Campus Memos
The following are titles of memos recently mailed to deans, directors, department chairs and administrative officers on the chancellor's mailing lists. For copies, contact originating offices.
Deans and directors memos also are available on Infocal under "campus directives." Connect to Infocal via Gopher, WWW or telnet software at infocal.berkeley.edu. For assistance using Infocal, call 642-8507.
Questions about memos should be directed to Aileen Kim, 642-3100, or email to aileen_kim@ maillink.
Feb. 20. Berkeley Citation and Distinguished Service Award Nominations, from Linda Weimer, assistant vice chancellor--public affairs.
Feb. 20. Domestic Partners Report, from Carol T. Christ, the vice chancellor and provost, and Horace Mitchell, vice chancellor--business and administrative services.
Feb. 26. Call for 1996-97 Recharge Proposals, from Gary Matteson, chair, campus recharge committee.
Jan. 30. Interim Policies and Gui7.gazettedelines for Implementation of Regents' Resolution SP-2, from Carol T. Christ, the vice chancellor and provost, and Horace Mitchell, vice chancellor--business and administrative services.
Jan. 29. "The Promise of Berkeley" Capital Campaign Announcement, from Chancellor Tien.
Staff Enrichment
Employee Development and Training
For more information, for copies of the 1995-96 Employee Development and Training catalog or for information on how to enroll in classes, call 642-8134.
New Employee Orientation
April 2, 8:30 am-noon, plus optional campus tour from 1-2:30 pm.
An opportunity for new employees to learn about the university and the Berkeley campus, meet other new employees and obtain specific information needed within the first month of employment. Topics to be presented include benefits of UC employment, campus culture and values, employee support services and common personnel policies.
Managing and Mediating
Conflicts in the Workplace
--Advanced
April 3, 8:30 am-noon. For managers and supervisors only with prerequisite "Managing and Mediating Conflict in the Workplace."
Participants will apply the principles and skills learned in the prerequisite course by participating in case studies, role plays and group activities. The course will present the opportunity for further suggestions for enhancing skills from facilitators and other participants.
Skills Seminar for Analysts
April 4 and 11, 8:30 am-4:30 pm.
The course will look at the entire analytic process, from defining and analyzing a problem to recommending solutions. Through case studies, exercises and discussions, participants will have the opportunity to follow the analytic process and to practice essential skills for the analyst position.
Workers' Comp
Sponsored by University Health Service. Pre-registration is required. For information or to enroll, call Laurie Westphal, 643-9403.
Workers' Compensation Benefits Procedures--Introductory Class
April 10, 9 am-noon.
For departmental and payroll staff who want to learn or update their knowledge of campus procedures on processing workers' compensation supplemental benefits.
Workers' Compensation Benefits Procedures--Advanced Class
April 17, 9 am-noon.
For staff who already have attended the introductory class. The class will cover calculations and sample cases.
Health*Matters
For more information, a program flyer or to enroll, call 643-4646. The following classes are free.
Str-e-e-e-tching
March 15, noon-1 pm, 234 Hearst Gym, no enrollment necessary.
This class will offer two short stretch routines that can help relieve muscle aches and pains and boost energy. The benefits of stretching and how to incorporate stretching into the day will be discussed.
Making VDT Workstations
User Friendly
March 12, 8 am-noon.
Training for departmental VDT workstation evaluators, including the ABC's of a successful departmental VDT health and safety program, practice evaluating the basics of a VDT workstation and how to set priorities in modifying VDT workstations.
Computer Classes
For information or registration forms, call 642-7355. Course descriptions and sign-up forms also are available online through the Workstation Support Services web server:(http://wss-www. berkeley. edu).
Macintosh Full-Day Classes:
Microsoft Excel 5.0 (Beginning)
Filemaker Pro (Beginning,
Advanced)
Aldus PageMaker 5.0 (2 days)
Macintosh Half-Day Classes:
Macintosh Fundamentals (using
System 7.5)
Microsoft Word 6.0 (Beginning,
Intermediate)
Microsoft Excel 5.0 Worksheets
(Intermediate)
IBM PC (DOS) Half-Day Classes:
Windows 3.1 (Beginning)
IBM PC (DOS) Full-Day Classes:
Microsoft Excel 5.0 for Windows
(Beginning, Intermediate)
Microsoft Word for Windows 6.0
(Fundamentals, Intermediate)
Care Services
For more information on workshops and groups offered by Care Services or to enroll, call 643-7754.
Coping With the Stress
Of a Changing Workplace
March 13, 1-3 pm.
This class will look at the impact of organizational change on individuals, examine the signs of stress and allow participants to examine their own work situations. Participants will develop a plan to reduce the negative effects of stress.
Menopause
March 19, noon-1 pm.
Care Services co-facilitates the third session of the menopause series sponsored by HEALTH*MATTERS. All interested women are welcome to attend this session. The agenda will include questions and answers, sharing information and discussion of impact of menopause on work and personal life.
Assertiveness
March 21, 1-3:30 pm.
For those who feel invisible at work, find it difficult to express anger or frustration, or feel their own needs are not being met, this workshop will offer the opportunity to explore communication styles and target areas that need further development.
New Support Group: Parenting
A Friend's or Relative's Children
March 7, 14 and 21, noon-1 pm.
For faculty and staff in custodial relationships with other people's children, including grandchildren, nieces, nephews, other family and non-relatives.
Elder/Adult Dependent Caregivers Support Group
Thursdays (ongoing), noon-1 pm.
For faculty or staff who are providing one or more forms of ongoing assistance to an adult in their lives. Weekly attendance not required.
Adoptive Parents Support Group
Call CARE for time and dates; new members welcomed.
Topics discussed include transracial issues, talking about adoption, developmental stages and open, closed and international adoptions.
Awards
Thomas F. Budinger, professor of electrical engineering and computer sciences and director of the Center for Functional Imaging at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and Warren F. Miller Jr., professor-in-residence of nuclear engineering and director of diversity programs at Los Alamos National Laboratory, have been elected to membership in the National Academy of Engineering, the highest professional honor for an American engineer.
Their election brings the total Berkeley faculty membership in the academy to 69.
The academy cited Budinger for "contributions in quantitative medical imaging and safety of space exploration and experimentation."
Budinger directs a large team of physicists, chemists, mathematicians, physiologists and research physicians at LBNL, developing imaging techniques with far greater capabilities than today's standards for studying and diagnosing cancer and diseases of the brain, heart and arteries.
Miller was cited for his "contributions to the theory of radiation transport and for nuclear engineering education."
He is widely recognized for his work in developing computational methods to model and understand reactor physics. He also is an authority on designing radiation shielding.
Miller also has been a national leader in nuclear engineering education. He has served on educational boards or advisory committees for MIT, Howard University, and the universities of Michigan, Wisconsin, New Mexico and Chicago, among others.
Anthony Fisher, professor in the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, is the recipient of the 1996 Award of Publication of Enduring Quality from the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists. He shares the honor with Nobel laureate Kenneth Arrow of Stanford for their article "Environmental Preservation, Uncertainty and Irreversibility" published in 1974 in the Quarterly Journal of Economics.
The article establishes the proposition that under uncertainty about the consequences of an irreversible action, even risk-neutral decision makers should act as if they were risk-averse, adding an option value to conventionally measured benefits of refraining from the action. The analysis and subsequent applications underlie the so-called precautionary principle increasingly used in environmental policy-making.
Bill McCart, director of Mail Services, is a new member of the board of directors of the National Association of College and University Mail Services.
Appointed at the national meeting in Philadelphia, McCart joins 14 colleagues from around the country who specialize in college and university mail services. The organization was founded in 1995 to enhance communication between colleges and universities and the U.S. Postal Service, and to promote the development and use of ethical and effective mail management techniques.
McCart, who previously worked in the publishing industry before coming to Berkeley 10 years ago, will edit the association's newsletter. McCart has been director of Mail Services since 1992.
Deaths
Hans Joachim Bremermann, a pioneering biomathematician whose interests ranged widely from artificial intelligence and the limits of computer computation to the purpose of sexual reproduction, died Feb. 21 of cancer at Alta Bates Medical Center. He was 69.
A professor emeritus of biophysics and mathematics, he joined the mathematics department in 1959. Although a member of that department for more than 30 years, he gradually diverged from pure mathematics. He joined the department of medical physics in 1970 and eventually ended up in the division of biophysics and cell physiology in the department molecular and cell biology. He retired in 1991.
In the course of his career, Bremermann made significant contributions to many areas of mathematics, most importantly in models of biological processes. He was a pioneer in complexity theory and genetic algorithms, and is well known for his models of parasite-host interactions.
"He was a philosopher of sorts who applied mathematical theory to biological processes," said one of his former students, Russell W. Anderson, currently a consultant on AIDS immunology and a professor at the University of Northern California in Petaluma. "He presented some of the very first models of biological processes, many of which we use today, including models of evolution, pattern recognition in the brain and the immune system, and the interaction between parasite and host."
He was one of the original creators of genetic algorithms, computer programs that evolve or change in a manner similar to Darwinian evolution. This work led to the concept known as the Bremermann limit, a theoretical limit to any computation.
His theory of sexual reproduction emerged from theoretical musings on why animals would choose to gamble on sexual reproduction when asexual cloning seems a more certain way of assuring survival. His conclusion was that sexual reproduction arose as a response to microscopic parasites, a way of slightly altering the offspring's genetics to throw parasites off track and provide an edge in the constant battle with pathogens.
In the years before his death he worked with immunologists on mathematical models of how HIV interacts with the immune system to cause AIDS. He also was at work on the theory of dreams, which he proposed as the key to the human brain's ability to recognize patterns.
Born in Bremen, Germany, he remained there through World War II and enrolled in the University of Munster. After obtaining his doctorate in mathematics in 1951, he was able to arrange two years of postdoctoral studies at Stanford and Harvard, and later returned for another three years at Princeton.
Last year he received a lifetime achievement award from the Evolutionary Programming Society for his contributions to the foundations of the field.
He was well known as a warm, patient mentor who nurtured 26 students through their PhDs. Many of these students attended a banquet for him last year, where he was presented with a Festschrift volume of papers in his honor published as a special issue of the journal BioSystems.
Bremermann is survived by his wife, Maribel, a retired professor of romance languages at San Francisco State University.
A memorial service is planned for Sunday, March 17, at 2 p.m. in the Faculty Club. Donations in his memory can be made to the American Cancer Society.
Noted educator and author John U. Michaelis died Feb. 3 in Fresno after a bout with pneumonia. He was 82.
Michaelis served on the faculty 35 years, joining in 1945 as professor of education and retiring in 1980 as professor emeritus.
Born and educated in Colorado, Michaelis was director of teacher education at Fresno State College (now CSU Fresno) before coming to Berkeley. In 1951 he headed the US delegation to UNESCO and subsequently served with the State Department education services in Lebanon, the Phillipines, Burma and Ecuador.
Notable among the books and texts he wrote is the widely used "Social Studies for Children: A Guide to Basic Instruction," originally published in 1956. An 11th edition, which Michaelis completed with the help of a former student, was released in late 1995.
In 1979, the University of Colorado named Michaelis Outstanding Alumnus in the field of education.
He is survived by a brother, Arnold Michaelis of Eureka, daughter Susan Hrutky of Fresno, two grandchildren and two great grandchildren.
Remembrances can be sent to the John U. Michaelis Scholarship Fund at Berkeley or UC Riverside, or the Ann and John Michaelis Teacher Education Scholarship at the University of Northern Colorado, Greely.