Gazette

Staff Enrichment

Health*Matters Lunch And Learn Series

There is no charge and enrollment is not required for the following classes. All take place from 12:10 to 12:55 p.m. Bag lunches welcomed. For more information call 643-4646.

Str-e-e-e-tching

March 15, 234 Hearst Gym.

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.

Strength Training

With Dynabands

April 12, 234 Hearst Gym.

Participants will learn a routine using dynabands and handweights to use at home or the office for muscle tone and strength.

Safer Sex in the 90s:

* Women Who

Have Sex With Women

April 3.

* Women and Men Who

Have Sex With the Opposite Sex

April 10.

* Men Who Have Sex With Men

April 17.

Each class will offer pointers on how to communicate effectively with a current or potential partner and how to practice safer sex without spoiling the fun. The program will include discussion about the connection between alcohol and drug use and risky behavior. Resources and safer sex kits will be provided. All sessions will take place at the Tang Education Center.

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.

Personal Time Management

April 5, 8:30 am-noon.

Learn techniques for analyzing time use, determining priorities in the work setting, planning and making the most of peak energy times of the day and learning when to delegate.

Participating in Teams:

Skills for Effective Teamwork

April 17 and 24, 8:30 am-4 pm.

Through exercises, videos, lectures and small group discussions, participants will learn the basics of teamwork, including team dynamics, roles and behavior, and how to help create effective team meetings, solve team problems and effectively manage conflict.

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.

Benefits 403(b) Contributions

Help is on the way for employees wanting to determine their maximum contribution to the 403(b) plan for 1996.

UC Benefits is in the process of calculating the Maximum Annual Contribution, also known as the MAC, for all employees who contributed to the 403(b) plan during 1995. The MAC will be calculated in accordance with Internal Revenue Code provisions using December 1995 and January 1996 payroll data.

A statement indicating the 1996 limit will be mailed to home addresses of affected participants in late March. Due to this project, 403(b) worksheets for 1996 are not available to employees as they have been in past years.

Information regarding limits for current employees who have not participated in the 403(b) plan and for new hires will be published as soon as it becomes available.

ICC Rate for 1996

A contract rate of 6.14 percent for the Insurance Company Contract (ICC) Fund has been negotiated with Principal Mutual Life Insurance Co. The 1996 contract has staggered maturity dates culminating in December 2001. Principal Mutual Life ranks in the upper one percent of all U.S. life insurance companies and is rated A++ by Best & Co.

Contributions invested in the ICC Fund during 1996 will be pooled with existing money in the fund to produce a blended rate of return that reflects the average yield of all the contracts in force.

Assuming that 1996 deposits follow anticipated contribution trends, the university treasurer estimates that the fund will produce a net yield of approximately 7.70 percent in 1996.

Fidelity Sessions

Fidelity Investments is once again offering free half-hour counseling sessions for Berkeley employees. Sessions will be held in the Campus Benefits Unit, 247 University Hall, on March 19, April 25, May 23, June 20 and July 18.

To sign up for a session, call Fidelity at (800) 771-3374.

Awards

Richard Ofshe, professor of sociology, received the Roy M. Dorcus Award from the Society for Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis for best clinical paper on hypnosis published during 1994. The award was presented in November for his paper "Recovered Memory and Robust Repression: Influence and Pseudomemory," published in the International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis.

Ofshe's work on recovered memory was featured in the March 7 TV movie "Forgotten Sins," based on the true story of a Washington sheriff who was accused by his daughters of sexual assault.

The Mark Twain Papers project at Bancroft Library has been awarded the first Modern Language Association Prize for a Distinguished Scholarly Publication for "Roughing It," published in 1993 by UC Press.

Presented at the association's recent national convention, the prize can be considered the Pulitzer Prize of scholarly publications, according to association officials.

The editors of "Roughing It" include Harriet Elinor Smith of Bancroft and professor Edgar Marquess Branch of Miami University of Ohio. Associate editors are Lin Salamo and Robert Pack Browning, both of Bancroft.

Deaths

Alan D. K. Laird, professor emeritus of mechanical engineering, died Feb. 11 at Kaiser Walnut Creek following a heart attack. He was 81.

Laird, who specialized in water resources and fluid mechanics, was director of the Sea Water Conversion Laboratory and systemwide coordinator of UC's Saline Water Conservation Research Program.

Born in 1914 and raised in British Columbia, Laird came to Berkeley in 1946 as a student, earned both an MS and PhD in mechanical engineering and joined the faculty in 1951. He retired in 1980.

His early research centered on fluid dynamics, including two-phase flow problems and wave interface models. He later focused on methods for the production of fresh water through the desalination of seawater and other fluids.

Laird is survived by his wife, Joyce, of Lafayette, two sons, a daughter and four grandchildren.

Francis J. Whitfield, emeritus professor of Slavic languages and literatures, died Feb. 28 in Berkeley, just before what would have been his 80th birthday.

Whitfield was, in effect, the architect of the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures, and will be remembered by generations of students for his insistence on rigor--tempered with humor and grace--on the many subjects he taught.

His range of interests was broad: poetry, literature, Greek, Latin, biblical texts and mathematics. He edited what is still the most accessible single-volume introduction to the history of Russian literature, D.S. Mirsky's "A History of Russian Literature."

Throughout his career, Whitfield's enduring love was Polish language, literature and culture. In Polish his major accomplishment was the two volume Kosciuszko Foundation Dictionary: Polish-English, English-Polish.

In general linguistics, Whitfield's special interest was glossematics, the classification of general structural linguistic practice. His extensive writing and contributions to this field led to an invitation to address the congregation at the 500th anniversary of the University of Copenhagen.

In Slavic linguistics, Whitfield is best known for his textbook of Old Church Slavic.

Born in Springfield, Mass., Whitfield spent his entire college career at Harvard, obtaining a PhD in Slavic in 1944. He joined the Berkeley faculty in 1948 and taught until his retirement in 1986.

Upon his retirement, Whitfield was awarded the Berkeley citation.

He is survived by his wife of 46 years, Cecylia. Memorial gifts may be sent to the Department of Slavic Languages in the name of "The Francis James Whitfield Fund," to go toward support for students in Polish research and study.

A memorial service is scheduled for Thursday, March 22, at 4 p.m. in the Morrison Library.

Memorials for Nestrick, Newman and Stern

A memorial service for William Nestrick will be held Wednesday, March 20, at 4 p.m. in the auditorium of International House.

Nestrick, who was chair of the Department of Comparative Literature and an associate professor of English and comparative literature, died at his Berkeley home Feb. 29 of a brain hemorrhage.

Nestrick's exceptionally wide knowledge and interests in the arts were reflected in teaching and publications ranging from English Renaissance poetry to the modern visual arts, opera, music and film.

He chaired the arts division juries for the San Francisco International Film Festival for several years, and this spring's festival, April 18 through May 5, will dedicate a program to his memory.

He served the campus as dean of the Division of Special Programs from 1986 to 1988, and founded and headed the undergraduate major program in film. Since 1980 a member of the Chancellor's Committee on the Creative Arts and also a member of the University Art Museum's Collections Committee, he was a frequent lecturer at the Pacific Film Archive.

A memorial service for Frank C. Newman, retired associate justice of the California Supreme Court and former dean and professor emeritus at Boalt Hall, will be held March 17 at 2 p.m. in the Great Hall of the Faculty Club.

A memorial gathering will be held for Milton Stern March 18 at 6 p.m. in the Faculty Club's Seaborg Room. Stern, who was dean emeritus of UC Berkeley Extension, died Feb. 16 in Florida.

Newman's and Stern's obituaries were published in the Feb. 28 issue of Berkeleyan.

Campus Memos

The following is a summary listing of all campus job openings for the current week.

Charles William Tobias, the founding father of electrochemical engineering and former professor and chair of chemical engineering, died March 6 at his home in Orinda after a long struggle with emphysema. He was 75.

A native of Hungary, Tobias took a field that deals with the effects of electricity on chemical reactions and with electricity produced by chemical reactions--the best known practical examples are batteries and electroplating--and gave it a sound scientific footing.

Where before it was almost an art, he detailed the processes involved and quantified them, thereby laying the foundation for advances we take for granted today, such as long-lasting lithium batteries.

Among his many research projects, he studied ozone production in electrochemical cells, investigated the electrical deposition of alloys and metals, studied electrochemical machining of hard alloys and looked at how reactive metals are deposited on electrodes.

In 1954 he also founded an electrochemical research program at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, which over the years made advances that contributed to longer lasting batteries and batteries with greater storage capacities and greater energy concentrations.

Tobias influenced the lives of many students and faculty members who thought of him as a role model and friend. During his Berkeley career he supervised 72 graduate students, 34 of whom received the PhD. A large proportion of all electrochemical engineers in this country are his former students or students of his students.

"He was not only a scholar, but also a man of enormous charm, wit and human understanding whose presence helped shape the spirit and substance of the Department of Chemical Engineering," said Alexis T. Bell, dean of the College of Chemistry.

A member of the National Academy of Engineering since 1983, Tobias received numerous honors during his 44-year career. Upon his retirement from Berkeley in 1991 he received the Berkeley Citation.

Born in Budapest, Tobias escaped to the U.S. in 1947 just as the communists were taking over Hungary, and headed for Berkeley, where he pursued postdoctoral studies and worked as an instructor in the newly formed Department of Chemical Engineering. He became an assistant professor in 1950 and was appointed a full professor in 1960.

Tobias chaired the chemical engineering department from 1967 until 1972, and served as acting dean of the College of Chemistry in 1978.

He is survived by his wife, Katalin Voros; three children, Carla, Anthony and Eric, by his late first wife, Marcia; two stepdaughters, Eszti and Reka Pigniczky; two grandsons; and a brother.

A funeral service was held March 11 in Berkeley. A recital in his memory will be held later this spring.

Donations in his memory may be made to the Department of Chemical Engineering or to the American Hungarian Foundation in New Brunswick, NJ.


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