University Of California At Irvine

UC Irvine is proposing a new master's degree program in criminology that would offer the first online graduate degree in the University of California system, campus officials said Thursday. "The idea is to provide an advanced degree in a way that's more accessible," Karen Morris, a spokeswoman for the Irvine campus, said of the proposed online graduate program in criminology, law and society.

More than two weeks after 11 students were arrested at UC Irvine for disrupting a speech by the Israeli ambassador, the incident continues to draw sharp reactions from Jewish, Muslim and civil liberty organizations. But the loudest voices are being raised far from campus, all but drowning out the sentiments of students. A New York City-based Zionist group quickly urged college-bound students to drop UC Irvine as a consideration and asked donors to rethink their pledges. A leading Muslim civil rights group asked that charges be dropped against the protesters -- even though charges have not been filed.

When UC Irvine advertised four years ago for a mathematical political scientist, Sung-Chull Lee was one of few in the country who could claim such an esoteric title. Lee, 36, uses numbers and mathematical equations, instead of words, to predict and discuss human behavior. At UC Irvine, he belongs to an elite team of researchers under the direction of Duncan Luce, a renown professor in the cognitive sciences.

UC Irvine has long sought to be known for preeminence in fields such as engineering, medicine and business. But now the university is embracing a new discipline: video games. Once ridiculed within university halls as merely a nerdy pastime, computer games are being promoted to a full-fledged academic program at the Irvine campus, a medium as ripe for study as the formats before it: film, radio and television. This fall UC Irvine established the Center for Computer Games & Virtual Worlds, and construction is underway on a 4,000-square-foot, 20-room "Cyber-Interaction Observatory" for faculty research.

On the first day of UC Irvine English professor Carol Burke's Introduction to Folklore course, she asks students to write down any unusual stories they've heard about their campus. Someone always mentions the tunnels. Rumored to have been built as escape routes for professors and as access points for National Guardsmen during student protests in the 1960s, the 1 1/4 -mile concrete corridor runs in a circle below the campus' original buildings, connecting to building basements and vaults.

UC Irvine has long sought to be known for preeminence in fields such as engineering, medicine and business. But now the university is embracing a new discipline: video games. Once ridiculed within university halls as merely a nerdy pastime, computer games are being promoted to a full-fledged academic program at the Irvine campus, a medium as ripe for study as the formats before it: film, radio and television. This fall UC Irvine established the Center for Computer Games & Virtual Worlds, and construction is underway on a 4,000-square-foot, 20-room "Cyber-Interaction Observatory" for faculty research.

More than two weeks after 11 students were arrested at UC Irvine for disrupting a speech by the Israeli ambassador, the incident continues to draw sharp reactions from Jewish, Muslim and civil liberty organizations. But the loudest voices are being raised far from campus, all but drowning out the sentiments of students. A New York City-based Zionist group quickly urged college-bound students to drop UC Irvine as a consideration and asked donors to rethink their pledges. A leading Muslim civil rights group asked that charges be dropped against the protesters -- even though charges have not been filed.

Walking down the third-floor hallway of the high-rise Newport Beach hotel Monday afternoon, Elsa Ramon was so nervous she began to sweat. "Why am I doing this?" she wondered as she scanned the doors, looking for Room 309. The 18-year-old UC Irvine drama major said she had spent a month debating what to do. In fact, she said that at the last minute she had all but decided to back out, until some guys in her campus dorm encouraged her to go ahead.

The family of a college student who died after an alleged fraternity hazing incident two years ago has filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against the fraternity and UC Irvine. Kenny Luong, 19, suffered fatal head injuries during an August 2005 football game held at a city park to initiate pledges into Lambda Phi Epsilon, a nationwide Asian fraternity.

Hoping to trigger an ant civil war, UC Irvine scientists are experimenting with a colorless potion that makes bosom-buddy arthropods try to decapitate one another. The research, announced Thursday at a meeting of the American Chemical Society in San Francisco, could help rein in one of the planet's most troublesome pests: the Argentine ant.

High noon in Duroville and nothing moved but a swirl of dust and a lone American flag flapping in the scorching breeze. Wild dogs, stricken by heat and light, could barely lift their heads. Dr. Alberto Manetta squinted hard at the jumble of sagging trailers and dirt roads winding through the 40-acre patch of California desert. In the months ahead, this impoverished mobile home community of up to 4,000 mostly Latino farmworkers would serve as a laboratory for the UC Irvine medical professor and about a dozen student volunteers -- sort of a model Third World village just two hours from campus.

The UC Board of Regents have quietly settled a dozen lawsuits stemming from fertility fraud uncovered nearly 15 years ago -- drawing closer to an end a scandal that has dogged UC Irvine and left behind dozens of heartbroken couples. Shirel and Steve Crawford recently deposited their $675,000 settlement, minus legal fees, but it brought them little peace. In the late 1980s, in the midst of what many consider the country's worst fertility scandal, the Crawfords believe their embryos were given to a woman referred to in documents as "Mrs.

In a challenging fundraising climate, the first new public law school in California in more than a generation begins classes Monday at UC Irvine with 61 top-flight students, a highly regarded faculty and the goal of becoming a model for an innovative legal education emphasizing hands-on experience and public service. It has been less than two years since the school's founding dean, Erwin Chemerinsky, was hired, fired and rehired by UCI Chancellor Michael Drake during a weeklong fiasco that focused attention on Chemerinsky's outspoken liberal politics and whether conservative critics had quietly lobbied for his ouster.

In an unremarkable room in a corner of UC Irvine's main library, the little-known stories of Southeast Asian refugees are kept alive. The room holds rare items from decades ago -- audio recordings of those recounting their journeys fleeing Vietnam by boat, letters written from refugee camps to families left behind and refugee orientation brochures they picked up upon arriving in Orange County.

UC Irvine, hosting an NCAA Division I baseball regional for the first time, erected temporary bleachers to accommodate an overflow crowd expected for today's games. They'll be needed, because some of the most intriguing story lines on the road to the College World Series will play out among the four teams competing at Anteater Ballpark. UC Irvine plays Fresno State at 8 p.m. in today's second game, a marquee matchup featuring this year's No.

The baseball team is ranked No. 1 in the nation. Likewise, the men's volleyball team. And, in what might come as a surprise to many local sports fans, the school with bragging rights to both is neither USC nor UCLA. Far removed from the Coliseum and Pauley Pavilion, UC Irvine is enjoying a spring to remember. A few weeks ago, the Anteaters vaulted to the top of the Baseball America and Collegiate Baseball polls, the first time the once-dead program was ranked No. 1 in Division I.

Daniel G. Aldrich Jr., founding chancellor of UC Irvine and the only person in the University of California's history to head three of the system's campuses, died Monday at UCI Medical Center after a prolonged illness with cancer. He was 71. An athletic man with a strong, resonant voice, Aldrich started UCI literally from the ground up, having picked the site for the campus in December, 1961.

In a challenging fundraising climate, the first new public law school in California in more than a generation begins classes Monday at UC Irvine with 61 top-flight students, a highly regarded faculty and the goal of becoming a model for an innovative legal education emphasizing hands-on experience and public service. It has been less than two years since the school's founding dean, Erwin Chemerinsky, was hired, fired and rehired by UCI Chancellor Michael Drake during a weeklong fiasco that focused attention on Chemerinsky's outspoken liberal politics and whether conservative critics had quietly lobbied for his ouster.

UC Irvine students were urged Wednesday to be on alert after the first sexual assault by a stranger on the campus in eight years was reported Sunday, police said. A man approached a female student from behind outside the Mesa Court residence hall complex about 1:30 a.m., threatened her with a sharp object and sexually assaulted her near Parking Lot 5, near University and Campus drives, UC Irvine police said.

Police have arrested a Texas man suspected in identity thefts involving more than 160 UC Irvine graduate and medical students, authorities said. Michael Tyrone Thomas, 27, of Fort Worth, was an employee in the Student Resources Department of United Healthcare in Dallas, authorities said. The company manages the university's graduate student health insurance program. The 163 identity theft reports involved students in the 2006-07 school year, said UCI Police Chief Paul Henisey.