NEWS RELEASE, 5/21/96 UC Berkeley Nobelist Glenn Seaborg to visit San Francisco high schools Jan. 8

by Jesus Mena

San Francisco -- Nobel Laureate Glenn T. Seaborg, a professor emeritus of chemistry at the University of California at Berkeley, will visit two San Francisco high schools Monday, Jan. 8, to talk with students and teachers. Seaborg, 83, will discuss his long and varied career in science and public service, which includes the discovery of the transuranium elements and consultation with 10 U.S. presidents. His visit was organized as part of a UC Berkeley outreach program to the San Francisco Unified School District aimed at inspiring students -- in particular underrepresented minorities -- to attend college and pursue careers in science. He will be visiting two of the district's newest and most promising high schools, which focus on providing academically rigorous curricula to inner-city youth. Seaborg is perhaps best known for the discovery of plutonium -- an achievement for which he received the 1951 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. He also served for 10 years as chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, and was chancellor of the UC Berkeley campus from 1958 to 1961. In addition he served as director of the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory and currently is associate director-at-large. He has long had an interest in science education. He was a member of the National Commission on Excellence in Education that published the famous 1983 report "A Nation at Risk," which drew much-needed attention to the problems of public education in this country. As chairman of UC Berkeley's Lawrence Hall of Science he has been a vocal spokesman on education, addressing in particular the crisis in mathematics and science education. His visit is one of many such contacts made by UC Berkeley faculty through the Berkeley Pledge program, which was instituted last fall in the wake of the decision by UC Regents to eliminate consideration of race or ethnicity in deciding who is admitted to the university. To preserve Berkeley's hard-won diversity, the campus, under the leadership of Chancellor Chang-Lin Tien, committed a minimum of $1 million to boosting academic outreach efforts to K-12 schools to help prepare students for admission to college, in particular UC. The partnership between UC Berkeley and the San Francisco Unified School District was instituted as part of that program. Seaborg's schedule for the day is as follows: 10 a.m. Address to assembly of students, teachers and staff at Thurgood Marshall Academic High School, 45 Conkling St., San Francisco 1:30 p.m. Address to assembly at Phillip & Sala Burton Academic High School, 400 Mansell St., San Francisco