Alumni

Khadijah Williams stepped into chemistry class and instantly tuned out the commotion. She walked past students laughing, gossiping, napping and combing one another's hair. Past a cellphone blaring rap songs. And past a substitute teacher sitting in a near-daze. Quietly, the 18-year-old settled into an empty table, flipped open her physics book and focused. Nothing mattered now except homework. "No wonder you're going to Harvard," a girl teased her. Around here, Khadijah is known as "Harvard girl," the "smart girl" and the girl with the contagious smile who landed at Jefferson High School only 18 months ago. What students don't know is that she is also a homeless girl.

USC's Viterbi School of Engineering is launching an early-stage technology accelerator to help student and alumni entrepreneurs start their fledgling technology companies in the Los Angeles area. The newly created Viterbi Startup Garage is designed to foster an environment where start-ups could flourish in Southern California with financial resources and business expertise provided by the school and its partners, United Talent Agency and the Silicon Valley venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.

When officials at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo scheduled a free lecture by bestselling author Michael Pollan, they envisioned a lively talk about sustainable food, along with Pollan's customary critiques of agribusiness. What they didn't expect was a wave of denunciations from angry farming and ranching alumni who rank Pollan as a force only slightly less damaging to agriculture than the Mediterranean fruit fly. Threatening to pull his donations, the head of one of California's biggest ranching operations succeeded in turning today's planned lecture into a panel discussion involving Pollan, a meat-science expert, and a major grower of organic lettuce.

Though it's still - on some nights - the most-watched show on television, "American Idol" is by all accounts a smaller proposition than it once was, with fewer viewers, less cultural clout and a seemingly diminished ability to produce megastars on the order of Kelly Clarkson and Carrie Underwood. The retrenchment appears to be affecting veterans of the program too: At the South by Southwest music festival this month, Season 8 winner Kris Allen and Season 9 winner Lee DeWyze could both be seen sharing cozy club stages with the kind of up-and-coming acts SXSW was designed to spotlight.

Peter Watts relishes the bonds he forged with coaches, teachers and classmates at Verbum Dei High School, an all-boys Catholic campus with a long tradition as an athletic powerhouse and a haven from strife in South Los Angeles. Now a successful educator, Watts assumed his son, Avery, would carry on the tradition as a proud Eagle at "the Verb." He and his wife were stunned when the 13-year-old's application was rejected. The reason: The school is now dedicated to serving only poor students, and the Wattses' income is too high.

When Melissa Durkee was in her senior year at Westmont College, her grades were outstanding, she was fielding offers from top law schools ? and she was stricken by fear. "I was terrified that I'd be found out as someone dating a woman and that I'd be expelled," said Durkee, who went on to Yale Law School and a New York law firm. Durkee is one of 31 gay and lesbian Westmont alumni who earlier this month roiled the Christian college in Montecito with an open letter in the college newspaper that spoke of the "doubt, loneliness and fear" they felt on a campus where homosexuality is taboo.

Lawn signs and bumper stickers around town still rally support for Antioch College -- an academic icon of the '60s counterculture and the civil rights and antiwar movements that ran out of money and closed more than a year ago. The dream of bringing the college back has never wavered among the residents of this Ohio village of 3,800. The school and its owner, Antioch University, were among the largest employers in Yellow Springs, and many alumni have never left: At least one in five people attended the college or had family that did. "I haven't talked to anyone who doesn't want the college back," said Tom Gray, owner of Tom's Market, the village's grocery store.

Many colleges seek donations for new construction or scholarships. Pasadena City College, however, has an additional goal that was unthinkable before California's budget crisis forced community colleges to slash course offerings. The school is seeking donations from alumni and others to restore some of the 570 classes it planned to cut this academic year. The campaign, launched in April, has received about $89,400 in donations, and the school is also devoting $106,000 from savings resulting from some cost cuts, officials said.

I strongly disagree with Titus Wong's letter (Viewpoint, April 9) in which he claims that the UCLA alumni and supporters are "spoiled" because they are not happy with an NIT championship and 62% success rate during Walt Hazzard's tenure. The students and alumni at UCLA are accustomed to excellence, be it medical, educational, cultural or athletic. Wong epitomizes the character of his university (USC?) by implying that he would be willing to settle for mediocrity (at twice the tuition rate)

Regarding all the comments about Terry Donahue's excessive worrying, maybe he knew something we didn't and had reason to worry. CHUCK BUTTERWORTH Monterey Hills

They've worked the "Runway" and become "Fashion Stars. " And while an appearance on reality television is no guarantee of increased success in the fashion world, it has provided a definite boost to a few fortunate stylists and designers. Here's what some of the most successful television fashion personalities and alumni are up to. BRAD GORESKI: Rachel Zoe's right-hand man in the first seasons of her show went on to star in his own Bravo series, "It's a Brad, Brad World," and was appointed brand stylist for Kate Spade N.Y. RACHEL ZOE: The Hollywood stylist and star (above, with colleague Michael Ward)

Re "Cross Cuba off the blacklist," Editorial, March 13 I toured Cuba last week as part of a college alumni educational exchange and saw firsthand the effects of the 50-plus-year-old U.S. embargo. Cuba is changing slowly, and it is time for the U.S. to reevaluate its hostility to this imperfect island nation. Cuba has made some egregious blunders, but our record is not spotless either. Carolyn A. Scheer Irvine ALSO: Letters: Prayer for the pope Letters: A stand-alone MOCA Letters: A taxing debate on gun control

We were in bare legs and shirt sleeves, drinking white wine on the patio at Lucques in West Hollywood - in February. But nearly everyone I spoke to was waxing nostalgic for snowy New England. The occasion was the alumni reception last week for St. Paul's School in rural Concord, N.H., one of America's most prestigious boarding schools and a bastion of WASP values. I'd been hearing a lot about California kids going back East for boarding school. For many Californians, who grew up going to public school, it's a weird idea.

Edgar Bullington stood with a slight hunch on the stage of Bellflower High School's Robert Newman Theater, slivers of gray hair peeking from under his top hat, and sneered, "Bah, humbug!" His portrayal of Dickens' famous crotchety old man was all the more convincing for his graying beard. But the beard was no prop. Bullington's drama career spans more than 50 years and started right here, at Bellflower High. Bullington and other Bellflower alumni have returned this month to put their own spin on "A Christmas Carol.

The new University of California logo is a no-go. Responding to a wave of revulsion in the last week over the symbol's modern design, officials announced Friday that they would suspend further use of the logo and remove it where possible. "While I believe the design element in question would win wide acceptance over time, it also is important that we listen to and respect what has been a significant negative response by students, alumni and other members of our community," Daniel M. Dooley, UC's senior vice president for external relations, said in a statement.

University of California officials said they were trying to project a "forward-looking spirit" when they replaced the university system's ornate, tradition-clad logo with a sleek, modern one. What they got was an online revolt complete with mocking memes, Twitter insults and a petition to restore the old logo. Students and alumni have taken to Facebook and Photoshop to express their displeasure, showing the new symbol ready to be flushed down a toilet and as a permanently stalled computer operating system.

We were in bare legs and shirt sleeves, drinking white wine on the patio at Lucques in West Hollywood - in February. But nearly everyone I spoke to was waxing nostalgic for snowy New England. The occasion was the alumni reception last week for St. Paul's School in rural Concord, N.H., one of America's most prestigious boarding schools and a bastion of WASP values. I'd been hearing a lot about California kids going back East for boarding school. For many Californians, who grew up going to public school, it's a weird idea.

The school authorities apparently won again. Bowing to orders to clean up a production of the popular musical "Grease" at a Burbank high school tonight, members of an alumni cast said Thursday they agreed to eliminate "suggestive dancing, pelvic thrusts" and to tone down sexual lyrics and phrases. Members of the adult cast, all alumni of John Burroughs High School, had said previously that they would refuse to perform rather than make the changes. They complained that they had to fight the same battle eight years ago when they staged "Grease" as students, and that it was unreasonable to ask them to change the show just before the first performance.

How do colleges measure the success of their graduates? Here's one way: tally up how well their movies do at the box office. That's the novel approach being taken by the California Institute of the Arts, the Valencia institution founded by Walt Disney and his brother Roy. PHOTOS: Billion-dollar (at the box office) films The college said movies directed by graduates from CalArts' famous animation programs have generated $26.4 billion in box office revenue since 1985.

Many colleges seek donations for new construction or scholarships. Pasadena City College, however, has an additional goal that was unthinkable before California's budget crisis forced community colleges to slash course offerings. The school is seeking donations from alumni and others to restore some of the 570 classes it planned to cut this academic year. The campaign, launched in April, has received about $89,400 in donations, and the school is also devoting $106,000 from savings resulting from some cost cuts, officials said.