UC Los Angeles acquires new campus sites
UC Los Angeles will be purchasing two properties in Rancho Palos Verdes and San Pedro to create a satellite campus, the university announced last week.
The move comes after UC Santa Barbara purchased a 29-acre property in the Santa Barbara area in June for undisclosed usage.
The UCLA properties include a 24.5-acre campus in Rancho Palos Verdes and an 11-acre residential site in San Pedro, both of which were previously owned by Marymount California University, a private Catholic institution that permanently closed this year.
This purchase aims to accommodate 1,000 students and house half of them in residential property including 81 villas, according to the Los Angeles Times. UCLA Chancellor Gene Block told the publication that the development of this satellite campus is just one strategy the university is implementing to eventually add 3,000 more undergraduates and 350 more graduate students by 2030.
“This is our commitment to the people of California,” Block said to the LA Times. “We realize there’s been frustration by the number of young people that want to attend our research universities, and this is, in a significant way, our response to that need.”
A campus task force will decide how to use the properties. Block told the LA Times that some possibilities are a summer student leadership academy, a themed program on sustainability, evening lectures for the community and tutoring programs for local children. The space may be in use as early as next summer.
UC Irvine breaks record for largest game of Red Light, Green Light
UC Irvine broke the Guinness World Record for the largest game of Red Light, Green Light on Sept. 21. According to the New University, 1,415 individuals participated, breaking the previous record of 1,203 set by Willamette University in 2015.
UCI Associated Students organized the event in Aldrich Park as part of the university’s welcome week. The event was open to all participants.
The game itself consisted of participants aiming for a finish line while a UCI A.S. member gave verbal directions: “green light” allowing the participants to move and “red light” signaling them to stop.
Guinness adjudicator Claire Stephens was present to oversee the game and ensure that all participants were engaging.
Players who crossed the finish line were given a high-five by Peter the Anteater — UCI’s mascot — and were counted toward the official number of participants. Following the game’s conclusion, Stephens informed the group that the record had been broken.
UC Santa Cruz earns Seal of Excelencia for work as an HSI
UC Santa Cruz received the Seal of Excelencia, which recognizes the efforts of Hispanic Serving Institutions in serving their Latinx population, according to the UCSC newsroom.
“Receiving the seal is a great honor and validation of the focused work we began in 2015, when we launched our first [Hispanic Serving Institutions] HSI initiatives,” Chancellor Cynthia Larive told the UCSC newsroom. “Our HSI leadership team, our Center for Innovations in Teaching and Learning and so many faculty and staff across our campus have led us to this moment.”
UC Riverside and UC Merced are the only two other UC campuses that have earned the seal, although UCSB is also a participating HSI campus.
UCSC received its HSI designation in 2015 after being awarded its first two HSI grants the same year, and has since worked to uplift its Latinx students.
“The Seal of Excelencia certification is an opportunity at a campuswide level to be self-reflective on our servingness for our Latinx students,” UCSC’s Director of HSI Initiatives Charis Herzon said. “The application is an opportunity to analyze disaggregated institutional trend data and individual program effectiveness.”
A version of this article appeared on p. 2 of the Oct. 6, 2022 print edition of the Daily Nexus.
