Berkeleyan

News Briefs

12 April 2005

Campus Academic Senate to meet Monday, April 25

The Berkeley Division of the Academic Senate will hold its spring 2005 meeting from 4 to 6 p.m., Monday, April 25, in Sibley Auditorium, Bechtel Engineering Center. The meeting was originally scheduled for this week, but the date has been changed so as not to conflict with events surrounding the chancellor's inauguration.

Campus memorial April 22 will honor folklorist Alan Dundes

A memorial service for the late Alan Dundes, professor of anthropology and folklore, will be held at 1 p.m., Friday, April 22, in the Chevron Auditorium at International House (which has a seating capacity of 460). Credited for playing a central role in the development of modern folklore studies, and with training many of the field's most distinguished scholars, Dundes died of an apparent heart attack on March 30.

Berkeley grad programs shine in U.S. News & World Report rankings

Berkeley graduate programs received high marks in the latest rankings by U.S. News & World Report, published in the April 11, 2005, issue under the title "America's Best Graduate Schools 2006." The campus's English program was ranked No. 1 in the nation, a distinction it shared with its counterparts at Yale and Harvard. Sociology ranked No. 2, as did history (tied with Princeton) and psychology research (tied with the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor). Engineering ranked No. 3, business No. 6 (tied with Dartmouth), education No. 7 (tied with University of Pennsylvania), and law No. 11 (tied with Duke and Cornell).

U.S. News & World Report derives its professional-school rankings both from data on students and faculty and from measures of graduates' professional achievements. Science, social-science, and humanities programs are ranked solely based on ratings of academic experts. The publication did not update its rankings of grad programs in the sciences or the fine arts this year.

The rankings can be found online at www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/grad/rankings/rankindex_brief.php (a partial list is free; there's a charge for the complete rankings).

Clark Kerr Lecturer to address governmental role in higher education

In the first of this year's Clark Kerr Lectures on the Role of Higher Education in Society, MIT President Emeritus Charles Vest will speak at 4 p.m., Tuesday, April 19. His lecture - titled "Federal, State, and Local Governments: University Patrons, Partners, or Protagonists" - is in the Chevron Auditorium, International House. The Clark Kerr Lectures, sponsored by the Center for the Study of Higher Education, are given in alternate years at one or more UC campuses and address major policy issues facing higher education.

Nominations sought for Distinguished Librarian Award

Campus librarians, faculty, staff, and students are invited to nominate Berkeley librarians who have given exceptional service to the profession and the campus, for the 2004-05 Distinguished Librarian Award. Sponsored by the Librarian's Association of UC Berkeley (LAUC-B), the award recognizes excellence in librarianship, specifically as it furthers the teaching and research missions of the Berkeley campus.

The deadline to declare an intention to nominate someone is April 15; full documentation must be submitted by May 15. Send nominations to Allan Urbanic, chair of the award committee, at 438 Doe Library, #6000. For details on the nomination and documentation process, see the LAUC-B website at lib.Berkeley.edu/LAUC/dla/. For additional information,
e-mail or call 643-1343.

UC tops annual list of universities receiving U.S. patents

For the 11th consecutive year, the University of California is the leader among the nation's universities in developing new patents, according to a new report by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. The report presents a preliminary list of the U.S. universities receiving the most patents for invention (i.e., utility patents) during the 2004 calendar year.

Last year, UC recorded a total of 424 patents. The final list is expected in December 2005.

In FY 2003-04, nearly 1,200 new inventions were disclosed by UC faculty and researchers. Overall, the system's invention portfolio comprises more than 6,600 active inventions. Total licensing revenues, the income received from UC agreements with industry, was $93.2 million in FY 2003-04, a portion of which is re-invested in research and education on UC campuses.

In the coming decade, UC research is also expected to continue to be a major source of productivity gains through California's R&D industries, adding $5.2 billion and more than 114,000 new jobs in California (2002-2011).

For the patent office's Top 10, visit www.uspto.gov/web/ offices/com/speeches/05-18.htm. For more information about UC research, technology transfer, and UC-industry partnerships, visit www.universityofcalifornia.edu/research/techtransfer.html and uc-industry.berkeley.edu.