Shannon Bradley here, checking in at the tail end of summer.
Summertime at UCSD is sweet. The campus is quiet, lunch lines are short, parking is easy, and…most important for us, we mostly air re-runs in July and August. All of that freed us up to focus on creating a new magazine-style series, premiering this fall, that honors UC San Diego’s 50th anniversary. The six-part series, called UCSD@50, premieres September 13, with a new installment every six weeks through June of 2011.
As with all of my favorite magazines, this program will offer an eclectic menu of stories — some serious and some light-hearted – all centered around our goal of sharing what excites us about this place. In the upcoming months, look for reports from Rich Wargo (Science), John Menier (Arts & Humanities), Jennifer Ford (Health and Medicine)…and yours truly on Public Affairs.
I’m starting the first show with a piece on UCSD’s Center for Community Well-Being. This group, run by Bud Mehan and Mike Cole, is a collection of faculty, staff and students who are doing research and service projects in Southeastern San Diego. We spent some time with UCSD undergrads tutoring at Gompers Preparatory Academy, the middle school in Chollas View that’s modeled after our own Preuss School.
We also showed up for the first Community Market at the Jacobs Center, where free food and clothes were distributed to needy families under the guidance of the CCW’s Makeba Jones and her partners from Project Safe Way.
And finally, we visited the Town and Country Learning Center in Mountain View where Mike Cole and Srinivas Sukumar, from Cal IT 2, work with kids after school. It was great to visit these communities and see UCSD folks engaged in finding ways to improve the lives of fellow San Diegans.
Also in the first show, Rebecca Tolin reports on the ground-breaking work that Eric Courchesne and Karen Pierce are doing at the UCSD Autism Center of Excellence. This husband-and-wife team has made startling discoveries about the brains of autistic children and what can be done to help those who are most at risk.
Later in the first show, Ken Kebow takes us to the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, where Dean Tony Haymet describes research on underwater plants that could lead to new medicines, and how new high-tech robots will help monitor the health of the oceans.
Oh, and Rachel Bradley (no, no relation) profiles Giancarlo Ruiz, a UCSD staffer who produced a film that was screened at Cannes! How cool is that? And yes, he made it on his own time. Thanks to Sherman George for telling us about him. Sherman retired awhile back but is still a presence around here…something we all appreciate.
So…lots going on here this summer. Next up is Chancellor Marye Anne Fox coming to our studio September 2 to tape her segments as the honorary host of our first program. UCSD @50 will start airing Sept 13….just a week before the students come back (good!) and parking gets difficult again (not-so-good).