Author Archives: Menaka Fernando

The chairs of the UCLA College ““ the largest and most comprehensive academic unit in the nation ““ have banded together to express their contention with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s proposed budget cuts in an unprecedented letter sent to the University of California Board of Regents last week. Authored by Glen MacDonald, chairman of the geography […]

When all the glass of a house shatters exactly at the same time, it sends the blaring rattle straight into your head and echoes there for years to come. Ten years, to be exact. Ten years ago Saturday, millions of people awoke to falling objects and the ground trembling below them during the 1994 Northridge […]

Mario Baur, a professor of the chemistry and biochemistry department died last month from a long-term illness. He was 69. Baur was a professor at UCLA for more than 40 years and taught tens of thousands of students, teaching mostly lower division major requirements. Baur also made several research contributions, including research in thermodynamics and […]

As the air becomes thick with the stench of finals, thousands of students will cram, pull all-nighters and pull their hair out in anticipation of their exams. Hundreds of others will prepare to cheat. At a time when sleep becomes secondary, caffeine becomes an addiction and winter break seems light years away, an increasing number […]

The first time Adam Vartanian, a fourth-year computer science and engineering student, encountered someone with AIDS, he was in kindergarten. Though he was not aware of it at the time, Vartanian’s elementary school teacher from kindergarten through second grade had contracted AIDS. Two years later, the teacher died because of the disease. “I was really […]

In what has become the epicenter of the AIDS epidemic, sub-Saharan Africa alone is home to more than 3 million HIV/AIDS-related deaths during 2003 ““ twice the number of the rest of the world combined. Many students, political activists and celebrities have collaborated in recent years to bring education and treatment to this poverty-stricken part […]

A report that reviews the instructional enhancement initiative ““ a mandatory student fee that pays for campus computer and Internet facilities ““ began this week and will be submitted to the chancellor in the spring. First implemented in 1997, the initiative provided for increased undergraduate education through the use of Internet services in the College […]