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WEDNESDAY, MAY 13, 2020
Napolitano takes aim at SAT/ACT testing
Sports
BY CALEB HAMPTON
aligns with the content UC expects students should have mastered to demonstrate college readiness,” the proposal states. Napolitano’s recNAPOLITANO ommendation is the Done with latest development tests? in a back-and-forth process that began more than a year ago, when a task force was convened to analyze whether requiring the SAT/ACT contributed to inequities in the admissions process. In November, UC Berkeley Chancellor Carol T. Christ, UC Santa Cruz
Enterprise staff writer
Parallel football universes
University of California President Janet Napolitano recommended Monday that the UC system stop using the SAT and ACT standardized tests as an admissions requirement. Napolitano proposed suspending the tests as a requirement until 2024 and possibly eliminating them after that. Napolitano’s proposal lays out a five-year plan for the elimination of the SAT and ACT. For the next two years, the tests would be optional. In Years 3 and 4, testing requirements would be eliminated for California students. By the fifth year, 2025, a new test would be implemented “that
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Chancellor Cynthia K. Larive and UC Provost Michael Brown said they were convinced by research showing performance on the SAT and ACT is heavily influenced by race, family income and parents’ education. “They really contribute to the inequities of our system,” said Christ, who eliminated the SAT requirement at Smith College while serving as the school’s president in 2002. “The initial information that I’ve seen shows that the highest predictive value of an SAT isn’t in how well a student will do in school, but how well they were able to avail themselves of prep material,” Chairman
SEE SAT, PAGE A3
UCD to hold virtual graduation County nears next stage of reopening BY CALEB HAMPTON Enterprise staff writer
UC Davis will hold a virtual commencement ceremony on Friday, June 12, for the class of 2020. In an announcement last month, which included plans to potentially hold an in-person ceremony at a later date, Chancellor Gary S. May said he was “saddened to share UC Davis Commencement Ceremonies will not take place in the same way as previous years.” In April, UC Davis posted a survey where students slated to graduate this quarter could submit feedback on ways to honor graduates in June. “We are actively looking at alternatives to celebrate our graduates in an appropriate manner,” May said. “We look forward to celebrating together in the best way we can.” On Friday, UC Davis shared details about what the ceremony will look like. Commencement speakers will include May, California Surgeon General Nadine Burke Harris, LACCD Chancellor Francisco Rodriguez, and NASA astronaut Tracy Caldwell Dyson. The event will feature a roll call of graduates, each of whom will be represented by a personalized
Yolo has met all benchmarks but one BY ANNE TERNUS-BELLAMY Enterprise staff writer
FRED GLADDIS/ENTERPRISE FILE PHOTO
Graduates in the UC Davis College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences applaud at their commencement ceremony in 2015. This year’s ceremony will skip the pomp and circumstance, and go online. digital profile. Each profile will include a student’s name, photo and a short message or quote of their choosing. Graduates’ names will be read out “just as it would have been read during an in-person commencement ceremony,” the webpage says. Other ways UC Davis is encouraging graduates and their families to mark the moment include taking graduation photos with digital backgrounds of the campus, sharing posts on
social media with the hashtag #UCDavisGrad, downloading signage for posters, lawn signs and stickers, and shopping online at the UC Davis Bookstore Commencement collection. “This celebration is the first of its kind in the history of our university,” the UC Davis Commencement webpage says. According to May, many graduate and professional schools are also planning remote celebrations. Traditional in-person
Survey reveals virus impact on businesses BY ANNE TERNUS-BELLAMY Enterprise staff writer Half of Davis businesses have experienced a severe reduction in income and 14 percent have shut down completely, a recent survey by the Davis Chamber of Commerce revealed. Over the past two weeks, 124 chamber members responded to the survey asking about the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and shelter-in-place order on their operations and the results “provide a chilling look at the difficulties Davis businesses are facing,” a
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press release from the chamber noted. Among the findings: ■ 75 percent of surveyed businesses report experiencing a reduction in income, with half seeing the reduction as “severe”; ■ 18 percent reported they had furloughed or laid off most or all of their staff and another 26 percent reported some layoffs or a reduction in staff hours; ■ Two-thirds (66 percent) of businesses reported reducing operating hours, and 14 percent said they have shut down completely;
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■ More than a third of businesses (37 percent) have turned to online sales and/or delivery options to keep their businesses operational; and ■ 70 percent have applied for some form of federal, state or local assistance with half of those businesses having received funds already and the other half still waiting. The survey also asked chamber members what the city, county and chamber can do to assist them.
SEE SURVEY, PAGE A3
ceremonies were postponed due to public health concerns related to the novel coronavirus. “The risk is too great to the community to assemble large gatherings such as UC Davis commencement,” May said. Should conditions allow for it, a traditional ceremony could possibly be held in December. — Reach Caleb Hampton at champton@ davisenterprise.net. Follow him on Twitter at @calebmhampton
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SEE COUNTY, PAGE A3
CSU will be online-only in fall 2020 BY CALEB HAMPTON Enterprise staff writer The California State University system will continue to offer almost all instruction exclusively online through fall 2020, Cal State Chancellor Timothy P. White said Tuesday at a meeting with the system’s board of trustees. While most in-person classes will be cancelled, White said there may be some exceptions pending health and safety precautions. Those exceptions could include clinical classes in nursing programs and some science labs. For nearly all undergraduate students, classes will continue remotely in much the same way as they have since campuses closed in late March.
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Yolo County has now met all but one of the criteria set by the state for progressing further into reopening the local economy, the Board of Supervisors was told on Tuesday. And county staff indicated Tuesday morning there might be some wiggle room on that last metric: the number of recent COVID-19 deaths. The state requires no deaths in the last 14 days in order for counties to move further into stage two of reopening — a stage that includes dine-in restaurants and shopping malls. As of Tuesday morning, there had been five county residents — all at the Stollwood Convalescent Hospital — who had died in the last two weeks and county staff believed a case could be made to the state, as other counties have done, that with no deaths outside the skilled nursing facility and in the community itself in the last two
weeks, the county had met the intent of that metric. “We want to make the case to the state that that’s what we should be reporting on, and if that’s the case, then we meet the metric of no deaths in the last 14 days,” said Brian Vaughn, the county’s public health director. But just a few hours later, things had changed. Two deaths were reported Tuesday evening in Yolo County, and neither was in a skilled nursing facility, according to the county’s COVID-19 dashboard. Three additional cases also were confirmed bringing to 177 the total number of confirmed cases in Yolo County and to 22 the total number of deaths. That may delay the plans discussed by county supervisors and staff Tuesday for moving forward with submitting a local readiness plan that will lead to resumption of more activities under the state’s Stage 2 of reopening. That readiness plan provides local data on a number of public health metrics, including total
“Our university, when open without restrictions and fully in person, as is the traditional norm of the past, is a place where over 500,000 people come together in close and vibrant proximity with each other on a daily basis,” White said. “That approach, sadly, just isn’t in the cards now as I have described.” Cal State, which serves roughly 480,000 students at 23 campuses, is the largest four-year public university system in the United States and is among the first major schools to cancel in-person instruction for the fall. On Tuesday, The New York Times called Cal State’s decision “the most sweeping sign yet of the effect of the pandemic on American
SEE ONLINE, PAGE A3
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