Vetoed senate bill leaves five students with inadequate funding

Proposed bill to have helped cover expenses for Florida protest

Written by Gabrielle Grow

Aggie News Writer

Published on Apr 19, 2010

Despite initial approval from ASUCD senate and a vote to override ASUCD President Jack Zwald's veto, an override to pass Senate Bill 53 - a bill now evoking controversy and dialogue - failed with a 7-5 vote.

If passed, the bill would have allocated $580 from Senate Reserves to five UC Davis students to help pay for airfare to attend last weekend's Farmworker Freedom March in Florida.

Without the $580 allocation from ASUCD, students who attended the three-day march will be responsible for covering additional expenses themselves.

Last Thursday, Zwald vetoed the bill with an accompanying letter stating that he did not feel the Senate members "fully understood the ramifications" of it. His letter argued that passing Senate Bill 53 would set a precedent for all bills that are fiscally sound and legal to be passed, even if ASUCD disagreed with its motive.

"It's important to note that other senate bills like this have been passed before," said Abrham Castillo-Ruiz, co-author of Senate Bill 53. Ruiz referred to a senate bill passed last school year which allocated funds for postage to help send supplies to UC Davis alumni serving in Iraq.

ASUCD has $12,000 in senate reserves each year to allocate to students who address ASUCD with their financial needs. So far, there is roughly $10,000 unused senate reserves. If the money is not used, it will be moved to capital reserves, a reserve intended to fund only projects that will last two or more years.

"We exhausted all avenues of fundraising before going to ASUCD," said Liz Fitzgerald, Village Harvest Davis team leader and Freedom Farmworker March attendee. The students financed the trip with the help of a contribution from UCD Sodexo.

UCD students representing Students for Sustainable Agriculture, MEChA de UC Davis and the Tri Co-op participated in the Coalition of Immokalee Worker's (CIW) Farmworker Freedom March. The 22-mile march from Lakeland to Tampa, Florida protested Publix, Florida's largest super market chain, which protesters feel has failed to adopt the principles for the Campaign for Fair Food.

"I felt we had a responsibility to support CIW at such a big event," said Castillo-Ruiz.

The CIW rallies to help farm workers earn an additional $0.01 per pound of tomatoes picked.

Taco Bell, McDonalds, Burger King and Subway have all adopted the CIW's principles, and nationwide food service providers are to follow suit.

The one cent per pound increase could help workers earn 40 to 70 percent more, said Philip Martin, UC Davis professor of agricultural and resource economics in an interview with the Associated Press.

Sodexo, a multinational corporation that supplies food services and facilities management at UC Davis, has committed to paying farm workers an additional $0.01 per pound of tomatoes and to purchasing from producers who meet the code of conduct.

Sodexo is currently deliberating with CIW to determine the best method of payment to ensure the $0.01 raise reaches farm workers directly, said Brenan Connolly, general manager of resident dining.

UC Davis Sodexo purchases 1 percent of its tomatoes from Florida, buying the remainder from California and from Mexico in the off-season.

Connolly and UC Davis Sodexo will team up with Fitzgerald this spring to bring awareness of farm workers' conditions to campus dining halls.

GABRIELLE GROW can be reached at campus@theaggie.org.

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Outstanding UCD professor awarded $40,000

Grosberg finds students' “inner nerds”

Written by Gabrielle Grow

Aggie News Writer

Published on Mar 29, 2010

Evolutionary biology professor Rick Grosberg got his cake and ate it too, along with a $40,000 prize.

On Friday, March 12, Grosberg's class in Storer Hall had a surprise interruption by cake, cameras and an entourage including Chancellor Linda Katehi.

As one of the largest awards in the nation for undergraduate teaching excellence, the UC Davis Foundation, funded by philanthropic donations, recognizes one professor each year for outstanding scholarship and teaching.

"It's hard to choose because the list of nominees is so humbling," said Kevin Bacon, head of the UCD Foundation. "The prize gives the winner the ability to do something special."

Selection for the award is based on student evaluations, research peers' advice and nominations from deans of different colleges. A committee, including Chancellor Katehi, spends a month sorting through student evaluations and recommendations before narrowing down the top nominees.

"He has really contributed tremendously to UC Davis," Katehi said of Grosberg.

Evolutionary biology didn't used to be of much interest to Grosberg, who admitted that he had no appreciation for science when he was young. It wasn't until he strayed from his English major to take a science class at UC Santa Cruz that Grosberg realized science is about asking questions

Grosberg, who teaches large lecture classes like Intro to Biology, is also a part of the Collaborative Learning at the Interface of Mathematics and Biology (CLIMB) training program in which he teaches small seminar groups with seven to eight students.

"Through the CLIMB program he treats students like colleagues and forces them to think for themselves," said graduate student Julia Svoboda, who has worked with Grosberg for three years. "He gives students a level of ownership over their research, and there is no one I would have rather written a nomination letter for."

Grosberg's contributions include the development of an interdisciplinary minor in quantitative biology and bioinformatics in 2003. He is also an elected fellow of the California Academy of Sciences.

A fervent believer in 'nerdiness', Grosberg believes the best education comes from a research institution, and that teaching and research are inextricably linked.

"Everyone is a nerd," Grosberg said. "I try to find my students' nerdiness in evolutionary biology."

Grosberg discovered his nerdy niche when he realized that there wasn't much research on connection between the social evolution of marine invertebrates and the evolution of altruism.

Interested in finding out why animals spend their energy helping others, Grosberg studied a species of snail that attach the egg sac to the male's shell after mating so the male can provide all prenatal care.

Though Grosberg noted that a portion of his award money will be "donated" to the IRS, he plans on using the money for both personal and academic purposes.

A family trip to a place that Darwin would have loved, or went to, like the Galapagos is in the works, as well as a prize-money funded undergraduate trip to Africa.

While he loves science, Grosberg won't forget to spend some of the money on his passion for cooking.

"I'll buy an outdoor pizza oven, and a kitchen range. I want power, heat and BTUs!"

GABRIELLE GROW can be reached at campus@theaggie.org.