Wednesday, April 2, 1997
COMMUNITY BRIEFSRegent Connerly backs same-sex benefits
UC Regent Ward Connerly said Monday that he will press other
regents to follow the university’s repeal of race and gender
preferences with a policy to give employment benefits to faculty
and staff in same-sex partnerships.
Connerly made his comments during a discussion with a UC
Berkeley graduate seminar class, in which he detailed his campaign
on behalf of Proposition 209. The regent said he plans to ask the
UC Board of Regents to approve the benefits plan at its meeting in
May, despite "catch(ing) a lot of hell" from his conservative
friends.
"I think the university treats people who are not of the
‘preferred’ (sexual orientation) differently than it treats others
in terms of the benefits that they get," Connerly said to about a
dozen students. "Their partners don’t get the same benefits they
get  the health benefits, the library card. That’s
fundamentally wrong."
Connerly explained that correspondence with faculty members who
were denied medical benefits offered to married couples convinced
him to spearhead an effort to ban preferences based on sexual
orientation in UC employment.
"He’s been a very strong supporter of domestic partner rights
for years on the Board of Regents," said Student Regent Jess
Bravin. "I think it’s most appropriate for us to stop dragging our
feet on this."
After the course, Bravin and Connerly discussed bringing up the
proposal at the next board meeting.
Should the regents act on such a plan, it would probably mean
same-sex partners of staff and faculty members would be able to
share benefits such as health insurance, which is currently not a
policy with the university.
Two students awarded Fulbright scholarships
Two UCLA students were recently selected to receive J. William
Fulbright Foreign Scholarship awards.
As recipients of the awards, Kaye Lubach and Robert Reigle, both
doctoral students of ethnomusicology, will spend a year abroad
studying their fields.
Lubach will be doing field research in India, examining the
significance of the musicians’ narrative interpretations of the
Hindusthani music tradition.
Her focus will be on Hindusthani tabla, an Indian double drum
set. Lubach has taught tabla in UCLA’s ethnomusicology
department.
Reigle is going to Papua New Guinea to spend a year studying the
mythological aspects of the local music.
He will live in the village of Serieng  with a population
of 120 Â researching why particular sounds are used in
relation to particular ideas. A previous recipient of the Fulbright
scholarship in the late 1980s, Reigle lived in Serieng during the
two years of his first award.
He has served as a lecturer and then dean of the Faculty of
Creative Arts at the University of Papua New Guinea.
Education professor receives award
UCLA Professor of Education Jeannie Oakes and a colleague from
USC were winners of this year’s Palmer O. Johnson Memorial
Award.
Oakes and USC Assistant Professor of Education Gretchen Guiton
were honored for their article, which appeared in the spring 1995
issue of the American Educational Research Journal.
The article traces the authors’ research into how high schools
decide on courses to offer and how they match students to those
courses, putting students on a track toward or away from college.
Oakes and Guiton discovered that not all high achievers received
equal access to the best classes and teachers. Their article was
chosen as the outstanding article of 1995-96 because it "dealt with
(the) important educational issue" of tracking, said awards
committee chair Greta Morine-Dershimer.
Compiled from Daily Bruin staff and wire reports.