AggieXtra - Fall 2016

Fall 2016 Volume 20 No. 1

One Aggie network. Many connections.

STEP’s 40th anniversary

Top U.S. lawyer Arturo GonzĂĄlez and other successful STEP Aggie alumni

Jarhead author and other Aggie veterans 14 University experts discuss Zika crisis 24 Q&A with new athletic director 36 Child prodigy starts at UC Davis 40

ON THE COVER

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rturo González ’82, a partner at Morrison & Foerster, CAAA Life Member and supporter of UC Davis’ Special Transitional Enrichment Program (STEP), has consistently been recognized as one of the country’s top 30 trial lawyers. He has successfully defended three trials where the plaintiff sought more than $1 billion in damages and has also won four verdicts in excess of $10 million.

But his passion lies in pro-bono cases, including those having to do with police excessive force. Read more about him and other STEP alumni beginning on page 4.

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Cover Story:

CAAA Life Member Arturo GonzĂĄlez and other STEP alumni share their stories

Homecoming Feature:

Feature:

Six UC Davis activities to enjoy during Homecoming 2016

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14

Four UC Davis alumni illustrate the Aggie veteran connection

Research that matters:

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University experts fight the Zika virus

New dean shares his goals for the Graduate School of Management

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D.C. chapter connects generations of Aggies

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Beautiful four-acre vineyard weclomes campus visitors

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A Q&A with new UC Davis athletic director Kevin Blue

Former Aggie student-athletes give back

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UC Davis welcomes 13-year-old student

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Blue and Gold Scholarship recipient Ryan Moore

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Remembering Margrit Mondavi

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University news:

Office Hours:

Distinguished Professor Emeritus Maury Hull’s ranch

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By Laura Pizzo

One Giant

for Aggiekind

W

hen students, faculty, alumni and friends speak about what they love about UC Davis, the first quality they often cite is “the community.”

By this, they may mean the university’s well-known collaborative spirit, laid-back atmosphere, rigorous yet uplifting academics and empowering diversity. And while this community developed naturally at UC Davis, it is still something that Aggies—together—continue to actively build upon and refine.

In 2014, UC Davis launched the Diversity and Inclusion Initiative, making concentrated efforts to launch more programs to help provide additional support to Aggie students, including the Cross Cultural Center, the Center for African Diaspora Student Success, LGBTQIA Resource Center, FirstYear Aggie Connections and many more.

One program that has been leading the way for the past four decades is STEP, or the Special Transitional Enrichment Program. Founded under Affirmative Action, the STEP program begins with a three-week summer residential program and continues for students’ first two years at UC Davis.

“STEP most often serves first-generation and low-income students who may not have a sense of community when they first step onto campus,” said Donelle Davis, assistant director of advising and retention services and lead for STEP. “So STEP is incredibly influential, helping our students become more successful in college by introducing them to a community that will support them on their educational journey, instilling confidence and teaching them to use their strengths to pursue academic success.”

STEP provides transitional classes and skills development activities, along with intensive counseling and academic advising. Its students not only do well in class and make lifelong friends, they also go on to be successful alumni.

In honor of STEP’s 40th anniversary, here are stories from some prominent STEP Aggie alumni.

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Transfer STEP The Koret Foundation recently granted $1 million to create Transfer STEP, a new program designed to facilitate community college students’ transition to UC Davis and other UC campuses.

The program will provide critical academic support to the students, which will increase their likelihood of completing an engineering degree in a timely manner. This program, which is part of a larger university initiative to increase student diversity in engineering, is a collaborative effort by the Office of Student Affairs, the College of Engineering and the Provost’s Office.

UC Davis alumnus and donor Arturo González has remained active in the UC Davis community. Each year, he returns to campus to inspire incoming STEP students by sharing his stories of growing up poor and becoming one of the world’s best attorneys.

Arturo’s three rules for success in college: 1. Go to class 2. Do your homework 3. Study

A Life of Gratitude and Giving

t

he dirt trembles.

The windows of a small home rattle, and trees shake. It

is a familiar feeling for 6-yearold Arturo González ’82 who watches from his front yard as the train screams over the tracks near his Roseville, California home.

It is 1966 and Roseville is the largest switching yard west of the Mississippi.

Because of that, transients are common. They jump off the trains and wander, hungry, looking for work and food.

González is kicking a ball around his front yard. A man with a backpack and rolledup blanket asks if he can spare any food.

From inside the family home, González’s mother overhears the conversation, but does not understand. She does not speak English.

“What does that man want?” she asks her son in Spanish.

“He wants food,” González replies.

“Tell him to come in,” his mother says, despite the fact that the González family has very little money or groceries to spare.

González’s father, who

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taught me:

worked for the Southern Pacific Railroad, came to the United States as part of the Bracero program during WWII, which brought farm workers from Mexico to the United States to fill manual labor jobs while American men fought overseas. Since then, he’d worked his way from the fields to the railroad, eventually bringing his family to live with him in America in 1959. Arturo González was born the following year. Out of necessity, the family also supplemented their income by picking peaches for much of González’s childhood.

González’s mother invites the man to sit in her husband’s chair and prepares him a meal.

“I’ve never seen anybody eat so fast,” recalled González, now one of the top lawyers in the United States, a partner at Morrison & Foerster (MoFo) in San Francisco and a CAAA Life Member. “And that kind of thing sticks with a kid. That’s the way my parents were, and it was a big lesson my mother taught me: Be giving.”

Be giving.”

Career advice from Cesar Chavez

Want to hear more about how Arturo González is making a difference in California and the world? Click the button below to watch a video.

“That’s the way my parents were, and it was a big lesson my mother

— Arturo González

Some years later, when González was a student at Harvard Law School, finishing up his third year, he attended a lecture with civil rights activist Cesar Chavez that would change his life. During

a post-lecture conversation with Chavez, González asked the civil rights leader for advice about whether he should go into public service or work at a large firm.

At the time, there were very few Latino lawyers at large firms and González was worried that a career at a large firm would not make as significant a difference in the lives of poor people as a career in public service.

Chavez told him, “Arturo, if you can, you should go work at one of those big firms where there are no Latino lawyers, and you should be the best lawyer at that firm.”

González followed his advice. He joined MoFo straight out of Harvard Law School in 1985 and never left. He sought out the firm because they allowed him to do pro-bono work. González now represents corporate giants such as Apple, Monster and VMware and also takes on pro-bono cases involving police excessive force.

In one of his pro-bono cases, a SWAT team killed a farmworker in his Fresno, California home while the man’s wife watched.

González won the family $12.5 million—the largest amount awarded for a police shooting in California.

“Those pro-bono cases are why I’m still here,” González said. “I’m here because I want to help people, and at

MoFo we can do things that couldn’t be done at other places because we have the resources. Also, MoFo treats every hour that I devote to these pro-bono cases the same as every hour that I devote to our other clients.

They value the work.”

González also has helped strengthen MoFo’s diversity recruitment efforts, helping to change the face of the law firm over the years. When González joined MoFo 31 years ago, there were 220 lawyers at the firm and more than 210 were white. Since then, Minority Law Journal has consistently ranked the firm one of the top ten law firms in the country for diversity.

As early as 2002, the journal featured González and other MoFo leadership in an article titled “Remaking MoFo” about how the firm went from one attorney of color to 221 in two decades.

A STEP in the right direction

When looking back on his time at UC Davis, González said he was “probably one of the best investments the State of California ever made.” Admitted through the Affirmative Action plan and Special Transitional Enrichment Program (STEP), González earned about $8,000 in grants to go to UC Davis, plus room and board.

“One of my early memories of STEP is walking into the

“You’ve got to understand something. Understand how enormously fortunate each one of you is. You are incredibly lucky. Number one, do you know how many people apply to UC Davis and don’t get in? It’s an amazing number! And of the people that get into the freshman class, only 225 are here for STEP. There are easily 50 students out there for every one of you who would love to be here, sitting in your seat. Why do I tell you that? I tell you that because, you know what, don’t blow it!” — Arturo González to the incoming class of STEP students in fall 2016

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cafeteria,” he said. “I saw all this food, but there weren’t prices anywhere. So I asked the lunch lady, ‘How much does this cost?’ And she said I could eat whatever I want, that it wouldn’t cost anything.

And they had desserts! I never ate desserts, okay? Never.

So for me, that was amazing because not only was I getting this great education, but they were housing me and feeding me like a king. And I never paid anything because I didn’t have any money to pay; I couldn’t afford it.”

González has remained active in the UC Davis community, returning to campus each year to speak with incoming STEP students.

He also has made visits as a UC Davis parent. His son ANDRES GONZÁLEZ ’14

earned a degree in religious studies from UC Davis and is now the music and youth

director for St. Clement Catholic Church in Hayward, California. His son EDUARDO GONZÁLEZ ’16, who graduated in March with a degree in environmental science and management, currently works as a junior research specialist in the College of Biological Sciences and plans to apply to UC Davis for graduate school in neurotoxicology.

His youngest, ARMANDO GONZÁLEZ ’20, is a first-year student this fall.

“I describe UC Davis as a Goldilocks school, meaning it is just right in a lot of ways, including rigorous academics, the accessibility of great mentors and close proximity to my family,” said Eduardo González.

Even Arturo González’ parents have become an important part of the UC Davis community. After they passed away, González created the

Santiago and Gregoria González Memorial Award in their honor, giving more than $100,000 in support of STEP students in need. In addition, he has given to other STEP student awards, the La Raza Law Student Association and the Robert and Margrit Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts, among others.

“I appreciate very much the sacrifices my parents made to get me to where I am,” González said. “In his lifetime, my father went to school only one day, and my mother never went to school at all. So combined, they had one day of education, and here I am now with all these accolades: 100 Most Influential Hispanics, Top 100 Lawyers, etc. They raised me right, making this all possible, so I thought it was appropriate to set up a scholarship in their names.”

“I describe UC Davis as a Goldilocks school, meaning it is just right in a lot of ways ...”

— Eduardo González

González demonstrates how he used a mannequin as an exhibit in his $12.5 million police excessive force case, earning the family of the victim the largest amount ever awarded for a police shooting in California.

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Taking the Leap Alumni couple credits UC Davis for instilling life-changing confidence

“ ... one thing I do when I travel is always wear a UC Davis shirt.

I’ve never had a single leg of trip where someone hasn’t told me about their UC Davis connection.”

— Darryl Goss

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n 1981, Darryl ’83 and Lois Goss ’88 took a leap many college students wouldn’t dream of: They eloped.

At the time, the 19 and 21 year-old UC Davis students had only been dating seven months. They’d met outside the Memorial Union after being introduced by a mutual friend.

“It was love at first sight for me,” said Darryl, 35 years later, with Lois chuckling beside him and holding onto his arm in anticipation of the punchline.

“But she needed a little convincing.”

With their “I do’s,” the Gosses demonstrated a shared attitude that began at UC Davis and extended throughout their lives. Time and again, they have shown courage and confidence in the wake of an unfamiliar situation or environment only to prove that, for them, risks and opportunities can be one in the same.

Meetings in Taiwan, then home for a basketball game

Darryl, who is a member of the UC Davis Foundation Board of Trustees, is now president of Sigma Aldrich Hitech, a division of a chemical and life sciences

company specializing in the semiconductor market.

In this role, he travels the world, visiting top clients. He has been to six of the seven continents, with his career taking him to Europe, South Africa, Australia, China, Taiwan and more.

“For almost five years, I commuted to Scotland for work and lived in Texas,” he said. “With my current role that I took on in 2014, I am probably traveling twice as much as I was then. And one thing I do when I travel is always wear a UC Davis shirt. I’ve never had a single trip where someone hasn’t told me about their UC Davis connection.”

Darryl remains motivated throughout his grueling schedule because he loves having the opportunity to lead different teams around the world.

“I’m proud of the people I work with,” he said. “It’s gratifying when I encourage an admin to go back to school and see them 10 years later doing very well, or when I see someone who was a developer and now they’re a vice president of information technology at another company.”

Despite busy travel schedules, the Gosses raised two sons and, when Lois’ sister passed away from breast cancer, they adopted their two teenage nephews as well. All four kids are now college age or older; but, when they were in school, Lois was an active volunteer.

She served as president of the Parent Teacher Association and also participated in their schools’ booster club.

“Whatever school they were in, they were going to

see my face there,” she said, adding that her husband took an active role as well, making certain to arrange his travel to be there for parent teacher nights, band concerts and basketball games.

Helping students STEP up

At the time the Gosses attended UC Davis, there were very few African American students in the UC system. They both credit UC Davis’ Special Transitional Enrichment Program (STEP) for instilling them with the confidence to embrace challenges, especially those having to do with cultural differences, due to the program’s efforts to increase student success among underrepresented groups.

“In STEP, you met a lot of different people from different cultures that you may not have otherwise come into contact with,” Lois said, who was a first-generation college student known for being the hardest working student in her class. “I met people who had never met a black person before. The only perspective they had was on TV. And they just wanted to know what it was like. So I tried to educate them that every black person I knew was an individual.

I don’t know anybody that is a stereotype. Often times TV didn’t accurately portray minorities—whether they’re black, Latino, female, etc.”

Darryl, who grew up with a mother who had a Ph.D. during an era when it was rare for a woman to go to college, learned life lessons in both STEP and athletics.

“As an African American, you may find yourself in a situation where others

don’t think you should be there,” Darryl said. “So how do you thrive there and be successful? Those are the things that I learned in STEP. And it was the same thing as a student athlete. Playing football for UC Davis in the early 80s, I learned how to be successful even when people said our team was too small or too slow. I’m grateful I had the opportunity to be part of a great football dynasty with coaches like Bob Biggs and Jim Sochor.”

Darryl and Lois have created three endowed scholarships to support students in athletics and the African American studies major, as well as other projects and programs. The couple is gearing up to get more involved in the new Center for African Diaspora Student Success.

“During my first week in STEP, Student Affairs came and talked to us about the Affirmative Action program and how we needed to take advantage of this opportunity,” Darryl said.

“They also said it’s not always going to be here, so it was important for us to make the most of it so we could turn around and help someone else. So even our philosophy of giving goes back to what we learned in STEP, and we’re both very grateful for that.” q

Since their kids have all gone off to college and begun careers, Darryl and Lois have more opportunities to travel together. Pictured here, they enjoy a stop-over in San Jose, California, before heading to Asia where Darryl will tend to business and Lois will enjoy the culture.

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Building Connections

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lthough Cynthia Murphy ’91 (Lambing-Ortega)

grew up in a home without college-educated parents, she always knew she would attend a university.

“When I was young, my family traveled around the world because my dad was in the military. I think that as my parents experienced

the world around them, they saw that in order to get to the next level, whatever that may be, you really needed a college education,” she said. “So in my house, it wasn’t ‘Do you want to go to college?’ it was, ‘You’re going to college.’”

Even though she was Valedictorian of her high school class and excelled

in math and science, going to college wasn’t without sacrifices.

“My parents worked very hard trying to secure the money so I could attend UC Davis. I stayed up many nights trying to perfect those scholarship applications and filling out all the financial aid forms,” she said. “It was hard on me and my parents, and I don’t think I fully appreciated their sacrifices until after I got through school.”

It all became worth it when Murphy began living her dream career. She landed a job as a chemical engineer at Chevron Corporation, where she has worked for the past 25 years. Murphy transitioned into human resources in 2011 and is now a Chevron University Partnership Program manager. In this role, she develops strategic relationships with universities, including UC Davis, to help support the curriculum, faculty and facilities they need to lead students to success after college.

Murphy recognizes that her passion for student success may partially stem from her past involvement in the Special Transitional Enrichment Program (STEP program), which exposes incoming students to opportunities and support systems on campus.

A community of supporters at UC Davis

Murphy came to college unfamiliar with UC Davis or the resources available to her at the university, but her concerns were quickly assuaged by the STEP program. As part of this program, she arrived four

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weeks prior to fall semester, lived in the dorms, spent time with fellow incoming students, met faculty and staff, prepared for the academic rigor of college and learned about the many resources available to UC Davis students.

“As a first-generation, low income, Hispanic female engineering student, I felt very well-supported at UC Davis,” she said. “One of the reasons I was able to quickly succeed in college was because I had a group of peer students and access to faculty through STEP who genuinely wanted to make a difference in our lives. Through STEP, I had a deeper connection with that community. In contrast, I noticed the students who didn’t have a community—who didn’t live on campus their first year, who didn’t know where the resources were—sometimes didn’t succeed.”

In addition to STEP, Murphy had peer support through the Minority Engineers Program, which became what is now the Leadership in Engineering Advancement Diversity and Retention (LEADR) program, as well as other student organizations such as the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE).

She also developed relationships with mentors through three internships, including two at Chevron, and conducted research on decaffeinated coffee beans with the late Professor J. M. Smith.

“It’s ironic that I’d worked on coffee at UC Davis over 25 years ago because, as I began supporting Chevron’s relationship with UC Davis in recent years, I had the opportunity to help build and

support the new The Design of Coffee class in the chemical engineering department.

This course gives students hands-on experience about what chemical engineering means and is also one of the most popular classes at UC Davis,” she said. “For me, coffee research gave me a fundamental appreciation of the research process and also helped me think about the avenues I wanted to pursue after college.”

A career in driving student success

Similar to her experience at UC Davis, it was the people and culture at Chevron that made Murphy feel at home.

“If you look at the various energy companies, we’re all striving to explore, produce, and refine crude oil into finished products,” she explained. “So it comes down to the culture and values of the company, and the people you’ll be working with day in and day out.”

She continued, “So my enthusiasm for facilitating connections and strategies between Chevron and our university partners, as well as for recruiting students, stems from the diverse and collaborative environment where I work. I want people to join Chevron for these same experiences. We need a great fit on both sides.”

Murphy has found that part of enjoying where you work is contributing to the growth and development of the people and company.

Early in her career, Murphy became involved in the onboarding processes at Chevron. She noticed that it took time for skills and

knowledge to be passed on to new engineers—as they worked in the various facets of the business—and she wanted to help expedite the process.

As a result, Murphy began managing Chevron Technical University and then went on to work on the development of the Horizons Program.

The mission of both of these programs is to accelerate technical competency development of new technical hires, which is done through a unique combination of technical training and learning, mentoring and diverse work assignments.

“Taking the idea of the Horizons program and making it a reality was one of my proudest moments in my career,” she said. “Once in a while, I will meet a new hire who has been in the program, and they’ll tell me that it made a difference in their career or exposed them to new types of work. I am so pleased to hear that the program has continued to make a difference for our new hires and that it has evolved as the company has grown.”

Murphy continues to go above and beyond when it comes to her relationship with UC Davis. She serves on various boards, including the College of Engineering Dean’s Executive Committee, where she says she enjoys being a part of a diverse group of alumni and industry participants who want what is best for the students and university.

“Being a chemical engineering student at UC Davis was challenging but, at the same time, I always knew that the faculty, staff and my peers were pulling for me and really wanted me to excel.” q

“One of the reasons I was able to quickly succeed in college was because I had a group of peer students and access to faculty through STEP ...”

— Cynthia Murphy

Facing page:

Cynthia Murphy stands in the LEADR Student Center. Her employer, the Chevron Corporation, gave the leading gift to support this center, which is open to any student who supports diversity and inclusion in the field of engineering. The company also supports other student groups on campus, including the American institute of Chemical Engineers and the Chicano/Latino Engineering and Scientists Society, as well as other programs and facilities.

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Homecoming 2016

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ere are a few ways Aggies of all ages can make the most of UC Davis’ Homecoming Week.

The week will begin on Sunday, October 9, and culminate on Saturday, October 15 when the Ags face off against Northern Colorado at Aggie Stadium.

Five Things to Come Home to at UC Davis (Plus Football!)

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Pajamarino In 1912, pajama-clad students first snuck out of their dorms to greet returning alumni at the train station the night before homecoming. This year, alumni, students and the Davis community are invited to join the Student Alumni Association as they continue the tradition at our 104th annual Pajamarino celebration.

This family-friendly event includes performances by the Cal Aggie Marching Band-uh! as well as performances and other fun activities. The fun begins at 4:30 p.m. on Friday, October 14 at Central Park (401 C Street). Or skip the pajama parade and meet at the Davis Amtrak Train Station (840 Second Street) at 5:30 p.m.

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The arts Enjoy the UC Davis Year of the Arts beginning with an evening with the SFJAZZ Collective at the Robert and Margrit

Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts. And while you’re in the neighborhood, walk by the Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art ,

which does not open until November 13 but is itself a masterpiece. On the eastern side of the museum, you can also relish in the sculptures and landscaping of the Margrit Mondavi Art Garden.

Every corner of campus features art to enjoy, including the quintessential UC Davis eggheads.

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The new Ann E. Pitzer Center Another new addition to the campus’s art district is the Ann E. Pitzer Center, a 17,500-square-foot classroom and recital hall located next to the Music Building. The building, which was made possible

by UC Davis alumna and former CAAA Alumni Award winner, Ann Pitzer, opened earlier this month.

The Center, which is the first UC Davis building to be named after a female graduate, will

be a vibrant hub of activity for students and faculty, in addition to being a wonderful public venue. There is still an opportunity for more alumni to make their mark on this building by making a gift to name a seat in the new center. Gifts will support additional program and building needs.

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Aggie traditions By taking part in Aggie traditions, you can spend Homecoming Week reminiscing about parts of campus that were often that home-awayfrom-home for many UC Davis alumni. A few favorites include dining at the Coffee House, riding a Unitrans bus, strolling through the three-anda-half mile stretch of campus known as the Arboretum and visiting the dairy cows.

For more ideas, visit our Traditions page.

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Pre-game tailgate!

The UC Davis Athletics Alumni Council will host a tailgate event before the homecoming game in the Aggie Tailgating Area Spot 68 next to Aggie Stadium from 3 to 6 p.m.

All student-athlete alumni, their families and Aggie fans are invited to attend.

Please stop by and enjoy complimentary food and beverages. For details on this event, upcoming tailgates or to get involved with UC Davis Athletics Alumni Council regional events, please email athleticsalumni@ alumni.ucdavis.edu.

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The big game Catch the Ags in action at the homecoming football game against Northern Colorado at 4 p.m. on Saturday, October 15 at Aggie Stadium. Use promo code CAAAHOME for $17 west side bleacher back seats or $13 east side benches. Purchase tickets online or call (530) 752-AGS1.

S

ervice is an important pillar of UC Davis’ land-grant mission and the university’s longstanding history with the armed forces is one of the most telling examples of this.

The Memorial Union at the heart of campus, which is currently under renovation and is scheduled to be completed in 2017, was founded by UC Davis students in 1955 to honor the 128 UC Davis students and alumni who lost their lives during World War I and World War II. The cost to build the MU was made possible by private support and was one of the earliest fundraising campaigns of the Cal Aggie Alumni Association.

Over the years, hundreds of alumni have served in the military and even the campus was a military training ground during World War II (see page 21).

Today, UC Davis’ connection and service to veterans remains strong. Last year UC Davis was named a Top Veteran Employer of the Year, the UC Davis Health System has a long-standing partnership with Veteran Administration from Northern California—serving hundreds of veterans with specialty care every year, and the university has a robust student services center to help veterans pursue higher education at UC Davis. The university also has a special program for wounded veterans with companion service dogs to receive financial assistance for veterinary care at UC Davis’ William R. Pritchard Veterinary Medical Teaching Hospital in the School of Veterinary Medicine.

This year CAAA is starting a special interest group for alumni veterans to better help service members connect and build a powerful network together. To bring attention to this new group and to honor the breadth of UC Davis commitment to our veterans of the armed services, we share these stories with you:

Marine and Jarhead author, Anthony Swofford ’99 ...................... 15 How you can help UC Davis veterans and ROTC programs ........ 17 VA doctor, Scott Fuller ’94, M.D. ............................................................. 18 Retired naval aviator, Kevin Couch ’85 ................................................ 20 Campus transformation during World War II ................................... 21 Aggie on track to be first female in combat arms ......................... 22

The Aggie Veteran Connection

By Laura Pizzo

Getting the Venom Out

Anthony Swofford, author of Jarhead, grew up in Sacramento, Calif., and now lives in Santa Monica with his wife and daughter.

His second daughter is due to be born in the fall.

nthony Swofford ’99, best known for his New York Times bestseller Jarhead, never wanted to write a memoir. Nonetheless, he has courageously struggled through two, with another possibly on its way.

His first, Jarhead, is a chronicle of his time as a marine sniper in the Gulf War. It is a story that is urgent, raw and masculine.

It describes what members of the military refer to as “the Suck”—full of drink,

infidelity, boredom, threats of suicide and murder, and the sand, heat, oil, and let-down.

It was wildly popular book that sold a million copies worldwide and was adapted into a 2005 film with the same name starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Jamie Foxx.

“I’ve learned my lesson,” Swofford said. “Fiction, nonfiction and scriptwriting is a break from putting one’s own life and one’s own emotions on the page.

To write good memoir that matters and resonates with the reader, you have to be really honest about yourself, and that’s not always natural or pretty.”

Then, after publishing

The memoir includes flashbacks, which take place in Davis and the surrounding region—including his time as a UC Davis student when he worked the night shift at a nearby warehouse. Those flashbacks are interspersed with scenes of father and son racing down the interstate in a Winnebago, confronting one another about their family’s past and present. In the book, Swofford’s father repeatedly tells him to “get the venom out”—a task the memoir itself seems to undertake.

The makings of a writer

After receiving encouragement and close

“UC Davis was essential to my becoming a writer, and the most essential thing that I learned there and what I have to remember every day is that revision is key to making art that will sustain,” said the UC Davis English major who has given to support the College of Letters and Science. “You must keep digging deeper and making it better, and that only happens with intense pressure on every sentence.”

Professor Hicks described Swofford during his time at UC Davis as a person who was thirsty for knowledge, incredibly talented and not at all like the aggressive persona portrayed in Jarhead.

fiction almost exclusively, with a little bit of poetry mixed in.

“Even though I and a number of other people at the time told Tony that his experience as a marine sniper in the Gulf War had been untold and was really a very important autobiographical narrative, he really had no interest early on in doing that,” Hicks said. “He has always wanted to be a serious fiction writer.”

Then Hicks adds, “But his main challenge now, and I’m not sure it’s a challenge, is that if your first book is a best seller and is made into an enormously popular movie, there are all kinds of

“Yes, I’m sorry the men are dead, for many reasons I am sorry, and chief among my reasons is that the men who go to war and live are spared for the single purpose of spreading bad news when they return, the bad news about the way war is fought and why, and by whom for whom, and the more men who survive the war, the higher the number of men who might speak.”

a novel titled Exit A, Swofford released a second memoir Hotels, Hospitals and Jails. The book describes Swofford’s amplifying depression following the fame and fortune that spawned from Jarhead. It also details Swofford’s quest for reconciliation with his father who mirrors Swofford in many ways, including his veteran status, and who is dying from emphysema.

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mentorship from UC Davis professor Jack Hicks as well as others in the UC Davis English department, Swofford went on to the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, the highestregarded creative writing Master of Fine Arts program in the country. He credited the academic rigor of UC Davis, including both the study of theory and creative works, for preparing him for graduate school.

Anthony Swofford,

“I can’t speak for Tony, but I think by the time he came back from war, the experience of the marines and the whole notion of men in war had become a good deal more sophisticated for him,” Hicks said. “So I think he changed. He grew up and found himself in some ways.”

Hicks was not surprised to hear that Swofford wants to veer away from memoir.

As a student, Swofford wrote

Jarhead

pressures from agents and publishers and filmmakers who want you to keep doing that over and over. And I have a sense that he doesn’t see himself as a career writer of stories about men in war.”

Now, in contrast to the solitude of writing by oneself and about oneself, Swofford spends much of his writing life in film studios, working collaboratively on scripts for multiple projects

in television and film.“I like writing TV because, unlike with book writing, I shower every day and show up somewhere for work,” Swofford joked. “It’s very communal—the organism of the room creates the arc of the season, and that’s fascinating.”

He also is working on a biography about the life of Carlos Arrendondo—an undocumented immigrant who came to America in the late 1970s, lived through a childhood thrown asunder by poverty, and eventually saved a young man’s life.

In addition, he has started writing a new novel—and what may be his third memoir.

“Right now, I’m more interested in exploring ideas through fictional worlds and

Support Aggie veterans Veterans and ROTC students make up a vital part of the UC Davis community. To support Aggie veterans and ROTC scholarships and programs, click these links: Bella’s Fund for Assistance Dogs of Wounded Veterans

King Hall Veterans Support Fund King Hall Veteran’s Association Military Science General Support Veterans Affairs Program

“... I have a sense that he doesn’t see himself as a career writer of stories about men in war.”

— Professor Jack Hicks

characters. My next novel will be a noir that takes place in the worlds of female incarceration and Manhattan real estate,” Swofford said.

“But I’ve probably not learned my lesson about memoir yet because I, having always considered myself a reluctant memoirist, also seem to be working on a book-length essay about male weight issues called On Being Fat.” With his famous, selfdeprecating and honest humor, he added, “I am fat. I write about being fat. Sounds like memoir to me.” q

alumni.ucdavis.edu

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Redefined: From Jersey to Lab Coat

R

estoring a parent’s ability to hear their child’s laughter, reviving a cook’s olfactory senses, repairing a musician’s ability to sing— these are the types of moments Scott Fuller ’94 M.D. can give to his patients.

Fuller is an ear, nose and throat surgeon for UC Davis Health System and Veteran’s Administration of Northern California. Every time he goes into surgery, he knows he holds three of his patients’ five senses, and therefore a large part of how they

experience the world, in his hands.

“A gentleman out of the Veteran’s Affairs hospital who came to me had a very advanced thyroid cancer that was invading his windpipe— and he was a singer,” said Fuller, who works four days per week at the Mather VA hospital in Sacramento and one day per week at the UC Davis Health System.

“So we had to have a conversation about possibly taking his voice box and possibly taking one of the nerves to his vocal cords. He would not be able to sing professionally again. It was really unnerving to the guy, and rightfully so; this was how he defined himself.”

These cases can be the hardest ones to battle, said Fuller, because in addition to wanting to save lives, he wants his patients to have an improved quality of life.

“In this case, it turned out I was able to remove all of the cancer without taking his voice box and while leaving his airway intact,” Fuller gleamed. “He’s singing now, is as happy as can be and cancer-free, and I count this case among my greatest success stories as a surgeon.”

Finding his way to the OR

Fuller has personal experience with how difficult it can be to reshape one’s identity. A football star at UC Davis, he was forced

“When you define yourself as a football player and then it becomes apparent that you’re not going to be seriously considered for a professional career in football, it is very painful. I saw a lot of my friends linger and work odd jobs so they could work out and try out for teams; but that just seemed like a waste of time to me, so I started looking for something else.”

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scott fuller

upon graduation to find a path off the field.

“When you define yourself as a football player and then it becomes apparent that you’re not going to be seriously considered for a professional career in football, it is very painful,” Fuller said. “I saw a lot of my friends linger and work odd jobs so they could work out and try out for teams; but that just seemed like a waste of time to me, so I started looking for something else.”

Fuller’s father-in-law Paul Donald, M.D.—also an ear, nose and throat surgeon at UC Davis and now professor emeritus—invited Fuller to shadow him at the hospital for a day to see if he had an interest in medicine. Fuller had majored in physical education and had a knack for physiology and anatomy but had never given a career in medicine much thought.

“I visited him at work and observed a laryngectomy, where the voice box is removed, and I was fascinated by it,” Fuller recounts. “And then I went with him to see patients in the clinic. The patients are really why anyone practices medicine; meeting them was very inspiring. So I chose to

pursue a career in medicine, and I have never had one day of regret since.”

Fuller received a graduate degree in microbiology from the University of Tennessee, where he subsequently attended medical school before returning to UC Davis for his residency program in 2004. He has worked at UC Davis ever since—as a surgeon in ear, nose and throat oncology; a sleep apnea surgeon and specialist; and now as an assistant professor, teaching a head

and neck examination course to second-year medical students.

“I’m proud every day to be an Aggie,” said Fuller.

“The community here is phenomenal, with lots of really, really accomplished physicians. The camaraderie inspires a great stimulation of ideas. The treatment options and modalities for therapy and level of aggressiveness also seem to be endless—I have access to just about everything to take care of my patients.”

In service to those who served

Fuller’s involvement with the VA began during his head and neck oncologic, skull base, and microvascular reconstructive surgery fellowship at UC Davis in 2009. UC Davis’ close partnership with the VA allows medical residents and fellows to gain experiences with a wider range of patients.

“Right away, I noticed the patients at the VA were super appreciative of everything

I did, even the slightest things,” he said. “They were phenomenal to work with.”

During his fellowship, Fuller discovered there was a need for his specialty within the VA and so decided to stay on after the fellowship ended.

While he does not have a military background, his father’s time in the military helped motivate his work with veterans.

“Although I didn’t serve, I consider my work at the VA to be my service now,” he said. “And I love to do it.” q

Dr. Scott Fuller is an ear, nose and throat surgeon for the UC Davis Health System and Veteran’s Administration of Northern California.

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Achieving the Impossible

F

or a long time the smell of jet fuel brought back terrible but life-changing memories for retired naval aviator Kevin

Couch ’85.

During his third year at UC Davis, Couch was working

as a part-time student firefighter when a stunt plane from the Yolo County Fair crashed into a campus field.

His team responded.

“We thought there was only one person in the plane for a while,” said Couch who joined the navy as an officer soon after graduating from UC Davis. “Then, we discovered there was another person

in the backseat. Neither of them came out alive.”

Couch continued, “So at naval aviation training, one of the problems I had was that the smell of jet fuel reminded me of that crash. It took me a while to get over it when I started learning to fly.”

Nonetheless, Couch graduated with honors from Aviation Officer Candidate

Former UC Davis student firefighter now leads US Navy’s safety efforts

School. While on active duty, he served as a wartime commanding officer of the HS-4 Black Knights, among other leadership roles, and earned several awards, including being twice named pilot of the year by the Association of Naval Aviation.

He also earned honors and a master’s degree from the Eisenhower School of

Kevin Couch serves as the Director of Operational Safety for U.S. Navy war ships around the world.

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National Defense University, in addition to being a distinguished graduate of the Naval Nuclear Power School.

In good hands

Now retired from active duty and living in San Diego with his wife Holly Hunt ’84, who he met at UC Davis, Couch’s life is far from sedentary.

Couch is director of operational safety for the U.S. Navy, meaning he oversees the safety of over 160 Navy ships around the world.

When the Navy decided to create this position, Couch— with his strong reputation and background in aviation, surface, and submarine safety—was a shoo-in for the job.

In this role, Couch is in charge of designing and implementing the safety management system for the fleet and collaborating with commanding officers to make certain that the system is efficient and easy-to-use. In addition, Couch is head of Safety

A training ground for elite soldiers

B

eginning in 1942 and continuing for nearly two years during World War II, the UC Davis—then known as the University of California School of Agriculture at Davis—was

transformed into a training facility for US troops. Called the Western Signal Corps School (WSCS), the Davis site became a hub for specialized instruction in radio and wire operation and repair. During this time, the Signal Corps made full use of campus, with the arboretum and campus gym serving particular importance because they helped the troops stay in shape for military action.

“I find satisfaction in accomplishing what was regarded as not only unlikely but impossible.”

— Kevin Couch

Cell—a role that encompasses the coordination of policy and assistance for all of the Navy’s warships, except aircraft carriers.

“My proudest moments in my career are times when we focused everybody on what needed to be accomplished, made sure they had what they needed, and provided continues on page 23 Top photo: Peter J. Shields Library bottom photo: UC Davis Arboretum

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21

Making History

P

auline Ovalle’s ’17

battle buddy shakes her awake after a 30-minute power nap. It’s 4 a.m. “I hear something,” her buddy says.

As part of their two-week combat training at the Fort

Knox Cadet Leadership Course (CLC), Ovalle and her buddy have learned to sleep in shifts, tucked away in bushes and behind trees. The course is required of all fourthyear ROTC students in the U.S. and Puerto Rico. Although other UC Davis students are present, Ovalle is the only Aggie in her company.

It’s before dawn, but still

UC Davis student in line to be the first female infantry officer from Northern California.

blazing hot in Fort Knox, Kentucky. It has been more than a week since Ovalle had a shower. She is painfully aware of the layers of sweat beneath her fatigues, and the dirt in her hair and around her ears.

She grabs her gear.

“Over there,” whispers Ovalle, who is currently serving as the heavy weapons

squad leader on this mission.

She and her team are already on the move.

Bang! Bang! Light flashes a few dozen yards away.

At the leadership course, the guns are loaded with blanks; but, otherwise, the combat feels the same as war.

There are people who play the part of villagers, others play the enemy.

Ovalle directs her platoon to pursue a guerilla squad of cadets on top of a hill during a field exercise in Yolo County meant to prepare her team for summer training at Fort Knox.

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“Everything felt real, but the most challenging part of CLC was the terrain,” explained Ovalle. “The whole time you’re with your weapon and your rucksack, and you have to go up and down hills, and you’ll get attacked so you’ll run for cover or for a certain position to react to the contact you’re receiving from the enemy.

So that was tough, but at the same time I enjoyed it because I got stronger from going up all those hills and carrying that stuff.”

Physical Training score put her in good standing to be approved for the infantry.

“It’s a little nerve-wracking to have both my assignment and where I will live decided for me by cadet command,” she said. “I want infantry, but it’s not in my hands. So I’m

soccer on Sacramento’s Primero de Mayo team and also lifts weights, working out an average of 12-plus hours per week. Her fitness schedule can be difficult to maintain on top of her studies, but she discovered during her second-year at

“The whole time you’re with your weapon and your rucksack, and you have to go up and down hills, and you’ll get attacked so you’ll run for cover ...

Gearing up to make her mark

Ovalle, a San Francisco native, originally came to UC Davis because it was close to home, and she also admired the academic rigor and culture of the university.

Since then, she discovered her calling for infantry.

If Ovalle achieves her goal to become an infantry officer, she will make history as the first female from Northern California to do so. The first female officers joined the U.S. Army’s infantry branches in April 2016. Ovalle will find out in November 2016 whether or not she will be detailed infantry—a goal she’s had since coming to UC Davis. Early in her time as an Aggie student, Ovalle fell in love with the job of leading a team.

The basic requirements to join the infantry include being between the ages of 17 and 34 and being a citizen of the U.S., along with different physical training scores based on age brackets. Academic standards also influence decisions. Ovalle believes her GPA of 3.6 and perfect

As she pursues her goal, she has received an enormous amount of support from her Aggie community—including superiors and peers.

“Lieutenant Colonel Brian Knieriem, who is the professor of military science and senior military officer

that was tough, but at the same time I enjoyed it because I got stronger from going up all those hills and carrying that stuff.”

nervous because sometimes you feel like you deserve something, but you might not always get it. Still, I try to remind myself that, no matter what, I should get combat arms. So even if I don’t get infantry, I’ll get armor, and I’ll still have a strenuous and stressful job that is combatrelated.”

Photo: Jonathan Ayestas/Capital Public Radio

Pauline Ovalle

on campus, is always asking me how I’m doing,” she said. “Our instructors are also always interested in our academic and personal lives in addition to how we’re doing in ROTC, and they’re very supportive of my goals.”

In addition to participating in ROTC, Ovalle stays fit by playing semi-professional

UC Davis that it is easier for her to manage her academics if she studies at the library with friends—much like how she benefits from a battle buddy in the field.

“If I go home, I fall asleep because I’m so tired sometimes,” she said. “So having company really helps me study.” q

IMPOSSIBLE continued from page 21

An upward trajectory

the overarching goals that motivated them to get it done,” he said. “I find satisfaction in accomplishing what was regarded as not only unlikely but impossible.”

These are qualities he admires about the UC Davis community as well. A CAAA Life Member, he remains connected with his alma mater through local chapter gatherings, including a recent event on the USS Midway. He still counts his fellow Aggie firefighters among his closest friends.

Couch attributes his high regard for knowledge, safety and excellence in part to the lessons he learned at UC Davis as a student firefighter.

“The experience of that crash emphasized to me the need to absolutely know what you’re doing and to do the right thing every time you go flying,” he said. “And that of course extends to other situations as well.”

“I figured I could do anything since I’d been a firefighter,” he laughed. q

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Research That Matters

UC Davis experts have contributed to many discoveries about the Zika virus and are urgently searching for more as the virus spreads around the world, including to the United States.

Fighting Zika The CNPRC team is working to develop a better understanding of Zika and hopefully create a vaccine.

Their up-to-date scientific findings can be found here. Click on the button below to watch FOX40’s video coverage of this project.

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I

Mmediately after scientists discovered the connection between Zika and Brazilian babies with microcephaly—the condition that causes a baby’s head to be unusually small, often leading to brain damage and premature death—UC Davis researchers were on the case.

And in the months following this discovery, as concern of a global pandemic began to spread, UC Davis experts have helped solve many mysteries about the virus. These discoveries include the fact that the virus is transmitted through sexual contact and may be transmitted by the household culex mosquito— more common to the United States than other mosquitoes known to transmit the virus.

The worldwide effort to uncover more about Zika continues with compounding urgency as mosquitos in other parts of the world, including in the United States, begin to transmit the virus to humans.

The need to find answers as quickly as

By Laura Pizzo

possible has driven UC Davis researchers to rely on their strengths in collaborative work, inspiring them to share real-time information as quickly as possible with a worldwide scientific community, media and the general public.

“We don’t have to panic,” said UC Davis Distinguished Professor and Chemical Ecologist Walter Leal, who helped make the aforementioned discoveries about Zika, “but we have to know.”

Know what, you may ask? Well, everything we can.

One Health approach

Jonna Mazet, a UC Davis wildlife epidemiologist and veterinary science professor, has quickly become a nationally sought after expert on Zika, having recently appeared on a new PBS special, “Spillover—Ebola, Zika & Beyond.” On the show, she spoke about the relationship between animals, humans and the environment—a core and foundational research strength of UC Davis, which the university

refers to as One Health. Mazet also described her role as principal investigator for PREDICT, a first-of-its-kind global consortium working to predict the next bad pathogen, similar to Ebola, HIV or SARS. Mazet said outbreaks like Zika may become more frequent due to the rise in global population, which is expected to reach more than 9 billion by 2050.

“Humans are outgrowing our globe, and as we push further and further into areas where we have not traditionally lived, we’re being

education and action is one of the most essential ways to prevent an outbreak. It is why he hosted a free Zika symposium at UC Davis in May 2016 and why he is conducting research on how mosquito repellents can prevent the spread of the virus. Leal, who is native to Brazil, happened to be in his home country when the connections between Zika and microcephaly emerged in October 2015. He has since been commuting back and forth to help study Zika with a team of Brazilian scientists.

“If you catch a cold, you don’t go around

Six easy things you can do to prevent Zika

Wear repellant

Protect your home

Disperse all standing water

Choose your clothes wisely

Practice safe sex

Stay informed

Whether or not you feel sick, wear repellant during and after a trip to an infected region, especially if you are trying to get pregnant.

Keep mosquitos out of your home by making certain windows and doors are closed or blocked by screens.

Mosquitos can lay eggs in even a drop of water, making even condensation in a bottle cap dangerous.

One of the easiest ways to protect yourself from mosquito bites is to wear long sleeves and pants.

Sexual transmission is a big risk factor, so avoid unprotected sex with anyone who has recently traveled to a Zikainfected region.

The best way to protect yourself and your family is to stay educated about the virus. Click here for UC Davis’ Zika news page.

exposed more and more to the animals and their pathogens that live in these areas,” she said.

In five years, PREDICT has discovered more than 800 previously unknown viruses, some of which could cause an outbreak. Mazet said PREDICT’s goal is to know what threats exist; how these diseases are transferred between animals, humans, and the environment; and how to diagnose them ahead of time, so that when an outbreak initiates, the virus or disease is easy to identify and can be treated immediately at the source.

“To prevent outbreaks, it takes an informed surveillance system, a qualified laboratory network, and an informed community to listen, understand and take effective action,” she said.

Leal, who works in a different discipline and college than Mazet, echoed that community

spreading the virus without thinking—you cover your nose and your mouth,” explained Leal. “So why not use a repellent in the same way? That’s something an ordinary person can do without going to a doctor, even if you’re not sure you’re sick.”

Reducing the number of people who contract the virus is critical, even though not everyone shows symptoms, because experts are still not certain how long the contagion lasts.

“When a man gets infected, even months after his blood is clean of the virus, he will still have some of the virus in his sperm so there may be risk of transmission to his sexual partners,” Leal explained, of a recent discovery.

Leal is encouraged by UC Davis researchers and others who are searching for a cure, but he recognizes that vaccines can take years to be

“We don’t have to panic. But we have to know.”

— Walter Leal

continues

alumni.ucdavis.edu

25

Jonna Mazet, a UC Davis wildlife epidemiologist and veterinary science professor, recently appeared on a new PBS special, “Spillover – Ebola, Zika & Beyond.”

developed and many more to be approved. For example, West Nile has been infecting people in the U.S. for 17 years, and we still don’t have a vaccine; however, repellents have been proven to help.

“The bad news came when we discovered that the culex mosquito may also be a vector—which is an organism that transmits a disease or parasite,” he said. “And when Zika started showing up in

“The bad news came when we discovered that the culex mosquito may also be a vector—which is an organism that transmits a disease or parasite.”

— Walter Leal

Distinguished Professor of Genetics Michael Turelli’s expertise on an infection called Wolbachia has helped eliminate dengue in two Australian cities. Similar work may be used to help fight Zika.

Photo credit: Phil De Vries

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Florida, that raised more concern. What we’re trying to avoid as much as possible is having a vector and the disease in the same place. Because if you have one and not the other, you’re still safe. For example, we don’t have malaria in California, but we have one of the vectors.”

Developing a treatment

Several potential solutions to the Zika health threat are underway at UC Davis.

Nonhuman primate studies at the California National Primate Research Center (CNPRC) at UC Davis offer a critical step in understanding the biology of the virus, how to treat it and how to prevent the infection with a vaccine, with the ultimate goal of preventing an epidemic in both human and wild primate populations.

CNPRC’s studies are aimed at developing a macaque monkey model of mother-to-child transmission of the Zika virus. If successful, the model will be valuable for testing novel vaccines and drugs to protect mothers and infants against the complications of Zika virus infection.

“Monkeys are very similar to us, so if we can find something that works in monkeys, there’s a very good chance that it could work in humans,” said UC Davis Researcher and Veterinarian Koen Van Rompay, who is leading the fight against Zika at CNPRC. Van Rompay helped stop the spread of HIV

by serving on a team in the 1990s that developed the most widely used antiretroviral drug in the world, Tenofovir. The drug was approved in 2001 and has since been administered to more than 10 million HIV-positive people.

Other researchers are investigating whether techniques that have worked for other diseases will also work for Zika.

Distinguished Professor of Genetics Michael Turelli, who holds the Joel Keizer Endowed Chair in theoretical and computational biology at UC Davis, began studying a bacterial infection called Wolbachia in flies (Drosophila simulans) more than 30 years ago. In 2008, it was discovered that Wolbachia could block other microbes, including disease-causing viruses such as dengue and Zika, from replicating in its hosts. This made Turelli’s expertise on the population biology of Wolbachia invaluable to the Eliminate Dengue Program (EDP), a research effort funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, focused on ridding the globe of dengue fever—a disease that affects an estimated 390 million people worldwide each year. EDP researchers thought if they could introduce Wolbachia into mosquito populations in regions affected by dengue, the bacteria could act as a shield in those mosquitos so they couldn’t contract or transmit diseases such as dengue—or Zika.

So far EDP has introduced Wolbachia into the mosquitoes of two sizeable Australian cities— Cannes and Townsville—apparently eliminating the transmission of dengue in both communities.

EDP is now implementing similar population transformations in Columbia, Brazil and Vietnam; however, they are running into various problems when attempting to use the Wolbachia that were effective in Australia in other areas of the globe. Despite these roadblocks, Turelli said the work remains extremely promising.

“The strain of Wolbachia needed is not the same in all populations, so we’ve got to figure out the biology and the math,” he said. “But still, the timescale for a Wolbachia-based solution is going to be a few years, not decades. And if someone were to develop a new vaccine for Zika today, it would still be 5-10 years before they would be able to transform Rio with it. So the work we are doing is very exciting.”

Native to Brazil, UC Davis Distinguished Professor Walter Leal travels the world researching the molecular basis of insects’ sense of smell, chemical communication and chemical ecology.

His expertise in these areas have been invaluable to the study of Zika.

UC Davis Researcher and Veterinarian Koen Van Rompay has begun leading studies of Zika at California National Primate Research Center (CNPRC), hoping to uncover more information about the virus that may lead to a successful treatment.

Read more

The research presented in this article only represents a fraction of what is being done at UC Davis to stop Zika. For more information, visit this list of UC Davis Zika experts. q

alumni.ucdavis.edu

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with Dean H. Rao Unnava

“We are constantly thinking about how we

New Graduate School of Management dean shares his background and future goals

can work with other colleges to make GSM one of the top five business schools in the world and, at the same

by Laura Pizzo

time, solve problems that What originally inspired you to pursue a career in higher education?

My mom was a professor in India. Before that, she was a high school teacher. And as I grew up, there were often kids at our house asking for extra help in various subject areas.

My mom taught them in the evenings, which was a pretty common practice in India.

But she was unable to handle all these people. So I would assist her. When I was in fifth grade, I was teaching the third graders math and science. I enjoyed it and thought I should consider it as a possible vocation.

Then I became an engineer, got my MBA and started working in industry.

I was selling computers in the early 1980s when I got a call from a university saying that a faculty member in the MBA program had dropped out at the last minute. They asked if I could help by teaching the class. I said yes.

It went well, so they asked me to come back. That’s when I talked to my wife and said, ‘It looks like my evening job is actually more

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interesting to me than my day job. Maybe we should go to the U.S. because that’s where higher education is the best? I

GSM degrees UC Davis’ Graduate School of Management offers the following degree programs:

• Full-time MBA, UC Davis • Part-time MBA in the San Francisco Bay Area or Sacramento, Calif.

• Master of Professional Accountancy, UC Davis

• Master of Science in Business Analytics, San Francisco Bay Area

• Non-degree openenrollment Executive Education programs, San Francisco Bay Area and UC Davis If you’re interested in learning more about opportunities at the Graduate School of Management, click here.

could get a Ph.D. and get into the profession of teaching.’

Now, after 30-plus years at The Ohio State University, UC Davis offered me a chance to come to a university system that is one of the best in the world—a system that I heard about and dreamed of being a part of when I was still living in India. So when the opportunity presented itself, we decided as a family it was time for us to move.

are more complex than what a business school would typically handle.

That’s the thrill of UC Davis at this time, getting to work with other deans to make good things happen.”

— H. Rao Unnava

What makes UC Davis’ Graduate School of Management unique?

With your interdisciplinary background, are you further inspired by all the crossdisciplinary work that happens at UC Davis?

The GSM is a hidden gem in many ways. The faculty are extremely productive in terms of intellectual output.

What that means is that, if you look at the rankings that are given to faculty, in terms of intelligence and business knowledge at a per capita basis, UC Davis’ Graduate School of Management faculty are ranked No. 1 in the country. That’s something most people don’t know about because the faculty are humble and don’t make a big deal about it.

Yes, I am very inspired by the potential for GSM to collaborate with top colleges across the university. Imagine an MBA degree that has a top college in agriculture associated with it, or a top college of engineering, or our healthcare or veterinary medicine systems. There are not many MBA programs that have that privilege.

We are constantly thinking about how we can work with other colleges to make GSM one of the top five public business schools in the world

and, at the same time, solve problems that are more complex than what a business school would typically handle. That’s the thrill of UC Davis at this time, getting to work with other deans to make good things happen.

What efforts to do you plan to take to help alumni with their careers?

We want to make certain our students continue to feel engaged with UC Davis even

after they graduate. So I ask myself, is there a way that we can continue to provide educational opportunities for UC Davis alumni? Could GSM, for example, have free webinars given by our faculty on issues that are very topical?

This is one of the goals that I personally have in mind.

Let’s say there’s a student who graduated from the MBA program five years ago. They were probably not very aware of a whole field that is develo-

ping called business analytics.

Now, they want to learn more about analytics, but they’re busy with their job. Is it possible that we can prepare three to five lectures on analytics and put them on a website that only members of the Cal Aggie Alumni Association can access? They would then have a chance for continuous learning and would not be left behind.

The whole idea is to see if we can fulfill our mission as

a land-grant institution. Our job is to educate people not just for the time that they’re here, but for their entire lifetime. Our alumni should always feel secure, knowing they have a place to go if they have a question. q Dean H. Rao Unnava joined the Graduate School of Management in June 2016 following 32 years at The Ohio State University’s Fisher College of Business, where he earned his Ph.D. and most recently served as the W. Arthur Cullman Professor of Marketing.

alumni.ucdavis.edu

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Event Calendar

th

Alumni Reception at the Big Fresno Fair Horse Races

Sensory Tasting with Riedel

Date:

104th Pajamarino

Time:

Date:

Date:

Time:

Time:

Help us continue the tradition of Pajamarino by joining our parade from Central Park to the Davis Amtrak Station. Enjoy exciting entertainment, games, food from Woodstock’s Pizza and The Good Scoop, and more as you help us kick off UC Davis Homecoming.

Take four amazing Riedel wine glasses home after you experience a sensory wine tasting hosted by Riedel and our UC Davis Alumni Wine Program Partners, Senders Wines and Gauthier Select Vineyards. Sample 90-plus point wines while learning the important elements of advanced tasting.

Sunday, October 9 3 to 5 p.m.

Location: Big Fresno Fair at 1121 S. Chance Ave., Fresno, CA 93702 Website: Click here.

Join fellow Central Valley Aggies at the Big Fresno Fair! Arrive early to enjoy the races and stay for our reception where you will meet fellow Aggies and hear from featured UC Davis faculty who will speak on current citrus disease research.

5A Alumni & Friends at the Causeway Classic Saturday, November 19 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.

Kickoff: 1 p.m.

Location: Aggie Stadium Website: Click here.

Date:

Tailgate:

Friday, October 14 4:30 to 7:30 p.m.

Location: Central Park to Davis Amtrak Station Website: Click here.

Friday, November 4 6 to 8:30 p.m.

Location: Robert Mondavi Institute for Wine and Food Science, UC Davis Website: Click here.

Join the African and African American Alumni Association (5A) at an annual Causeway Classic tailgate. Enjoy Aggie camaraderie and delicious food before the game.

Learn more Additional details on these events and others can be found at www.alumni.ucdavis. edu/rsvp.

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Parent and Family Weekend Friday, November 4 and Saturday, November 5 Time: Various Location: UC Davis Campus Website: Click here.

Date:

Day at the Racetrack with School of Veterinary Medicine Dean Michael Lairmore Sunday, December 4 11:15 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.

Location: Del Mar Racetrack, San Diego Website: Click here.

Date:

Join your student (or feel like a student again!) at Parent and Family Weekend. Hear from world-renowned faculty, take campus tours and enjoy a tailgate at Aggie Stadium before watching the Aggies battle Portland State.

The Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art Grand Opening Sunday, November 13 TBD Location: Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art Date: Time:

Be the first to see the Manetti Shrem Museum’s inaugural exhibition, which will unveil many gifts to the collection and feature major public and private collections on loan to the university.

Artists represented in the collection include Roy De Forest, Robert Arneson, Wayne Thiebaud, William T. Wiley, Ruth Horsting, Manuel Neri and Roland Petersen, among others.

Time:

Experience a day of racing at the Del Mar Thoroughbred Club while learning from Dean Michael Lairmore about advances in equine health and what makes the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine the best in the world.

2017 Cal Aggie Alumni Association Awards Gala Friday, February 3 5:30 to 9 p.m.

Location: UC Davis campus Website: Click here.

Date: Time:

Help us celebrate the accomplishments of our outstanding alumni and friends of the university at our 44th annual Cal Aggie Alumni Association Alumni Awards.

alumni.ucdavis.edu

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Network Update

Connecting Generations of Aggies

T

he Cal Aggie Alumni Association (CAAA)’s District of Columbia Chapter consists of about 100 active Aggies who participate in service events, cultural gatherings, professional development and networking opportunities.

New D.C. chapter leader

Michael Matosich ’14

notes that one of his favorite things about the chapter is that it gives him the opportunity to connect with many generations of Aggies, including hearing stories of people who are further along in their careers and attribute their success to UC Davis, or relating to younger alumni who are just starting out.

“As a student at UC Davis, I met some of my closest friends and was very involved,” said Matosich, who studied abroad in Ecuador and was active in Greek life. He also participated in the chancellor’s undergraduate advisory board and UCDC, a program that offers an opportunity for students to participate in course work, field research and internships during a quarter’s residence in our nation’s capital.

He added, “Because I had such a wonderful experience, I wanted to give back as an alumnus. At this time in my career it makes the most sense to give the gift of time and to help other alumni stay connected to UC Davis even from as far away as D.C.”

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Matosich now works as a grant administrator for the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation. Prior to that, he served on a traveling AmeriCorps team that conducted community service in several East Coast cities and towns.

“Tracing back, I live in D.C. now because I enjoyed the city so much as an undergraduate in the UCDC program,” he said. “During the program, I interned for Congressman John Garamendi, which is how I discovered the AmeriCorps

program. After I graduated, AmeriCorps brought me back to the East Coast, which subsequently led to my current role. So UC Davis is tangentially connected to where I am now, and that’s part of why I want to be involved in CAAA.” Helping Aggies find success in a new community

D.C. alumni also find other ways to connect. Major General Bradley Becker ’86, who commands the U.S. Army Military District of

DC Aggies recently gathered to watch the Washington Nationals face off against the San Francisco Giants.

Washington at Fort McNair in Washington, D.C., recently volunteered to host an upcoming alumni event at the historical site because, after moving 19 times in 30 years and most recently to D.C. in 2015, he understands how valuable it can be to have a built-in network.

“Whether you graduated last month or 10 years ago, you should know that because you’re a UC Davis alumnus, there will be a network of fellow Aggies that can help bring you

into a new community as you move around the country for work or family reasons, introducing you to people and helping you get established,” he said. “So I thought hosting this tour was a great opportunity to help develop that culture.”

Becker participated in Desert Shield/Desert Storm, served as battalion commander during the Iraq war and has led several high-profile ceremonies.

In fact, since the Military District of Washington is the lead Department of Defense agency for presidential inaugurations, he will soon lead the inauguration in January 2017. He is also highly decorated, with awards including the Defense Superior Service Medal, the Legion of Merit, the Bronze Star Medal with Oak Leaf Cluster, the

Defense Meritorious Service Medal and many more.

“Using the military as an example, a young second lieutenant in the Army may end up in Washington D.C. and begin thinking about finding a mentor,” Becker explained. “Well, most lieutenants are not going to reach out to a two-star general; but, as part of a UC Davis alumni network, they might actually reach out to me, and then I have the opportunity to mentor a young officer. This applies to any career field, and it’s one of the reasons why a strong alumni network is important.”

To get involved with CAAA’s D.C. chapter or others, contact tewhitcher@ucdavis. edu, follow the D.C. chapter’s Facebook page or attend one of the events listed at right. q

Upcoming chapter events D.C. Aggies at the All-UC Happy Hour Date: Wednesday, Oct. 19

5 to 10 p.m.

Location: Local 16 at 1602 U St. NW in D.C. Website: Click here Time:

We invite you to reconnect with old friends and make new ones from across the University of California.

Meet D.C. alumni chapter leaders, learn about upcoming events and volunteer initiatives, and pick up some great swag.

From the White House to Your House Saturday, Oct. 22 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Location: Fort Lesley J. McNair, 102 3rd St SW Website: Click here Date: Time:

Major General Bradley Becker ’86 will lead Aggies in an exclusive tour of Fort McNair, sharing information about how we deter, prevent and respond to threats aimed at the National Capital Region. Tickets are limited.

A Toast to Wine: Trends, Tastes and Innovations Wednesday, Dec. 7 D.C.-area alumni and friends will receive more information.

Date:

NOTE:

Enjoy a conversation with Dave Block, professor and chair of the world renowned UC Davis department of viticulture and enology. Savor wine and food pairings with alumni and friends while you learn about trends and innovations driven by UC Davis.

S ave the date :

44th Annual Alumni Awards Friday, February 3, 2017 5:30 to 9 p.m.

Location: UC Davis campus website: Click here Date: Time:

When aggie excellence takes center stage.

alumni.ucdavis.edu

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Big Picture

A Perfect Blend Established by Robert Mondavi’s $25 million gift in 2001, the Robert Mondavi Institute for Wine and Food Science allowed two UC Davis departments—Viticulture and Enology and Food Science and Technology—to easily collaborate under one roof in a new, state-of-theart facility. The Institute sits next to a four-acre vineyard, which was planted in 2011 and offers a beautiful new gateway to campus as well as an opportunity for students to plant, establish and train vineyards on a variety of trellis and training systems. Many students and faculty outside of the viticulture and enology program are also able to make use of the vineyard, including soil science, entomology and plant science majors.

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alumni.ucdavis.edu

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University Update

with Kevin Blue

Meet the new UC Davis athletic director

the university was very aligned with what we envision here at UC Davis. The scholarathlete philosophy is a core value of mine as well, so ultimately, that philosophical alignment is what drew me here and why I knew UC Davis would be a great fit. We care deeply about both winning and academic performance at UC Davis and will not make compromises in either pursuit.

Could you share some of your priorities for your first year?

R

ecently, UC Davis named Kevin Blue, Ph.D., the new athletic director.

He joins UC Davis after a seven-year tenure at ​ Stanford where he provided executive oversight of the external business units in athletics, including sales, sponsorships, marketing, communications, business strategy, ticket operations, fan experience and video.

by Laura Pizzo

“... when done correctly, sports present educational opportunities to young people that are complementary to the lessons they encounter in the classroom.”

— Kevin Blue

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Can you speak about your passion for student athletes, touching on why participating in athletics is beneficial to students?

Athletics is a significant part of the culture of education in this country. In fact, around 8 million high school students in the United States also play varsity sports, and a good portion of those students care so deeply about their sport that they aspire to compete at the college level.

When done correctly, sports present educational opportunities to young people that are complementary to the lessons that students encounter in the classroom. The requirements of preparing for competition and the process of dealing with success and failure are aspects of sports that support personal growth and development. We’ve seen lots of evidence that the values instilled through participation in competitive athletics—when they are instilled by great coaches and mentors who care about comprehensively developing the student—are associated

with success in future careers and life after college.

Student-athletes are frequently exposed to opportunities that develop skills in leadership, communication, emotional intelligence, and the ability to stick with commitments for long periods of time.

How does your personal experience as a student athlete lend itself to your new role as athletic director?

My background as a student athlete enables a degree of first-person understanding of the opportunities and daily challenges that our student athletes and coaches go through. In addition, it lends a helpful perspective in terms of understanding how our student athletes are effectively integrated and fully aligned with our overall campus culture and academic mission.

So it gives me a certain perspective, having lived through the student-athlete experience at Stanford, where the value system regarding the integration of athletics into the academic mission of

As I’ve gotten started, I’ve tried to learn as much as I can about our wonderful community. I am thrilled to be part of the Aggie family, and I feel very welcomed. So I am making it a priority to be a visible presence in Davis. I’m attending as many university and community events as possible.

UC Davis’ history is also extremely important to me and helps frame my thoughts as I consider our vision for the future. I have thus extensively studied UC Davis’ athletics history, including reading and watching every piece of media that I’ve found about Jim Sochor. I’ve also reached out to a number of people in the community who are affiliated with our athletics program in search of details about our history and the core values from which we are built.

Moving forward, the most effective way for us to honor and act in service of our core values is to adapt and modernize our way of doing business.

So we will be thinking and acting in a forward-thinking manner that is commensurate

with this university’s tendency to take leadership positions on issues.

It’s also important that we do a very good job of communicating and engaging broadly, including reaching out to alumni and anyone else who cares about UC Davis athletics. We want alumni and other supporters to understand that this is their athletic department as much as it is the current students’ athletic department.

It also is important for us to articulate the way that athletics can make a significant contribution both on the campus and in the community on behalf of UC Davis.

What are your long-term priorities?

When you compare us to other athletic programs around the country, we are performing strongly with respect to our student-athlete graduation success rate. We are far above average for all of Division I, the Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) and the Big West conference.

As we move forward, I intend to help us strive for elevated levels of competitive success at the Division I level while also maintaining our traditionally strong academic outcomes.

In order to strengthen our

competitive standing, there are enhancements that we will need to make in some of our facilities to bring them in line with Division I expectations. We don’t aspire to build ostentatious facilities—our ambition is simply to ensure our facilities are modern and functional, and create an appropriate environment for competition, training, sports medicine activities, and academic support services.

These facility projects will require philanthropic participation from our community, so generating support will be a central priority of ours.

How are you planning to tell student athletes’ stories beyond game day highlights, so that the UC Davis community can get to know them better as individuals?

It is important to communicate with our alumni, community and media about the amazing, comprehensive things our student-athletes do. Of course, it’s sometimes more intuitive for followers to expect stories about athletic achievements, but it’s really important for people to understand student-athletes as holistic citizens—in terms of academics, community involvement, and sports. So we plan to be aggressive about telling these comprehensive stories. q

In college, Blue served as the team captain and was an Academic All-American for the Stanford men’s golf team while earning his bachelor’s degree in psychology.

He went on to earn his Ph.D. in sports psychology from Michigan State and also studied at the Stanford University Graduate School of Business.

alumni.ucdavis.edu

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Aggies Making a Difference

By Laura Pizzo

Student-Athletes Give Back Alumni create athletics scholarship and new alumni athletics council

W

hen David Nix ’96 is asked what he learned as a UC Davis student-athlete, he doesn’t miss a beat.

“Leadership, grit and perseverance,” he said.

Now, as area vice president of sales for Z-Medica—a company focused on hemorrhage control for consumers, military personnel, and patients of

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healthcare providers and first responders around the world—he carries those Aggie lessons with him, making sure to pass them on to his children, colleagues and fellow Aggie alumni.

“A lot of times what separates the people that win and the people that don’t is just hanging in there. Sometimes that’s your win for the day,

and it’s often what makes a leader. And that’s something UC Davis baseball taught me,” said Nix, who played right field for UC Davis’ baseball team and was inducted into the Cal Aggie Athletics Hall of Fame, which he regards as “one of the most special moments of my life.”

Nix, along with five other Aggie student athletes and in

partnership with UC Davis Athletics leadership, recently founded the UC Davis Athletics Alumni Council, which aims to help reconnect alumni athletes with the university. The council will offer more opportunities for student athletes to return to campus and engage with the department of athletics and current students.

In addition to giving his time, he and his wife Sarah Nix ’95, who is also a former Aggie student-athlete, made a gift to endow a scholarship for UC Davis studentathletes. The Nixes hope the endowment, named the Sarah and David Nix Aggie Pride

David Nix played outfield for the 1995 UC Davis baseball team that advanced to the College World Series. Last year, he and his wife Sarah brought their children to enjoy the team’s 20-year reunion celebration of that stellar year.

Leadership Endowment, will inspire student-athletes to view their time on campus as just the beginning of a lifetime of service and engagement with UC Davis and Aggie athletics.

“We are so happy to be able to give back to UC Davis and the athletics program because we earned a very strong foundation there, which prepared us for graduate school and our respective careers,” said Sarah, who

rowed crew for UC Davis and is now an estate planning attorney at Gagen McCoy. “And I see those qualities in other Aggies as well. I recently hired two associates at my firm, and both are UC Davis alumni. They are great attorneys and awesome people, but it was an added bonus when I noticed they were from UC Davis.”

David added, “Sports, by their very nature, expose weakness and offer an opportunity for people to overcome those weaknesses,” David said.

“They develop someone in a way that creates a total person and helps build both academic and emotional

strength. That combination translates directly into becoming a strong leader,

and I believe that represents exactly what UC Davis is all about: Leadership.”q

How to get involved The UC Davis Athletics Alumni Council will host a tailgate event before the homecoming football game vs. Northern Colorado on Saturday, October 15 in the Aggie Tailgating Area Spot 68 next to Aggie Stadium from 3 to 6 p.m. All studentathlete alumni, their families and Aggie fans are invited to attend. Please stop by and enjoy complimentary food and beverages. For more details on this event, upcoming tailgates or to get involved with UC Davis Athletics Alumni Council regional events, email athleticsalumni@alumni.ucdavis.edu.

alumni.ucdavis.edu

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Parent Profile

By Laura Pizzo

An Aggie Prodigy Parents of 13-year old Tanishq Abraham ’18 share what it’s like to parent a prodigy

T

he morning after Bijou and Taji Abraham’s son was born, they saw their first clue that he was gifted.

“My mom came to see Tanishq in the hospital, and his eyes were bright and open, and he was making eye contact,” explained his mother Taji MPVM ’97.

“And my mom said, ‘Oh my gosh, I’ve never seen a halfday old baby paying so keen an interest in what you’re saying.’ And the pediatrician said something similar. So looking back, there were clues here and there that showed he was advanced.”

At the time, Taji was enrolled in a Ph.D. program at UC Davis in veterinary medicine.

She had already completed her Master

of Preventative Veterinary Medicine (MPVM) at UC Davis.

And although she was committed and passionate about veterinary research, she decided to take a yearlong sabbatical due to post-partum health and childcare issues, and soon after she decided to be a stay-at-home mom.

At only a few months old, Tanishq was already skyrocketing past developmental standards, and it became clear that he would need to be home schooled—a decision that came in handy again when Tanishq’s sister Tiara was born, who is also gifted.

“My baby books would say, ‘When a child is a year old, this is how they communicate,

this is how much comprehension they have,’ and Tanishq was doing those things when he was only a three-month old,” said Taji, who lives with Bijou and her two children in Sacramento.

“So I decided to stay home. I wanted to be there, observe him and help him out.”

But even at that time, Tanishq’s parents did not imagine that he would move as quickly through his education as he did.

At age 7, he began taking classes part-time at American River College (ARC). At age 10, he earned his high school diploma. At 11, he received three associate degrees. A year later, he was accepted to two UC schools.

And this fall, he is taking an even bigger leap, transferring to UC Davis as a 13-yearold, third-year student and majoring in biomedical engineering with the hope of going on to medical school and becoming a doctor and researcher.

College at age 7

When Tanishq enrolled, ARC required that Taji take his classes with him and that he get professors’ approval before taking a class.

“For the semesters I studied with him, I was trying to understand quickly, but the classes—astronomy and geology—were very different from my field, so I would say ‘Oh Tanishq, I’m stuck on this part,’ and he would say,

“I’m excited about the research opportunities that will finally be available to me at UC Davis.”

—Tanishq Abraham

‘Mom, it’s so simple!’ and then he would explain it to me,” she laughed. “So that’s one unique thing about Tanishq; he understands new concepts quickly and then on top of that he does a lot of reinforcement.”

Even after Taji stopped going to classes, it remained important that she and Bijou stay informed about Tanishq’s coursework, more so than the average parent of a college student. She and Bijou continued to handle administrative tasks, such as getting permission for classes and speaking with professors to make sure the language and content were appropriate for a child.

“If a 7-year-old kid asked most parents ‘Can I go to college?’ they wouldn’t take it seriously,” said Tanishq.

“But my parents realized I really had a passion for it, and they supported me. My parents’ role in my academic journey is huge, and I am very grateful.”

Changing the world, beginning with UC Davis research

When Tanishq speaks about transferring to UC Davis, he uses the word finally in a way that few 13year olds could. He’s been

working toward this goal for half his life.

“I’m excited about the research opportunities that will finally be available to me at UC Davis,” he said.

“I’m excited that I can get my bachelor’s degree because I have wanted to do it for quite some time now. It’s been a long journey.”

Tanishq chose UC Davis due to its proximity to his Sacramento home. This summer, he also secured an invite to work with biomedical engineering professor Cheemeng Tan, doing research on artificial cells.

“I’m very excited about the possibility of working with Professor Tan,” Tanishq said. “I find the therapeutics and diagnostics component interesting, and the research also has a computing factor.

We’ll have to design genetic circuits, which I have a lot of interest in. He also said I could design my own research about artificial cells, which would be a great opportunity.”

In addition to Professor Tan, Tanishq has corresponded with other biomedical engineering professors about research opportunities as well,

Bijou and Taji Abraham sit beside their gifted son, Tanishq, who— at 13 years old—eagerly begins his junior year at UC Davis this fall.

receiving positive responses from many of them.

Taji and Bijou are flattered that Tanishq is following in their footsteps, pursuing a degree program that is a melding of his mother’s medical research experience and his father’s engineering career. The interdisciplinary major appealed to Tanishq because the combination of math and science will help him prepare for medical school, and the smaller class sizes afford him more one-

on-one faculty attention.

“He’s driven by a desire to change the world, and we— as parents—are very proud of that,” Bijou said. “Of course, sometimes it frustrates him that at his age he can’t do more. For example, he’s been wanting to get into a research lab for a long time. He’s been telling us to have a lab in our garage for years—no way! But now at UC Davis, he’s going to really be able to apply his ideas, so we’re very excited for him.”q

Questions from our readers What are your expectations that Tanishq will find a network of friends at UC Davis?

– Erik Lee, a member of CAAA’s Parent Council (a group that leads the UC Davis Parent and Family Program)

Tanishq has already begun making friends at UC Davis, having met the graduate students in Professor Tan’s lab at the biomedical engineering conference this summer. They’re excited to work with him.

In addition, he has several friends from ARC who are transferring at the same time. This summer, Tanishq and his ARC friends were texting, and he was telling them to take a certain class at UC Davis because it’s a prerequisite for this other class they’ll need, so he’s a leader even though they’re all in their 20s. They eventually signed up for one or two of the same classes, and they plan to hang out together. Also, he’s gotten really tall, so it’s becoming harder to tell that he is much younger than other college students.

And a really good thing about Tanishq is that he doesn’t have fear when it comes to talking to different types of people. It doesn’t bother him to be in a classroom with other students in their 20s and 30s. He can sit in the front row and ask questions and not be intimidated by the environment.

Taji and Bijou:

Scholar Profile

By Laura Pizzo

“The Blue and Gold Scholarship introduced me

No Bad Days

E

ach morning, sometimes before he opens his eyes, the first thing UC Davis biotechnology student Ryan Moore ’19 does is ask himself, “What do I want to get from this day?”

He says his answer is typically to experience something new and leave a positive impact on every person he meets.

“Since coming to UC Davis, I’ve been trying to get as many new experiences as I can,” said Moore, a current Cal Aggie Alumni Association (CAAA) Blue and Gold Scholar. “That went from me supplementing my own lifestyle by learning to cook a new dish or trying a new hike or walk through the arboretum—to doing things that positively affect other people such as showing gratitude in a new way or sharing a new ability or passion with other people.”

Moore said UC Davis’ culture cultivated his desire to positively impact the world. He describes the university as a place that encourages students to engage in personal reflection, focus on their passions and develop the courage and skill to solve the world’s problems. But the seed, he said, was planted by his parents and older brother, the latter of whom has overcome a learning disorder and is finishing his bachelor’s

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in behavioral sciences at Cal Baptist University.

“My family made me realize that if you have a gift and you have the ability to do something to make someone else’s life better, you must always do it,” he said. “I really didn’t realize my potential to do that until I got to UC Davis, but it started by

UC Davis sophomore Ryan Moore is a biotechnology major and CAAA Blue and Gold Scholar. He is considering adding an economics double major and plans to pursue a graduate degree and career in consulting.

to the alumni presence at UC Davis, demonstrating

growing up and seeing my family’s unwavering discipline every day, willingness to push boundaries and commitment to excellence in every aspect of life.

A blue and gold leader

Moore said that receiving the Blue and Gold Scholarship has strongly influenced his

the strength of a steadfast support system.”

— Ryan Moore

experience at UC Davis. He is in his second year as a recipient of the merit scholarship, which recognizes student leaders by awarding them $10,000 over two years.

“The Blue and Gold Scholarship introduced me to the alumni presence at UC Davis, demonstrating the strength of a steadfast support system,” said Moore, also a member of the Student Alumni Association (SAA).

“From then on, I felt the spirit of having your roots somewhere, and I also began to realize my leadership potential because it was seen in me by others.”

The scholarship also helped Moore fill in the gaps when student loans were not enough to cover expenses.

“My family had taken out just enough loans to cover tuition and housing and so

I could go home at certain times like the holidays,” he said. “But my family was experiencing an emergency during last winter quarter, and I wouldn’t have been able to be there for them if I hadn’t received the funds from CAAA. And of course, being able to go home allowed me to come back more focused on school than I would have been if I hadn’t been able to take the family time I needed.”

Even better tomorrows

When Moore arrived at UC Davis, he hadn’t expected to become a science major. But his interest

in biotechnology peaked in spring quarter of his freshman year when he took Biotech 1Y. “During that class, I went to office hours with professors Abhaya Dandekar and Jim Yoder, and their passion for the subject piqued my interest,” he said. “And throughout that quarter, I asked myself, ‘Wow, this is really hard. Is this something I can do?’ It was definitely what I wanted to do because I loved it, but was it something I could successfully do and see through to completion?”

Eventually, it was Dandekar and Yoder’s passion for the

subject that motivated Moore to take on the challenge.

“Their attitude towards their work was an attitude I see everywhere at UC Davis,” Moore said. “At UC Davis, it is a very rare day where something is declining.I believe that here there won’t be a bad day unless you submit to one, and each day is better than the last.

Of course, there’s always room for improvement. Like, ‘Oh, I didn’t do well on this test, but on the next one I will’ because there is this incredible support system around me—the other students, the professors and the alumni.”q

Click this image to find out more about the Leadership Giving Society.

alumni.ucdavis.edu

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Aggie Adventures

2017 Featured Trips The Kentucky Derby Date: May 3-7 cost: From $2,899

Cuba: People, Culture, Art Date: February 19-27 cost: From $5,495

rating:

rating:

`

D

elight in the horse capital of the world with an exclusive Kentucky Derby experience in Lexington. Enjoy downtown accommodations at the Hyatt Regency Lexington while exploring what makes the Run for the Roses a truly special event.

``

Dutch Waterways Date: April 26-May 4 cost: From $2,995 rating:

``

Ancient Legends Date: March 28-April 14 cost: From $4,799 v rating:

Bon voyage For a full list of Aggie Adventure travel opportunities, in-depth trip details, discounts, and up-to-date deadlines and costs, please visit alumni.ucdavis. edu/travel, call 530-752-4502 or e-mail aggieadventures@ ucdavis.edu. Please note that prices and dates are subject to change. Airfare is not included unless otherwise indicated.

``

“The destination was stunning, the people were friendly and the accommodations and food were delightful.”

— marilyn & Oliver droppers, M.D. ’73

` = Activity level is relaxing `` = Activity level is moderate ``` = Activity level is active v = Airfare is included

Your Aggie Adventure at the Kentucky Derby will be an unforgettable way to experience “the most exciting two minutes in sports.”

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Your legacy is our future.

The future of health care is important to us all, and UC Davis is leading the way in addressing our society’s most important health issues. Make a lasting impact on the future of our world with a planned gift to UC Davis.

To learn more about how you can unite your legacy with the future of UC Davis, visit plannedgiving.ucdavis.edu.

Emma, Class of 2035

plannedgiving.ucdavis.edu

alumni.ucdavis.edu

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University News

New Leadership

UC Davis Sustains “Cool School” Ranking UC Davis repeats this year as a top-10 “Cool School” in Sierra Magazine’s ranking of America’s greenest colleges and universities.

The environmental magazine published its 10th annual “Cool Schools” report. Out of a record 201 schools in this year’s rankings, UC Davis came in at No. 8—marking the fifth time UC Davis has made the top 10.

Ralph Hexter was named Interim Chancellor of UC Davis on September 16 while the University of California Office of the President (UCOP) and the university conduct a national search for a new chancellor. On September 6 Hexter was also named the recipient of the 2016 Outstanding Sponsor and Mentor Award

from the Executive Leadership Academy, which prepares visionary higher education leaders from all backgrounds to guide their institutions in a multicultural and global environment.

Learn more about Interim Chancellor Hexter.

14 Ann E. Pitzer Center Opens The full range of music-making and learning at UC Davis got a big boost in September with the opening of the Ann E. Pitzer Center. The state-of-the-art building, named after alumna and CAAA award winner Ann E. Pitzer ’58, houses classrooms, practice rooms and the acoustically pristine, 399-seat Recital Hall that will host dozens of concerts each year.

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14 New Startups Launched The University of California, Davis, enabled the foundation of 14 commercial startups during the past fiscal year—matching the largest number of new ventures based on UC Davis technologies to be launched in a single year.

Solving Global Challenges UC Davis is one of 36 universities that hosted the Mandela Washington Fellowship program, the flagship of President Obama’s Young African Leaders Initiative. The program brought 25 young African leaders to UC Davis to leverage the campus’s energy expertise and better equip themselves to tackle the enormous energy challenges on their continent.

Top Oncology Program

$226 million Best Ever Fundraising Year The University of California, Davis, announced having raised a recordbreaking $226 million during the 2015-16 fiscal year, making it the largest donation total raised in a single fiscal year in UC Davis’ 108-year history.

Leading the Way UC Davis continues to be recognized among the top public universities in the nation. It was ranked one of the 10th best public universities in the country, according to annual rankings released by U.S. News & World Report and the Wall Street Journal.

Becker’s Hospital Review has named UC Davis Health System one of 100 in the country with “great oncology programs.”

Hospitals included on the list offer patients comprehensive cancer care involving teams of specialists, participation in clinical trials and personalized treatment programs.

Margrit Biever Mondavi: A Life Committed to Beauty On September 2, 2016 the University of California, Davis community mourned the passing of one of the university’s and region’s most honored and treasured philanthropists, Margrit Biever Mondavi.

“No words can adequately express our deep sadness on the occasion of the passing of one of our most treasured friends, Margrit Mondavi,” said UC Davis Interim Chancellor Ralph J. Hexter. “She was a true visionary, and we feel so fortunate that she shared so much of her time, generosity and spirit with us. She left such a positive lasting impression on UC Davis—one that will be remembered for hundreds of years to come.”

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Brent Sasaki ’94 Vice President of Corporate Partnerships at Sacramento Republic FC Life Member, Cal Aggie Alumni Association

Membership matters.

Join the Cal Aggie Alumni Association and receive amazing member benefits A CAAA membership includes: • Discounts on UC Davis Extension classes • UC Davis Magazine subscription • Access to all UC libraries • Significant discount on insurance plans • 10% off UC Davis imprinted items at UC Davis stores • Discounts at hotels, restaurants, CAAA events and on Aggie Adventures travel Join now online at alumni.ucdavis.edu/membership or by calling (800) 242-4723

Welcome.

CAAA is excited to recognize the following new life members who joined from March to September of this year.

Phillip Akali ’12 Phillip Andrews ’16 Randi Arias-Losado ’16 Mahmoud Assaf ’03 Gurjit Bains ’13 Molly Baker ’82 Elmer Bartley ’78 Sultan Beardsley ’16 Andrea Benjamin ’01 Susan Blackwell ’76 David Boardman ’88 Jennifer Bretschneider ’88 Janice Bridge Ann Bruner-Welch ’95 Mark Bryan ’16 Stein Buer ’71 Anna Buettner ’16 Alyssa Burton ’16 Tony Butcher ’16 Rose Cabral ’06 Haylie Canfield ’16 Luis Castellanos ’98 Ali Chaudhary ’14 Dian Chen ’07 Rebecca Cherone ’14 Richard Clements ’99 Carlos Colman Meixner ’14 Albert Contreras Destinee Cooper ’04 Kevin Cruz ’15 Arthur Curtis ’79 Deanna Deleon ’15 Mary De Soto ’16 Amber Derpinghaus ’15 Deepika Dokuru ’15 Daniel Drew ’16 Veniamin Dronov ’13 Huy Duong ’06 Gregory Elliott ’16 Renee Erle ’79 John Esten ’16 Hailey Ferko ’16 Judith Flohr ’75 Joaquin Fraga ’10 Dennis Foster ’99 William Freeman ’15 Caroline Frentzen ’16 Samantha Frick ’12

Alexander Fries ’15 Benjamin Gau ’16 Christopher Gee ’16 Jennifer Gold ’16 Michael Green ’16 Anna Greenwood ’15 Jessica Grilli ’16 David Gutierrez ’96 Sara Haig ’16 Trevor Halsted ’15 Jody Hammond ’16 Amit Harel ’15 Erlin Harris Ryan Hatano ’15 Constance Hatfield Penni Hicks ’06 Chase Hildeburn ’16 Hoa Hoang ’17 Conor Hoff ’11 Stephanie Hoogstad ’15 Min Huang ’15 Neil Hubbard ’86 David Ichikawa ’79 Lori Jagoda ’15 Anna Jung ’16 Miho Kano Amber Kanwer ’14 Jodi Keller Priya Khanna ’01 Robert Kidd ’14 Sung Jay Kim ’15 Karen Kimura ’82 Joseph Kitts ’77 Matthew Klein ’10 Sydney Kovacs ’15 Margaret Kruse ’05 Lina Kudinar ’16 Zachary Leff ’16 Blaire Leighty ’16 Jessie Lemoine ’16 Debra Leven ’73 Ron Linden ’82 Ery Lopez Natalie Lue ’16 Ngoc Ly ’15 Melinda Lyall ’15 Katherine Macway ’16 Anna Madrigal ’99

Qaisara Malik ’15 Guadalupe Manon Zachary Margolis ’11 Stacy Markel ’86 Najwa Marrush ’04 Maria Maska ’89 Janet Matthews ’76 Bryan Mazariegos ’16 Esther McCullough ’71 Teron McGrew ’89 Patricia McVerry Eliane Michel ’15 Brian Moody ’16 Danett Morein Aleksandr Morozenko ’16 Ryan Morrow ’12 Morad Mortaz ’15 Marc Mosko ’89 Sharon Nam ’16 Rich Naval ’93 Joshua Ng ’16 Alexander Nguyen ’15 Chau Nguyen Kenneth Nittler ’80 Kevin Nittler ’13 Margaret O’Keefe ’95 Thomas Joseph O’Meara ’16 Sean Oberbauer ’15 Laura Oiler ’15 Lorie Okumura ’81 Jose Oliveria ’08 Omead Ostadan ’99 Alejandro Osterholt ’15 Lindsey Otousa ’16 Alex Pallas ’03 Isaac Pedraza ’13 Allan Perotti ’16 Cynthia Pierce ’78 Shaye Prather ’16 Anthony Pun ’11 Andrew Pursifull ’16 Patrick Ranahan ’16 Ajitjairam Ravisaravanan ’15 Patricia Revolinsky ’15 Sandra Rincon ’84 Olivia Rivett ’16 Jessica Ross ’15 Rachael Salisbury ’15

Scot Sandstrom ’87 John Scheibe ’85 Ricky Scheidt ’16 Elaine Schroth ’85 Lawrence Schwankl ’79 Grace Scott ’16 Kaio Sena ’14 Garrison Sexson ’17 Carla Shelton ’90 Tyler Silva ’16 Colby Simpson ’15 Anna Smith ’15 Kaitlin Smith ’16 Claudia Solla ’04 Elli Son ’16 Olaf Sorensen ’15 Jessica Steele ’87 Matthew Stevens ’15 Hunter Stone ’19 Erik Su ’15 Finian Sun ’15 Kalina Swanson ’16 Emily Tai ’15 Jerry Tam ’15 Jianwei Tang ’16 Nicole Tanner ’13 Beth Topf ’02 Emily Torres ’14 Daniel Tosé ’74 Sandra Van De Pol Courtney Vargas ’16 Gwendolyn Vu ’97 Thanh Vu ’12 Donald Wallace ’85 Haifeng Wang ’13 Brian Wieland ’07 Justice Williams ’15 Austin-Marley Windham-Herman ’15 Deborah Witt ’86 Terri Wolf ’12 Deanna Wright ’16 Ryan Wright ’15 Ann Yoshizuka ’68 Harriet Yu Zhen Yu ’16 Amanda Zen ’16 Nerissa Ziga ’83

Membership dues allow CAAA to offer a wide variety of programming and alumni networking locally, across the United States and around the world. Thank you for your continued support and dedication, both to your alumni association and to UC Davis.

Office Hours

Wild Ass Retirement

W

ith a reputation for taking on the status quo, Distinguished Professor Emeritus Maury Hull left his mark on UC Davis by playing a leading role in establishing the biomedical engineering department.

World-renowned in the biomedical engineering field, his current research challenges convention regarding total knee replacements, significantly reducing the number of dissatisfied patients.

So it is perhaps fitting that, while other people rescue dogs, Hull rescues burros. He and his wife Karen, who retired as the first associate vice chancellor of Organizational Excellence at UC Davis, have 21 burros in total. The burros live at the Hull’s property in Lincoln, California, fondly called Wild Ass Ranch, where they also grow a small flower farm.

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(800) 242-GRAD

“Burros are a lot like dogs,” he said, feeding them carrots out of his hand, their buck teeth gently brushing against his palm. “They love people once they get used to them, and they’ll follow you around, but they’re also wild, weigh about 600 pounds, and will crush your foot if they accidentally step on you.”

The Hulls adopted many of their burros through the Bureau of Land Management Wild Horse and Burro Adoption Program, which helps control wild burro populations.

In addition to rescuing burros and caring for their flowers, the Hulls remain active parts of the UC Davis community.

The couple recently signed a $1 million bequest to endow a professorship in biomedical engineering at UC Davis.

Hull also continues to conduct part-time research at the university.

— Laura Pizzo

Event Recap

Aggies Around the World Conference draws alumni leaders

O

n Sept 22, more than 50 alumni chapter and network leaders from around the world came back to UC Davis and the Walter A. Buehler Alumni Center for three days of training, education and excitement. Every fall, volunteer leaders are invited back to campus to build relationships with one another as well as with university faculty and staff. This year’s visit included a tour on a double-decker bus and a game at Aggie Stadium. During the past year, these leaders helped put on more than 200 alumni events. Want to get involved and connected with a group in your region or area of interest? Visit the Get Connected section on the CAAA website.

Attendees California Networks:

East Bay Orange County Los Angeles Sacramento San Diego Silicon Valley Yolo County U.S. Networks:

Arizona Massachusetts Illinois Colorado Hawaii Texas Oregon New York North Carolina Washington Washington, D.C. International Networks:

Benelux Union (Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg)

Hong Kong Japan Mexico Taiwan Special Interest Groups:

African and African American Alumni Association Cal Aggie Alumni Marching Band Chicano/a Latino/a Alumni Association LGBTA Native American Alumni Chapter

alumni.ucdavis.edu

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Board’s Eye View “To enrich the lives of alumni, students, families and friends worldwide and develop lifelong ambassadors for UC Davis.”

— Cal Aggie Alumni Association’s mission

T

he Cal Aggie Alumni Association (CAAA) nomination and governance committee is pleased to invite nominations for new members for our board of directors and standing committees. We are looking for individuals who have demonstrated their commitment to the univeristy and who are

devoted to sustaining the Aggie experience. Your recommendations are important to CAAA and critical to our long-term success.

The CAAA board of directors meets four times a year to establish policy, develop goals and objectives, assist with longrange planning and monitor alumni association finances.

The board consists of a president, vice president and up to 23 directors-atlarge. Board members are elected for two-year terms with a three-term limit and participation is open to all CAAA members. Board meetings are usually held on campus; however, one meeting each year may be held at an off-campus site within California.

The CAAA board has seven committees that help them achieve the overall mission as stated above.

The standing committees are audit, business development,

Thank you Alumni Wine Partners!

Bouchaine Vineyards brick & mortar Bruliam Wines Ceja Vineyards Gauthier Select Vineyards Heringer Estates J. Lohr Mikami Vineyards Route 3 Wines Schug Winery Senders Wines Treasure Wines

Save the date: Picnic Day wine event — Friday, April 21, 2017

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career task force, chapters, finance, nominations and governance, and scholarships. Committee meetings are usually held via teleconference one to six times a year either during the lunch period or in the early evening.

The nomination and governance committee welcomes your interest in serving on our board of directors or committees. For more information, please contact Sandré Nelson at drenelson@ucdavis.edu or visit our website at alumni. ucdavis.edu/board. q

CAAA staff Emily Ault ’90 Parent and Family Program Coordinator

Heather Hunter ’96 Associate Executive Director and Chief Revenue Officer

AggieXtra Staff:

Adrianne Bataska Facility Manager

Rita Lundin Executive Analyst to the Assistant Vice Chancellor for Alumni Relations and Executive Director, Cal Aggie Alumni Association

Karin Higgins / Photographer

Veronica Meza ’15 Alumni Membership Manager

Jason Spyres / Photographer

Val Bishop-Green ’05 Director of Partner and Member Services Sarah Colwell Senior Manager, Marketing and Communications Amanda Crisman Data Administrator Jamie Dixon ’05 Director of In-State Chapters, Student and Scholarship Programs Rich Engel ’90, CRED. ’91 Assistant Vice Chancellor for Alumni Relations and Executive Director, Cal Aggie Alumni Association Becky Heard Director of Parent and Family Programs and Interim Director of Retiree Center Jaime Heppler Director of Partnership Sales Jasmine Herrera ’15 SAA and Parent Membership Manager

Sandré Nelson Volunteer Engagement Assistant Laura Pizzo Senior Writer

Sarah Colwell / Editor

Michelle McKim ’89 / Designer Laura Pizzo / Senior Writer

Gregory Urquiaga / Photographer

Coming back to campus?

Jennifer Thayer ’02 Assistant Director of Programs Ginger Welsh ’95 Director of International Alumni Programs and Development Thomas Whitcher Director of Out-of-State and Special Interest Alumni Programs Margaret Wong ’10 Marketing and Multi Media Communications Specialist Carrie Wright ’99 Associate Executive Director and Chief Programs Officer

Drop by and see us. We’re in the Walter A. Buehler Alumni Center—the building with the blue roof, next to the Mondavi Center. From Interstate 80, take the UC Davis exit and head north. Follow the signs to your campus home.

Mail Cal Aggie Alumni Association University of California One Shields Avenue Davis, CA 95616-8517 Web alumni.ucdavis.edu Email alumni@ucdavis.edu Phone (530) 752-0286 or (800) 242-GRAD (530) 752-3395 (Fax)

To enrich the lives of alumni, students, families and friends worldwide, and develop lifelong ambassadors for UC Davis.

CAAA BOARD Debby Stegura ’79 President

William Cochran ’73, Cred. ’74 Vice President/President Elect

Marie “Toni” Alejandria ’08 Bridget Bugbee ’13 Michael Campbell ’68 Diane Carlson Biggs ’81 Brian Ebbert ’92 Sandra Frye-Lucas, Ph.D. ’03 Stacie Hartung Frerichs ’01 Stephen Inouye ’90, Cred. ’96 Scott Judson ’09, J.D. ’12

Alan Kang ’09 Paul Keefer ’89 Ron Maroko, J.D. ’86 Charles Melton ’08 Jill Miller ’97 Algie Mosley ’96 Molly Mrowka ’93 Karla Stevenson ’93 Scott Stevenson ’92 Frederick Taverner ’87 Kyle Trinosky ’05, M.B.A. ’12 Ron Van De Pol ’72 Jon Weiner ’85 Derek Wilson ’99

ADVISORS TO THE BOARD Ralph J. Hexter interim chancellor Shaun Keister Vice Chancellor OF development AND alumni relatIONS Richard R. Engel ’90, Cred. ’91 Assistant Vice Chancellor of alumni relations and Executive Director

Ramak Siadatan ’99, M.B.A. ’06 past president Bruce Bell ’76, D.V.M. ’78 Chair, UC Davis FoundatioN Michael Sellens co-president, aGGIE parent and family PROGRAMs Bret Hewitt ’77, MA ’83 alumni RePRESENTATIVE (college of letters and sciences)

Lori K. Madden Ph.D. ’14 alumni representative (Betty Irene moore schoool of nursing)

Sandi Redenbach ’72, Cred. ’73

notice AFFINITY PROGRAMS

Affinity programs are agreements between the Cal Aggie Alumni Association (CAAA) and our business partners that offer products and services. In addition to offering discounts, these partners may also give a portion of their profits to CAAA, which uses these funds to support UC Davis alumni programs.

Please read the following privacy information so we may follow your wishes for handling your data. This opt-out is only for affinity partner services and will not impact the other communications you receive from UC Davis.

IMPORTANT PRIVACY CHOICES

You have the right to control whether we include you in product or service offerings from our affinity partners. Please read the following information carefully before you make your choice:

YOUR RIGHTS

You have the right to restrict what you receive from us. This includes sending you information about the alumni association, the university or other products or services. You have the right to restrict the sharing of your name, address and email address with our affinity partners. This form does not prohibit us from sharing your information when it is required by law.

YOUR CHOICE

You can restrict information sharing with affinity partners, but unless you say “No,” we may include you in product and service offerings provided by our affinity partners. Our affinity partners may send you offers to purchase various products or services we have agreed they can offer in partnership with us.

TIME-SENSITVE REPLY

You may decide at any time that you do not wish to receive product and service offerings provided by our affinity partners.

If you decide that you do not want to receive information from our partners, you may do one of the following: (1) Fill out this form and mail it to us at the following address. You many also want to make a copy for your records.

Cal Aggie Alumni Association One Shields Ave. Davis, CA 95616 (2) Send an email to: optout@ucdavis.edu (3) Call 1 (800) 242-4723

alumni REPRESENTATIVE (school of education)

Alex T. Lee ’17 President, Associated students uc Davis Mason Schmidt ’17 President, student alumni association

alumni.ucdavis.edu

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Coming Soon Construction on Betty Irene Moore Hall at the UC Davis Sacramento campus began in November 2015. This photo shows the progress made thus far toward the anticipated opening in fall of 2017.

Something old. Something new.

Something gold. Something blue.