Nearly a month after revealing that Wiz Khalifa will be headlining the Sun God Festival, A.S. Concerts and Events Media Liaison Oliver Zhang disclosed the remainder of the lineup just two weeks before the May 13 festival.

“We had to wait for contracts and finalizing [event details],” Zhang said. “We wanted to announce this in one big wave.”

Rapper Big Sean, who has toured with Wiz Khalifa, will be performing on the main stage in between Mike Posner and Crystal Castles. Other main stage performances include Best Coast, Jimmy Eat World and Battle of the Bands Winner Kera and the Lesbians.

This year, the dance tent will now be a much larger enclosed dance stage.

“The dance stage will have a club feel to it,” Zhang said. “It will be much larger, there won’t really be a particular capacity. It will be more like a second main stage.”

New dance stage acts will include performances from electronic artists LA Riots, Kill the Noise and Ocelot. DJ Battle Winner DJ Philly and DJ Battle Finalists NOLD and the Dream Team will perform on the dance stage.

Midway stage acts include the Australian comedy group Axis of Awesome, circus performance group Cirque Berzerk and comedians Dan Gurewitch and Streeter Seidel from www.collegehumor.com.

San Diego beverage store D’lush — the official beverage sponsor for this year’s event — will be serving iced drinks in a 3,200 square-foot lounge with couches and a large seating area.

“There will be several bars serving various mixed drinks,” Zhang said. “There will be plasma screens with live feeds from the [festival].”

In an effort at making the festival greener, sustainability projects will be initiated this year. Students with reusable water bottles will be given free cold water, while those without bottles can purchase compostable cups for $1 to discourage waste. Styrofoam cups will be banned.

CarbonGuard — a San Diego-based environmental organization focused on preventing waste — will be working with ASCE to offset the carbon emissions produced by event.

“We tell them how many people drive [and] fly to Sun God, attendance and how much energy is used and they calculate the carbon emissions and then offset it,” Zhang said.

Twenty-two different student organizations will have booths at the festival along with professional vendors selling food and drinks along Hopkins Drive — which is renamed “Sun God Avenue” for the day of the event.

Other changes include a guest ticket price increase from $41 to $50. ASCE sold 3,500 guest tickets last year but reduced the amount to 3,000 this year. Guest tickets sold out in four days, according to Zhang.

Wristbands will be distributed to undergraduates with student identification on Marshall Field on May 12 and 13.

Security costs decreased compared to last year due to a shorter festival time. Past festivals ran from 12 p.m. to midnight but gates will not open until 2 p.m. this year.

Coordinators are focusing on logistical issues for the next two weeks.

“With the event quickly approaching, what we have left to do is continue to finalize the logistics of the event,” Festivals Coordinator Melissa McCoy said. “We are working on staffing and prepping for overall day-of production needs. These sort of logistical aspects are what build this event, and make it what it is."

The Alumni Association threw a party for 2011 UCSD grads this past Tuesday, April 26.

The 18-year-old UCSD student has already received national accolades for his awareness initiative. According to President Clinton, his project could save students millions over the next few years.

The connection between who we are as people and how our brains are wired has stumped neuroscientists for decades. It’s that elusive connection that Dr. Jacopo Annese, a neurologist at UCSD’s Brain Observatory hopes to learn more about with the help of his team and around a thousand donated brains. He wants to know how someone’s individual attributes can be explained by the unique mechanics of their brain.

[caption id="attachment_21913" align="alignright" width="270" caption="From left to right: Crystal Castles, Wiz Khalifa, Mike Posner and JFK of MSTRKRFT"][/caption]

After five months of planning, A.S. Concerts and Events Media Liaison Oliver Zhang sat down with the Guardian Sunday afternoon to leak the lineup for the annual Sun God Festival.

“For me, it’s the best lineup we’ve ever had,” Zhang said of the May 13 festival.

Rapper Wiz Khalifa will be headlining the main stage, while Jesse F. Keeler (JFK) of electronic music duo MSTRKRFT will be the main act at the dance tent.

Best Coast, Mike Posner, Jimmy Eat World and Crystal Castles will also play the main stage. The support for the dance tent — as well as one more act for the main stage — will be revealed once the artist contracts are completed.

“Not all contracts are fully executed,” Zhang said. “When we release something we want to make sure that the contracts are fully valid, just in case they back out at the last minute.”

Associate Vice President of Concerts and Events Brian Wong said he is proud of the lineup.

“We knew coming into this year that it would be hard to top the success of 2010,” he said in an email. “To make this year’s lineup even more impressive, we wanted to make every act fun and relevant. I believe we did it and this year’s lineup is the most exciting and diverse one Sun God has ever had.”

The main stage and dance tent openers will be selected at the Battle of the Bands and Sun God Space Jam, both to be held at Porter’s Pub April 7 and April 8, respectively.

The bands and DJs competing for the slots were narrowed down by an online student vote. Six bands — Lucid Stereo, Gao Gao and the Bamboo Shoots, Scooter and Oliver, The City Walls, Kera and the Lesbians and Tré Elite — and six DJs — Digital Decay, DJ Philly, The Dream Team, JameRSun, NOLD and StereoChemistry — will battle at each event for a chance to play at Sun God.

The rest of the lineup was chosen by the A.S. Concerts and Events staff, with regard to student input from Facebook and forums the office held.

“The booking process for this year’s Sun God has been quite the long and ongoing experience since Fall Quarter,” festival coordinator Jeremy Gabriel said in an email. “As we expected, we had our share of road bumps, disappointments with certain artists being unavailable, the inevitable onslaught of ‘This Artist for Sun God!’ Facebook pages, and the amusing fake lineups.”

The festival’s total budget, which is drawn from student fees that A.S. Council allocated and guest ticket sales, is roughly $530,000, with around $190,000 spent on the talent. Last year, ASCE spent about $690,000 on Sun God Festival, $50,000 of which went to security and about $190,000 of which went toward the talent. Zhang said ASCE will spend approximately the same amount on security this year.

There have been other changes made to the event. This year, Sun God will be breaking from tradition and beginning at 2 p.m., rather than the standard 12 p.m. starting time. Zhang said the office made the adjustment to tighten the budget.

“We wanted to make every act on the lineup reach out to a base of people,” Zhang said. “It made the talent budget more compact so that we could spend more money on certain artists. That really contributed to making this year’s lineup stand out a lot more.”

Additionally, the overcrowding of the dance tent last year — which resulted in police shutting down the stage at the end of DJ Z-Trip’s set — has been remedied by a new type of tent that will be easier for students to enter and exit.

“It’s not going to be the tent anymore — it’s going to be a different structure,” Zhang said. “It will allow for more student to be in there, though it will still be a closed space.”

In an effort to get more UCSD students into the festival, guest ticket prices have gone up, while their number has gone down. There will be 3,000 guest tickets (500 less than last year’s festival) for sale at $50 — an increase from the $41 tickets last year — beginning April 11.

Guest tickets must be purchased by a UCSD student or employee, with a limit of two tickets per person. Last year, the guest tickets sold out two and a half weeks after they went on sale.

Student wristbands will be available for pick-up beginning the Thursday before the event. Zhang is confident this year’s lineup will help the festival sell out for the third time in its history.

In 2008, wristbands sold out the day before the festival, while last year students were turned away after 2:30 p.m. the day of. The 2009 festival did not sell out.

The deadline for students interested in playing the Midway stage and for organization booths is April 15 while the deadline for student art displays is April 22.

Ryan O'Rear — Tritons First

A Newport Beach native with a politician’s winning smile, Ryan O’Rear might seem a more natural fit for an “O.C.” bit part than the fourth floor of Price Center East. Looks, however, can be deceiving: O’Rear’s an old hand on council, having already served two years as Muir College senator with current running mate Lynne Swerhone.

O’Rear’s hasn’t necessarily been the loudest voice on the council floor the past two years, but he has made an effort to reach out to constituents from the ground up. With Swerhone, he hosted a weekly radio show called “Muirworld” on KSDT, which served to inform listeners (mostly his and Swerhone’s friends, O’Rear admits, though he says he’s grateful for their devotion all the same) of current topics of debate.

Only around 30 listeners typically tuned in to the program, but working with KSDT and meeting his fellow DJs connected O’Rear to a corner of campus that might not otherwise have been very in touch with the type-A decision makers hiding up in PC East. That kind of base-level outreach exemplifies O’Rear’s goals for next year — aims that all come back to engendering pride in our campus.

“I want students to remember their four or five years at UCSD not as, ‘oh, I went to UCSD when fees were increased by 50 percent,’” O’Rear said. ”I want students to be able to come back and donate with a sense of pride … I want alumni to come back and support the UCSD students of the future.”

As president, the Tritons First candidate would also hope to get more in touch with the students themselves — though he certainly knows better than to expect anyone to march to the fourth floor during office hours. Instead, O’Rear hopes to have lunch at Price Center with a different student every day — a proposal that could, granted, provide for more onion rings and orange chicken than one stomach should ever handle, but all in the righteous name of keeping the council’s ear to the ground.

The Muir College junior is strongly in favor of making the leap to DIV-I sports, though he also feels it’s paramount to put the idea to a student vote. O’Rear says that kind of consideration has played out in his past two terms: he’s always made an effort to cast his vote with those he represents chief in mind.

“When I’m voting, I don’t always maybe personally agree with the votes that I cast, but I know that if my constituents do, if the people I’m representing do, I can rest easily,” O’Rear said.

Outside his dedication to Muir, O’Rear’s also an active member of Tau Kappa Epsilon, and served as the fraternity’s treasurer during his freshman year.

While O’Rear’s experience in fraternity leadership has been colored by an admittedly more lax environment than the fourth floor, collecting quarterly membership dues from some of his best friends has certainly informed his leadership style.

“[As president,] I wouldn’t be trying to make everyone be my best friend, but it’s working with everyone on a level where you respect everyone outside of A.S.,” O’Rear said. “It’s working with them on a personal level to make sure that everything goes through as smoothly as possible.”

Making everybody happy, in the end, is the name of O’Rear’s game. Whether this week’s election works out in his favor or not, the spring climate should encourage some of his favorite pastimes. O’Rear’s a seasoned volleyball player, and — a So Cal boy through and through — is seldom more content than when he’s at the beach.

— Trevor Cox, Managing Editor

Alyssa Wing — Board the Wing

Anyone looking at the extracurricular activities of Warren College junior Alyssa Wing might just see a pattern.

She’s served on Warren College Student Council since her freshman year, and is currently president of the 60-strong organization that saw the college snag the Spirit Night title this year. She sat through six-hour A.S. Council last year as Warren Senator, working on issues of visibility and occasionally being shouted at by both the public and her fellow student leader hot heads. And on the side, she’s had stints as Warren orientation leader, Warren Ambassador, Warren Briefs columnist, Warren student orientation and represented the face of Warren at student events.

Needless to say, Wing breathes Warren College and school spirit and now —  as the titular member of second-year slate Board the Wing — she wants to take that straight to the top.

“Warren is my home base,” she said. “But, having worked on A.S., I know the potential it has to  be better. I haven’t seen it be capitalized, seen A.S. be built from year to year and I want to take it in a new direction with a new spirit.”

Spirit is the catchword here; Wing’s track record is based on student life, particularly supporting athletics, whether through working with Triton Tide, creating peppy banners or bullying councilmembers into attending sports games. Now, with D-I up in the air, she’s a staunch supporter of a move she says should be seen as an investment.

“I absolutely support the move to D-I and, more important, as a student, I support athletics,” she said. “I support what athletics provides; it’s allowed me to find a connection and unifying pride, and I think this move could really bolster spirt and pride.”

And like every candidate, she’s interested in updating the students about their famously “inaccessible” student leaders. She want to reform council from the inside out with new committees to increase consistency in council’s rules, as well as institute an A.S. table on Library Walk and work with Triton Television and taking on social media interns to provide a live feed of the Wednesday night meetings.

“Students complain about how A.S. could be enforcing rules for one organization but not another, so there needs to be someone to ensure that our councilmembers are updating our own rules,” she said.

This year, as a non-voting member of council, she’s taken those first steps by attending nearly every meeting and researching a student-fee referendum from 30 years ago that sets money aside for college councils — a referendum she says council has been violating.

All of these synthesizes with Wing’s self-declared love of people. As a first-generation college student from Rancho Santa Margarita, Wing said her background created her drive to succeed and that meant the “very pre-business” student entered UCSD as an economics major.

But two quarters in, she realized that she didn’t want to continue and, on a friend’s suggestion, took a communications class instead.

“After that first one, I realized I was really drawn to the study of people, to work with people, to think about the most basic aspects of people, whether that’s speech or dress — it was more in tune with me, writing was better than math, and I later added sociology as a double major,” she said.

It’s this emphasis on people that has made Wing so eager to reach out, and made her rank winning Spirit Night this year as one of her all-time highlights.

“I remember my freshman year we didn’t even have Spirit night, and to go to what we have, it’s a testament to our students,  what we’re capable of together and what I want to continue,” she said.

— Angela Chen, Editor in Chief

Jasmine Philips — Students First

Jasmine Phillips might just be the woman to help A.S. Council turn a new leaf. The Sixth College senior wants to make the office on the fourth floor of Price Center a place for all students and engage a wider share of the student population — and if she could do so while locking down Lauryn Hill, Erykah Badu or Trey Songz for Sun God, all the better.

Like most of us, Phillips spent a while bouncing around various academic interests: the one-time psychology major and classical studies minor entered UCSD with dreams of studying abroad in Greece or Italy, though shifting interests and extensive on-campus involvement put the brakes on those plans. Phillips dabbled in political science before switching course to critical gender studies and sociology, with a minor in human rights. These areas of study have tested her well beyond finals week.

“When you start looking at how everything is constructed, it makes it hard for you to watch a commercial, watch a TV show, listen to Lil’ Wayne … so that’s always something I challenge myself with,” Phillips said. “I own my contradictions, and I try not to judge anyone else in their process.”

Phillips said her education has also informed her leadership style. Critical gender studies (CGS) courses, in particular, have pushed her to question how success is realized and how leadership is performed, which Phillips said carries over to the Students First slate: The candidates comprise not so much a top-to-bottom hierarchy as a collective of hopeful leaders whose opinions hold equal weight. In presenting the Students First platform to campus organizations, Phillips said, it’s never assumed that she’ll be the one to dominate discussion; any and all candidates are welcome to step up and take center stage.

Her fields of choice have also shaped Phillips’ vision of her future.

“If anything, CGS has enabled me to look at how I don’t necessarily have to be an ‘ultra career woman’ to be a feminist — it’s just repeating a system,” Phillips said.

Whether she fits the suit-sporting feminist archetype or not, Phillips still boasts an impressive campus resume — one that spans an array of everything from college council to Students for Affirmative Action Committee (SAAC). The Long Beach native has served as a SAAC rep on both the Black Student Union and Sixth College Council, and currently interns on campus at the Cross Cultural Center (CCC), where she serves as affiliates and outreach coordinator.

This year, Phillips went above and beyond her intern responsibilities to organize January’s Kiamsha Community Conference for the CCC. Kiamsha — which translates from Swahili as “that which awakens me” — focused on empowering student leaders of color through the importance of self-care. That lesson is one that, ironically, Phillips could probably take closer to heart herself: working an average of 30-40 hours per week between the CCC and campus box office while managing a double major doesn’t always leave much time for scrupulous self-maintenance, let alone a full night’s sleep.

The hard work is bound to pay off: a first-generation college student, Phillips plans to pursue law school after graduation. In the meantime, her involvement on campus and the rigor of her coursework — which demands far more than mindless essay writing or an endless game of memorization — keep the student leader plenty occupied.

“In a class where you’re talking about how you can’t fundamentalize everything, it’s hard to provide a solution,” Phillips said. “There’s no right answer — that’s always a challenge.”

— Trevor Cox, Managing Editor

Parminder Sandhu — We Are Tritons

Parminder Sandhu is an everyman’s candidate — most of the third year’s Facebook statuses are alerts about free food available somewhere on campus.

Back in his second year, Sandhu applied this “one for all” attitude to his new position as Advocate General on A.S. council, charged with impeaching members that had too many absences. As Advocate General, Sandhu, who tried to impeach then-President Elect Wafa Ben Hassine, was all about fairness.

“I’m like the guy in Green Eggs and Ham,” Sandhu said at an April 2010 A.S. Council meeting. “I will talk about impeachments with you on a boat, on a house, on the sea.”

Now, as a Sixth College senator, Sandhu is still a stickler for the rules.  Throughout the year, his main focuses have been improving life for Sixth College transfers, working on an Indian cultural celebration (set to occur sometime this quarter) and the Sixth College student parking controversy.

“A lot of what students complain to me about, more than anything, are the parking spots being removed from Sixth College,” Sandhu said. “Basically, it’s a safety concern because it’s forcing students to park near the baseball fields and it’s a long walk with no lighting. It’s really a safety issue.”

In between working to meet with administration on parking issues, studying for a double degree in bionengineering and political science and participating in organizations like Relay for Life, Sandhu has been working on his slate’s platform, hammering out the main issues they plan on targeting next year — if they win. His slate, WE ARE TRITONS (which he founded) also mirrors the candidate’s goals by bringing together a mix of campus representatives from a wide variety of organizations and colleges — including students from A.S. Council, Greek life and club athletes.

“I wanted to create as much of a microcosm of UCSD as possible,” Sandhu said. “People with  different viewpoints, with different majors, from different student orgs, with goals like improving education and building a sense of community and improving transportation on campus.”

WE ARE TRITONS also presents a focus on student education.

“With all the budget cuts, we’ve already closed the medical library and are projected to close CLICS and some other libraries,” Sandhu said. “These are hard facts that we have to deal with.  We have to work with the administration to make sure the core educational and student experience isn’t compromised. These cuts need to be made with more of a student perspective in mind, rather than a budgetary one.”

Like his political role model, Barack Obama, Sandhu wasn’t expecting to run for the presidential seat when he first started in government, though he’s been working hard towards his goal since making the decision this past winter. And though Sandhu describes President Obama as a “very inspirational person,” Sandhu’s biggest motivator is a little closer to home.

“In middle school, my mom was hit by a drunk driver and she was paralyzed from the waist down,” Sandhu said. “That made me want to get more involved in my community and really make a positive change. Though it happened a while ago, it still inspires me to do good in the world and do the best I can in everything I do.”

And while A.S. Council is known for incessant bickering, the presidential hopeful isn’t worried about council divisions.

“We should be in the business of improving the student life experience on campus,” Sandhu said.  “As long as we understand that we’re in the business of improving student life, we can disagree on some aspects while coming together on others.”

— Neda Salamat, Focus Editor

John Tran — Flush the John

For all the other candidates’ talk about transparency, it’s Warren College junior John Tran — the sole contender without prior council experience — that has the simplest plan for improving student life. He wants to bring puppies, Muse and the cast of “Glee” to UCSD. (And not a whole lot else.)

Tran, who’s double majoring in history and communications, may not have any political experience, but he’s also no stranger to student involvement. He’s been keeping busy since his sophomore year, when he joined Programming at Warren and helped plan events and allocate funds for Warren College students.

Since then, Tran’s also played an active role in the Inter-College Residents Association, for which he serves as the Vice President of Public Relations.

Even more recently, he’s joined UCSD Cares, an organization that works to raise money for and recognize other philanthropic UCSD organizations.

“He’s very committed to what he does,” said Warren College junior Tyler Nelson, who’s running for Vice President of External Affairs on Tran’s slate. “He’s not so strong-headed to do only what he wants to do. He’s not going to shut anyone down. He’s a very amiable guy.”

Tran and Nelson want to keep the focus on students. Their campaign has been centered on the simple focus of the Flush the John vision: creating a better Sun God.

“We just came together and we basically wanted to start off simple,” Tran said. “Make a better Sun God, bring the ‘Glee’ cast, bring Muse. It’s definitely grown into something. We want to see if we can change A.S. from the inside.”

While he hasn’t been to any A.S. Council meetings, Tran said he’s been doing his research, and has a pretty keen idea of what he wants changed.

First, he’s hoping to get rid of A.S. resolutions — statements that go before a council vote and are said to define UCSD’s stance on a campus or political issue.

“Some of the resolutions in the past have been really unfair,” Tran said. “They don’t represent all UCSD students. I’ve been going to the A.S. website and looking over things, and I was against the resolutions when I read about them in the Guardian. I thought, ‘Why are they staying up until 4 a.m. discussing these things?’”

Tran says his main focus would be on the students, and wants council to reduce funding for conferences and councilmember stipends, instead funneling those resources toward events benefitting student life, such as pancake breakfasts and — one of the chief tenets of Tran’s campaign — more puppies.

“We think puppies are big stress relievers,” Tran said. “We know a lot of UCSD students are stressed as it is. More puppies on campus will make them a lot happier.”

Tran’s lack of experience may make him the object of criticism from naysayers, but he’s prepared to take the heat.

“Most people in UCSD aren’t familiar with what A.S. does, either,” Tran said. “I would represent those people. I feel like not everyone has a voice in A.S. Most of them really don’t care what A.S. does. If we give students what they want, that makes a happier campus.”

And, for Tran, it’s all in the name. “Flush the John” reflects the light-heartedness Tran hopes to bring to council.

“I’m kind of a comic relief,” he said. “I think that A.S. needs to lighten up a little. They’re kind of serious — that doesn’t make it fun.”

— Mina Nilchian, Staff Writer

Few start their life’s work at the age of four. But for  associate professor of music and classical composer Lei Liang — whose parents were both music historians — it only made sense to follow their lead.
Not that he always enjoyed it.
“I was bored to death when I was practicing,” Liang said. “So I just started making up my own music on the piano. I started to compose my own pieces. But my parents were pretty lenient — they let me just make some sound on the piano for 30 minutes every day and that counted as practice.”
Liang has graduated from plunking around aimlessly to composing his own pieces, to wide acclaim.  In 2009, the professor was awarded the prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship for the duration of 2009 and 2010 for his accomplishments in the music industry ­— which include composing countless pieces over a lifetime and winning Harvard’s George Arthur Knight prize in 2006.
In addition to teaching that year, Liang composed numerous concert pieces. His favorite, titled “Verge,” was written for the string section of the New York Philharmonic — the oldest orchestra in America. Liang worked with 18 musicians and the final piece was roughly 12 minutes long.
“It was based on the birth of my son, who had just been born as I was writing the piece,” Liang said of his firstborn, Albert, who is now 17 months old and who enjoys listening to “Verge” when he’s upset. “I transformed his name into many possible musical expressions. It’s called ‘Verge’ because it was composed on the verge of his birth.”
In the time between his first tinkling melodies and achieving professional success, Liang was border-hopping. The Chinese-born composer lived in Beijing, China, learning conservatory-style music until he was 17 years old, then traveled to Texas to further his musical education. Liang left for Boston in 1992 to pursue undergraduate and graduate degrees in music, from the New England Conservatory of Music and Harvard University, respectively.
“I was not taught about Chinese music when I was growing up,” Liang said. “After I came to America, I became very interested in Chinese music because I suddenly realized how little I knew about where I came from.”
Though Liang mostly works with classical music, he is very interested in Chinese history and culture, and makes a point of expressing his opinions on the ever-changing Chinese society in his pieces. Liang frequently uses Chinese instruments when composing  new works.
“When you’re composing a piano piece, you think about what has been done already,” Liang said. “But there are also things that have not been done yet. That’s one approach, and the other is, ‘What do you want to say with this piece?’”
Though Liang has been composing for years, the creative process can still prove difficult, especially when faced with the task of composing pieces for instruments he does not play (Liang plays the piano and the guqin, an ancient seven-string Chinese instrument).
“Your hands can be conditioned by the instruments you know,” Liang said. “I know the piano very well and when I write for other instruments, like for strings, my mind is conditioned to how my fingers move on the keyboard.”
Still, Liang doesn’t compose using a piano reduction (which involves writing the piano part and then building the rest of the orchestra’s sound from there). Instead, Liang writes pieces for the entire orchestra, reversing the old method of composing from a reduction.
As a result, sometimes it would take Liang a year to write a 10-minute piece. Other times, it took only an afternoon. The longest piece Liang has composed thus far is 20 minutes — a record he’s about to break.
“I am writing a very long piece for our percussion faculty here,” Liang said.“That’s going to be 70 minutes long. I started working on it last year.”
Throughout his career, Liang’s greatest musical influences have been familiar names — Claudio Monteverdi, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and György Kurtág. Of his teachers, Liang’s biggest inspirations were Robert Cogan, Sir Harrison Birtwistle and a Mongolian musician, Serashi.
“When I listen to [Serashi’s] music, I just [feel] that the music projects such a sense of vastness of space and solitude,” Liang said. “It’s not only the Western composers who are my models. I look at him as the person I want to communicate to when I write music.”
With so many positive role models, the switch from composer to teacher was a natural one for Liang, who joined UCSD’s faculty in 2007 and teaches four to five courses a year. Additionally, Liang has lectured at Harvard, Stanford, Northwestern and numerous other universities, including some overseas.
“When you’re a student, you’re discovering a lot of things by being exposed to different resources,” Liang said. “When you become a teacher, there is an enlarged inner space in your imagination already, and it’s a matter of deepening that search. I have felt they have a lot to offer.”
His students seem to feel the same about the youthful professor.
“Instead of imposing restrictions on his students, he encourages us to explore knowledge and expertise in the music areas that we are interested in, but with imagination and a critical point of view,” Yeung-ping Chen, a Ph.D. student in composition,  said.
Owen Ferro, a Muir College graduate, expanded on Chen’s thoughts.
“[Liang] has a sincerity for creating music that is a constant source of inspiration for those fortunate enough to know him,” Ferro said. “As a scholar, composer and a musician, he is a master craftsman and an artist who is not afraid to create something beautiful.”

As you drive down the I-5 near Soledad South, it’s hard not to notice the 43-foot cross jutting out from the peak of Mount Soledad. Located 10 minutes from campus on public property, the cross has been the centerpiece of a Korean War memorial for over 50 years.
Due to its location, the cross started a war of constitutionality and litigation that started in 1989 and has snowballed since.
Because the memorial is on public land, veteran Philip Paulson filed suit, claiming it displayed religious preference (Paulson is an atheist).
The plaintiffs in the case — the American Civil Liberties Union and Jewish War Veterans — contend that the “Easter” cross represents only Christian men and women who died in the war. The defendants, veterans from the Mt. Soledad Memorial Association, insist that the cross represents the sacrifice of all who gave their lives in service ­— not just the Christians.
While both sides want to honor fallen soldiers, neither can agree on how to do so.  On Jan. 4, a decision from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled the cross unconstitutional. Judge Margaret McKeown stated that “the Memorial could [definitely] be modified to pass constitutional muster.”
But just a few days after the ruling, three Republican Congressmen introduced a bill to block the memorial’s removal — and this past Saturday, hundreds gathered on the mountaintop to protest the same. According to KGTV San Diego, because of the persistent nature of the debate, many believe the matter will be ultimately settled in the Supreme Court.
The Memorial is open to the public from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. every day.

On Dec. 7, the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (Calit2) gathered to celebrate its 10th anniversary. Calit2 has been a major player in merging the arts and sciences — developing innovative technology, bridging the gap between the virtual and the physical and building partnerships with nationally recognized companies, such as Qualcomm and National geographic.
Calit2 began in Atkinson Hall under Robert Conn, the dean of the Jacobs School of Engineering. The department’s research is
focused around energy, environment, health and culture. According to Director Larry Smarr, Calit2 “represents a new mechanism to address large-scale societal issues by bringing together multidisciplinary teams of the best minds.” Recently, Calit2 has been grabbing headlines for the controversial Bible-research conducted by Thomas Levy in Jordon, and the search for the Leonardo Da Vinci mural — the Battle of Anghiari — headed up by Maurizio Seracini.
The day’s festivities began at 10 a.m. and ran until 10:30 p.m, in conjunction with UC Irvine's Calit2 program. Over 600 people attended the full-day event, including keynote speaker former California Governor Gray Davis, who is a major driving force behind the funding and overall success of the program, insisting that Calit2 receive all the funding from the state that it required. Other speakers included neuroscientist Maryann Martone and Levy. Participants were also treated to live music performances, symposiums, a walk-through the StarCAVE and a luncheon.

A Metallic Discovery Made By Professor Thomas Levy and His Partners Could Completely Change the Way Anthropologists and Historians Regard the Bible's Narrative

It’s the pinnacle of professordom: After years of inattentive student audiences and pressure for results, a teacher is finally rewarded with the promise of financial security in the form of the all-powerful, all-coveted tenure. But the title has its ups and downs. Over the past few years, tenure has come under fire — in the newly released documentary “Waiting for Superman.” direc- tor Davis Guggenheim points fingers at tenure’s abil- ity to allow bad teachers to remain in positions they shouldn’t be in, which he contends will erode the quality of education. Others counter with the argu- ment that tenure provides job security in academia and allows professors to express controversial, groundbreaking views.
Tenure is a lifetime appointment, where a professor cannot be removed from his position unless he resigns or is dismissed under extraordinary (and most likely illegal) circumstances. Most recently, UCSD attracted national attention when the tenure of visual arts professor Ricardo Dominguez was threatened due to his side projects, which included building an application that aided illegal immigrants trying to cross the border, and overloading the UC website with messages about the system’s lack of
transparency.
At UCSD, the tenured pay may be cush, but getting there isn’t; the process of hiring professors is yearlong, and the tenure track could take another five years. To achieve tenure, candidates are recruited and their files reviewed by academic personnel. The Academic Senate then evaluates the files, researches the candidates and makes a recommendation to the Senior Vice Chancellor of Academic Affairs, who then identifies and invites approximately five candidates to come in for interviews with the entire faculty.
Once hired, assistant-level professors have eight years to start doing research, with the potential to advance to an associate professorship (tenure- track) and eventually full professorship (tenure). Tenure and tenure-track professors are funded by the state — an arrangement that offers more job security because they don’t need to depend on private grants — while all others are funded temporarily or through grants.
Professors are reviewed every one, three and five years on the basis of their research, community service and their teaching; the five-year mark is usually the first bench- mark for being considered for tenure.
In order to get tenure, “You really have to prove that you are worthy of an advance  ment,” said Jon Welch, a UCSD administrator in the Academic Personnel Office.
The tenure process evaluates professors at the department level, the division level and the university level based on the three criteria mentioned above: Have the professors published research in respected, high-profile journals with extensive readership? Do they represent the university well as a member of the campus, city, national and international communities? Does the success of their stu- dents reflect exceptional teaching?
Staff at UCSD are required to teach about three courses per year, depending on the department, but there is no predetermined number for how much or how often professors must publish.
“It’s an ongoing thing where you are teaching and doing research at the same time,” Welch said. “Research takes some time — they don’t pump out articles once a year.”
Professors must apply to organizations outside of the UC system to fund their research. The UCSD tenure track requires that all professors’ bids for grants are approved by UCSD’s Independent Review Committee.
According to UCSD’s website, the IRC — the principal advisory group to the Chancellor — reviews professors’ proposed research projects in order to “establish mechanisms to eliminate, reduce, or manage conflicts of interest, if possible and to safeguard the interests of the University and the individual principal investigator."  Professors are prohibited from having any
significant financial interest in the compa- ny for which they are conducting research and from allow- ing their research to inhibit their work at the university — these mandates empha- size that a professor’s teaching comes first.
And compared to private schools like Yale University, UCSD’s standards for tenure are harsh. In 2007, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education, Yale’s tenure policy underwent revision. Before the policy revamp, tenured professors would either have to retire, leave or die for a position to open up for non-tenured faculty. Post 2007, Yale has taken a much more active role in the progression of its junior faculty’s careers. By the end of each junior faculty member’s eighth year, at the latest, he would have begun his tenure track. At fellow Ivies Princeton and Cornell, the process begins two years sooner.
Additionally, there is a notable difference in the number of faculty tenured within each department and large gaps in pay between the arts and sciences at UCSD.
According to data from the Sacramento Bee, lecturers in the fine arts department earn far less than those teaching sciences or math- ematics, a disconnect that carries over into the higher rungs of academia — associate profes- sors and professors in the sciences are paid far better than those in humanities or fine arts.
In 2004, according to the Division of Social Sciences, out of a total of 682 tenured faculty members, the number of tenured life science (biology, agriculture, etc.) professors was 49, while 67 professors in the fine art department had tenure. UCSD tenures more arts-related faculty, but pays them less than the science professors.
At UCSD, an exceptionally rigorous tenure process has made it difficult for bad professors to sneak through the cracks, but the tradeoff is that it’s harder — when compared with Ivy League schools like Yale and Princeton Universities — to attract young staff without the promise of a tenured position in the near future.

Readers can contact Zoe? Sophos at [email protected].