Claremont Graduate School

Murray M. Schwartz has been appointed vice president of academic affairs and dean of Claremont Graduate School. Schwartz has been dean of the faculty of humanities and fine arts at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst since 1983.

Rupert J. Deese, a longtime Claremont ceramicist who began producing functional decorative pottery with shapely forms and silky glazes during the Southern California postwar design boom, has died. He was 85. Deese died July 12 at Pomona Valley Hospital Medical Center in Pomona of complications from arteriosclerotic disease, his daughter Mary Ann Brow said. His death came barely a month after that of his wife of 59 years, Helen Deese, a former English professor at Mount St. Mary's College in Los Angeles and UC Riverside.

The Claremont Graduate School held its 59th annual commencement exercises Saturday at 3 p.m. in Bridges Auditorium. Degrees: 234 diplomas awarded, including 64 doctoral and 170 master's degrees. Speaker: Jovito R. Salonga, chairman of the Commission on Good Government for the Philippines. "We know the future will not be easy, but there is one factor that will tide us over--our faith in ourselves and our willingness to shape our own destiny." Honorary Degrees: Salonga, doctor of laws. Erik C.

By the time Democratic Rep. Diane Watson announced Thursday that she would end her political career after more than three decades, word of her impending retirement had spread so widely that she joked about the anticlimactic nature of the news conference she held in her Wilshire Boulevard office. But Watson had at least one surprise up her sleeve -- she declined to endorse a candidate to succeed her, raising eyebrows among the many political observers who expected her to back state Assembly Speaker Karen Bass (D-Los Angeles)

Hau Pei-tsun will be awarded Claremont Graduate School's President's Medal at a ceremony Saturday at 7 p.m. The medal is awarded to individuals of extraordinary distinction in their fields. Hau is a graduate of Whampoa Military Academy and has also studied at the Chinese Army University and at the United States Army Command and General Staff College.

A black professor who was denied tenure at the Claremont Graduate School has been awarded more than $1 million by a jury, which determined that he had been discriminated against because of his race. "The decision is a triumph over the old boys' system," attorney Godfrey Issac, who represented the professor, Reginald Clark, said Wednesday. The lawyer said he believes it is one of the first judgments of its kind regarding tenure of a black professor.

A leading biblical scholar says the oldest sources for the Jesus movement in the Holy Land portray Jesus as a teacher of divine wisdom--not as a foreboding figure with titles of divinity himself. "Jesus the apocalyptic prophet has given way to Jesus the sage," said James M. Robinson of Claremont Graduate School, who claims that scholarship on the historical Jesus is in the throes of a major shift. Divine titles such as "Christ/Messiah," "Son of God" and "Son of Man" abound in the New Testament and are integral to Christianity's understanding of its savior.

The Claremont Graduate School has given the President's Award for the Visual Arts to Polly Chu. Under the program, the school has bought Chu's oil painting of an abstract landscape for $1,000.

The Claremont Graduate School has received a $30,000 grant from Citibank in support of its Hispanic Teacher Mentoring Program. The gift will provide fellowships for bilingual Latinos pursuing a teaching career. The program's goal is to increase the number of Latino teachers in the Los Angeles public school system. The program recruits qualified Latinos from their last year in college and from other careers into the Claremont Graduate School teacher education program.

"At first, you see the eyes," James Hueter says of a mysterious, multilayered work in his exhibition at the Claremont Museum of Art. And sure enough, two eyes roughly carved on wood in the center of the piece slowly come into view, echoed by another pair painted in the background. "Then you see that there is more than eyes," he says, peering into glass-covered, mirrored corridors that seem to tunnel into the wall, making the 12-by-12-by-4 1/2 -inch piece appear much deeper than it is.

Malcolm Paul Douglass, an educator who for 30 years directed the Claremont Reading Conference, died Dec. 29 at his Claremont home after a long battle with cancer. He was 79. Douglass taught education at Claremont Graduate School, which is now Claremont Graduate University, from 1954 to 1994. A specialist in the teaching of reading, he began as director of the reading conference in 1959.

What's in a name? Plenty, according to the folks at the Claremont Graduate School. That's why they've just changed theirs. Everyone at the nationally renowned institution 35 miles east of Los Angeles knows the pitfalls. A new name could alienate alumni, making them feel less connected to--and generous toward--the 72-year-old school. Some faculty members worry that a name change will strip away some of the school's intimate character.

Paul Howe Shepard Jr., 71, philosophy professor who wrote and edited books on human ecology. A native of Kansas City, Mo., Shepard held degrees from the University of Missouri and Yale University and studied on Guggenheim and Rockefeller fellowships. He taught for 21 years at Pitzer College and Claremont Graduate School in Claremont. A Los Angeles Times reviewer appraised his work in "The Sacred Paw," a book Shepard coauthored with Barry Sanders, as: "literate, scholarly, but far from detached."

In a county starved for adventurous art and people willing and able to spot it and show it, it's good news that the Loft is back in business after a two-year hiatus. Owner Stuart Katz is running the show now with a partner, Richard Iri, former director of the defunct Works Gallery in Costa Mesa. "Risk," the opening group show (through June 25) in this tiny upstairs space, is a spotty affair--and risky only in terms of sales potential--but it has enough good stuff by newcomers to warrant a visit.

The 400 people who signed up for the National Black Graduate Student Assn.'s conference, which continues today at Claremont Graduate School, more than doubled the organization's membership. Its small size relative to other student groups reflects a simple and troubling truth: Fewer than 6% of the country's graduate school students are black--about 94,000 in all--even though blacks represent more than 12% of the total U.S. population. Concern about that truth underlies everything the organization does, from its choice of speakers for the five-day conference to its selection of the location.

The Claremont Colleges were surprised to receive 12,000 donated books this month from the William A. and May Lusher Bryan estate. William Lusher, a Los Angeles resident who received his bachelor's degree from Cal State L.A., spent 40 years building a comprehensive library on philosophy and religion. "None of us have any idea at all why he gave the books to us," said Jay German, a Claremont Colleges spokesman. "We're baffled and overwhelmingly grateful."

Hau Pei-tsun will be awarded Claremont Graduate School's President's Medal at a ceremony Saturday at 7 p.m. The medal is awarded to individuals of extraordinary distinction in their fields. Hau is a graduate of Whampoa Military Academy and has also studied at the Chinese Army University and at the United States Army Command and General Staff College.