College News – Page 7

Searching for the Dark

July 1, 2022/in College Magazine, College News, Our Stories /by Lucy Berbeo

She’s on the leading edge of solving one of the universe’s ultimate mysteries

Stephanie Yantz

By Jonathan Riggs

Alvine Kamaha, who became UCLA’s first Keith and Cecilia Terasaki Endowed Chair in Physical Sciences, always knew she wanted to teach.

“My preferred childhood game was to gather my friends on our porch and play school,” she says. “I have always been thrilled by the opportunity to share knowledge with someone and help them absorb it and grow.”

Choosing her field of study, however, proved more challenging.

“Then, there was no experimental particle physics in Cameroon. It was also difficult to major in physics in general due to gender bias in the educational system,” says Kamaha, who earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in physics from the University of Douala. “While pursuing my second master’s degree (in high energy physics) in Italy, I fell in love with the field of physics beyond the standard model: neutrino and dark matter physics. After I graduated, I decided to switch from theoretical to experimental physics, and then went to Canada to earn my Ph.D. in astroparticle physics.”

After she completed her doctoral work on using bubble chamber detection technology to search for dark matter, Kamaha next joined several experiments to acquire additional expertise across multiple particle detection technologies, including spherical proportional counters, time projection chambers and superheated and supercooled fluids.

Still an active member of the LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) experiment, an international direct-detection dark matter project based in an underground facility in South Dakota, Kamaha arrived at UCLA last November as a leading force in the search to discover and explore the invisible matter of the universe. Although it is theorized to account for approximately 85% of the universe, dark matter has yet to be directly observed.

“When they look at the night sky, most people would say that they see stars. What I study — sort of — is the darkness between the stars. These stars are within galaxies that are surrounded by a halo of non-luminous matter (also called dark matter), that keeps them gravitationally bound,” Kamaha says. “This fascinating dark matter has been there from the very beginning of the universe, acting almost as a ‘glue’ that facilitated the formation of large-scale structures — galaxies — and it also has an impact on the way our universe evolves.”

In some ways, she believes her work building detectors for dark matter and analyzing their data is like digging for buried treasure. While the ultimate goal is to directly observe dark matter, every attempt yields invaluable data and narrows the search for future generations. The idea that there are scientific riches to be found in any search, no matter its success, is one of the key lessons she seeks to impart to her UCLA students.

“We’ve been searching for dark matter for more than 80 years. Although we haven’t found it yet, we have learned so much. Sometimes finding nothing isn’t bad, it’s just part of the scientific process,” Kamaha says. “I want my students to live by this lesson, that no matter what they do — whether they become a scientist or choose a different path — remaining open-minded, curious and resourceful are invaluable skills to possess.”

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Portrait of nine members of the Society of Gender Equity in Geosciences at standing in front of Royce Hall

Equity and Empowerment

July 1, 2022/in College Magazine, College News, Diversity, Equity & Inclusion, Our Stories, Physical Sciences, Students /by Lucy Berbeo

They saw the change they wanted and created the organization to deliver it

Society of Gender Equity in Geosciences at UCLA members, from left to right: Zoe Pierrat, she/her (AOS, 4th year); Sarah Worden, she/her (AOS, 3rd year); Nique Stumbaugh, she/her (AOS, 2nd year); Cat Banach, she/her (AOS, 2nd year); Aly Fritzmann, she/her (AOS, 2nd year); Sarah Johnson, she/they (AOS, 3rd year); Jordan Bretzfelder, she/her (EPSS, 3rd year); Elisha Jhoti, she/her (EPSS, 3rd year); Laura Thapa, she/her (AOS, 3rd year). © Stephanie Yantz

By Jonathan Riggs

The laboratory notebooks containing work from Marie Curie, the only person to win Nobel Prizes in two sciences thus far, remain so radioactive that they must be stored in lead-lined boxes for the next 1,500 years. That the scientific legacy of a brilliant woman is literally untouchable is a powerful metaphor for today.

Women remain underrepresented in scientific fields and must contend with additional higher education barriers. For example, in geosciences today, women represent about 42% of the graduate student population, a 5% decline over the past 10 years. At the faculty level, the numbers are worse — and significantly more so for women of color.

Inspired to tackle these issues in 2018, UCLA Physical Sciences doctoral students Alexandrea Arnold, Emily Hawkins, Jordyn Moscoso, Zoe Pierrat and Katie Tuite launched the Society of Gender Equity in Geosciences at UCLA.

“The initiative, vision and energy SGEG brings to outreach, community building, institutional reform and career development make a difference and fill a need that has been there for decades,” says Professor Suzanne Paulson, SGEG faculty advisor and the first woman to chair UCLA’s department of atmospheric and oceanic sciences. “We desperately need the talent and passion of the many young people SGEG encourages and makes more welcome.”

Another one of the group’s important priorities has been to identify issues of and advocate for solutions to the gender imbalance within their departments across the division of physical sciences. Working with a receptive faculty, they have raised awareness of unintentional biases when recruiting and admitting graduate students.

The group has been able to offer a stronger support network, and their efforts have paid off, with an increase in female-identifying graduate students entering these disciplines at UCLA.

“SGEG has also brought the physical sciences departments closer together,” adds Pierrat. “I’ve gained new friends I wouldn’t necessarily have met without the benefit of this group, and we’ve also been able to have more serious discussions about supporting diversity, equity and inclusion in our respective departments.”

“Imposter syndrome and isolation can be especially challenging, so having a network of mentors, peers and role models can be critical for those who don’t see themselves well represented in the geosciences,” says Jordan Bretzfelder, SGEG’s current co-chief communications officer. “Plus, the importance of having effective allies cannot be overstated. We invite anyone interested in our mission
to reach out to us.”

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Connections and Conversations

July 1, 2022/in College Magazine, College News, Our Stories /by Lucy Berbeo

She’s strengthening the Islamic studies program and its connection to L.A. and beyond

© Stephanie Yantz

By Jonathan Riggs

While looking through boxes from her youth, Asma Sayeed was surprised as she retraced her path from a child newly moved from India to the South Bronx, too shy to speak English, to a dedicated associate professor and director of Islamic studies at UCLA.

“I had always seen my life as a straight line to academia, but I noticed there are threads running through my zigzagging,” Sayeed says. “The first is grappling with my own difference and connecting that to my community; the second is the art of thinking about words and how they convey meaning; and the third is service, which I credit to my parents, who embodied it in every sense.”

When she arrived in 2012, Sayeed relished the challenge and opportunity to chart a course for UCLA’s Islamic studies program, the oldest in the country. She launched the “Islam in the West” course and the freshman cluster “Global Islam,” which offer opportunities for undergrads to gain core literacy on both Islam and Muslims — something that will help them be better informed citizens of the world going forward, no matter their major.“I’m so excited about what we’ve been able to do in terms of augmenting our curriculum and making real strides in public outreach,” Sayeed says. “These vibrant, important conversations about contemporary global Islam and the fascinating histories of Muslims should never be limited just to academics.”

As part of outreach efforts, Sayeed and the program have partnered with Amy Landau, director of education and interpretation at the Fowler Museum, to launch the new Community Bridges Residency, where civic leaders engaged with the Muslim community can connect with UCLA students and faculty, and benefit from research resources. As part of this partnership, they are collaborating on an exhibit at the Fowler to represent a fuller diversity of Muslim experiences in Los Angeles as well as developing online exhibits and K–12 workshops.

Sayeed’s current research focuses on Islamic higher education. In particular, she examines the ways in which universities teaching the Islamic sciences grapple with issues of integrating Western academic disciplines alongside classical Islamic ones, the impact of increasing numbers of female students and faculty, and how the digital revolution has transformed teaching and research.

“Where I conduct fieldwork in Morocco, there is still some suspicion that Western academia is a space to undermine Islam, but I see so many wonderful opportunities for international collaborations that can shift that perception,” says Sayeed. “My dream is that my next book will serve as a template for research in other countries like Indonesia, Egypt and even Syria and Iraq: war-torn areas where Islamic education is as alive as it is vigorous in spite of sustained and profound upheavals.”

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To eat or not to eat: the psychology behind our meat-consuming choices

June 30, 2022/in College News, Our Stories /by Lucy Berbeo

UCLA doctoral candidate Daniel Rosenfeld studies what we decide to put on our plates and why

Daniel Rosenfeld, UCLA social
psychology doctoral candidate

Jonathan Riggs | June 30, 2022

The saying, “You are what you eat” is dispensed by parents and diet gurus every day, but the original line that inspired it is far more complex: “Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you what you are.”

This deeply universal truth lies at the heart of research by Daniel Rosenfeld, a UCLA health and social psychology doctoral candidate, who studies the way people think, feel and behave when it comes to consuming — or not consuming — meat.

“Eating meat is central to a lot of the identities people hold, whether it’s their identity as a human being or as an American citizen. We often celebrate holidays by eating meat, from Fourth of July barbecues to Thanksgiving turkey,” says Rosenfeld. “Whether you think eating meat is moral or immoral, the choice has big implications for everyone.”

With more than 90% of the world’s growing population eating meat, scientists have long warned of the staggering environmental burden that industry places on the planet. One possible sustainable solution is cultured meat, a soon-to-be-available product grown in labs. One muscle biopsy from a cow could theoretically produce one billion beef burgers in less than two months without killing any animal, but getting humans to change their eating habits remains the biggest obstacle.

Rosenfeld and several of his UCLA colleagues, including his mentor, A. Janet Tomiyama, associate professor of psychology, and Amy Rowat, the inaugural Marcie H. Rothman Presidential Chair in Food Studies, published a paper outlining the challenges of bridging the gap between the science of cultured meat and public perceptions.

“Obviously, eating cultured meat would result in a lot less animal suffering and is generally better for the environment, but people have to overcome their skepticism of how ‘natural’ or ‘safe’ it might be, or whether it will taste as good as conventional meat,” Rosenfeld says. “Plus, there is a lot of research suggesting that people hold a stereotype that eating meat is a masculine behavior, and so it’s definitely a barrier for a lot of men especially to consider eating less or no meat.”

Beyond cultured meat, it’s inevitable that the world’s eating behaviors will continue to evolve; very few people today eat the same way someone might have 100 years ago, for example. While part of that is due to changing resources, improved processes and a greater understanding of nutrition, a lot is due to following social norms. The push to dietarily conform remains strong, as it is based in evolutionary choices that ensured our species’ survival — eating a food source you had seen members of your social group eat without suffering ill effects was a lot safer than trying a brand new food source.

“Today, the food system is a lot more complicated, and following social norms just because they’re there is not a foolproof method,” Rosenfeld says. “I would encourage everyone to really think about why they make certain decisions to eat or not eat certain things, question the root of those behaviors and decide if they really are the most advantageous for you. I want people to engage with my research and look at their eating behaviors with fresh eyes.”

Rosenfeld, who has cerebral palsy, is a former member of the U.S. Junior National Paralympic table tennis team, won a bronze medal in the sport at the U.S. Open earlier this year and is a nationally certified coach.

“Whether it’s competing in the Paralympics or pursuing research in academia, I’m interested in being an advocate for other people with disabilities,” he says. “I’m especially proud to be here at UCLA, a world renowned place for both psychology and food research. I hope the research that I do here will shed more light on how we can help make our world healthier and more sustainable.”

For more of Our Stories at the College, click here.

Wide shot of 16 LPPI staff, faculty and fellows of LPPI on campus

UCLA ‘initiative’ formally becomes Latino Policy and Politics Institute

June 27, 2022/in College News, Faculty /by Lucy Berbeo

Latino Policy and Politics Institute founding executive director Sonja Diaz, center,
with institute staff and policy fellows. | James Michael Juarez

Alise Brillault | June 21, 2022

The former UCLA Latino Policy and Politics Initiative has officially become the UCLA Latino Policy and Politics Institute, thanks to $3 million in ongoing annual funding from the state of California.

The funding, championed by the California Latino Legislative Caucus, was initially secured in 2021, with the most recent allocation coming in the budget passed by the state Legislature June 14. The support has allowed the institute, known as LPPI, to grow from a start-up initiative to a permanent research fixture at UCLA with a robust fellowship program and a consortium of nearly 50 faculty experts across UCLA’s College and professional schools.

Founded in 2017 by civil rights attorney Sonja Diaz and UCLA professor and polling expert Matt Barreto through a partnership between UCLA’s Luskin School of Public Affairs and division of social sciences, LPPI was launched to address the most critical domestic policy challenges facing Latinos and other communities of color. Since its inception, the institute has utilized the power of research, advocacy, mobilization and leadership development to propel policy reforms that expand genuine opportunity for all Americans.

“As chair of the Latino Legislative Caucus, I am so grateful for the Latino-centric research from LPPI that has helped us formulate the policies our communities need most,” said state Sen. María Elena Durazo. “Latinos play an essential role in California, yet we are disproportionately impacted by issues like the gender pay gap and disparate health outcomes. It is critical that we have a Latino-focused think tank with readily available data on the various topics that Latinos care about most.”

With LPPI as a leading national Latino policy institute, UCLA continues to make critical strides towards its goal of achieving federal designation as a Hispanic-Serving Institution by 2025.

This article originally appeared in the UCLA Newsroom.

A scan from 1610's "Certaine errors in navigation, detected and corrected"

UCLA’s Clark Library receives centuries-old rare books from longtime donor

June 27, 2022/in College News, Our Stories /by Lucy Berbeo

A scan from “Certaine errors in navigation, detected and corrected” by Edward Wright (1558?–1615), a new addition to the Paul Chrzanowski Collection. | UCLA’s William Andrews Clark Memorial Library

Margaret MacDonald | June 27, 2022

A new donation of 40 historical texts from Paul Chrzanowski further bolsters an already remarkable collection of early English texts at UCLA’s William Andrews Clark Memorial Library.

The newly added items — including a 17th-century parchment with the seal of Queen Elizabeth I and a handwritten manuscript describing precious metals and gems — have been prepared for use by scholars as part of the library’s Paul Chrzanowski Collection.

“This donation reflects the broader interests and learning needs of English readers at the time,” Chrzanowski said.

A scan from “Certaine errors in navigation, detected and corrected” by Edward Wright (1558?–1615), an addition to the Paul Chrzanowski Collection at UCLA’s William Andrews Clark Memorial Library.

A scan of the cover of “Certaine errors in navigation.” | UCLA’s William Andrews Clark Memorial Library

A physicist at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, California, Chrzanowski began donating rare books from his collection to the Clark Library in 2009; he made additional donations in 2014 and 2018.

As a collector, his main focus is texts that Shakespeare likely read or could have read. Some of the donated items have been identified as source material Shakespeare used to write his plays; others are equally important due to their role in the development of English language, literature and history, including the earliest book in the collection, 1479’s “Cordiale quattuor novissimorum,” printed by William Caxton and one of only 12 known copies.

“The Chrzanowski Collection contains a remarkable diversity of material that supports a broad range of research topics, from animal care to politics in early modern England,” said Anna Chen, the Clark Library’s head librarian. “The quality and depth of the collection make the materials invaluable for teaching and research. The collection is consulted by a wide range of users, including high school students and research fellows, and we are thrilled by the uses that this new trove of material will make possible.”

Chrzanowski’s most recent gift includes the only known surviving printed copy of “Soliloquies” by 17th-century author Edward Topsell, joining a handwritten manuscript copy of the work already held by the Clark; and 1610’s “Certain Errors in Navigation” by Edward Wright, an important early modern contribution to the field that includes one of the first maps of Virginia.

“Paul Chrzanowski’s generous gift, which builds on his already phenomenal collection, further elevates the Clark’s role as a steward of rare, historical print works for the benefit of future generations of scholars and members of the public alike,” said Bronwen Wilson, director of the UCLA Center for 17th- and 18th-Century Studies and of the Clark Library. “This is truly an exciting moment.”

Image of Plates from “La clef des champs with additional woodcuts of insects, reptiles, and amphibians,” from approximately 1586 by Jacques Le Moyne de Morgues (1533?–1588).

Plates from “La clef des champs with additional woodcuts of insects, reptiles, and amphibians,” from approximately 1586 by Jacques Le Moyne de Morgues (1533?–1588). | UCLA’s William Andrews Clark Memorial Library

The new donation, appraised at a value of more than $600,000, brings the total value of Chrzanowski’s in-kind donations to more than $2.9 million. But its value as a scholarly resource is immeasurable; it would be nearly impossible to build a comparable Shakespearean library today.

“We are grateful for Paul Chrzanowski’s additional donation of so many wonderful and rare books,” said David Schaberg, senior dean of the UCLA College and dean of humanities. “Thanks to his generosity, the Clark has become an even more impressive resource for scholars of 17th- and 18th-century studies.”

This article originally appeared in the UCLA Newsroom. For more of Our Stories at the College, click here.

iStock.com/Antonio Guillem

Well, I see it differently!

June 22, 2022/in College News, Faculty /by Lucy Berbeo

UCLA psychologist Matthew Lieberman explains why people don’t view the world the same way others do

Image of Two women speaking to each other outdoors

UCLA professor Matthew Lieberman says a phenomenon called naive realism may be the single most underappreciated source of conflict and distrust across individuals and groups. iStock.com/Antonio Guillem

Stuart Wolpert | June 9, 2022

Why are we so sure that the way we see people, situations and politics is accurate, and the way other people see them is foolishly wrong?

The answer, according to new research by UCLA psychology professor Matthew Lieberman, lies in a region of the brain he calls the “gestalt cortex,” which helps people make sense of information that is ambiguous or incomplete — and dismiss alternative interpretations.

The research, based on an analysis of more than 400 previous studies, is published in the journal Psychological Review.

People often mistake their own understanding of people and events as objective truth, rather than as merely their own interpretation. That phenomenon, called “naive realism,” leads people to believe that they should have the final word on the world around them.

“We tend to have irrational confidence in our own experiences of the world, and to see others as misinformed, lazy, unreasonable or biased when they fail to see the world the way we do,” Lieberman said. “The evidence from neural data is clear that the gestalt cortex is central to how we construct our version of reality.”

The gestalt cortex is located behind the ear, between the parts of the brain responsible for processing vision, sound and touch. Matthew Lieberman/UCLA Psychology

Naive realism may be the single most underappreciated source of conflict and distrust across individuals and groups, he said.

“When others see the world differently than we do, it can serve as an existential threat to our own contact with reality and often leads to anger and suspicion about the others,” Lieberman said. “If we know how a person is seeing the world, their subsequent reactions are much more predictable.”

While the question of how people make sense of the world has been an enduring topic in social psychology, the underlying brain mechanisms have never been fully explained, Lieberman said.

Mental acts that are coherent, effortless and based on our experiences tend to occur in the gestalt cortex. For example, a person might see someone else smiling and without giving it any apparent thought, perceive that the other person is happy. Because those inferences are immediate and effortless, they typically feel more like “seeing reality” — even though happiness is an internal psychological state — than they do like “thinking,” Lieberman said.

Matthew Lieberman | Brubaker Photography Los Angeles

“We believe we have merely witnessed things as they are, which makes it more difficult to appreciate, or even consider, other perspectives,” he said. “The mind accentuates its best answer and discards the rival solutions. The mind may initially process the world like a democracy where every alternative interpretation gets a vote, but it quickly ends up like an authoritarian regime where one interpretation rules with an iron fist and dissent is crushed. In selecting one interpretation, the gestalt cortex literally inhibits others.”

Previous research by Lieberman has shown that when people disagree face to face — for example on a political issue — activity in their gestalt cortices is less similar than it is for people who agree with one another. (That conclusion was supported by a 2018 study in the journal Nature Communications. UCLA psychologist Carolyn Parkinson and others found that similar neural patterns in the gestalt cortex were strong predictors of who was friends with whom.)

Gestalt was a German school of perceptual psychology whose motto was, “The whole is greater than the sum of the parts.” The approach focused on how the human mind integrates elements of the world into meaningful groupings.

The gestalt cortex is located behind the ear, and it is situated between the parts of the brain responsible for processing vision, sound and touch; those parts are connected by a structure called the temporoparietal junction, which is part of the gestalt cortex. In the new study, Lieberman proposes that the temporoparietal junction is central to conscious experience and that it helps organize and integrate psychological features of situations that people see so they can make sense of them effortlessly.

The gestalt cortex isn’t the only area of the brain that enables people to quickly process and interpret what they see, he said, but it is an especially important one.

Using neurosurgical recordings to understand the “social brain”

In a separate study, published in April in the journal Nature Communications, Lieberman and colleagues addressed how, given our complex social worlds, we are able to socialize with relative ease.

Using the first mass-scale neurosurgical recordings of the “social brain,” Lieberman, UCLA psychology graduate student Kevin Tan and colleagues at Stanford University showed that humans have a specialized neural pathway for social thinking.

Lieberman, author of the bestselling book “Social: Why Our Brains Are Wired to Connect,” said humans are social by nature and have an exceptional capacity for assessing the mental states of others. That ability requires the brain to process a large number of inferences from a vast array of idiosyncratic cues. So why does that process often feel so effortless compared to simple tasks like basic arithmetic?

Clear answers have been elusive for those who study social neuroscience. One culprit could be scientists’ reliance on functional magnetic resonance imaging, which is effective at scanning where brain activity occurs, but less effective at capturing the timing of that activity.

Researchers employed a technique called electrocorticography to record brain activity at millisecond and millimeter scales using thousands of neurosurgical electrodes. They found that a neurocognitive pathway that extends from the back to the front of the brain is especially active in areas closer to the front when people think about the mental states of others.

Their findings suggest that the temporoparietal junction may create a fast, effortless understanding of other people’s mental states, and that another region, the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, may be more involved in thinking things through more slowly and carefully.

Predicting compatibility through AI

Resonance Inc., a company founded by Matthew Lieberman with support from UCLA, has developed an artificial intelligence algorithm based on how people distinctively see the world that can predict compatibility. The company has used the tool with thousands of UCLA commuter students to help them connect with other students who have a similar way of experiencing things.

This article originally appeared in the UCLA Newsroom. For more news and updates from the UCLA College, visit college.ucla.edu/news.

UCLA scholars explore the history, meaning and promise of Juneteenth

June 18, 2022/in College News, Faculty /by Lucy Berbeo

Juneteenth Emancipation Day celebration in 1900.

UCLA Newsroom | June 16, 2022

On June 19, 1865, Gordon Granger, a major general in the Union Army, marched into Galveston, Texas, announced that the Civil War was over and issued General Order No. 3: “The people of Texas are informed that in accordance with a Proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free.” Reactions ranged from shocked amazement to outbreaks of spontaneous celebration.

The day would come to be recognized as “Juneteenth” and would finally be established as a national holiday in 2021.

As the nation prepares once again to commemorate Juneteenth, UCLA Newsroom revisits some of the stories we published to mark that federal recognition. These pieces highlight the research and insights of UCLA faculty members Eddie Cole, Karida Brown and Brenda Stevenson, who explain Juneteenth’s inception, its evolution and what the holiday means for our country.

Why schools haven’t taught about Juneteenth, and why they should

Eddie Cole

Far too few Americans know the history of Juneteenth. And that ignorance is connected to the very real erasure that results from the institutional racism woven into the history of the United States.

“Let us be clear,” said Eddie Cole, an associate professor of higher education and organizational change at the UCLA School of Education & Information Studies. “Juneteenth has been taught in some American classrooms and there have long been individual teachers who offer a complex, carefully considered nuanced history of Juneteenth and slavery. But they often do so without relying on school textbooks.

“They may explore historical texts from a century ago, or other primary sources. Those teachers provide their students with a more holistic truth and a glimpse at Black liberation and triumph.

“That said, Juneteenth is not taught in most American classrooms because it is not a feel-good story,” Cole said. “It is an exemplifier of the truth. It is a stunning example of how racism and capitalism have stained the idea of an American democracy. It does not fit the mainstream narrative that centers the nation’s independence. Instead, it highlights the misdeeds, or at least the negligence, of many so-called national heroes. That alone is why it is not taught in many schools.”

Commemorating Juneteenth is powerful, but there’s more work to be done

Image of Karida Brown and the cover of her book “Gone Home: Race and Roots Through Appalachia”

Karida Brown and the cover of her book “Gone Home: Race and Roots Through Appalachia” | UCLA

UCLA sociology professor Karida Brown didn’t grow up celebrating Juneteenth.

She learned about Juneteenth as a Black holiday while she was a graduate student at Brown University and as she worked on her book, “Gone Home: Race and Roots Through Appalachia,” which was published in 2019. During those five years, she interviewed 153 current and former residents of Harlan County, Kentucky, a coal-mining region that boomed from the 1920s through 1960s and included a large population of Black residents.

Brown’s roots reach back to Harlan County, where her parents and grandparents once lived. When she asked them about what she had learned about Juneteenth and how it has historically been celebrated in Black communities, the word “Juneteenth” didn’t connect — but the descriptions of the celebrations, and why they were held, did.

“They said, ‘Oh, you mean the eighth of August,” Brown said. “In these coal mining towns in Kentucky, that was Black Independence Day. My parents very much carry the memory of the meaning of the holiday through their experiences in their childhood, but it wasn’t something they passed down.”

As is often the case in history, progress isn’t linear. In Kentucky and other Southern states, Black communities began celebrating the eighth of August in sometime in the 1860s, commemorating the date that Andrew Johnson, then military-governor of Tennessee freed his personal slaves. Enslaved Black Americans in Texas learned of emancipation on June 19, 1865 — the first Juneteenth — more than six months after the 13th Amendment, which abolished slavery, took effect.

How embracing Juneteenth’s meaning could help the U.S. face its racial justice challenges

Brenda Stevenson

In a 2020 interview, Brenda Stevenson, an internationally renowned scholar of race, slavery, gender, family and racial conflict, shared thoughts on Juneteeth, its evolution and current iterations, and why acknowledging the date is an important part of the dialogue and push for change when it comes to racial and social justice in the U.S.

Stevenson is UCLA’s Nickoll Family Professor of History.

Much of your work as a historian is centered around finding and telling the stories of individuals, especially women, who were enslaved in this country. Can we think of Juneteeth an opportunity to remember those who never got to experience freedom?

Definitely. Juneteenth speaks powerfully to the reality that we, as a nation, have to continue to evolve democratically, humanely and morally. It is not just about Black inequality, but the inequality and marginality that many people and groups who do not fit into a particular racial, cultural, class, gender, sexuality, and citizenship box experience in our nation.

How could Juneteeth reflections help highlight those who are caught in the current struggle by way of our system of policing and incarceration?

The criminal justice system in our country was founded on inequalities linked to a racial hierarchy. It is one of the fundamental national institutions that must be comprehensively changed to address this deep, foundational flaw. Still, it is only one of our essential systems linked to the inequalities alive and well in our society.

It is a good place to start, but change cannot end there.

UCLA class of 2022 celebrates the unique joy of togetherness

June 13, 2022/in College News, Commencement, Featured Stories, Students /by Lucy Berbeo

Alumna Katelyn Ohashi delivered the keynote address at the first full-scale, in-person commencements at Pauley Pavilion since the pandemic

This is more like it. After a pandemic-forced two years of virtual commencement ceremonies, in 2022 students and their loved ones were able to celebrate in person again. Image credit: David Esquivel/UCLA

Alison Hewitt and Elizabeth Kivowitz | June 10, 2022

Campus buzzed with graduation celebrations today fueled by crowds not seen since 2019. The return to an in-person commencement at UCLA also marks the first time the UCLA College’s undergraduate graduation was spread across three ceremonies to make room for one of UCLA’s largest graduating classes ever.

Outside Pauley Pavilion, thousands of parents and guests mingled outdoors carrying teddy bears, flowers and other gifts, as confused food-delivery robots struggled to navigate the crowd. Students in graduation gowns, leis and decorated mortarboards hugged their friends and family before dashing away to line up for the processional.

Among the dozens of graduations on campus today, the crowd outside Pauley Pavilion was the largest, with a total of about 6,100 graduates and 26,400 guests expected at the three ceremonies.

The graduates come from all over, and range in age from 18 to 79. More than 35% come from low-income families, and 36% came to UCLA as transfer students. Approximately one-third are the first generation in their families to graduate from a four-year university.

“I’ve been working toward this my whole life,” said Veronica Lavín Solano, who earned her bachelor’s in English. The first-generation student’s sash featured the flag of Mexico, where her parents immigrated from. “I’m so glad my parents get to be here in person. They are so proud of me … UCLA was my dream school.”

Katelyn Ohashi speaking at UCLA College’s 2022 commencement in Pauley Pavilion. Image credit: David Esquivel/UCLA

Psychology major William Molina’s family described their son’s elation at graduating in person, after the pandemic turned the transfer student’s first year at UCLA into a remote experience.

“I’m so proud and excited to see him graduate,” said his father Nelson Molina, an immigrant from El Salvador who said he spent his life working hard so his kids could succeed.

Over the course of the week, about 1,300 graduates from the classes of 2020 and 2021 will also attend in-person celebrations to make up for the remote graduations during the pandemic. Other ceremonies across campus featured keynotes addresses by presenters including U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, actor, activist and alumnus George Takei, Academy-Award winning actor Troy Kotsur, Indigenous artist and alumna Mercedes Dorame and U.S. Rep. Ted Lieu. Award-winning gymnast, activist and UCLA alumna Katelyn Ohashi spoke at all three of the UCLA College ceremonies in Pauley Pavilion.

David Esquivel/UCLA

Inside Pauley, the required face masks concealed smiles but nothing could hide the crowd’s enthusiasm.

“After two years, amazingly, of virtual and hybrid commencement events, it’s a joy to be back in Pauley Pavilion for today’s ceremony,” said UCLA Chancellor Gene Block. “A tradition like this one bonds you to generations of UCLA students who have come before.”

He acknowledged the trials of recent years — not just the pandemic, but racial injustice, climate change, a polarizing presidential election, horrific mass shootings and the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

“These experiences have challenged you, but they’ve shaped you,” Block said. “They gave you greater respect for science and truth, and a stronger recognition of the dangers of misinformation.”

Block had to pause as students cheered their acknowledgement of the threat of disinformation.

“Even as they stirred up anguish, all these events etched on you a compassion and empathy,” he continued, “as well as a commitment to seeking justice and contributing to the greater good.”

Chancellor Gene Block and keynote speaker Katelyn Ohashi, alumna, gymnast and activist. Image credit: David Esquivel/UCLA

Ohashi, an elite gymnast who went viral while at UCLA with her perfect-10 routine, has used her platform to speak out on topics like mental health, body-shaming, sexual assault and cyberbullying. One of the UCLA College’s youngest alumni speakers ever, Ohashi graduated in 2019, at the last in-person commencement before the pandemic. She encouraged the class of 2022 to overcome fear and hesitation and embrace opportunity, and recounted her days at UCLA working with the student-run Bruin Shelter to support housing-insecure students.

“When [Bruin Shelter] first started and began looking for housing, they knocked on 100 church doors, where they heard 100 ‘no’s.’ It wasn’t until their 101st door they knocked on that they finally received their ‘yes,’” Ohashi said. “Most missed opportunities don’t come from not taking them, but from not seeking them… Most of the time, life doesn’t come knocking on your door. Instead, don’t hesitate to knock on doors and if you don’t hear a ‘yes’ your first time, it doesn’t mean there won’t be one. Now is the time to live life fully and try all the things you want.”

Students at the UCLA College Commencement. Image credit: David Esquivel/UCLA

Twenty-year-old graduating senior Stephanie Widjaja, who left high school for community college two years early to get closer to her dream of transferring to UCLA and becoming a pediatrician, reminded her classmates that their path to success doesn’t have to look like anyone else’s.

“I stumbled my way through community college, thinking that UCLA was an unobtainable destination. I was expected to achieve greater things by others, but I could not fully believe in it myself. It was not until I opened up my UCLA acceptance letter and sat in my chair dumbstruck for a good five minutes that I realized dreams do come true, even if the path is non-linear and full of tears,” Widjaja said. “Congratulations Class of 2022! You have finally made it! Being a Bruin and making it out of these unprecedented times shows that you have a resilience like no other.”

David Esquivel/UCLA

Widjaja led her classmates as they all shifted their tassels from right to left after Block formally conferred their degrees. As some students captured the tassel-turn with selfie videos, the room roared with cheers and applause from the thousands of parents, family and friends attending in person.

As the ceremony drew to a close, a few dozen mortarboards sailed festively into the air and the alma mater boomed over the sound system. The thunderous applause, group selfies, hugs with fellow graduates and all the other little things missing from remote celebrations came roaring back.

This article originally appeared in the UCLA Newsroom. For more news and updates from the UCLA College, visit college.ucla.edu/news.

Image of a person in front of the U.S. Capitol holding a sign that reads "Abortion is health care"

UCLA-led research shows majorities of both political parties support legal abortion

June 10, 2022/in College News, Featured Stories /by Lucy Berbeo

Two national surveys that spanned demographic groups showed opposition to complete abortion bans

Despite research showing that a majority of Americans support legalized abortion, the Supreme Court is expected to overturn or limit Roe v. Wade in June 2022. Image credit: Gayatri Malhotra on Unsplash

Jessica Wolf | June 8, 2022

Regardless of race, ethnicity and even political party preference, two separate UCLA-led surveys reveal that majorities of people in each group support access to legal abortion in the United States.

Recent large-scale surveys of voters and non-voters by UCLA political scientists Lorrie Frasure, Matt Barreto, Lynn Vavreck and Chris Tausanovitch took a pulse on a variety of policy issues, including abortion. These separate findings support previous research and literature that shows broad support for legal abortion.

Data from The Democracy Fund + UCLA Nationscape Project, led by Vavreck and Tausanovitch show broad support for abortion across political party lines. Nationscape was a weekly survey fielded from July 2019 through January 2021, reaching nearly 500,000 voters and non-voters representative of the U.S. adult population.

Most Democrats and Republicans — as well as independents — said they do not think abortion should be outlawed completely.

Chart showing data on: Should abortion be outlawed UCLA Chart of Nationscape data showing that 13.6% of Democrats agree that abortion should be outlawed, 71.9% disagree and 14.5% are unsure. For Republicans: 32.8% agree it should be outlawed, 49.4% disagree and 17.8% are unsure. For independents: 17.2% agree it should be outlawed, 59.2% disagree and 23.6% are unsure.

And, according to Nationscape data, most also agreed that abortion should not be limited only to instances of rape, incest or threat to the life of the mother.

Despite the two major political parties’ platforms generally taking opposing positions on abortion — Democrats support, Republicans oppose — there are people aligned with the Republican party who support legal abortion and people aligned with the Democratic party who oppose abortion. But for these cross-positioned voters, it’s important to note that abortion is not their biggest priority, Vavreck said.

Nationscape researchers know this because of a unique approach they employed to test what matters most to the electorate, essentially forcing survey respondents to make choices based on groupings of hot-button topics. The survey included 44 different policy statements and 8 hypothetical attributes of political candidates. A set of these statements were randomized into two groups of options. Survey respondents were asked to choose which group most aligned with their priorities.

For example, a Democrat who opposes legal abortion might be faced with two groupings of policy statements — one that included limiting or ending abortion. But, if the other group of policy statements held items that were more important to that person, like not deporting undocumented immigrants, they would select that option. The same held true the other way for Republicans who support legal abortion. If the other bucket of topics included things they cared more about than abortion, that was their choice.

“This happens on other issues beside abortion too, and what this tells us is that these voters and potential voters are not cross-pressured within their party. They’re not torn. They just have other priorities — they are cross-positioned, but not cross-pressured,” Vavreck said. “These surveys demonstrate that vast majorities support keeping abortion legal but that doesn’t necessarily mean that this issue is going to be pivotal to their vote choice.”

The fourth and largest installment of the Collaborative Multiracial Post-Election Survey, or CMPS, led by Frasure and Barreto, alongside Janelle Wong from University of Maryland, College Park, and Edward Vargas from Arizona State University, asked several questions about abortion, reporting results based on the race of respondents.

This survey is conducted after every presidential election, and its questions are drafted by a broad consortium of race and ethnicity politics scholars from across the United States. In 2020, the CMPS was offered in 10 languages to nearly 15,000 respondents.

CMPS data, by way of several questions, show broad support for abortion across four self-reported racial groups — Asian, Black, Latino and white.

Overall, majorities from all groups reported they either support legal abortion or are neutral on the issue, with broad margins of support across all racial and ethnic groups.

“Although the CMPS data was collected before news of the Supreme Court leak, it nonetheless reaffirms what decades of public opinion research has found —across every racial and ethnic group, Americans support safe and legal access to abortion,” said Barreto, who added that there are very low rates of opposition to abortion rights for women.

“The CMPS study makes clear that among Black, Latino, Asian and White Americans alike, there remains strong support for maintaining the protections of Roe v. Wade,” Barreto said.

When asked if limiting abortion was a specific priority for their racial community, most respondents said that it was a low priority.

This article originally appeared in the UCLA Newsroom. For more news and updates from the UCLA College, visit college.ucla.edu/news.

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