First lady stars at Merced

Michelle Obama addressed a historic graduating class at UC Merced’s commencement on May 16.

“We are going to need all of you graduates,” Obama told the crowd of more than 12,000 in her 29-minute speech. “Make your legacy a lasting one. Dream big.”

The students constituted the first class to go from freshman to senior year at UC Merced. Some 450 students were eligible to graduate from UC Merced this spring — about 430 of them seniors with bachelor’s degrees, the rest with graduate degrees. UC Merced opened in 2005.

UC Merced students had lobbied to bring the first lady to campus as a commencement speaker. They wrote letters to Obama, her office, and her friends and family.

Hackers harass Berkeley

UC Berkeley began informing students, alumni and others on May 8 that their personal information may have been stolen after hackers entered into computer databases in the campus’s health services center.

According to UC Berkeley officials, the databases contained individuals’ Social Security numbers, health insurance information and non-treatment medical information, such as immunization records and names of some of the physicians they may have seen for diagnoses or treatment.

UC Berkeley administrators said the hackers did not access the university’s medical records. The campus learned of the breach in April, immediately removed from service the exposed databases to prevent any further attacks, and alerted campus police and the FBI. Overall, more than 160,000 individuals were alerted.

UCLA body parts conviction

A Los Angeles County jury May 14 found a Rancho Cucamonga businessman guilty of grand theft by embezzlement, tax evasion and other felonies in connection with a scheme to sell body parts donated to UCLA’s medical school.

According to UCLA officials, Ernest Nelson was found guilty of selling body parts to medical and pharmaceutical research companies without permission from the campus. His co-conspirator, Henry Reid, the former director of UCLA’s donated body program, pleaded guilty and was sentenced in January to more than four years in prison and ordered to pay $500,000 in compensation to the David Geffen School of Medicine.

UCTV goes live in LA

The Los Angeles television market will now offer UC Television on cable citywide. The 24-hour UCTV channel went live May 6 in Los Angeles on Time Warner Cable.

The rollout across the entire city will be completed in the coming weeks, allowing UCTV to reach over 660,000 new households, according to the UC Office of the President. As the city-designated education channel, UCTV offers viewers a wide range of general interest programming from throughout the UC system on topics ranging from science, health, public affairs, humanities and the arts, as well as specialized programming.

Details are available at www.uctv.tv.

Duckett to head HR

The UC Board of Regents on May 7 appointed Dwaine Duckett as vice president for human resources of the UC system. He was due to begin his job May 15.

Duckett was selected from a pool of nearly 30 candidates following a nationwide search. The appointment was made at the regents’ May 7 meeting, which was conducted by teleconference. Duckett, 45, previously served as vice president for human resources at Heinz North America. He will receive an annual base salary of $300,000.

UC stimulus Web site

The UC has developed a Web site to provide campuses, faculty researchers, students and staff with the latest information on how federal stimlulus funds may be used throughout the university system. View it at www.universityofcalifornia.edu/ economicstimulus.

According to the UC Office of the President, the site will list grant opportunities, agency updates as well as compliance, review and accountability information.

— Dateline staff