About 850 students are expected to celebrate the milestone of earning a bachelor's degree at the fall commencement, 10 a.m. this Saturday (Dec. 16) in The Pavilion at the ARC.

The ceremony includes students from the university's four undergraduate colleges: Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, Biological Sciences, Engineering, and Letters and Science.

Tickets are required to attend the ceremony, except for children under 2. Video of the event will be livestreamed and available to view on demand. More information about commencement is available online.

UC Davis also holds 13 graduation ceremonies in the spring. In 2016-17, the university conferred 9,875 degrees including 7,855 bachelor's, 402 professional, 1,101 master's and 517 doctoral degrees.

Policy manuals website is changing

As part of the university’s new policy development and management system, the administration announced an update to the policy manuals website to make it more usable and functional.

What will change?

• Effective Tuesday, Dec. 19, the policies will be available through an electronic policy management system, which means that when you navigate into the manuals, the web address will be different from the old site. 
• For policy users who are UC Davis affiliates, you will be able to log in to the policy manuals site and save a list of your favorite-most frequently used policies.
• The rest of the policy site will be updated into the current UC Davis website templates.
• The policy updates email list will be retired, but UC Davis affiliates can register to receive notifications regarding updated policies through the policy management system. After logging into the system, click on your name in the upper-right corner and go to your preferences. Select the email option to receive notifications of new documents-revisions. If you had previously signed up for emails, we will have updated this setting for you already.

What will stay the same?

• The policy site will still be accessible at http://manuals.ucdavis.edu. You will be redirected to the new policy library when you access the policy manuals.
• All of the same resources, FAQs, and links to policies maintained by other units are still available through this site.
• The policies themselves retain the same structure and are still maintained as PDF documents.

If you have any questions about the new site, send an email to the administrative policy unit in the Office of Compliance and Policy. 

Apply to be part of Picnic Day 2018

The Picnic Day Board announced it is now accepting applications for the 2018 celebration: parade, animal events, entertainment, exhibits, Student Organization Fair and Children's Discovery Fair. Picnic Day is set for Saturday, April 21, and will have the theme, “Where the Sun Shines.”

UC Davis departments and department-affiliated organizations are welcome to apply in the exhibits category, while registered student groups, ASUCD units and sport clubs can apply for the Student Organization Fair.

You’ll find all the forms online; the deadline is 5 p.m. Feb. 1

From center to institute: Energy and Efficiency

After 10 years of accelerating the development and commercialization of energy efficient solutions and training future leaders in energy efficiency, the Energy Efficiency Center has become an institute — the Energy and Efficiency Institute, bringing together the best minds across the university, state, nation and world to realize sustainable energy solutions and strengthen UC Davis’ leadership role in energy research, education and engagement.

The institute also announced it has a broader mandate to accelerate sustainable energy systems, and that is hosting the new Energy Graduate Group, or EGG.

Read more.

TECHNEWS: Kaspersky advisory, SmartSite retirement

• Kaspersky Lab products — UC has ordered all locations not to buy or deploy Kaspersky Lab products, including technology that uses embedded Kaspersky code. “Kaspersky Lab has been linked to the Russian government and cyberespionage, and use of its software has been identified as a potential threat,” states a memo from Tom Andriola, vice president and chief information officer for UC. Kaspersky’s main product is antivirus software. Based on procurement records and data from managed computer systems, only a handful of locations at UC Davis use Kaspersky products, so the impact here is minor. Read more.

• SmartSite — This learning management system has been replaced by UC Davis Canvas, but the process of retiring SmartSite continues. The next step: As of next Tuesday, Dec. 19, you will have to be on campus or working through a VPN (virtual private network) connection to access SmartSite. Read more.

Follow Dateline UC Davis on Twitter.