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Welcome to the April 2014 issue of the Social Sciences eNews!

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Social sciences former dean, alumna and undergrad earn 2014 Lauds & Laurels honors

Formal banquet to be held May 15

The School of Social Sciences is pleased to have among its faculty, staff, students, alumni and community friends three recipients of the UCI Alumni Association's Lauds & Laurels awards for 2014. Established in 1971, the awards have recognized and celebrated the accomplishments of more than 800 outstanding anteaters who have prominently contributed to and supported the advancement of UCI's fundamental mission of teaching, research and public service.

Barbara Dosher
Distinguished Professor, Cognitive Sciences
Faculty Achievement

Dosher's nearly 40-year academic career has been spent studying the distinct forms and processes of attention, memory and perceptual learning. Her findings have been published widely in such major journals as Psychological Review, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Psychological Science, Vision Research, and Journal of Memory & Language, and her research has been funded through multi-million dollar grants from the National Eye Institute, Air Force Office of Scientific Research, National Institute of Mental Health and National Science Foundation, among others. She was a professor of psychology at Columbia University for 15 years before she joined the faculty of UC Irvine in 1992. That same year, she was elected as a fellow to the Society of Experimental Psychologists and the American Psychological Society. In 2002, she was named dean of social sciences and for 11 years, she led the campus' largest academic unit through a period of significant growth, despite budgetary constrictions. In 2011, Dosher was elected to the National Academy of Sciences. She was named UC Irvine Distinguished Professor in 2012 and a year later, she was awarded the Howard Crosby Warren Medal by the Society of Experimental Psychologists, an honor that is the oldest and one of the most prestigious awards in experimental psychology. Most recently, she was named the 2013 recipient of the Distinguished Faculty Award for Research. Read on...

Sasha Sabherwal
Undergraduate, International Studies, Political Science and Women's Studies
Outstanding Undergraduate

Sasha Sabherwal counts completion of the School of Social Sciences' Summer Academic Enrichment Program among her biggest accomplishments at UCI. Coming from a low-income immigrant family, the international and women's studies double major found it difficult to navigate the university system. "SAEP helped bridge the gaps in my understanding of a university education, showing me the importance of research, studying abroad, community service and leadership," she says. With guidance from her mentor, political science associate professor Caesar Sereseres, and the skills she acquired through SAEP, Sabherwal pursued the humanities honors program through which she completed a thesis on the intersections of gender and nationalism in India within the Hindutva movement. Her work was funded by the Summer Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program and Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program. Her research has taken her to India and England, as well as Washington, D.C. where, through the UCDC program, she worked for a semester as a policy intern. While at UCI, Sabherwal has been able to channel her interests in foreign policy, critical theory, economics and history through the Los Angeles Urban Debate League. She is also a member of the School of Social Sciences Dean's Ambassadors Council and Humanities Out There, and she founded UCI's International Studies Club and Mentorship Program which focuses on cultural perspectives, governmental structures and building a network of students to discuss global, contemporary issues. In 2013, she was named as the recipient of both the Elena B. and William R. Schonfeld Scholarship and the David Rosten International Education and Service Scholarship, awards which are helping fund her final year of study at UCI, after which she plans to attend graduate school. Read on...

Jackie Lacey
Alumna, Psychology, 1979
Outstanding Social Sciences Alumna

Jackie Lacey is a woman of many firsts. Before she was the first woman and the first African American to be named district attorney of Los Angeles County, Lacey was a first-generation college student who received a bachelor's degree in psychology from UC Irvine (class of '79) and a law degree from the University of Southern California. She went on to become a deputy district attorney, where she earned national recognition for a 1998 case that was the first successful prosecution of an LA County race-based hate crime murder. As she worked her way to the top, Lacey also established the first Animal Cruelty Prosecution Program in the United States. Lacey is now in her second year as the Los Angeles County district attorney. The OC Register's Anna Iliff recently sat down with Lacey to find out how UCI has played into her success and what lessons she's learned along the way. When asked how it feels to be the first woman and first African American to hold the position of LA District Attorney, Lacey responded: "It's a tremendous amount of responsibility. I don't want to mess up. I don't want to ruin opportunities for others who may come behind me. Although it's great to be known as a history maker and what that stands for, I also want to be known as a great D.A. and beyond." Read on...

Join the School of Social Sciences in honoring our three award winners at the 44th annual UCI Alumni Association Lauds & Laurels Banquet to be held May 15 at the UCI Student Center Pacific Ballroom. Tickets are $250, with 10-person tables available. For more information, call (949) 824-2586.

Read on...

Online learning 2.0

Social sciences expands online offerings, honors online innovators

Bitcoins, blogs and basic economics – oh my. These are just a few of the new topics social sciences faculty and lecturers will be covering in online classes this summer and the up-coming academic year. "Social sciences was already leading the pack in offering online and technology enhanced courses," says Bill Maurer, social sciences dean. "But you can't sit still in a rapidly changing educational environment. Now it's time to start recognizing the trailblazers, to build on the lessons they've learned and start innovating in how we teach online and with digital technology." Last month, social sciences lecturer Joanne Christopherson was named the 2013 recipient of the national R1edu award for online instructors, an honor that recognizes her as an innovator in the distance learning effort. To spark a similar interest in online instruction among others within the school, Maurer recently launched the Social Sciences Teaching and Technology Innovation Award which provides funds for winning course proposals aimed at online or hybrid classroom/online delivery. Inaugural recipients include: William Branch, economics professor; Louis DeSipio, Chicano/Latino studies and political science professor; Pam Kelley, social sciences lecturer; Bojan Petrovic, social sciences lecturer; and Al Valdez, social sciences lecturer (honorable mention). On April 4, the school will hold a reception honoring these online innovators. For further details or to RSVP, contact Lina Hernandez, lina.hernandez@uci.edu or 949.824.6802.

Read on...

Smith selected as president-elect of Society for the Study of Social Problems

Term to begin August 2014 with acting president role beginning in 2015

David Smith, sociology professor, has been named president-elect of the Society for the Study of Social Problems. His term as acting president of the 2,160 member organization will begin in August 2015 following one year of service as president-elect which officially begins August 16 at the association's annual meeting in San Francisco. He has previously served as an elected member of the society's board of directors (2003-06). A specialist in international trade and global industrialization, Smith has conducted on-site research in South Korea, Vietnam, Indonesia and China. His recent research has focused on globalization and networks of "world cities," or large international hub cities important in the global economic system.

Read on...

Hippies, craftsmen, and sociologists

"Learning by Doing at the Farm" examines radical education in 1960s southern California

It's easy to forget that Irvine, the minutely planned southern California city awash in tract housing and shopping complexes, was regarded as a pretty radical place at the time of its 1971 incorporation. Almost entirely ranchland up until the mid-1900s, the area that would become Irvine jump-started its urban development as the egg-white to the University of California's yolk. Looking for land to accommodate expanding enrollment, the UC bought a large chunk of dusty land owned by the Irvine Company to establish a new campus, adding surrounding territory for residential and commercial development. The school isn't named after the city -- both are named after the Irvine Company. City and campus were master-planned by architect William Pereira, and the University opened in 1965, still largely unfinished but marked by Pereira's concrete brutalism and Olmsted's New York Central Park plan. In the era of this extremely young urban territory, beginning in 1968, UC Irvine began an experimental research effort called the Social Sciences Farm. Known simply as "The Farm", the experiment and its effect on social science pedagogy is the subject of the beautifully composed Learning by Doing at the Farm: Craft, Science, and Counterculture in Modern California, a book of photos and documents curated by UCI doctoral candidates Robert Kett (anthropology) and Anna Kryczka (visual studies). Established on an abandoned farm on the outskirts of the UCI campus, The Farm was a community of indigenous people from Guatemala, Mexico and Samoa, invited by social sciences faculty to demonstrate their native craft techniques for Irvine student's anthropological study. The program was an attempt to bring the field home to the students, and in its few months of existence attracted an unanticipated group of inhabitants from the concurrent countercultural movement.

Read on, courtesy of Archinect...

SPOTLIGHT EVENT: The Public Pension Crisis: Causes and Consequences

April 8 | 5:30-7:00 p.m. | Social & Behavioral Sciences Gateway, Room 1517

Unfunded promises by state and local governments to pay retirement pensions to public employees have grown substantially over the past several decades. Using governmental accounting standards, the shortfall is around $1 trillion nationwide, but using valuation standards consistent with the principles of financial economics, the gap totals around $4 trillion. These shortfalls have emerged due to several factors: the systematic under-valuation of the costs of providing pensions, the assumption that risky portfolios of assets will always generate their expected returns, and a lack of funding discipline by many state and local governments. In his talk, sponsored by the Center for Economics & Public Policy, Rauh will discuss how underfunded pension promises will place continued pressure on state and local government budgets and operations, as governments will have to engage in a combination of seeking new funding sources and renegotiating the pension obligations.

Read on...

SPOTLIGHT EVENT: Big: Culture and Data in the Digital Field

April 11 | 8:30 a.m.-7:00 p.m. | Social & Behavioral Sciences Gateway, Room 1517

Despite first appearing in an academic publication only in 2003, the term "big data" has swiftly become central to technology and social science. While bearing deep histories, big data is clearly linked to developments in computational storage, algorithmic analysis, mobile devices, and online sociality. But big data is also debated in the blogosphere, portrayed in mass media, discussed in everyday life. On April 11, researchers from UC Irvine, UCLA, MIT, Microsoft Research, University of Washington and others will meet to discuss emergent synergies between ethnographic methods and big data.

Read on...

SPOTLIGHT EVENT: Celebrate UCI

April 12 | 10:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m. | Aldrich Park

Come Celebrate UCI! This spring event features an outdoor festival, open house and car show. Wayzgoose, UCI's oldest tradition, is a student run festival in Aldrich Park filled with live entertainment, food, games and rides for UCI and the community. Many offices and services will be open and available with information for everyone - especially prospective students. This includes academic program information and sessions; campus, housing and recreation facilities tours; Financial Aid and Admissions; and much more.

Read on...

SPOTLIGHT EVENT: Spring Hot Topics Faculty Debate

April 24 | 7:00 p.m. | Engineering Hall 1200

The School of Social Sciences Dean's Ambassadors Council presents the Spring Hot Topics Faculty Debate. Up for debate: UC's new smoking policy. Debaters include William Schonfeld, political science professor emeritus, and Mark Petracca, political science associate professor and social sciences associate dean of undergraduate studies. The debate will be moderated by Louis DeSipio, Chicano/Latino studies and political science professor and Center for the Study of Democracy director. *Positions taken by the debaters do not necessarily reflect their own views.

Read on...

SPOTLIGHT EVENT: Kiang Lecture: An Indian Subaltern's Travel Narrative of China in 1900-1901

May 1 | 6:00 p.m. | Social & Behavioral Sciences Gateway, Room 1517

The School of Social Sciences, School of Humanities and Center for Asian Studies present the 11th annual Wan-Lin Kiang Lecture featuring Anand A. Yang, professor of international studies & history, University of Washington, Seattle. In 1900 an Indian man traveled to China accompanied by a large contingent of his fellow countrymen. His journey there was unusual, in part because few Indians went to or resided in China at the turn of the twentieth century, and in part because virtually no one from abroad sought out Beijing as a destination, as he and his fellow travelers did that summer, at a time when its foreign residents were under the siege of an insurgent group known as the Boxers. They were moving against the tide because they were members of a large military contingent of almost 20,000 foreigners representing eight nations whose "relief force" was organized into an International Expedition and charged with lifting the siege of the foreign legations and defeating the ruling Qing dynasty, which, by then, openly sided with the Boxer Uprising and its anti-foreign and anti-Christian movement. Yang's talk will narrate the story of Thakur Gadadhar Singh, one of the Indian soldiers of the British "relief" force, and the vision of "Chin aur Hind" or China and India, and the rest of Asia that he forged from his experiences in and around Beijing. The Wan-Lin Kiang Endowed Lecture Series was established in 2003 by Mrs. Assumpta Kiang in memory of her husband, Wan-Lin Kiang, a noted international scholar, political advisor and businessman. The series annually brings to campus a noted scholar on relevant topics related to China.

Read on...

SPOTLIGHT EVENT: UC President Janet Napolitano to deliver annual Peltason Lecture at UCI

May 6 | 3:00 p.m. | UCI Student Center, Crystal Cove Auditorium

Janet Napolitano, the University of California's 20th president, will deliver the annual Peltason Lecture at UC Irvine on Tuesday, May 6. Appointed to her post in 2013, Napolitano leads a university system with 10 campuses, five medical centers, three affiliated national laboratories, and a statewide agriculture and natural resources program. The UC system has more than 234,000 students, about 208,000 faculty and staff, more than 1.6 million living alumni and an annual operating budget of more than $24 billion. Napolitano's visit to UC Irvine is sponsored by the UC Irvine Center for the Study of Democracy. The Peltason Lecture was established in 1999 to honor Jack Peltason and his wife Suzanne. Peltason was the 16th president of the University of California (1992-95) and UCI's 2nd chancellor (1984-92).

Read on...