Graduate School

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.

Re "Town down on losing crown," Jan. 27 I was offended by this article's statements about Sacramento's "inferiority complex" and that the city's "biggest selling point is its proximity to other, more exciting places. " In 1977, I moved from Los Angeles to Sacramento to attend graduate school, and have happily remained. In L.A., I never spontaneously ran into another person I knew. But almost always while I'm out and about in Sacramento, I unexpectedly and delightfully run into someone I know.

The Claremont Graduate School has been awarded a three-year grant from the U.S. Department of Education to conduct the Ronald E. McNair Post-Baccalaureate Achievement Program. For the 1992-93 year, the school will receive $140,000 and provide $67,500 in non-governmental funds to support the program.

There is something about me that is happier when accompanied by a small boy.... Perhaps besides the sexual element, the child in me wants a playmate. -- Father Robert Van Handel -- Damian Eckert turned on the computer in his in-laws' home office, a tiny, dim, book-strewn space. He left the door open so he could hear his 5-year-old daughter playing in the next room. He pulled up a website and scanned it for Father Robert Van Handel, the priest who led the community boys choir he and his younger brother sang in when they were growing up in Santa Barbara.

America's new college graduates have found a way to get around the current slump in the U.S. job market: They are flocking to enroll in graduate schools to help mark time until the economy improves. The Council of Graduate Schools, which tracks enrollment nationwide, says applications for graduate programs in arts and sciences are up 10% to 15% from last year's levels, while the number of new entrants for graduate business schools is keeping pace with the mid-1980s boom.

You walk into a brand-new sushi bar that is bright and neon-lit like every other mini-mall sushi bar on Ventura Boulevard. The man behind the counter barks at you to sit down. "And, if you want California roll or spicy tuna roll, go down the street, please." You refresh yourself with a hot towel brought by a waiter and, before you can break your chopsticks apart, you are flat-out told that rubbing them together to get rid of splinters (which, in any case, do not exist) is extremely impolite.

George W. Robbins, 89, former dean of the John E. Anderson Graduate School of Management at UCLA and a frequent spokesman on business practices and ethics during the 1950s and '60s. Robbins, a graduate of UCLA, returned there in 1931 as an assistant economics professor and retired as dean of the graduate school in 1970. During those years he was head of the University Extension program and chairman of the department of business administration, and held several other titles.

When UCLA held its commencement exercises last month, so many college and professional school students were due to receive diplomas that the festivities lasted seven days. The RAND Graduate School, by contrast, had so few graduates this year that it fit all their names--and last year's, too--on one page of its pocket-size commencement invitation. With room to spare.

While prominent architects have been stocking UC San Diego with a new generation of aggressive architecture, no one seems to be watching out for the welfare of the campus. A new campus master plan was approved by the school's Community Planning Committee last July, but it came too late to have any impact on the newest campus complex, the $8.5-million Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies.

While working to obtain a master's degree in geophysics, Bill Hoesch is studying such things as the Earth's structure and the origin and age of the cosmos. But unlike most graduate students in earth sciences, Hoesch is learning that mountain ranges can be built in a day, fossils were buried in a worldwide flood, and the universe was created recently--perhaps as recently as 6,000 years ago.

I grew up in South Los Angeles at a time and in a neighborhood where, even for a child, having a gun pointed at you happened. For me, the first time was when I was 12 years old. I'd gone around the corner to visit a friend and a pretty new girl who had recently moved in next door to him. We were roughhousing, and somehow the girl fell and hit her head. She stood and accused me of deliberating hurting her; then she left. Before I could decide what to do, she had returned with a gun, which she pointed at me. "You hurt me," she said, tears running down her cheeks.

AURORA, Colo. - A little more than a week before the shootings at a crowded movie theater, it appears suspect James Holmes was already looking to beat a retreat from the small apartment where he lived, one that would soon be turned into an explosives-laced deathtrap. Half a block from his building - now surrounded by yellow police tape, with broken shards of glass dangling where windows used to be - Holmes had stopped to chat with neighbors, telling them he was looking for a new apartment.

On days A.J. Ellis is in the Dodgers' lineup, his tasks include warming up the starting pitcher before the game. Whenever Ellis walks down the left-field line at Dodger Stadium to the bullpen, he hears fans cheer and shout his name. Recently, he saw a fan wearing a shirt with his face on it. "It's so humbling, the outpouring of support," Ellis says. Ellis' story as a career minor leaguer who became an everyday major league catcher at 31 has turned him into something of a cult hero.

A funeral service for John E. Anderson, a billionaire businessman, philanthropist and namesake of UCLA's graduate school of management, will be held at 1:30 p.m. Wednesday at Westwood United Methodist Church, 10497 Wilshire Blvd. He died Friday at 93.

John E. Anderson, a Bel-Air billionaire businessman and philanthropist who founded Topa Equities Ltd. and was the namesake of UCLA's graduate school of management, died Friday morning. He was 93. Anderson died of pneumonia at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, a family spokesperson said. A self-made man whose net worth of $2.4 billion placed him at No. 153 on the 2010 Forbes list of the 400 richest Americans, Anderson was the founder, president and chief executive of the privately owned Topa Equities Ltd. The Century City-headquartered holding company owns 33 subsidiaries involved in insurance, real estate, financial services, wholesale beverage distribution, automobile dealerships and manufacturing.

The crowd standing in front of the wall-sized artwork looked mesmerized. For a split second, the 32-foot-long piece resembled an abstract painting by Ellsworth Kelly or another artist who works with grids of color. But it didn't stay that way for long. Changing constantly, it plays more like a movie that's about movement itself, generating suspense by developing and disrupting patterns of color instead of building up to car crashes. At one moment, the whole "screen" floods with orange or blue; at another it disintegrates into a field of competing hues.

It's spring, which means chirping birds, blooming flowers and the merciful end of the professional hockey season. It also means that it's time to shell out money for graduation and wedding gifts. This month, etiquette maven Alana answers your questions about how much to spend on graduation gifts, how to say no to your son's request for a graduate school loan and what kind of party is suitable for a college graduation.

It was just another lunch by chef Kiyomi Mikuni: an umami consomme from scallops and shiitake mushrooms, a codfish and burdock risotto, pot-au-feu beef stew, and chocolate and saffron ice cream with a kumquat elixir. Mikuni's flair for fusing classical French cooking and fresh Japanese ingredients marked him as a pioneer from the first day 25 years ago that diners sat down in his Hotel de Mikuni restaurant in Tokyo. And, in the course of opening six more restaurants, he became one of Japan's most celebrated chefs.

Dear Liz: As a student I was not aware of finances as much as I should have been and borrowed too much. I have about $60,000 in student loan debt plus an $11,000 car loan. I am contemplating going back to school because the job I really want — to be a counselor — requires that I have a master's degree. My friends say I'd be crazy to go into that field because the pay isn't that high and I would most likely incur more debt. I am hoping to get scholarships and grants or pay out of pocket as I go. I currently pay all my bills and am really tight with spending.