Wednesday, June 3, 1998
Community Briefs
Freedom City kicks off day one of education
Tuesday morning, members and supporters of the Affirmative
Action Coalition set up camp at Royce Quad, transforming the lawn
into what they have dubbed Freedom City.
During their three-day, two-night stay outside Royce Hall,
participants in Freedom City look to educate and speak with
students about various social issues affecting the community.
"The whole focus is education. The campaign is to show students
what’s going on nationally and internationally," said Mike de la
Rocha, USAC general representative. "We’ll talk about issues, like
the demands given to the Chancellor (by the Affirmative Action
Coalition) and let the students respond to them."
Participants in Freedom City will address issues concerning
affirmative action, decisions made by the UC Regents and Chancellor
Carnesale and Proposition 209.
Much of Tuesday’s attention, however, focused on the day’s
elections, with signs and shouts calling for students to vote
against Propositions 226 and 227, and discussions of the election
results.
Costs, inflexibility cause tenure decline
Loss of funding, higher numbers of retiring faculty and the
desire for hiring flexibility are lowering the promise for lifetime
employment for professors across the country.
About 73 percent of all full-time faculty members nationwide are
tenure or tenure-track employees, which is a decline from recent
years, said Ernie Benjamin of the American Association of
University Professors. Cutbacks in education spending in recent
years have forced colleges and universities to cut costs by hiring
part-time or temporary faculty members, who are "less expensive"
than tenure-track or full tenured professors, Benjamin said.
As schools continue to hire more part-time faculty and promote
less faculty members to tenure status, the difference will
increase, he said. The number of tenured faculty members hired at
colleges and universities nationwide between 1975 and 1993
increased by 24 percent but the number of part-time and temporary
faculty hired increased by 84 percent, he added.
Cells’ role in brain
communication explored
In what scientists touted as a "major step forward," a study
released Monday by University of Minnesota researchers provided a
glimpse of how a majority of the cells in the brain communicate.
The study, spearheaded by physiologists Eric Newman and Kathleen
Zahs, examined the communication between cells in the brain which
help process information. The cells, called glial, were previously
thought to play only a small role.
"Ninety percent of the cells in the brain that were thought not
to play an active role in thinking may actually contribute to
information processing in the brain," Newman said, a professor in
the physiology department.
In recent years, the study of glial cells has become
increasingly prominent. Researchers have found a connection between
the glial cells and illnesses such as brain cancer and Parkinson’s
disease. Using tissue from the retinas of laboratory rats, the
researchers studied how glial cells communicated with each other
and neurons.
When the cells were stimulated with a mechanical probe, the
calcium level in the cell rose. Afterward, the levels of calcium in
surrounding cells grew, spreading like a wave. This led researchers
to conclude that glial cells influence the electrical activity of
neurons or help modulate the thinking process.
Zahs, an assistant physiology professor, said recent studies
linked the malfunction of glial cells with multiple sclerosis,
Parkinson’s disease and brain cancer. The researchers said a better
understanding of glial cells could lead to treatments for such
illnesses.
Compiled from Daily Bruin staff and wire reports.