increase in the last decade, the Times said in
Sunday editions. An inability to acquire land has prevented the
21,000-student district from getting state money to build at least
two more schools.
L.A. civil rights attorneys sued over the distribution system
earlier this year, contending it hurts urban school districts the
most. A judge has ordered state officials to come up with a better
method.
State officials acknowledge that the system has flaws, but added
that not all rapidly growing districts need construction money.
In other cases, state officials said, many districts choose not
to use the state program for reasons that include misunderstanding
of the rules and distaste for paperwork.
Study examines conflicts of interest
While private industry involvement in academic research
continues to grow rapidly, universities struggle to prevent
potential conflicts of interest without clear guidelines for
defining or managing financial conflicts, according to a new study
by a University of California, San Francisco researcher.
Even the level of financial interest held in a sponsoring
company that researchers must disclose varies widely. In
California, for example, the state requires the reporting of
financial interests of as little as $250 in companies that support
a researchers work. The federal government, on the other hand,
requires the disclosure of a $10,000 interest or more.
“Without clear guidelines, the universities themselves
must decide what represents a potential conflict and figure out how
to manage it,” said study author Dr. Lisa A. Bero.
Compiled from Daily Bruin wire services.