In 2011, the mean GPA for Haas undergraduates was capped at 3.2 and 3.4 for core classes and electives, respectively, in order to ensure consistent grading across courses. Effective May 3, the caps have been raised to a mean of 3.4 for core classes and 3.6 for electives.

Prior to 2011, professors would often teach the same courses at the same time but have differing grades by section — an example of grading inconsistency the caps aim to resolve, said Haas associate professor Don Moore.

After 2011, many students expressed discontent over the caps, saying they created a more competitive and stressful atmosphere.

“I certainly saw a few of my fellow students suffer along the perception that it was too much work to go from a B to an A,” said Tyler Wishnoff, a Haas senior and Haas Business School Association president.

Strict guidelines led some students to enroll in classes with perceived lenient grading — ones they might not be interested in — with the expectation that they would get better grades, Moore said.

To resolve issues with the 2011 cap levels, faculty looked at historical average grades at Haas and other departments at the university, job prospects for students and grading policies of comparable institutions, Moore said.

“The entire goal was not to adjust average grades but set the average consistent with historical averages,” Moore said.

The amended policy applies to all current undergraduates, including graduating seniors and incoming students, said Richard Kurovsky, executive director of marketing and communications at Haas.

However, some Haas seniors are petitioning for retroactive application of the new grading policy, saying they have been negatively affected by the strict GPA guidelines since 2011. They are asking Haas to either retroactively reweight GPAs, add notations to outline Haas’ grading policies to their transcripts or allow Haas faculty to make exceptions to the cap at their discretion, according to Moore.

Faculty members will discuss retroactive adjustment of grades under some circumstances, but at this time, the schedule for this discussion has not been set, Kurovsky said.

“Retroactive application on all classes sounds great ideally, but pragmatically, this is really hard to implement,” said Shahryar Abbasi, a Haas senior and current ASUC external affairs vice president. “At academic institutions, policies change — it’s not feasible, every time a policy change occurs, to retroactively apply it.”

Contact Christine Tyler at ctyler@dailycal.org.

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The Schoolwide Integrated Framework for Transformation, or SWIFT, an initiative led by educational researchers from the University of Kansas, selected Willard and five other U.S. schools for their use of “inclusive education,” said Wayne Sailor, a professor in the University of Kansas’ School of Education and director of the SWIFT Center.

Inclusive education is a classroom model in which students of all learning types, such as gifted, special education and English as a Second Language students, learn in one general classroom setting rather than under separate programs, with the idea that all students mutually benefit from the shared learning environment.

“A big problem is that if you go into a typical low-performing school, there are lots of resources that could help, but they don’t connect with each other — special education being an example,” Sailor said. “It looks for its own resources and provides a system only for those identified as such.”

The six schools chosen by SWIFT are already successfully operating on an inclusive model and will be studied by Sailor and his affiliates so the advances these schools demonstrate can be applied elsewhere.

At Willard, inclusive education has been around for 11 years, said Willard Middle School Principal Robert Ithurburn.

“There is not so much an ‘us-them’ mentality,” Ithurburn said of the learning environment at Willard. “I think it’s more of a real-world situation.”

In the United States, there has been a trend toward including more students in general education classrooms, which has been accelerating for several decades, said Jennifer Russell, a graduate of the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Education who is now a professor at the University of Pittsburgh.

At Willard, students with severe disabilities have an instructional aid with them all day long, and there are teachers’ aids who check in on particular students throughout the day, said Jessica Lee, Willard’s teacher librarian. Lee is also a parent of a Willard Middle School student.

Teachers may also practice “modified education,” in which students of differing abilities can be given parallel assignments, with a co-teacher focusing on modifying the lesson for others based on learning needs, she added.

An increasing number of educators, including SWIFT researchers, tout the benefits of an inclusive classroom model over a segregated one, but it’s a model with potential that is not always realized, Russell said.

With $24.5 million in grant money from the U.S. Department of Education Office of Special Education Programs, SWIFT will spend now until October researching the six inclusive model schools, Sailor said.

As compensation for cooperation with researchers, each of the six model schools will receive a one-time payment of $16,500, Sailor said. He added that the schools additionally benefit from getting national recognition on the researchers’ website.

The schools will continue working and perfecting their model of education in the coming months.

“We’re excited to find out what we can do to be stronger, taking strategies and techniques from the other five schools,” Ithurburn said.

Contact Christine Tyler at ctyler@dailycal.org.

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Centro Legal, an Oakland-based nonprofit group that provides free or low-cost bilingual legal aid, presented Birgeneau with the award at its annual gala, according to Jennifer Miller, development and communications coordinator for Centro Legal. An announcement from Centro Legal expressed that Birgeneau received the award for aiding undocumented students and helping secure a $1 million grant that would go toward financial aid for undocumented students on campus.

Birgeneau said that among the many recognitions he has received in his life, receiving the Visionary Leadership Award is especially pleasing because the award recognizes work done for the most disadvantaged group of students at UC Berkeley.

“I’ve always had a particular interest in helping students who come from the most disadvantaged backgrounds … I’ve been a tremendous admirer of them for their courage and determination,” Birgeneau said.

According to Miller, the selection process involved a special events committee, through which anyone on the board or staff of Centro Legal can make suggestions for possible awardees. Birgeneau has been very active in the fight for undocumented students and was a clear choice, Miller said.

“I don’t know who nominated me — (the award) came as a complete surprise,” Birgeneau said.

One of Birgeneau’s most notable achievements for undocumented students is the securing of The Dreamers Fund in December, a $1 million scholarship donated in part by the Evelyn and Walter Haas Jr. Fund that would go toward boosting financial aid for undocumented students. The grant made UC Berkeley one of the first public campuses in the state to begin a scholarship specifically for undocumented students.

The chancellor was also directly involved in initiating the Undocumented Student Program, which provides holistic support services, such as academic counseling, to undocumented students, according to Meng So, coordinator for the Undocumented Student Program.

The campus hired So in September to lead the Undocumented Student Program as a result of a recommendation made by the Chancellor’s Advisory Committee on Undocumented Students in 2011.

As chancellor, Birgeneau has publicly advocated for the DREAM Act, which allows qualified undocumented students to apply for need-based financial aid.

“We had to work very hard for many years to have the state pass AB 130 and 131 — the biggest challenge has been legal,” Birgeneau said.

AB 130, the first part of the California DREAM Act, was signed into law by Gov. Jerry Brown in 2011 and allowed qualified undocumented students to receive financial aid from private sources. AB 131, which took effect in January, allows qualified undocumented students to apply for state financial aid.

“We have one great challenge remaining, which is having the DREAM Act pass at the national level,” Birgeneau said.

Contact Christine Tyler at ctyler@dailycal.org.

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On April 12, UC Berkeley was named the recipient of about $145 million to $200 million for its Ionospheric Connection project, or ICON, an exploratory satellite aiming to pinpoint the relationships between phenomena between different layers of the atmosphere.

In the past decade, scientists have discovered that weather in space is linked to Earth’s weather. Weather in the lower atmosphere drives conditions in space, said Thomas Immel, ICON’s principal investigator. Instruments on the satellite will measure various aspects of the ionosphere in order to determine what exactly drives events there.

“We want to understand how that process occurs so people can mitigate the effects … the ionosphere affects GPS more than anything, a concern for precision GPS users in particular,” Immel said.

Two instruments developed by UC Berkeley that will be on ICON are FUV, or far ultraviolet imager, and EUV, or extreme ultraviolet imager, said Stewart Harris, ICON’s payload manager. FUV will give the relative composition of the upper atmosphere, and EUV will measure the density of the ionosphere.

Led by UC Berkeley researchers, ICON will also use instruments developed by other institutions, such as the University of Texas at Dallas and the Naval Research Lab, said Manfred Bester, mission operations manager of the project.

According to Immel, NASA selected UC Berkeley after a two-year competitive process in which research proposals from UC Berkeley’s Space Sciences Laboratory were chosen from among more than a dozen other proposals. Among other criteria, NASA considered whether research goals would be met and whether groups had a doable mission for the amount of money NASA had to offer, Immel said.

In early February, before the final decision was made, a NASA team made a site visit to UC Berkeley to ask researchers questions and conduct a firsthand evaluation, according to Harris.

NASA’s heliophysics branch will be overseeing the coming steps and will split the project’s development into different levels, each with a key checkpoint, Harris said. In this way, the funds act more like a contract than a grant, as ICON will have to meet basic requirements set forth by NASA.

Almost everyone on the ICON team, including both individuals and institutions, has worked with NASA before, according to Harris.

According to Immel, Orbital Sciences Corporation — a firm in the aerospace industry that has experience working with NASA — is partnering with the team and will manufacture the satellite.

“What’s called the ‘spacecraft bus’ is built by Orbital,” Harris said. “Orbital will design and build the communications system and the solar array.”

As of now, launch is set for the year 2017, Bester said.

Contact Christine Tyler at ctyler@dailycal.org.

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Founded by MBA students at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business in partnership with business schools around the globe, GSVC allows business enterprises that address social issues to compete for funds they can use to implement their ideas.

“Teams … are using entrepreneurship to scalably solve significant real-world problems, from preventing malaria to providing clean water,” said Andre Marquis, executive director of the Lester Center for Entrepreneurship at Haas and director of the competition.

According to Marquis, the initial pool of competitors consisted of 600 teams from nearly 40 countries.

On Thursday, the teams pitched their ideas to a panel of judges, and six of the 18 teams were selected to continue to the second day of competition. CSA Munching Box, Faso Soap, Pulpworks Inc., Reel Gardening, Carbon Roots International and TOHL are the top six teams that advanced after yesterday’s judging.

Team proposals are judged on social impact, likelihood of success and quality of the business idea, said Laura Tilghman, a GSVC student co-chair and MBA student.

GSVC runs in three stages, starting with an executive summary in which teams interested in competing submit a writeup to their regional competition, said Jill Erbland, senior program manager at the Lester Center for Entrepreneurship. Regional coordinators then choose teams from this applicant pool to go on to submit a full business proposal as part of the regional competitions.

The competition was founded at UC Berkeley 14 years ago and has been held annually since, said Nick Cain, a student co-chair of GSVC.

According to Cain, there are nine regional finals around the world — one of which is in Berkeley — and each sends two teams to the global finals. There is no limit on the number of people per team, but each group must contain a graduate student and cannot represent a business more than 3 years old, Cain said.

The final winners will be announced at an awards dinner at the International House on April 12. The first-place team will receive $25,000, the second-place team will receive $15,000 and the third-place team will receive $7,500. Additional prizes include a “People’s Choice” award of $1,500 given to one of the top six teams and a “Quick Pitch” award of $1,000 for which the audience votes among the other 12 teams after hearing a 90-second pitch, Cain said.

Prize money is raised through a sponsor network that includes investment firms from the Bay Area and the Lester Center on campus, according to Cain.

Contact Christine Tyler at ctyler@dailycal.org.

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The study, which was published in the European Journal of Health Economics, involved conducting a randomized survey among men who have sex with men — or MSM — and male sex workers — or MSW — in Mexico City and determined that in exchange for payments of $288 to MSM and $156 to MSW, subjects would agree to be tested regularly and enroll in awareness programs, thereby reducing HIV and STI prevalence.

According Sandra McCoy, an assistant adjunct professor in UC Berkeley’s School of Public Health whose work deals with HIV, the study is important because it shows paying a small cash amount could have a big impact on sexual health.

“It’s a reward for using condoms or not sharing needles … so (individuals) are conscious about behaviors,” said co-author Paul Gertler, Li Ka Shing Professor of Economics and a professor of public health.

The study also found that wealthier individuals and those with higher levels of education were less likely to respond to the cash incentive because wealthier people are much more likely to have paid for testing themselves, Gertler explained.

“The incentive needs to be high enough to potentially spur meaningful behavior change, but it cannot be too high as to be considered coercive, dangerous or economically inefficient,” the study said.

In Mexico City and Latin America, the HIV epidemic is largely confined to risk populations of MSM, MSW and intravenous drug users. This study is the first of its kind among MSM and MSW subjects, McCoy said, though studies that used cash rewards as a means of reducing the prevalence of HIV have been conducted in Tanzania and Kenya.

According to the study, the Mexican government currently offers universal HIV therapy.

Regarding implementation of the study’s findings, the first step would be to work with public health clinics that offer testing services and provide a cash payment to people who come in to be tested, giving a higher payment as a reward for staying HIV- or STI-free, Gertler said.

An HIV- and STI-free cash reward program for Mexico is feasible, as Gertler said the country already utilizes cash transfers for human development and poverty reduction, such as a cash pension program for people older than 70.

Contact Christine Tyler at ctyler@dailycal.org.

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On Tuesday, dogs trained to detect bedbugs sniffed out rooms on the eighth floor, the location of the latest outbreak. Heat treatment will be applied to rooms in which bedbugs were found, according to freshman resident Katherine Takeshita.

The incident is the latest in a string of bedbug outbreaks reported in Griffiths. The hall’s battle against the bugs began with reports of bites and bug sightings on the fifth and seventh floors during the past few months.

“One day I looked down and saw one crawling on my pillow,” said Jackie Moreira, a freshman and seventh-floor resident.

After students notified the floor’s resident assistant of the issue, the campus sent professionals to the scene, Moreira said.  While dealing with the infestation, bedbugs were also found in the floor’s lounge, she added.

Following a complaint, procedure requires that a professional clean all possible entry and exit points in the room, including baseboards around the door and conduits such as electrical circuits, said Marty Takimoto, the Residential and Student Service Programs director of communications and marketing.

“There are a couple of different treatments. Heat kills bedbugs and any eggs, and in the past (we’ve) recommended chemical treatment as a last resort, even though it’s not harmful to humans,” Takimoto said.

Eric Mica, a freshman who lives on Griffiths’ seventh floor, did not realize the bedbugs had infiltrated his room until he was alerted of their presence following the dog inspection, as no one in his room displayed bites.

According to Takimoto, bedbug outbreaks are far from a rare occurrence and are not restricted to the dorms.

“In general, we always have cases of bedbugs (on campus),” Takimoto said. “Nationwide the number of bedbugs has been increasing, not only among residence halls.”

Bedbugs have affected all residential units at some point, as infestations cannot be completely prevented, Takimoto said.

However, if detected, students have a variety of options to eradicate the pests. A student can either fill out a maintenance request if living in the residence halls or contact his or her landlord if living in an apartment.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website, bedbugs feed on blood and are not attracted to food, so their presence is not related to the cleanliness of a living space.

“With transient populations, bugs are picked up, attach to backpacks or other surfaces, and are tracked back,” Takimoto said.

The CDC states that bedbugs are not known to spread disease, so despite being a nuisance, bedbugs are not a public health concern or grounds for panic.

Contact Christine Tyler at ctyler@dailycal.org.

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The three food trucks will be able to reopen at Bancroft Way and College Avenue in April, according to Councilmember Kriss Worthington. Worthington and Mayor Tom Bates have both been personally involved in advocating for the food trucks’ return in recent weeks. The food trucks were asked to leave campus in December following construction on Lower Sproul.

Ann Vu and Jack Huynh, respective owners of Healthy Heavenly Foods and Kettle Corn Star, plan on reopening as soon as the city completes necessary preparations, like new signage and street markings. Michael Koh, owner of Dojo Dog, anticipates that it will take longer for Dojo Dog to return.

“(Reopening) will take time,” Koh said. “On the operations side, we have to restock inventory. I had no hope of coming back, so I was not prepared.”

He plans to open briefly in the summer and make a full return in the fall.

Koh, Vu and Huynh were notified Tuesday of the new location, Huynh said.

Huynh cited media coverage and pressure from Worthington as reasons the issue came to the forefront of the City Council’s busy agenda. Though the owners are appreciative of action that has been taken, they are still anticipating what the future will bring.

Vu said, however, that the new spot “is a little far, with less business — I can tell this for sure.”

“We’re satisfied in the sense that we get to go back to work,” Huynh said. “As for how that new location will work out, only time will tell. We’re taking it one step at a time and are grateful.”

Contact Christine Tyler at ctyler@dailycal.org.

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The new bins align with the campus’s goal to reach zero waste by 2020, according to a statement from the Green Initiative Fund, a student-supported fund that helped finance the bins’ development.

A main reason for introducing the new bins is that emptying the old cement bins was a primary contributor to the $320,000 in workers’ compensation the campus spent from 2004 to 2009 for trash-lifting injuries, said Greg Ryan, an ergonomist with University Health Services.

“One of the goals of the project was to reduce the ergonomic strain on the body,” Ryan said.

Ryan explained that removing heavy trash liners from bins that open from the top puts strain on the shoulder and back due to the lifting involved.

The new bins, which are closed on top, are better at keeping out rain and pests, said Christine Shaff, communications director for UC Berkeley’s Facilities Services.

According to Shaff, the new bins are being manufactured locally by a company in Richmond and cost $875 each.

The bins are also designed to be interchangeable, said Michal Shuldman, a graduate student in the department of integrative biology who initiated the project as a member of the Graduate Assembly’s Sustainability Committee.

“The name plates and the openings (the different colors and shapes) can be changed out depending on what waste stream needs bins,” said Katherine Walsh, coordinator of the Green Initiative Fund, in an email.

The university intends to place compost bins in the future, but right now, the new bins around campus are for landfill, mixed paper, bottles and cans, Walsh said.

The current installment of bins follows a multiple-year development and implementation process.

“Lots of people played into the (development) process … it was a collaboration between graduate and undergraduate students … and many others,” Shuldman said.

Shuldman wrote a grant through the Green Initiative Fund for more outdoor trash bins on campus. At the same time, Theron Klos, the campus’s grounds operations manager, requested funds for new bins because of the health hazards associated with emptying cement bins, and the two decided to pool finances toward their common goal, Shuldman said.

Students from the UC Berkeley College of Environmental Design created 3-D renderings of possible designs. After the mock-up stage, more than 10 prototypes were considered before settling on the final version, Ryan said.

New containers will be installed over the next three months, starting with areas near Upper Sproul Plaza, Dwinelle Hall, Wheeler Hall, Doe Library, Moffitt Library, California Hall and Memorial Glade, Walsh said in an email.

As a last step, Shuldman suggested an education project to ensure bins are used properly and the establishment of a “waste audit” to monitor improvement.

Contact Christine Tyler at ctyler@dailycal.org.

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Alice Waters, owner, founder and executive chef of Chez Panisse, said she hopes that the restaurant will reopen by April 1, the cafe’s birthday — though this date may not be feasible. The fire occurred before dawn, with evidence currently pointing to an electrical short as the cause of the incident.

Though the damage and details about how to conduct the restoration are still being assessed due to the age and wooden frame of the building, more will be certain by the middle of next week, Waters said.

“Right now, we’re just cleaning the restaurant from top to bottom,” Waters said. “It looks more like a flea market than anything.”

According to Waters, the restaurant will be restored to its former self but with a few modifications to promote efficiency. Waters anticipates, for instance, that there will be much more airspace upstairs, along with some changes to the kitchen.

“I’m very optimistic that it will be better than before,” Waters said.

The restaurant, which has been closed since the fire, has been able to rely on its business-interruption insurance and is focusing on paying staff in the meantime, Waters stated.

The city of Berkeley has been very helpful in assisting with the recovery of the iconic restaurant, both in providing a speedy fire response and in helping facilitate the new opening through building permits. If all goes well, the restaurant realistically intend to reopen in three to five weeks, Waters said.

Contact Christine Tyler at ctyler@dailycal.org.

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