UCR and City Recognized in Rankings
Over the summer of 2012, the University of California, Riverside was honored with several awards.
In recognition of culture, diversity and community awareness, UCR was named in the top 10 Trans-Friendly Colleges and Universities by Campus Pride, the leading national organization for LGBT, ally students and campus groups. In the fight for greater veteran accessibility to higher education, G.I. Joe Magazine named UCR a “Military Friendly School” for the second consecutive year; out of 12,000 schools, the top 15 percent selected were given this recognition.
Just outside the boundaries of daily campus life, the City of Riverside received the statewide 2012 Helen Putnam for Excellence: CCS Partnership Intergovernmental Collaboration Award this month. The award was given to cooperative cities who exemplified enormous outreach by obtaining municipal funding for less fortunate communities.
UCR tied for eighth among the nation’s most diverse campuses, as ranked by U.S. News and World Report in September. The overall selection factored in the proportion of minority students on college campuses. UCR scored a 0.70 on a scale from 0.0 to 1.0, the highest ratio in the UC system according to UCR Today.
In regards to the nation’s greenest colleges, Sierra Magazine’s annual survey placed UCR sixth on their “Cool List” School. Additionally, the Washington Monthly, a bimonthly nonprofit magazine on US politics and government, ranked UCR ninth in its 2012 Monthly College Guide, based on the criterias of social mobility, research production and commitment to service.
UCR Honors Science Fiction Legends Stan Lee and Others
UCR will be hosting their 22nd Annual Eaton Science Fiction conference April 11-14, 2013 where three legendary science fiction affiliates will be rewarded the Lloyd Eaton Lifetime Achievement Award in Science Fiction. The award winners consist of Ursula K. Le Guin, Raymond F. Harryhausen and Stan Lee. The conference will take place at the Riverside Marriott Hotel, with registration beginning Aug 1. Co-sponsored by the Science Fiction Research Association (SFRA), the 2013 conference theme, “Science Fiction Media,” embodies the manifestation of science fiction through works of multiple forms of media
Guin is honored with the Eaton Lifetime Achievement Award for 2012 with works in over 20 science fiction and fantasy novels. As a Hugo and Nebula award-winning author, Guin has authored six volumes of poetry, 13 books for children and other writings such as “The Left Hand of Darkness.” Harryhausen will receive the award for revolutionary contributions to science fiction film through Dynamation, a stop-motion model animation. His most notable production is “Mighty Joe Young” (1949), winning his team the Oscar for special effects.
For having one of the most innovative hands in the realms of science fiction, the 2013 Eaton Award has also been awarded to Stan Lee, co-creator of the Spiderman, the Hulk, the X-Men, the Fantastic Four, Iron Man, and Thor comics. The former president of Marvel Comics., Lee also revolutionized the policies of the Comics Code Authority, which self-regulates the publication of comic book content worldwide.
UCR houses the Eaton Collection, the world’s largest catalogue and publicly accessible collection of science fiction and fantasy, entailing genres of horror, dystopian and utopian literature. With over 300,000 archival materials, the collection can be found in the Special Archives and Collections section located on the fourth floor of the Tomás Rivera Library.
Chancellor White Appointed to Governor Brown’s Independent Board
On Aug. 24, Governor Jerry Brown designated Chancellor Tim White to the California Student Aid Commission, an independent state board whose mission is to facilitate student access to financial assistance in the pursuit of higher education. The commission is in charge of Cal Grant distribution, scholarships and accompanies many student loan programs such as EdFund—the second largest student loan provider in the United States.
As a commission created by the governor, the 15 member board is in charge of administering financial aid programs for students attending public and private universities, colleges and vocational schools in California. Governor Brown is charged with selecting 11 members who represents the state’s higher education system, students and community. The speaker of the Assembly and the chair of the Senate Rules Committee each appoint two members as general representatives on the commission.
Chancellor White has been chancellor at UCR since 2008 and has served a number of high-ranking positions at many other universities. Having gone through California’s public education system, Chancellor White attended public K-12, community college, two Cal State Universities and the University of California, Berkeley where he earned his doctorate in the physiology of exercise.
Glen Mor 2 Apartments Postponed until 2014-2015
The construction of the Glen Mor 2 apartments will face a one-year delay to offset both stringent scheduling and environmental impacts on surrounding communities. “Theoretically, we could have gone to a 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., seven-days-a-week schedule, but that wouldn’t have been in the best interests of the community,” stated UC Riverside Campus Architect Don Caskey in UCR Today. Caskey said that the construction schedule will continue as planned and the completion date is the only thing that has been altered.
Located at the corner of Big Springs Road and Valencia Hill Drive, the construction project of Glen Mor 2 began December 2011 and has since been delayed due to reevaluations of overly ambitious scheduling. Once complete, the apartments will encompass 334,000 square feet with resources ranging from a market to a fitness center. The project consists of two construction phases: site preparation and physical building construction. The first phase was completed near the end of May.
The UCR Grounds crews recently swapped out a faulty sprinkler controller that led to minor water deprivation for surrounding plants. More buffer time has been built into the schedule in order to ease the environmental effects of construction. Caskey said that the trees and vegetation are monitored daily, as part of the process for site development.
