Emmy-winning actor and comedic icon Jim Varney played the beloved character Ernest P. Worrell. | Courtesy of Paganomation
Jonathan Riggs | December 20, 2022
The Kentucky-born comedian Jim Varney cared deeply about young people and their dreams.
Millions of kids — and kids at heart — delighted in the onscreen antics of the Emmy-winning actor, in and out of his beloved character of Ernest P. Worrell.
Before he died of cancer in 2000, Varney took his compassion one step further by laying the groundwork for a scholarship to support promising, financial-aid-eligible students from two states that meant a great deal to him personally: Kentucky and Tennessee. Recipients of the Jim Varney Scholarship must also plan to complete an undergraduate degree in the UCLA College and have an interest in the performing arts.
“This is one of UCLA’s few full-ride scholarships, and every single one of the students I’ve worked with who received it has had a phenomenal experience,” said Angela Deaver Campbell, director of the UCLA Scholarship Resource Center. “It’s so special, not just because it is a life-transforming opportunity for students and for their families, but also because we are honoring the final wishes of Mr. Varney, who wanted to make this opportunity possible.”
There have been 11 Varney Scholars so far, including the most recent, Joshua Hays, a current second-year biology major from Louisville, Kentucky whose dream is to become a physician specializing in pediatric orthopedics.
Joshua Hays, Varney Scholar
“Receiving this scholarship was one of the greatest honors and blessings in my life — I am the fifth of six children, and so the Varney Foundation’s generosity relieves such a burden from my family,” Hays said. “I am and will always be forever grateful to the Varney Foundation’s generosity for making the dreams of some kid from Kentucky a reality. I hope to pay it forward one day, following Mr. Varney’s example in changing lives.”
Over the course of his career, the Shakespearean-trained Varney built an impressive resume that includes more than 3,000 commercials, nine Ernest movies and originating the role of Slinky Dog in the “Toy Story” franchise. His career almost didn’t get started, though, due to an actors’ strike when he first came to Hollywood, forcing Varney to return to Kentucky and earn a living driving a truck.
“Jim always said if he’d had a college education, he could have stuck it out here sooner, and that a college education was the key to achieving your dreams,” said Jane Varney, president of the Varney Foundation, which funds the scholarship. “Jim wanted to pay his success forward and ensure that kids from Kentucky and Tennessee would have the opportunity to make it at a world-class school like UCLA.”
Without exception, that is what each scholarship recipient has done.
“Each year, the Varney Scholars thrive academically, bring diverse artistic expression and follow their passions as a result of these generous awards that honor Jim Varney’s remarkable legacy,” said Adriana Galván, dean of the division of undergraduate education. “We deeply value our longstanding partnership with the Jim Varney Foundation and look forward to many more years of working together to celebrate Jim and foster future generations of bright young change-makers at UCLA.”
https://www.college.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/01_IOBE_header_v08_textless-scaled-363.jpg237363Lucy Berbeohttps://www.college.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Uxd_Blk_College-e1557344896161.pngLucy Berbeo2022-12-20 14:42:182023-02-03 15:28:40UCLA’s Jim Varney Scholarship pays the actor’s generous legacy forward
UCLA alumnus Yoon Jae (Eric) Lim has been named a Schwarzman Scholar and will study in Beijing next year.
UCLA alumnus Yoon Jae (Eric) Lim ’16 has been named a Schwarzman Scholar, receiving one of the world’s most prestigious graduate awards. As part of a cohort of 151 distinguished young candidates selected from nearly 3,000 applicants worldwide, Lim will receive a fully funded scholarship to complete a one-year master’s degree and leadership program in global studies at Tsinghua University in Beijing, China.
Established in 2016 by Stephen A. Schwarzman of Blackstone and inspired by the Rhodes Scholarship, the Schwarzman Scholars program seeks to prepare future leaders from a variety of fields and backgrounds to respond to pressing geopolitical challenges and to foster cross-cultural understanding between China and the rest of the world.
“I am excited and grateful for this amazing opportunity,” said Lim, who studied political science at UCLA and hails from South Korea and the U.S. “China has one of the world’s most developed fintech economies, its economy is largely cashless, and its technology ecosystem has grown at an incredible rate. My goal is to leverage the expansive Schwarzman Scholar and Tsinghua network to learn as much as I can about the technological innovation happening in China.”
As an immigrant, entrepreneur and product leader in fintech, Lim hopes to leverage financial technology to better lives. After graduating from UCLA, he cofounded the blockchain company DApperNetwork, building a community of students and mentors that have gone on to create enormous value in blockchain protocols and applications. Currently a director of product at Sure, a top 100 fintech company, he previously served as a crypto entrepreneur-in-training at FJ Labs. He is a Riordan Fellow with the UCLA Anderson School of Management and has served as an advisor to UCLA’s blockchain lab.
Lim is the fourth UCLA graduate to be named a Schwarzman Scholar. He will enroll in August 2023 as part of the program’s 2023–2024 cohort, which comprises candidates from 36 countries and 121 universities around the world. Each year, Schwarzman Scholars are selected based on a variety of factors including “their leadership qualities and the potential to understand and bridge cultural and political differences,” according to the program’s website; the program’s international network of scholars now includes more than 1,000 members.
“I’m proud to be a UCLA alumnus — the communities and education I got access to during my time as a student have been formative building blocks for me,” Lim said. “Many years ago, UCLA was a launchpad for my entrepreneurial journey, and I am excited to represent my alma mater at such a renowned program as I continue on that journey.”
Shirlee Smith wants you to know about the Black community that used to live in the neighborhood: ‘We were there.’
Shirlee Smith wrote a book about parenting titled “They’re Your Kids, Not Your Friends.” | Courtesy of Shirlee Smith
Nancy Gondo | November 7, 2022
Though Boyle Heights has a storied history as a multi-ethnic enclave of the 20th century, Shirlee Smith has noticed the Black community there often gets overlooked — something the UCLA alumna hopes to change.
“I’ve spent my adult years closing gaping mouths when asked where I’d grown up and my reply was Boyle Heights,” said Smith, 85. “People saw Boyle Heights as Jewish, as Latina, as Japanese. And so, the feedback has been, ‘Oh yes, the world needs to know: We were there.’”
The former Boyle Heights resident is working on a project to document and preserve the history of the Black people who used to live in the neighborhood. In some ways, Smith’s mother had started the legwork by collecting stories from families and entrusting them to one of her granddaughters.
“I read the 20 or so masterpieces and knew our stories had to be brought to light,” Smith said. She published some of the stories in Brooklyn and Boyle magazine, started the Black Boyle Heights Facebook group and in February, organized a virtual event with more than 50 people gathered online to share memories and honor their elders.
‘I’ll Take You There’
The event, called “I’ll Take You There,” honored four former residents who ranged in age from 93 to 101. Smith plans to turn the event into an annual celebration. She’s also collecting photos and stories, locating people, reviewing census data and getting in touch with local historians. Black Boyle Heights’ goals include publishing a directory of where the Black residents lived, setting up a podcast to tell their stories and creating a museum exhibit.
Boyle Heights drew a diverse mix of people in the early 20th century because the neighborhood east of the Los Angeles River was one of the few without restrictive racial covenants. Smith remembers hearing mariachi music up and down the block and walking past the Japanese Baptist church at the intersection of Evergreen and 2nd Street.
She didn’t think much about the diversity of Boyle Heights as a kid. But “as I grew up and interacted with a wide range of people, I discovered that fond memories were the opportunity to know up close people from so many cultures and be part of their traditions,” Smith said.
The close-knit Black community provided a built-in value system. Her next-door neighbor taught her how to knit and embroider; hairdresser Dolores Jones made house calls with straightening combs and curling irons in hand; Daddy Fred and Ma’ Bessie helped watch the neighborhood kids. But if anyone was caught acting out of line, word spread quickly.
“When you did wrong, it wasn’t just that Shirlee Pickett did wrong. It was the Pickett family,” Smith, née Pickett, said. “So when Dolores Jones came to your house to do your hair, you had to be polite. You may not have wanted to get your hair done, but you had to appreciate her.”
The neighborhood makeup started to change in the back half of the 1900s as racial covenants in Los Angeles lifted and families moved out of Boyle Heights. Today, few Black families remain in the now predominantly Latino neighborhood.
Meeting UCLA
Most minority students in Boyle Heights at the time weren’t being prepped for college, according to Smith. There were four paths, called “tracking” — academic, commercial, shop and home economics. Black and Latino girls were often tracked into home economics and commercial, where they would learn how to file papers. Few were put on the academic track.
“UCLA was not on my menu — there was no history,” Smith said. But in 1969, UCLA established the high potential program (now part of the Academic Advancement Program) to identify Black and Chicano students who might not meet the general entry criteria but are likely to succeed at the university. She applied and was accepted. “And that’s how I met UCLA,” she said.
The program started with a year of preparing students for university life. Smith wasn’t your typical college student fresh out of high school. She was a single mother of five children ranging in age from 7 months to 11 years.
“I was 30 years old when I hit the campus, and I had my youngest child in a stroller,” Smith said. “I took her to class with me, and that did not happen in 1968. There was no old lady on campus with a baby.”
As if that wasn’t tough enough, she got a C- on the first paper she wrote. She went to see the instructor, who told her she could redo the paper and gave her a copy of an A+ paper. That was a pivotal learning moment — Smith went on to graduate in 1973 with the distinction Department Scholar in Sociology.
Smith has since worked as a columnist for the Pasadena Star News, produced and hosted a cable TV show and written a book about parenting.
“Without UCLA, I doubt seriously that I would have had the courage to pursue any of my many accomplishments,” she said. “It’s really the reason I became a writer.”
https://www.college.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/smithandbookshdshot-363.png237363Lucy Berbeohttps://www.college.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Uxd_Blk_College-e1557344896161.pngLucy Berbeo2022-12-01 17:21:502022-12-01 17:21:50UCLA alumna seeks to preserve history of Black Boyle Heights
The UCLA alumna will speak at all three ceremonies June 10 in Pauley Pavilion
Gymnast Katelyn Ohashi on the balance beam. | Image credit: Emily Howell-Forbes
By Jonathan Riggs | April 13, 2022
Award-winning gymnast, activist and UCLA alumna Katelyn Ohashi will deliver the keynote address at all three UCLA College commencement ceremonies on Friday, June 10. Three separate ceremonies will be held, at 11 a.m., 3 p.m. and 7 p.m., in Pauley Pavilion. The program will also include remarks by UCLA Chancellor Gene Block and student speakers from the graduating class.
“Katelyn Ohashi epitomizes Bruin values with her strength of character, compassion and leadership in the face of challenges,” said David Schaberg, senior dean of the UCLA College. “She will inspire our graduating seniors and UCLA community to approach the next chapter of their lives with open hearts and limitless courage.”
Katelyn Ohashi. | Image credit: Wasserman
From childhood, Ohashi was an avid gymnast, making her debut at the 2009 junior olympic national championships at age 12. She went on to become the 2011 junior national champion and defeated Simone Biles to win the 2013 American Cup. Despite suffering a back injury the next year and being told by doctors she might not be able to compete again, Ohashi persisted — earning a full gymnastics scholarship to UCLA.
“I am so proud to address my fellow Bruins and help celebrate this wonderful accomplishment in their lives,” said Ohashi, who graduated in 2019 with a degree in gender studies. “I hope to inspire them to embrace challenges, love themselves and find their voices.”
An eight-time All-American and four-time member of USA Gymnastics’ junior national team, Ohashi became one of the most decorated gymnasts in UCLA history. During her Bruin career, she earned 11 perfect 10s — including for a 2019 floor routine that became an internet sensation. She was named Pac-12 specialist of the year in 2018 and 2019, and was 2018 NCAA and Pac-12 co-champion in the floor exercise as well as 2019 Pac-12 co-champion in the floor exercise and balance beam. During her senior year, Ohashi took first place for each of her first seven routines.
In addition to her studies and gymnastics achievements while at UCLA, Ohashi led fundraisers to help individuals struggling with homelessness. She also volunteered for Project Heal, a nonprofit focused on helping people recover from eating disorders. As a motivational speaker and activist, she continues to advocate for body positivity. When Ohashi was honored at the 2019 ESPY Awards, she delivered a spoken-word poem denouncing body shaming, sexual assault and cyberbullying.
Ohashi was chosen to be the class of 2022 commencement speaker by a committee of students, faculty and administrators.
UCLA faculty and alumni contributed ideas, expertise and artworks to the $100 million revitalization project
Overhead view of Destination Crenshaw’s Sankofa Park featuring designs for works by Maren Hassinger, Kehinde Wiley and Charles Dickson. Image credit: Rendering by Perkins&Will, courtesy of Destination Crenshaw
By Avishay Artsy |
A cultural and economic corridor that celebrates the contributions of Southern California’s Black community is coming to South Los Angeles. Destination Crenshaw is a $100 million revitalization project that will bring public art, pocket parks and small business investment to 1.3 miles of Crenshaw Boulevard.
Helping bring this project to life? UCLA faculty and alumni.
Crenshaw is a neighborhood in transition. Construction of a light rail line connecting Crenshaw and LAX airport and the opening of SoFi Stadium in nearby Inglewood have boosted home values and brought in new businesses, while accelerating gentrification and displacement. Destination Crenshaw was incorporated as a non-profit in November 2017 to draw attention to the area’s Black history and culture.
“It was a way to kind of lay an anchor and say that this is a Black community, and we want to show that through our cultural heritage,” said Darnell Hunt, dean of social sciences in the UCLA College, and a member of the Chancellor’s Council on the Arts. Since 2017, Hunt has served as an advisor to the project at the invitation of city councilmember Marqueece Harris-Dawson, who is spearheading the initiative.
Members of Harris-Dawson’s staff had read “Black Los Angeles: American Dreams and Racial Realities,” a book that Hunt had co-edited with Ana-Christina Ramón at the Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies at UCLA and published in 2010.
In his role as advisor, Hunt recommended key moments and figures in Black L.A. history to include. Marcus Hunter, a professor of sociology and the inaugural chair of the department of African American studies at UCLA, also became an advisor.
“UCLA was kind of the scholarly anchor,” Hunt said. “We were the place that was trying to make sure that they were staying true to the history.”
The community partners working on Destination Crenshaw include artist Judith Baca, distinguished professor emeritus in the departments of Chicana and Chicano and Central American studies and world arts and cultures/dance, and a long list of UCLA alumni: arts educator and independent filmmaker Ben Caldwell, educator Mandla Kayise, curator Naima Keith, community organizers Karen Mack and Alberto Retana, and art advisor Joy Simmons.
Kehinde Wiley’s “Rumors of War” figure in the location of his planned Destination Crenshaw sculpture, which will be a bookend to “Rumors of War” and feature a female figure. Image credit: Rendering by Perkins&Will, courtesy of Destination Crenshaw
Turning insult into opportunity
Destination Crenshaw took shape after the Metropolitan Transportation Authority announced plans to build the portion of the Crenshaw/LAX line between Hyde Park and Leimert Park at-grade, rather than underground. Area residents fumed at how building the line at-grade would bisect Crenshaw Boulevard in two, making it less walkable and thereby reducing the foot traffic vital to small businesses and a connected community.
Locals vowed to turn an insult into an opportunity, launching an ambitious project to upgrade infrastructure, build community gathering places and parks, add more than 800 trees, invest in small businesses on the boulevard, and install public artworks by local Black artists.
In meeting with Harris-Dawson’s office, Hunter, a Leimert Park resident, heard city council staff members talk about Crenshaw/LAX rail passengers “passing through” the area.
“Then it became a discussion about like, what does it mean to pass through?” Hunter said. “You want to invite people to get off, but also you want people to have some kind of experience or awareness of what they’re passing through on their way to downtown or wherever they’re going on the train.”
Artis Lane’s sculpture “Emerging First Man” in Sankofa Park. Image credit: Rendering by Perkins&Will, courtesy of Destination Crenshaw
Creating a showcase space for public art
Destination Crenshaw, which spans Crenshaw Boulevard from 48th to 60th streets, will include a new “Afrocentric streetscape” design and six new pocket parks. More than 100 public artworks and exhibits, including monuments, statues, murals and augmented reality storytelling, are set to be included.
In October 2021, the Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Commission approved plans for seven permanent outdoor sculptures along the route. Destination Crenshaw commissioned work from seven prominent Black artists with local ties, including Kehinde Wiley and Alison Saar. Artists Maren Hassinger and Brenna Youngblood, both UCLA alumna, have also been commissioned to create work.
Sankofa Park featuring design for Maren Hassinger’s sculpture “An Object of Curiosity, Radiating Love.” Image credit: Rendering by Perkins&Will, courtesy of Destination Crenshaw
Hassinger, who was born in Los Angeles in 1947, recalls childhood visits to the May Company department store at the corner of Crenshaw and Santa Barbara (now Martin Luther King Jr.) boulevards. She graduated from Bennington College in Vermont with a bachelor’s in sculpture in 1969, and from UCLA with an M.F.A. in 1973. Her work often incorporates unconventional materials such as plastic bags, leaves and branches, wire, rope and found trash.
For the Destination Crenshaw project, “I knew right away that I wanted to do something that I hadn’t done before,” Hassinger said, “but I somehow wanted it to reflect on an L.A. experience. When I think of L.A., I think of bright and sunny and shiny and warm and loud and busy, and for some reason, I started seeing this pink sphere in my head.”
Hassinger’s sculpture will be installed on a grassy area at the center of Sankofa Park, an elevated outdoor plaza that Destination Crenshaw is building at 46th Street. “An Object of Curiosity, Radiating Love” is a large fiberglass orb, hot pink and six feet in diameter.
As people approach the orb, sensors will trigger it to light up and emit a soft pink glow. This sensation of a dialogue with passers-by is meant to evoke the community-minded spirit of a neighborhood in the midst of a dramatic and unsettling transition.
“So, it’s as if this warm hot pink thing said hello, or winked, or nodded. I want you to know, as a person walking by, that you’re noticed. You exist,” Hassinger said.
I AM Park featuring design for Brenna Youngblood’s work “I AM.” Image credit: Rendering by Perkins&Will, courtesy of Destination Crenshaw
Youngblood grew up in Riverside but visited South L.A. as a child, attending church with her family in Compton and South Gate. She now has a home and studio in the Crenshaw district.
“I’ve been here about six years. Not that long, but long enough to see some changes,” she said.
Youngblood received her bachelor’s of fine arts from Cal State Long Beach in 2002 and her M.F.A. from UCLA in 2006. In 2012, she participated in the Hammer Museum’s inaugural “Made in L.A.” biennial exhibition.
Her piece “I AM” will be installed toward the southern end of the route, near Slauson Avenue, in Welcome Park and I AM Park. The letters I AM evoke the posters carried by Civil Rights demonstrators that read “I AM A MAN.” The 8-foot-tall bronze sculpture resembles stacked toy blocks with letters along the sides spelling out I AM. The blocks also look like a jungle gym, which speaks to the formative role of language in shaping identity. The sculpture is a reimagining of one of Youngblood’s earlier works, “MIA,” (2011).
“I think that people will enjoy it because it’s a sculpture that you can touch, that you can crawl up on,” she said.
A tribute to history based on meticulous research
Harris-Dawson’s Council office asked Hunter and his UCLA students to add historical context to Destination Crenshaw. Hunter and 10 graduate students pored through the archives of the African American newspapers California Eagle and the Los Angeles Sentinelto revisit L.A. history from 1850 to 2015. The students presented their research to the design team of Perkins&Will, the architect-of-record for the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C., which they worked on alongside design architect Adjaye Associates.
What became clear, Hunter said, was that any conversation about Black L.A. history has to start with Bridget “Biddy” Mason. Born a slave, Mason became one of the first prominent citizens and landowners in Los Angeles in the 1850s and 1860s. Working as a midwife and nurse, she used her money to purchase land in what is now the heart of downtown. The investment made her the wealthiest Black woman in the city. She donated to charities, fed and sheltered the poor, visited prisoners and founded the First African Methodist Episcopal Church in Los Angeles in 1872.
“[Mason] is the godmother of Black LA. You cannot talk about Black Los Angeles without talking about her,” Hunter said. People passing through this area “need to see her or experience something about her.”
Other historical markers will track Crenshaw’s role in shaping the nation’s cultural imagination. Crenshaw has been home to many prominent Black entertainers, such as stand-up comedian Redd Foxx, rapper Ice-T, and singers Ray Charles, Ike and Tina Turner and Nancy Wilson. It was also home to the hit TV show “Soul Train,” which host Don Cornelius started in Chicago in 1970 but brought to L.A. the following year. Local high school students packed Soul Train’s stage to show off fashion styles and new dance moves that were then copied by teens across the country.
Welcome Park at 50th Street featuring design for Alison Saar’s work “Bearing Witness.” Image credit: Rendering by Perkins&Will, courtesy of Destination Crenshaw
Mapping the movement of Black L.A.
Using census data, the UCLA student researchers also mapped the migration of the Black population across time.
“Black populations have shifted. They’ve moved throughout the decades and centuries in pretty interesting ways,” Hunt said.
Because of redlining and racist housing policies, the neighborhood’s early residents were almost exclusively middle-class and upper-middle-class white families. Former L.A. Mayor (and UCLA alumnus) Tom Bradley and his wife needed a white intermediary to buy their first house in Leimert Park in 1950, while he was serving as a Los Angeles police officer and prior to his entry into politics. After the U.S. Supreme Court struck down racially restrictive housing covenants, Japanese American families began to move in, and the center of the city’s Black population shifted west from its longtime home along Central Avenue.
However, Hunt continues, “after the ’92 Uprising, a lot of Blacks moved into the Inland Empire for cheaper housing and schools. And for the first time the Black population actually declined during that decade.” Despite this migration to the Inland Empire, Crenshaw’s population remains above 60% Black, while other former Black strongholds like Watts are now predominantly Latino.
“Crenshaw and the surrounding areas, Baldwin Hills, View Park, is still a heavy Black concentrated population, and parts of it are middle class and upper middle class, which is kind of unique,” Hunt said, describing the Crenshaw neighborhood as the “center of gravity” for the community. “It’s where a lot of the action is concentrated, even though it’s not inclusive of the entirety of Black L.A.”
Destination Crenshaw moves ahead
Construction on Destination Crenshaw slowed during the height of the pandemic, but work is now moving apace, and organizers expect the project to be completed by spring of 2023, and to debut the seven permanent artworks before next fall. Fundraising now stands at about $72 million, and the Getty Foundation has provided $3 million to commission and fabricate the first seven sculptures, as well as plan for their conservation. The project, which aims to include more than 100 works of art by Black artists, will continue to commission new works in order to create what’s billed as “the nation’s largest art and cultural celebration of African American contribution to world culture.”
“The intention is to enshrine in a proper, meaningful way what Black people have contributed and that they were here, even if you’re not seeing them now, that they were here and they contributed,” Hunter said.
And while the new streetscaping, pocket parks and large-scale sculptures may lure passengers off the train, the project is largely aimed at boosting local businesses and catering to those who live in the district, not just pass through it.
“It’s definitely for the Black community. It’s about staking claim to our history, our culture, and making sure that those stories are remembered,” Hunt said. But, he added, Destination Crenshaw can also raise awareness that “this is a signature Black community that has a history and is connected to a broader history in L.A.”
This article originally appeared in the UCLA Newsroom. For more news and updates from the UCLA College, visit college.ucla.edu.
https://www.college.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/OverheadviewofSankofaPark.jpg9571700Lucy Berbeohttps://www.college.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Uxd_Blk_College-e1557344896161.pngLucy Berbeo2022-02-10 09:49:302022-02-28 12:30:31Destination Crenshaw pays tribute to Black creativity and history in Los Angeles
The tennis icon spent his life fighting for the oppressed. A new oral history collection tells his story.
By Peter Hovarth
By Delan Bruce and Mary Daily | Collage by Peter Hovarth
Arthur Ashe ’66 was a champion. Not just on the tennis court — where he won 33 titles and set world records — but throughout his life, as a warrior for justice who fought for the rights of oppressed people and devoted himself to social justice, health and humanitarian causes.
Ashe grew up in Richmond, Virginia, and was drawn to UCLA, he said, because it was Jackie Robinson’s university. He attended on a scholarship. In 1965, during his junior year, Ashe became the first African American to win an NCAA singles title. He went on to win the U.S. Open, the Australian Open and Wimbledon, among many other tournaments. He was among the greatest athletes ever to play tennis, an iconic cultural figure and the sport’s reigning champion for many years.
Fighting Apartheid
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, South Africa continually denied Ashe a visa to travel there to compete in the South African Open. He finally obtained the visa in 1973 and was the first Black man to play in the national tournament.
The visa gave Ashe permission to play in South Africa, but it did not mute his opposition to apartheid. Ten years later, he and singer Harry Belafonte founded Artists and Athletes Against Apartheid to lobby for sanctions and embargoes against the South African government. In 1985, Ashe was arrested outside the South African embassy in Washington, D.C., during an anti-apartheid protest, an event that helped focus international attention on that growing movement. He did so much to fight apartheid that when Nelson Mandela was freed after 27 years in prison and was asked what American citizen he would like to visit with, he said, “How about Arthur Ashe?”
Donald Dell, Arthur Ashe’s agent, tells the Arthur Ashe Oral History Project about meeting Nelson Mandela with Ashe.
Arthur Ashe at hearings of the United Nations General Assembly’s Special Committee on Apartheid in 1970. Ashe asked the U.S., Britain, France, Australia, Germany and Italy to expel South Africa from the International Lawn Tennis Federation, as well as to bar the country from participating in the Davis Cup. Image credit: Bettmann / Contributor via Getty Images
AIDS Awareness
The champion took on a different cause in 1983, when he contracted HIV through a blood transfusion following surgery. In 1992, he went public with news of his infection, prompting a deluge of public attention. Ashe used the spotlight to raise awareness of the virus and its victims.
“I do not much like being the personification of a problem involving a killer disease,” he said. “But I know I must seize these opportunities to spread the word.” He founded the Arthur Ashe Foundation for the Defeat of AIDS, with the goal of eradicating the disease. The nonprofit funded research into the treatment, cure and prevention of AIDS. On World AIDS Day, he spoke before the United Nations General Assembly, lobbying for increased funding for research and addressing the illness as a global issue. Although he’d retired from tennis in 1980, Ashe was named Sports Illustrated’s 1992 Sportsman of the Year because of his unshakable support for humanitarian causes.
Ashe died of AIDS–related pneumonia in 1993, at the age of 49. Just two months earlier, he had established the Arthur Ashe Institute for Urban Health, created to address issues of inadequate health care for urban minorities. To the end, he kept fighting for what he believed was right.
Arthur Ashe Legacy at UCLA
In 2008, Ashe’s widow, Jeanne Moutoussamy-Ashe, established the Arthur Ashe Learning Center in New York, dedicated to providing a multimedia resource for understanding and promoting his legacy and the values he espoused. She created a website and an array of visual and innovative learning tools. Seven years later, she ceded the assets of the Arthur Ashe Learning Center to UCLA, where they became part of the Arthur Ashe Legacy Project. The project is under the direction of Patricia Turner, professor in the departments of African American Studies and World Arts and Cultures/Dance. Turner, whose respect for Ashe’s accomplishments dates back to her childhood, taught his autobiography at UC Davis and currently teaches a Fiat Lux seminar about him at UCLA.
The work of the Arthur Ashe Legacy Project includes managing a booth devoted to Ashe at the Arthur Ashe Stadium in Flushing, New York, where the U.S. Open is played, as well as reconfiguring a larger exhibition about his life that is currently being assembled and will likely travel to different venues.
Ashe was named Sports Illustrated’s 1992 Sportsman of the Year because of his unshakable support for humanitarian causes.
The Oral History Collection
One of the Legacy Project’s recent initiatives is the Arthur Ashe Oral History Project, designed and led by Turner. In 2019, UCLA alumna and oral historian Yolanda Hester M.A. ’17 began identifying aspects of Ashe’s life that a UCLA oral history collection could examine deeply in ways that existing Ashe archives hadn’t.
Ann Koger, who in 1973 became one of the first African American women to play professionally in the Virginia Slims Tennis Circuit, speaks about traveling through the South as a young Black tennis player in the 1960s.
UCLA’s Ashe oral history archive, which will be housed at the UCLA Library Center for Oral History Research and the Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies, explores his childhood years playing tennis in segregated Richmond. The interviews also document the experiences of African Americans playing tennis during the 1950s and ’60s. The oral histories delve into tennis’s seismic shift to its open era, when both amateur and professional players were finally allowed to compete for the major Grand Slam titles. In 1968, Ashe won the first U.S. Open of this new, much more lucrative era of pro tennis. Through intercontinental interviews, the recordings tell the story, too, of Ashe’s historic 1973 and 1974 trips to South Africa.
Assisting in assembling the collection is Chinyere Nwonye ’19, who in 2017 enrolled in Turner’s Fiat Lux seminar on Ashe. While she had seen the Arthur Ashe Student Health & Wellness Center on campus many times, she had never known that Ashe was Black. In the seminar, Nwonye and her classmates read Ashe’s memoir Days of Grace. They also took a tour of campus sites that are important to Ashe’s story, such as the location of his ROTC service. The course inspired Nwonye to join the oral history project after graduation.
The oral history method captures a person through others’ memories, sometimes in idiosyncratic detail. Hester and Nwonye note that the recordings take listeners inside the narrative in a way not possible through the written word.
Tom Chewning, a lifelong friend of Ashe’s, describes meeting Ashe for the first time at a tournament in West Virginia. The two teens were both rising tennis players from Richmond but had never met due to segregation.
Details emerge from the interviews: One interviewee recalls competing in a match, going to pick up a ball and having felt someone spit on his hand. As a Black tennis player, he felt compelled to contain his anger, wipe off his hand and continue playing. Hester says narrators shared other instances of their struggles against, and triumphs over, subtler forms of racist resistance to tennis integration — for instance, a young player’s tournament registration paperwork would often conveniently disappear.
Archival newspaper clippings: Arthur Ashe’s letter requesting approval of Otis Smith’s membership in the Los Angeles Tennis Club. Ashe featured in The New York Times in 1966. (NYT) COURTESY UCLA ATHLETICS. (LETTER) COURTESY UCLA ARTHUR ASHE LEGACY PROJECT.
Interviews Continue Through Zoom
The oral history format took on a new dimension via Zoom, with narrators in their own homes, among their personal belongings and keepsakes. Nwonye and Hester cite countless moments when narrators would stop and say things like “I’ve got to send you this!” while holding up a T-shirt they’d received from Ashe or showing a racket he’d given them.
The complete project will include interviews with more than 100 of Ashe’s associates. By midsummer of 2021, Hester and Nwonye had interviewed more than 50 people, having completed 15 pre-pandemic Q&As. In spring 2020, COVID created a dilemma. “So much of oral history is about being in the room together, communicating not just verbally but also through gesture and body language,” says Hester.
But Zoom enabled interviews with people who might not otherwise have been as accessible — those in far-flung places across the country or even abroad. This was the case with poet Don Mattera, who interacted with Ashe during the tennis star’s 1973 trip to South Africa and wrote a poem titled Anguished Spirit—Ashe. And Hester says the slower pace of pandemic life made scheduling interviews easier, so she and Nwonye moved through their list much more quickly than they had expected to.
South African poet Don Mattera recites a poem he wrote for Ashe.
How Ashe Changed Lives
One underreported facet of Ashe’s life that the interviews reveal is his business savvy. From his Safe Passage Foundation, which supported young people of color through tennis, to his role as a cornerstone of the Association of Tennis Professionals, founded in 1972, Ashe built organizational infrastructures within and outside of tennis. Hester hopes the oral history project will contextualize some of the benchmark moments coming up in the next few years regarding Ashe’s playing career and humanitarian work that reached beyond the world of sports.
Researchers, students and tennis lovers will be able to immerse themselves in the completed archive. The narrators’ stories traverse pivotal periods of recent history, such as tennis’s open era, the civil rights movement, the Vietnam War, the women’s rights movement and the global AIDS epidemic. Nwonye sees symmetry between Ashe’s losing his life to HIV/AIDS at the height of a public health crisis and the COVID crisis challenging the world today.
If the histories are notable for their breadth, they are sometimes most striking for their intimacy. They offer reminders of how Ashe touched lives, sometimes unexpectedly. Take the case of Otis Smith ’01, now director of tennis at the Santa Barbara Tennis Club. In 1975, Smith was a rising junior tennis player who practiced often at the Los Angeles Tennis Club. The club, founded in 1920, had no African American members. Someone complained Smith was spending too much time at the club for a nonmember, forcing the 9-year-old to apply for membership.
Ashe, an honorary participant on the club’s board, learned of Smith’s plight. Fresh off his Wimbledon triumph, he dashed off a direct but characteristically polite letter advocating for Smith’s admission as a junior member — and for the 55-year-old institution to finally integrate. He presented the club’s directors with an ultimatum: They would accept Smith, or Ashe would resign his position on the board. Smith’s membership was quickly approved.
“My dad and Arthur stayed in contact,” recalls Smith, who went on to star in tennis at UCLA before playing professionally. “I met Arthur in Las Vegas, and I played tennis with him for a half-hour. He was there playing in the Alan King Tennis Classic. He changed my life.”
Bruin Carly Daniels, who leads the Pfizer scientists developing vaccines for pneumonia and the coronavirus, always remembers that patients are waiting.
Courtesy of Carly Daniels
By Dan Gordon ’85
As senior principal scientist and group leader at Pfizer in St. Louis, Carly Daniels Ph.D. ’14 leads teams of scientists who develop methods for Pfizer biotherapeutics, particularly vaccines, and then test them for quality throughout the manufacturing process. Her team worked intensively on the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine, and in addition to overseeing those efforts, Daniels participated in assembling and organizing data sent to regulatory agencies in more than 100 countries toward the vaccine’s authorization for use. Daniels, who earned her doctorate at UCLA in biochemistry and molecular biology, also completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration before joining Pfizer in 2015.
When Pfizer and BioNTech agreed to work together on the COVID-19 vaccine in March 2020, as the World Health Organization declared the outbreak a pandemic, how did your life change?
Things changed pretty quickly. It became clear that a lot of the work would be done in St. Louis, where my team and I are based. And a huge part of the Pfizer–St. Louis population raised their hands and said, “I’m in. I’ll do whatever is needed.” We weren’t able to push aside other projects, but we pivoted to prioritizing the COVID vaccine, working longer hours to get things done.
No one expected a vaccine to be ready in less than a year — vaccine development usually takes a decade or more. To what do you attribute the speed?
Certainly at the beginning, a lot of us thought, my gosh, we can’t do this so quickly. But a huge part of why it went so much faster is that with traditional vaccine and medicine development, everything is done in sequence. As you scale up, the manufacturing changes, and you invest in increasingly larger equipment and infrastructure. And you wait to see how a clinical trial goes before moving on to the next stage. In this case, our leadership said we’re going to do everything at once, in parallel, and accept the risk. We were not resource-limited, which was very helpful. We had thousands of people working on this across Pfizer and BioNTech, as well as through various partners. Everyone worked longer hours and weekends, knowing how critical this was. My understanding is that it was also all hands on deck at the regulatory agencies. They get tons of submissions, which can take time to work through. But with the COVID-focused filings, they could prioritize those.
Number of COVID-19 vaccine doses administered in the United States as of November 7, 2021, by vaccine manufacturer. 251,090,534 Pfizer-BioNTech (58.5% of total); 161,390,613 Moderna (37.6%); 15,917,693 J&J/Janssen (3.7%); 528,784 not identified (0.01%). Source: Statista
Much misinformation surrounds the COVID-19 vaccines. What’s a misconception you would like to correct?
One of the biggest ones I have heard is that the speed with which we were able to do things meant cutting corners. The reasons we could go at the pace we did were the changes we made to how we would do typical development and the prioritizing by the regulators. We still had to hit all of the same high quality standards internally, and with the regulatory agencies, those standards did not change at all.
The Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines were first to use messenger RNA (mRNA) technology, which has been heralded as a faster way to develop vaccines and other therapeutics. Did that play a role in the speed?
That definitely helped. It’s easier and faster to make, and a huge part of getting to that final commercial process is to be at a scale where you can produce the supply you need. We’ve already seen announcements from companies starting to look at clinical trials for mRNA vaccines to address other types of infectious diseases as well as other therapeutic areas, including different types of cancer. Our motivator is always that the patients are waiting, and it does seem like mRNA is going to cut down on the time it takes to get medicines and vaccines to patients.
“Working on these molecules that prevent disease can impact millions of people.”
— Carly Daniels
Your team has received FDA approval for another blockbuster vaccine, Prevnar20, to prevent invasive pneumococcal disease and pneumonia. What impact do you expect to see?
I have worked on that for several years, and that approval was great cause for celebration. We should see a huge impact. We’ve seen it from prior iterations of Prevnar and other vaccines that address other infectious diseases. It’s incredible when you can essentially pinpoint the decline in the prevalence of some of these invasive or infectious diseases lining up with when these vaccines started to be introduced into the population.
Vaccination rankings, as reported by countries (Last Updated Nov. 7). U.S. 57.21% of population fully vaccinated, 74th in the world, behind 73 other countries and territories, such as UAE 87.51% in 3rd, Portugal 87.39% (4th), Spain 79.96% (8th), South Korea 76.66% (14th), Canada 74.79% (21st), Japan 74.07% (22nd), Australia 67.02% (38th), El Salvador 59.53% (63rd), Morocco 59.30% (64th) and Brazil 57.79% (72nd). Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
How did you become interested in science, and vaccines in particular?
I’ve been interested in science from a pretty young age, mostly thanks to my dad. He is an entomologist, so he works with bugs, which is not my area of interest. As a grad student at UCLA, I became interested in medicine development. I worked in the laboratory of Professor Joseph Loo in the biochemistry department. He had experience in industry, and was really encouraging and open to helping me explore different career paths. We collaborated with Amgen, and after getting a look at some of the work they did, I started to see that a lot of the techniques we were using in grad school were being used in industry and could be a part of developing medicines that would help tons of people. After joining Pfizer, I quickly got involved in one of our other vaccines and gained the perspective that working on these molecules that prevent disease can impact millions of people. This was before the pandemic; now, I guess it’s in the billions.
How did your Ph.D. experience prepare you for the work you’re doing now?
One of the things that drew me to UCLA was that all of the professors in the department were super approachable. When I went there to interview, it just felt different from other places. You could tell how much collaboration there was, both among the labs within the department and across the medical campus. Getting to collaborate with different groups on campus, as well as with Amgen, City of Hope and UC Riverside, prepared me for Pfizer, where you’re constantly working on cross-functional project teams, communicating with people about your work and trying to understand theirs.
This article originally appeared in the UCLA Newsroom. For more news and updates from the UCLA College, visit college.ucla.edu.
https://www.college.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/CarlyDaniels_363x237.png237363Lucy Berbeohttps://www.college.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Uxd_Blk_College-e1557344896161.pngLucy Berbeo2021-12-13 22:47:182022-04-13 22:10:55How a COVID-19 vaccine arrived quickly and without compromise
As climate change and other environmental threats continue to harm and threaten people’s daily lives, the United States remains politically and ideologically divided. KLCS PBS show “Sustaining US” has partnered with the UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability to foster earnest discussion — informed by top research and perspectives.
The weekly half-hour program highlights topics related to green buildings and cities, climate change, health care, homelessness and transportation. UCLA faculty, alumni and students represent many of the experts on the program.
Content producer David Colgan said that the focus of the show is to approach environmental issues with science and to present solutions, not fearmongering. Colgan, who is the director of communications at the institute, works with the PBS producers to help identify topics and experts.
“I get to talk to brilliant people at UCLA, and many of them are great at breaking down issues in a conversational way,” Colgan said. “I want viewers of ‘Sustaining US’ to have that same access.”
Colgan says UCLA’s collaboration in the project began when investigative journalist David Nazar contacted the university for a source on a story about wildfires. During the conversation, both recognized the need for more rigorous news reporting about climate change and sustainability, and realized a partnership between PBS and the nation’s top-ranked public university could help inform and educate viewers.
“What sets ‘Sustaining US’ apart from other news programs is that we don’t just focus on the doom and gloom of environmental issues,” said Nazar, host and reporter of the program. “We bring people from all walks of life together to explore each issue and find solutions.”
KLCS is a multiple Emmy Award–winning, noncommercial PBS affiliate station, broadcasting to more than 15 million viewers in Los Angeles and throughout Southern California. KLCS is licensed to the Los Angeles Unified School District’s Board of Education, the second-largest school district in the nation, educating more than 673,000 students. Ty Woodson directs and co-produces the program for the station.
The Radio & Television News Association of Southern California awarded “Sustaining US” two Golden Mikes in 2020 for its first season, which went beyond traditional sustainability topics to talk about social issues such as homelessness and technology.
Topics and respective UCLA experts in season two include:
– The Los Angeles River: Stephanie Pincetl, founding director of the California Center for Sustainable Communities at UCLA
– Ancient cities: Monica Smith, professor of anthropology
– Solar decathlon: UCLA student team
– Desalination: Zack Gold, alumnus
– Urban heat islands: Alan Barreca, associate professor at the UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability, and graduate student Edith De Guzman
– Los Angeles aquarium/high-level discussion of environmental issues: Peter Kareiva, UCLA adjunct professor
– Culver City oil drilling: David Colgan
Season two premiers Wednesday, Oct. 6, and will air weekly on Wednesdays at 10 p.m. and the following Mondays at 5:30 p.m. Viewers can watch on the following channels in Southern California or livestream on KLCS PBS.
https://www.college.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/image001.png10361864Kristina Hordzwickhttps://www.college.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Uxd_Blk_College-e1557344896161.pngKristina Hordzwick2021-10-12 13:54:522022-04-11 13:51:19UCLA environmental experts featured in PBS series about sustainability
Camille Gaynus. Ph.D. ‘19 Biology, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
By Bekah Wright
Together, we can heal the oceans.
This belief led Camille Gaynus to earn her Ph.D. in biology from UCLA in 2019. There was an equally important mission to tackle: diversity in the sciences. “When I think about science, it’s not just about the methodology; it’s about getting it to the populations where it’s needed.”
A lifelong swimmer, Gaynus has always been in her element in water. During a high school summer internship, the Philadelphia native learned about Marine and Environmental Science (MES) and knew she’d found her calling. Enrolling in the MES program at Virginia’s Hampton University, a Historically Black College or University (HCBU), sealed the deal.
The summer after junior year, Gaynus jumped at the chance to get SCUBA-certified in Indonesia through a UCLA-HCBU program called The Diversity Project/Pathways to Ph.D.s in Marine Science.
That experience, coupled with meeting Professors Paul Barber and Peggy Fong, led her to apply to UCLA’s Ph.D. program and work in Fong’s research lab. While at UCLA, her field research took Gaynus to the coral reefs of Moorea, French Polynesia. Closer to home, she tutored youth at Inglewood’s Social Justice Learning Institute. “I remember talking to the students about nature and the ocean. With the ocean being in their backyard, I naively thought they must visit all the time.”
To introduce the kids to the world outside their neighborhoods, Gaynus raised a grant and organized a field trip to the UCLA Mildred E. Mathias Botanical Garden. After a tour of the campus, Bruin graduate students joined the high schoolers for lunch to share their college experiences. Determined to get the word out even farther, Gaynus gave talks at K-12 schools throughout Los Angeles, scuba gear in tow.
Gaynus was awarded the UC President’s Postdoctoral Fellowship in 2019 and joined the University of Pennsylvania’s post-doctoral program. This summer, she’ll be stepping into the role of lecturer at Penn State Brandywine. Her other mission is still going strong, too.
Over a conversation with Dr. Tiara Moore, Ph.D. ’19, a fellow classmate from Hampton and UCLA, the duo shared frustration over being two of only a few people of color in their field. “It started off as, ‘We want our colleagues to know we’re here, and we want a space where we can just exist as Black marine scientists.” Black in Marine Science (BIMS) was born.
Initially, BIMS was slated as a week of events featuring Black marine scientists. BIMS success saw Gaynus and Moore using the leftover funds to establish it as a nonprofit. Budgeted, too, was money to pay honoraria to minority academics asked to speak on panels. And then there was the launch of BIMS Bites, a YouTube channel where Black marine scientists share nuggets of marine science knowledge. On the horizon… “We want to create a BIMS Institute,” Gaynus says. “A marine research space for Black marine scientists, along with a large citizen-science program for people in the community.”
Gaynus and Moore also created A WOC (pronounced A Woke) Space, a place for women of color to support one another and address areas such as the workplace where they’d like to see change. “One thing that unites us is seeing a problem and trying to be a part of the solution,” Gaynus says. “We really want to help women of color, and Black marine scientists, to survive and thrive.”
Reflecting on her journey, Gaynus can’t help but notice a theme. “When I look at the things I’ve done — like Black in Marine Science and A WOC Space — I feel they’re all about one thing: uniting.” Mission accomplished.
Chemist, physician, astronaut and UCLA alumna will speak at Pauley Pavilion, June 14
Dr. Anna Lee Fisher, a chemist, physician and member of NASA’s first astronaut class to include women — as well as the first mother in space and a three-time UCLA graduate — will be the distinguished speaker for the UCLA College commencement on Friday, June 14.
Fisher will speak at both commencement ceremonies, which are scheduled for 2 p.m. and 7 p.m., in Pauley Pavilion, as the campus continues the celebration of its centennial year.
“Anna Fisher is an extraordinary illustration of what one person can achieve with determination, focus and hard work,” said Patricia Turner, senior dean of the UCLA College. “She is an example to all Bruins that one can truly reach beyond the stars. I know our graduates and their guests will be inspired by her wonderful journey as we celebrate all that UCLA has accomplished over the past 100 years and look forward to all that is yet to come.”
Fisher was selected by NASA in 1978 to be among the agency’s first female astronauts. In 1983, just two weeks before delivering her daughter, she was assigned to her flight on the space shuttle Discovery, and she embarked on mission STS-51A in 1984 when her daughter was just 14 months old — making her the first mother in space.
She has served NASA in several capacities throughout her career. In addition to serving on space missions, Fisher was the chief of the Astronaut Office’s Space Station branch, where she had a significant role in building the foundation for the International Space Station. She also worked in the mission control center as a lead communicator to the space station.
Before retiring in 2017, Fisher was a management astronaut working on display development for NASA’s pioneering Orion spacecraft, which will take astronauts farther into the solar system than they have ever gone.
Prior to orbiting the Earth, Fisher pushed into new frontiers at UCLA. She earned a bachelor’s degree in chemistry in 1971, an M.D. in 1976, and a master’s in chemistry 1987.
UCLA will hold two centennial commencements — the June 2019 ceremonies help kick off the campus’s 100th year, and the 2020 ceremonies wrap up the yearlong celebration. More information about the ceremonies are available at the UCLA College Commencement website.
https://www.college.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/4_Anna-fisher-iconic-image.jpg10801920Melissa Abrahamhttps://www.college.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Uxd_Blk_College-e1557344896161.pngMelissa Abraham2019-06-12 14:47:142019-06-12 14:47:11Dr. Anna Lee Fisher, first mother in space, to deliver 2019 UCLA College centennial commencement address
Emmy-winning actor and comedic icon Jim Varney played the beloved character Ernest P. Worrell. | Courtesy of Paganomation
Image credit: Emily Howell-Forbes
Rendering by Perkins&Will, courtesy of Destination Crenshaw
By Peter Hovarth
Courtesy Carly Daniels
