what is your song of 2012? see weekend
VOLUME 46, ISSUE 22
www.ucsdguardian.org
uc SYSTEM
CAMPUS LIFE
CAMPUS
Regents to Discuss Tuition at Meeting
Al Gore Strategic Planning Open Forum Draws Feedback from Undergraduates Will Speak on Campus Next Month
Students were spared fee hikes after Prop. 30’s passage but new increases may be on the table. BY Sarah Moon Staff
BY Zev Hurwitz News
Writer
Two months after Proposition 30 passed in the Nov. 6 election, the UC Board of Regents will hold a threeday meeting at the UC San Francisco Mission Bay campus to discuss potential fee increases. The regents will also continue their November discussion about state funding and the UC budget plan at the meeting. As a result of Proposition 30’s passing, the UC Regents confirmed that there would be no systemwide tuition increase for students during the 2012–2013 school year. In November, the regents discussed new ways to generate revenue, and confirmed their 2013–2014 academic year budget during a three-day meeting. Tuition and fee increases were recommended to aid the budget plan. The board requested a budget increase of $267 million from the state. By increasing funding, the board hopes there will be higher enrollment and higher quality programs. “Given the extraordinary decline in state funding, UC’s quality has not been prioritized as it should be,” the UC Budget for Current Operations for 2013–2014 states. According to the UC 2013–2014 budget plan, UC system administrators plan to focus on increasing graduate student support, reducing the student-faculty ratio, closing staff and faculty salary gaps, as well as libraries, building maintenance and instructional equipment and technology. At the November meeting, the UC Regents discussed the possibility of a 6 percent increase in tuition as a result of the regents’ budget strategy. The meeting focused on increasing state funding to avoid higher student fees. The regents predict tuition will increase for the 2013–2014 school year if further state funding is not provided. At the Nov. 13 to 15 meeting, Gov. Jerry Brown and Lt. Gov, Gavin Newsom claimed that additional state funding to the UC system is unlikely. “The budget is unrealistic,” Newsom said at the meeting. “I’m concerned that the default to this plan is going to be to raise tuition to levels worse than what we were afraid of if See MEETING, page 3
Executive Vice Chancellor Suresh Subramani, left, listens as IFC President Kevin Guiang, right, shares his thoughts on possible improvements for the university on Tuesday. The town hall event was part of a larger recently-launched Strategic Planning inititive.
S
BY Heidi kim
Senior staff writer & Daniel Song Staff writer
everal hundred UCSD students and faculty attended the first of several town hall forums this year on Tuesday, as part of the administration’s efforts to coordinate a campuswide strategic planning process. The meeting opened with Chancellor Pradeep K. Khosla presenting background on the strategic planning process. Afterward the attendees were asked to participate in a brainstorming session with Executive Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs Suresh Subramani to address predicaments that the uni-
versity is facing, such as the high student to faculty ratio of 31-to-1 and its relatively low rate of alumni giving compared to peer universities. “I am a strong believer in shared governancwe, and this strategic planning process is about working together to develop shared goals and a unifying vision for the future of UC San Diego,” Khosla said in a statement about the town hall meetings. When asked about the strengths of UCSD during Tuesday’s brainstorming session, students responded with the organization of the six-college system and a balanced com-
photo by Brian Monroe munity. The topic of how to improve the academic and social experience on campus resulted in various ideas, from creating bike paths to increasing transparency between administrators and students. Raquel Morales, president of the University of California Student Association and UCSD undergraduate, mentioned her concern about the growing use of online education throughout UC campuses. “Online education may be good for the UC system, but it might not be the best for SD students,” Morales See FORUM, page 3
Editor
Former Vice President Al Gore will visit the UCSD campus in February for a discussion and book signing. The Nobel Prize winner will speak at the event, which will take place Feb. 10 in the Mandeville Auditorium, and will be followed by a question and answer session. Gore’s speech at UCSD is part of a national book tour for his newest work, “The Future: Six Drivers of Global Change.” The event will be hosted by La Jolla bookstore Warwick’s and is being co-promoted with the San Diego Law Library. Warwick’s has hosted other speakers on the UCSD campus in the past. In September, Warwick’s hosted author Salman Rushdie in conjunction with the Revelle Forum. “Warwick’s has a history of hosting high profile speakers,” Warwick’s Director of Events Julie Slavinsky said. “It’s remarkable any time a university can host a speaker of this profile.” Gore previously spoke at UCSD in 2007 to present his Academy Awardwinning film “An Inconvenient Truth” in RIMAC Arena. Tickets for the Gore speaking engagement are available to the public online through Warwick’s website and range in price from $35 to $50. The price of a ticket includes a copy of Gore’s book.
science & technology
UCSD Microgravity Team Wins National Contest The group will send a five-member “flight team” on board a reduced-gravity NASA test flight in July 2013. BY SEAN NAM
STAFF WRITER
The UCSD Microgravity Team has won the chance to take part in a NASA test flight in a recent contest. A team of 12 engineering students won the proposal portion of the NASA Reduced Gravity Student Flight Opportunities Program and will send five members onto NASA’s Weightless Wonders aircraft in July to perform an experiment in a reduced-gravity environment to understand the droplet burning characteristics of bioethanol and biobutanol. The judges, a committee of NASA employees at the NASA headquarters in the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, announced the winners on Dec. 5. The team’s proposal was an experiment to better understand
biofuel combustion rates and compare the results to previous experiments that determined the combustion rates of fossil fuels and nonplant-based alcohols. “An improved understanding of the combustion of these biofuels may lead to improvements in ground-based vehicle engines and fire safety aboard spacecrafts, among other possible innovations,” UCSD junior and flyer Sam Avery said. The five members of the “fly team” are students Jack Goodwin, Victor Hong, Josh Sullivan, Daneesha Kenyon and project manager Sam Avery. They will go on two flights, each with about 25 parabolic maneuvers that give the team a 20-second window of near-zero gravity to perform their experiment.
The experiment begins with a semi-automatic process that starts when the microprocessors sense the plane is entering microgravity. A syringe will release a droplet of the
“
We are helping to build a name for our school by accomplishing something real and professionally.” - Nico Montoya UCSD Microgravity Team
biofuels onto a wire held tightly across a box. The team will ignite the fuel and record the diameters of the
droplets using special cameras. They expect to perform the experiment at least 30 times to ensure accuracy. A reduced gravity environment is void of buoyancy — caused by gravity — that affects the shape of the droplets and could lead to inaccurate data. “It is very difficult to obtain accurate burning rate data of spherically symmetric droplets under normal gravity conditions,” Avery said. The plane creates the necessary reduced gravity conditions through continuous arched shaped flights. At the height of the parabola, weightlessness is felt, similar to the effect of a rollercoaster. Part of the proposal also included an Outreach to Kids program. The See FLIGHT, page 2