Graduation

WASHINGTON - President Obama urged graduates of a celebrated historically black college Sunday to use their education to help others and to work for "something larger than yourself," citing the example of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. In the commencement address at Morehouse College in Atlanta, Obama urged graduates headed to law school to make sure they "defend the powerless" during their careers. He said new physicians should find ways to "heal folks in under-served communities," and business school graduates should consider "putting people to work, or transforming a neighborhood.

SACRAMENTO - The graduation rates of UC students came under more scrutiny Wednesday as Gov. Jerry Brown urged administrators and faculty to prod more undergraduates to earn a degree in four years, not six. Brown recently proposed giving UC and Cal State more funds if they increase their graduation rates by 10% by 2017. UC leaders have said that is an admirable but unreasonable goal and that such issues as students' outside employment and their desire to take double majors slow them down.

Before many Cal State seniors walk across the stage to receive a diploma in coming weeks, they will have to break out their wallet at least once more. More than half of Cal State universities charge a commencement fee - a requirement to graduate. At San Diego State, students must fork over $55 before they don the cap and gown. At San Francisco State, it takes $100 to walk across the stage before thousands of spectators. Fifteen of Cal State's 23 campuses charge some sort of graduation fee, according to the Oakland Tribune, which first reported on the charges Monday.

WASHINGTON - Can a public high school hold its graduation ceremony in a local church? The Supreme Court has been pondering that question in its private conference for six weeks, discussing whether to take up a Wisconsin case that could reset the line separating church and state. Last year, the U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago ruled that the Elmbrook School District, near Milwaukee, violated the 1st Amendment and its ban on "an establishment of religion" by holding a high school graduation ceremony in the sanctuary of an evangelical Christian church.

In a major case of academic poaching involving crosstown rivals, USC has lured away two prominent neuroscientists from UCLA with a promise to expand their internationally renowned lab that uses brain imaging techniques to study Alzheimer's disease, schizophrenia, autism and other disorders. Arthur Toga and Paul Thompson will move to the USC Keck School of Medicine campus next fall, along with scores of graduate students, postdoctoral fellows and staffers who now work at UCLA's Laboratory of Neuro Imaging, known as LONI.

WASHINGTON - Speaking to the graduating class of Ohio State University in Columbus on Sunday, President Obama called on the students to embrace the school's motto, “education for citizenship,” and to press the government to act. He encouraged students to work to narrow the income gap between the middle class and the wealthy, to improve education for children and protect them from gun violence, and to better the environment, among other things....

You may not have heard the term “twerking” before now, but you've probably seen it. It's the charmless, stripper-inspired move that involves shaking one's booty as fast as possible, while crouching or in a handstand position. It's all over YouTube, especially in an “Official Twerk Team” video with explicit and expletive-laced lyrics that's been watched millions of times.  Today, my colleague Tony Perry reported that more than 30 students at Scripps Ranch High School have been suspended for making a twerking video and setting it to music with crude lyrics.

Gov. Jerry Brown's plan to link some extra state funding to how quickly state universities move students to graduation and to other performance measures faced criticism Wednesday at a legislative hearing. Several legislators and university officials said they feared that the plan unfairly forced campuses to chase unrealistic and arbitrary goals when the real problem remained the deep budget cuts schools suffered during the recession. Some said they feared Brown's ideas could backfire by encouraging campuses to water down graduation requirements and directing students to easier majors as a way to meet Brown's targets, which also include boosting the number of transfer students from community colleges.

SACRAMENTO - Gov. Jerry Brown wants to tie some state funding for California's public universities to a host of new requirements, including 10% increases in the number of transfer students from community colleges and the percentage of freshmen graduating within four years. Brown, who has repeatedly said the universities should be leaner and serve more students, is asking for equivalent increases in several other areas as well, according to a copy of his plan obtained by The Times.

BOSTON - Lu Lingzi learned Sunday that she had passed a major exam for her studies at Boston University. The next morning, the test and a major project behind her, the 23-year-old Chinese graduate student and two friends headed over to watch the Boston Marathon. They chose spots near the finish line. Hours later, two bombs exploded there. It was midafternoon in Boston, the middle of the night in China. As hours ticked by and Lu still hadn't called, her parents and grandparents grew panicked.