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March 1, 1999

Shift out of neutral	New mayor, old problems
Save it for the pro game	Next wave of childhood scholars
Exemplary service rewarded	The implications of elliptical

Shift out of neutral

Ken Fehrman, professor of interior design, was asked to provide a tip on a quick, easy home make-over for the Nov. 18 "Designing Minds" column of the San Francisco Examiner. He suggests: "The most dramatic and easiest thing that can be changed in an environment is color, which changes the aesthetic quickly and inexpensively. People tend to be color-phobic. They think if they paint in neutral, that’s going to be safe. When you start using color, sometimes you make mistakes. But the nice part is that you can always paint over it."

Measure X gave new Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown more power, but "the big question is whether Brown can harness that power" according to David Tabb, professor of political science. In the Jan. 3 edition of the Los Angeles Times, Tabb points out that "even though Brown’s lucky in respect to some things about Oakland, the fact is that West Oakland and East Oakland and the Fruitvale areas still have high crime rates, and the problems of economic development are overwhelming in those areas … it’s been very difficult for Elihu Harris to do anything about it. And I think it will be equally difficult for Jerry Brown."

The phenomenon of angry, overzealous parents causing problems at youth sports activities was discussed in a Dec. 4 San Francisco Chronicle article. Becky Loewy, professor of developmental psychology, was asked to provide perspective on how this behavior affects the children involved. She says, "There is a tendency for parents to value their child depending on how well they compete. The child doesn’t feel loved for who he is, but for how well he performs." Loewy claims that what children need from sports is "to learn more about cooperation than competition."

The study of the history of children and childhood in America is starting to gain momentum as an academic movement reports the Nov. 13 edition of The Washington Post. In the article, professor of history Joseph Illick is credited with being among "the first wave of childhood historians" who began work about thirty years ago. Illick remembers "being derided at first for writing ‘baby history,’ as if the subject of children lacked se riousne ss." Now, the article explains, courses and books on the subject are proliferating, and hun-dreds of scholars are currently working in the field.

Nontsizi Cayou, professor of dance, was honored by KQED as one of seven local heroes according to the Jan. 31 San Francisco Examiner. The honor comes as part of KQED’s celebration of Black History Month and was awarded to Cayou because of her work as founder of the Cultural Enrichment Program in the City’s Western Addition. She reacted to the news by saying, "To have that work recognized means a lot to me and to all those people who are suppor ting me."

In a Jan. 9 report, the ABC News Web site featured news from the meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Austin, including the discovery of two more Jupiter-sized planets by the team led by Distinguished University Professor Geoffrey Marcy Marcy also speculated on the implications of the findings that nine of the 18 planets discovered so far have elliptical, rather than circular, orbits. He says that because their orbits would bring them in close to their stars, "… Jupiters in ellip-tical orbits would spell dynamical doom for Earth-like planets."

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