Managers conference

The 26th annual Adman Mid-Management conference will be held from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. March 13-14 on the Delta King in Old Sacramento. ("Adman" stands for administrative management group.)

Titled "Making Connections," the conference will address topics of interest to campus managers, including how to improve and simplify business operations, promote professional growth, and encourage work-life enrichment through training.

The keynote presenter is Mitchel Adler, a licensed clinical psychologist, consultant and co-author of the book Promoting Emotional Intelligence in Organizations.

The $125 registration includes a continental breakfast, morning and afternoon breaks, lunch on the Delta King and a cruise on the Spirit of Sacramento. Attendees have a choice of dates to participate in this conference — March 13 and March 14 are duplicate programs. Registration opened Feb. 5. Priority registration will be given to staff at the PPS Grade E level and above, or AA III title code and above.

For more information about the conference, or to learn about Adman, contact Janet Brown-Simmons at (530) 752-3793, jbsimmons@ucdavis.edu, or visit adman.ucdavis.edu.

Summer youth programs

Several Davis-based nonprofit organizations offering summer recreational activities for youth will showcase their 2007 programs in the first annual Children's Summer Activities Faire, presented from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. March 24 at the Davis Farmers Market.

The free event will feature demonstration activities for children, and is designed to provide parents with a "one-stop" introduction to the extensive range of summer youth programs available in Davis.

The Children's Summer Activities Faire is presented by the city of Davis and the Department of Campus Recreation Youth Program at UC Davis.

The Department of Campus Recreation Youth Program offers affordable summer youth camps from June 18 through Aug. 24, featuring swimming lessons, outdoor hiking, equestrian programs, dance and crafts.

The city of Davis offers a variety of summer camps for youth from June 18 through Aug. 24, including camps for sports, cooking, arts and crafts, equestrian, gymnastics, and backpacking. In addition, the city offers a full range of swim lessons for all ages and abilities.

For information, call (530) 752-2955.Low income legal services

Low-income residents and senior citizens from five Northern California counties depend on Emily Fisher in Chico for free legal assistance with everything from eviction notices to harassing creditors.

The legal aid attorney is there to help because a UC Davis School of Law program — newly expanded and expected to triple in size by 2009 — helps repay the educational debts of graduates like Fisher, whose passion to serve the public leads them to low-paying jobs.

The expansion of the Loan Repayment Assistance Program, which provides graduates with thousands of dollars in loans and grants, comes at a critical time as low-income people struggle for access to justice.

Rex Perschbacher, dean of the law school, said the loan program is essential for students who are caught in a "double vice" between low salaries at nonprofit organizations and hefty student debt.

Currently, UC Davis law students pay $24,360 in annual fees and graduate with an average debt of $57,600. Entry-level public service jobs pay $30,000 to $40,000, while jobs with large firms start at about $135,000, he said.

When the UC Davis program was established in 1990, it was the first of its type at a public law school in California, and it has provided more than $50,000 in assistance to about a dozen graduates annually.

The school recently revised the program, supported by donations and a percentage of fees returned to financial aid, to keep pace with trends in the placement of its graduates and with salaries at major legal aid organizations. It now includes government positions, and the qualifying salary cap was raised from $40,000 to $53,000.

Fisher, who had accumulated $70,000 in student debt, started at the legal aid clinic in 2004 at $30,000 a year and now earns $37,000.

Her loan payments are $750 a month, and the law school provides her with an interest-free loan that covers about 80 percent of those payments. In the third year, the UC Davis program begins to forgive a percentage of its own loan, and after five years, the payments from UC Davis effectively become grants.

Advisory committees

The UC Davis administration looks to several committees for advice each year, and now is the time for people to speak up if they want to serve on one of those boards. The committees address such topics as arts, athletics, child care, student services and research, and provide an opportunity for all constituencies — Academic Senate and Academic Federation members, staff, graduate students and undergraduates — to participate in governance of the campus. People wishing to serve on an advisory committee in 2007-08 have until March 12 to submit their applications.

The application forms and more information, including descriptions of each committee, are available at chancellor.ucdavis.edu/aac.

Asian-Americans and cancer

An estimated 4 million Asian-Ameri-cans have limited English proficiency, a potential barrier to effective communication with health care providers about cancer prevention, early detection and treatment. Now there is a Web tool to ease that barrier.

Developed by the UC Davis Cancer Center-based Asian-American Network for Cancer Awareness, Research and Training, together with the American Cancer Society, the new Web resource permits easy retrieval of cancer information materials that have been translated into more than a dozen Asian and Pacific Islander languages and reviewed for scientific accuracy.

The site is at www.aancart.org/apicem or www.cancer.org/apicemn.