David Halberstam: In memoriam

Author David Halberstam, who was killed in a car crash south of San Francisco on April 23, was the Alumni Day speaker at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism two days before his death. In a memorial tribute to the Pulitzer Prize-winning writer, the journalism school has published a transcript and audio recording of his talk on "Turning Journalism Into History." Read and hear it at journalism.berkeley.edu/events/halberstam.

African-American students at UCLA

The number of African-American students intending to enroll in UCLA's 2007 fall freshman class is nearly double compared with 2006. The upcoming class will include 203 African-American students, compared with 103 in 2006.

With a record 50,744 applications, UCLA admitted 11,924 students to the new freshman class. Underrepresented students — African Americans, Chicanos/Latinos and Native Americans — increased nearly 3 percent to 19.4 percent (873), up from 16.5 percent (773) in 2006.

The low number of African-American students enrolling as freshmen last year drew criticism both on and off campus. As a result, UCLA's Academic Senate switched to a "holistic" approach for 2007 student admissions. The change was based on the faculty's belief that a review of an applicant's entire application by the same readers — instead of a group of different readers — would be more fair and would better achieve the goals of UC's comprehensive review admissions policy.

UC Merced library

Students, faculty and other researchers at UC Merced now have electronic access to more than 1,100 journals published by Taylor and Francis, thanks to a new deal between the publisher and the California Digital Library, a network connecting libraries and offering digital access to materials at all 10 UC campuses.

UC Merced's library now offers access to about 15,000 journals through the CDL and campus-specific access. Yet none of these journals are found in print in the library. Merced is among the increasing number of libraries no longer using their floor space for print journals — more and more, users are conducting research from their computers.