Nonresident Supplemental Tuition (NRST) fellowship – a new program

Dear Graduate Program Chairs,

Nonresident supplemental tuition (NRST) for graduate students has been a persistent concern of faculty and the administration for many years.  Although a number of policies have been adopted to mitigate the impact of NRST and the rate has not increased for 10 years (except for a technical shift of a small amount from tuition to NRST in 2011-12), NRST remains an obstacle to achieving our aspirations for excellence in graduate education.

As you know, present UC policy is that nonresident doctoral students do not pay NRST for a period of three years after they advance to candidacy.  As a next step to mitigate the NRST challenge, we will adopt a new policy for doctoral students who remain in candidacy beyond the three year waiver period.  These students will be eligible to receive a non-competitive fellowship to offset the cost of NRST each quarter using new funding approved by Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor Ralph Hexter.  The new policy will require a simple application in Spring Quarter for the following academic year with a request to approve the NRST fellowship for up to three quarters.  The NRST fellowship may be renewed for a second year.  The Major Professor and Program Chair or Graduate Adviser will be required to endorse the application.  The goal of this policy is to ensure that students are able to complete their degrees in a timely manner based on academic, rather than financial, considerations.

This new program will be in effect for Fall Quarter 2013.  Additional details and the application materials will be available in June.  In the meantime, please share this announcement with faculty and students in your program.

Thank you,

Jeff Gibeling

Dr Famous published sexy but wrong paper – blog about it? via @pknoepfler

We have all seen cases where a sexy research paper gets attention from the mainstream media. Often this results in oversimplifications of the results and overdrawn conclusions, while not providing a direct link to the original paper.

Now imagine that you have actually read this sexy paper.

Now imagine that the research has some serious issues.

Now imagine that the last author is a famous professor.

Will you devote  a blog entry to this paper or not?

On Paul Knoepfler blog you can answer this precise question (here).

Blueberry Sensory Panel

Do you like blueberries?

We are looking for sensory panelist who can participate in our blueberry flavor research.

Each participant is expected to attend all training session in order to participate in the taste sessions starting from end of April to June.

• Training session – starting from late April for 2 weeks with 3 training sessions per week (30-60 min each).
• Taste session – May-June, 7 sessions over a 7 weeks period (20-45 min each). The exact dates cannot be determined until the day before harvest. But once the harvest date is fixed, the tasting days will be set once per week on the same day each week. (no taste session on the weekends)

Treats will be served, and gift cards given for attending sessions.

If you have time and are interested in participating, please contact Nobuko Sugimoto (nsugimoto@ucdavis.edu)

Nobuko Sugimoto

Postdoctoral Researcher

Department of Plant Sciences

1106 Wickson Hall

“EARTHTONES” at the Natsoulas Art Gallery 7 pm

Tonight, Friday March 15, students of SAS 42 will sing their final exam “EARTHTONES” at the Natsoulas Art Gallery, 521 1st Street (corner of E St.)  at 7 pm.  Come hear songs about photosynthesis, soil management, rhizobium, and the way of the natural world.  Enjoy and support the creativity and energy of these young scholars.

UC Davis Statistical Science Symposium onThe Analysis of Complex and Massive Data

Department of Statistics University of California, Davis

The fourth annual UC Davis Statistical Science Symposium onThe Analysis of Complex and Massive Data will take place at the University of California, Davis on Saturday, April 13, 2013, 9:00am – 5:00pm, UC Davis Campus, Mathematical Sciences Building, Colloquium Room 1147

This one-day event aims at providing an interdisciplinary forum to discuss recent developments in the rapidly evolving areas relating to “Big Data” and “Data Science”.

Invited speakers include:

• Owen Carmichael (Neuroscience and Computer Science, UC Davis)
• Xiaodan Fan (Statistics, Chinese University Hong Kong)
• Christopher Genovese (Statistics, Carnegie Mellon University)
• Ken Joy (Computer Science, UC Davis)
• Anna Michalak (Global Ecology, Stanford University)
• Fernando Perez (Neuroscience, UC Berkeley)
• Rachel Schutt (Johnson Research Labs and adjunct at Statistics, Columbia University)
• Xiaotong Shen (Statistics, University of Minnesota)
• Tony Tyson (Physics, UC Davis)

More details (title, abstract, schedule) will be made available at http://www.stat.ucdavis.edu/symposium2013/.

Reception after the symposium
A reception following the symposium is scheduled to begin at 6:00pm at the John Natsoulas
Gallery at 521 1st St. in downtown Davis.  Registration
The registration for the event is free. Nevertheless, we ask all the participants to register at http://www.stat.ucdavis.edu/symposium2013. We hope to welcome many of you to this event.

CGPSA’s Non-Resident Tuition Fee (NRTF) Forum 2/20/13 2PM International House

CGPSA’s Non-Resident Tuition Fee (NRTF) Forum

 Are you a graduate student who is concerned about NRTF ?

Are you wondering about how it impacts you ?

Are you wondering about the CGPSA’s NRTF student petition and it’s outcome?

Are you a faculty who can’t hire international PhD students because of the high NRTF?

Get your questions answered regarding NRT issue by the panel of invited speakers:

Jeffery Gibeling, Dean of Graduate Studies

Kelly Ratliff, Associate Vice Chancellor, Budget and Institutional Analysis

Rachael Goodhue, Chair of Graduate Council, Professor, Agricultural and Resource Economics

Ruth Asmundson, Former mayor of the City of Davis

Sarah Ligday, Lead International Student Advisor at SISS

When :

Date: Wednesday, February 20

Time: 2:00-3:30 pm

Location: International House

Refreshments will be provided !!

RSVP :

http://tinyurl.com/NRT-workshop

 Hosted by :

Chancellor’s Graduate and Professional Advisory Board (CGPSA)

http://gradstudies.ucdavis.edu/about/cgpsa.html

 Questions:

Please contact cgpsa.ucd@gmail.com

Garth Lenz – Environmental Photojournalist TODAY 5pm!

There is an awesome opportunity to see a talk by Garth Lenz TODAY, Tuesday, Jan 15th at 5:10pm.

Garth Lenz <http://www.garthlenz.com>  is a photojournalist who has recently documented the changes taking place in the Alberta Tar Sands of the boreal forests of Canada. He has given a TED talk <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84zIj_EdQdM>  on these issues and his work, and will be visiting UC Davis to share a slideshow of his photos and talk to us about this important environmental issue. It is a pertinent topic, as the country moves toward a final decision about the XL pipeline which would drive the expansion of the mining operations in the Tar Sands. And hearing this story from a world-renown photojournalist like Garth is truly a unique opportunity.

His talk is being sponsored by the Society for Conservation Biology, Davis and the Geology Students. It is titled “The True Cost of Oil: Images of Beauty and Devastation”

Join us on TODAY, Jan 15th at 5pm in 2 Wellman Hall to see his presentation. Free admission to students and the public.

Please bring your own coffee cup if you can!

Commercial Red Wines Consumer Tasting : Get a $ 10 gift card for a 45 min session !

No experience in wine is required, but an eligible participant needs to be 21+ years old and have no medical reason for not drinking alcohol. This study was approved by the UC Davis IRB Board for  Human Research Protection.

Participants will smell and taste a set of commercial red wines, and simply rate overall opinion of each wine in a computer-based questionnaire.

The study will take place on Saturday, the 2nd of February 2013, specific time TBA, at the Robert Mondavi Institute for Wine and Food Science (RMI Sensory, room 2003) on the UC Davis campus in Davis, CA.

Please find exact location using this link: http://campusmap.ucdavis.edu/?b=126
Free parking on Saturdays is available close by at the South Parking Structure – for directions please see http://campusmap.ucdavis.edu/?l=32

To sign up as a participant, please contact Helene Hopfer ASAP @  sensoryven@gmail.com  or call (530) 752-9356.

BMCDB SSS 1/9/13 1PM LSA 1022: Annie Chiu Chromatin Remodeler RSF in Telomere Maintenance

This Wednesday

NEW TIME 1pm

1022 LSA

9 January 2013

Student Seminar Series presents

Annie Chiu

Chromatin Remodeler RSF in Telomere Maintenance

 

Free Pizza

 

Come down for science and lunch

Link to petition to stop the UC logo change

Have you seen the new UC logo?  If you don’t like it, here’s a petition to stop the change: http://www.change.org/petitions/university-of-california-stop-the-new-uc-logo