VOLUME 49, ISSUE 24
THURSDAY, JANUARY 14, 2016
WWW.UCSDGUARDIAN.ORG
AROUND CAMPUS
CALIFORNIA
SD RESTAURANT WEEK 2016
Gov. Brown Proposes to Increase UC Funding The new budget proposal allocates $3.41 billion to the UC system, 4.7 percent more than last year’s state budget. BY RAAHIMA SHOAIB
ART BY SOPHIA HUANG /GUARDIAN
WITH 180 PARTICICPATING EATERIES, SAN DIEGO RESTAURANT WEEK IS THE CULINARY WORLD ENCAPSULATED. SIT BACK, RELAX AND LET THE GURADIAN TAKE YOU ON YOUR NEXT GASTRONOMIC ADVENTURE. WEEKEND, PAGE 6
UCSD VERSUS EL NINO STRATEGIES FOR THE EXTREMES OPINION, PAGE 4
MEN'S BASKETBALL STREAKING TRITONS SPORTS, PAGE 12
FORECAST
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SATURDAY H 60 L 46
FRIDAY
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SUNDAY
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Members of ArtPower introduced students to digital media equipment at the Media Production Open House on Tuesday. Photo by Kenji Bennett /UCSD Guardian
UCSD
A.S. President Announces Plans for Division I Athletics BY MARIA SEBAS
A
.S. President Dominick Suvonnasupa announced that A.S. Council will be proposing a referendum during the Jan. 20 council meeting for UCSD’s advance to NCAA Division I athletic standing. Suvonnasupa made the initial announcement during last Wednesday’s council meeting. Suvonnasupa told the UCSD Guardian that a move to Division I could help UCSD catch up to other UC campuses. “We compete with Cal and LA academically in a lot fields and best them in some fields, [which is] amazing considering we’re much younger than they are,” Suvonnasupa said. “I think what Division I would do is let us catch up to them in other ways.” Eleanor Roosevelt College junior, student athlete and member of the Triton Athletic Council Shane Beamer told the Guardian that virtually all student athletes would welcome the move. “We’re pushing the edge of [Division II] and some of our sports teams are becoming part of Division I leagues,” Beamer said. “[However], in order to fully compete in a Division I level, there’s a need for our school to actually obtain Division-I standing.” Beamer continued to explain that since UCSD does not give out athletic scholarships as a Division II school,
some student athletes are forced to work part-time jobs in addition to attending classes and training for sports. “Student athletes would be eligible for scholarships and could therefore put more time toward academics because they wouldn’t have to worry about working long hours to pay tuition in addition to the demanding training schedule,” Beamer explained. The last time students voted on a Division-I referendum was in 2012 when nearly 60 percent voted against the move. According to Beamer, some of the dissenting opinions that the Triton Athletic Council has received include concern that the accompanying increase in student fees would finance the tuitions of student athletes without benefiting the rest of the student population. However, as Sixth College senior Julia Kirkland pointed out, the move to Division I athletics would help rally alumni support. Currently, out of all the UC campuses, UCSD annually receives one of the lowest amounts of alumni donations. “The move to Division I would allow our school to become more nationally recognized,” Kirkland told the Guardian. “This would gain more support from UCSD alumni, which would in turn benefit all aspects of
See DIVISION I, page 3
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VERBATIM MY GOAL IS TO FIGHT HATE WITH UNDERSTANDING. IT’S HARD TO HATE A HUMAN YOU CAN EMPATHIZE WITH. I’M NOT HERE TO CONVERT YOU. I’M HERE TO BEFRIEND YOU.
- Ayat Amin
MUSLIM IN AMERICA
OPINION, PAGE 4
INSIDE ATMOSTPHERIC STUDY ... 2 LETTER TO THE EDITOR .. 5 DAVID BOWIE .................. 8 CROSSWORD/SUDOKU.. 10 FENCING ....................... 11
UCSD
Former ECE Professor Charged with Grant Fraud Homayoun Karimabadi faces a maximum of 20 years in prison and $250,000 in fines. BY MING-RAY LIAO
Former UCSD Research Professor and Chief Executive Officer of SciberQuest Inc. Homayoun Karimabadi was charged on Jan. 7, with fraudulently obtaining millions of dollars in government grants and contracts by making false statements to government officials. Karimabadi is scheduled to enter a deferred prosecution agreement on Jan. 15 in which he may serve up to 20 years in prison and be fined a maximum of $250,000. SciberQuest and Karimabadi agreed to jointly forfeit $180,000. According to the corporation’s plea agreement, Karimabadi applied for and received grants from the National
Science Foundation, United States Air Force and National Aeronautics and Space Administration through both UCSD and SciberQuest. Administrative Coordinator for the UCSD Office of Research Affairs Patrice Lock stated that the university provided investigators with the information they requested but emphasized that UCSD was not involved with his fraudulent activities. “Our understanding is that the case focused on Dr. Karimabadi’s lack of full and accurate disclosures on grant proposals to various federal agencies which were made through his private company, SciberQuest, Inc,” Lock told the UCSD Guardian. “No University grants or funds were implicated in the activities of Dr. Karimabadi or SciberQuest, Inc. The actions by the former university researcher
were committed through his private company, and are not a reflection of UC San Diego researchers or our research administration processes.” Karimabadi failed to disclose all of his current and pending grants, thereby overstating the time he and SciberQuest could devote to said projects and failed to mention his fulltime employment at UCSD. From 2005 to 2013, Karimabadi received over $1.9 million in salary from SciberQuest due, in part, to the fraudulently obtained grants and contracts, prosecutors said. SciberQuest was awarded 22 grants worth approximately $6.4 million, eight of which were Small Business Innovation Research grants. The NASA SBIR program funds the research, development and demonstration of See FRAUD, page 3
The University of California will receive $3.41 billion in state funding for the 2016–17 school year — $356 million more than the previous year — according to the budget proposal Gov. Jerry Brown announced last Thursday. The Governor’s Budget Summary proposes additional funding for all state campuses. Proposition 30, which would temporarily increase taxes from 2012–2018 to fund higher education, was passed in 2012, and since then the state has worked on an investment plan for public universities. The public university system has seen an increase in funding of about 30 percent during 2015–16, with funding for the UC system increasing by $761 million since 2012. Kate Moser, media specialist at the UC Office of the President, told the UCSD Guardian that the plan includes a stipulation for onetime funds that will go towards deferred maintenance and pension funds; UCOP supports Gov. Brown’s continued support of education. “The University of California appreciates the continuing support for higher education in Gov. Brown’s 2016–17 budget proposal,” Moser said. “State support is crucial to allowing us to keep tuition for California students at its current level for six consecutive years and ensuring that we maintain access, affordability and quality for our students.” A.S. Vice President of External Affairs Krystl Fabella informed the Guardian that most of the funds will be going towards programs that do not affect students. “Although there is increased funding, it’s important to understand where funds have been allocated and that it is not exactly being streamlined for per-pupil funding, but to cover a lot of liabilities and costs, like deferred maintenance and pensions,” Fabella said. “There will be no alleviation or decrease in attendance costs like we would hope for, especially in light of UC-wide housing and food insecurity crises, but it will help alleviate a lot of debt the UC has been running off of.” Fabella also stated that an important part of the proposed budget is the addition of new students. She also told the Guardian that UCSD itself is unofficially required to increase new student enrollment by about 750 students and the entire UC system is expected to increase enrollment by 10,000 students in the next school year. According to Fabella, the increased number of students adds an extra burden onto the student body. “All we know right now is that there isn’t the infrastructure to take in 750 more students at the UC without, See BUDGET, page 3