Academic honors keep rolling in for Aggie athletics — this time for the football program, recipient of an Academic Progress Rate Award for the second time in three years.

The Football Championship Subdivision Athletics Directors Association honored the Aggie program in 2011 for having the highest academic progress rate in the Great West Conference. The 2013 award recognizes the team’s APR of 970 (based on data from 2011-12) as the highest in the Aggies’ new league, the Big Sky Conference (with 13 schools that play football).

Athletics Director Terry Tumey picked up the new award at a national meeting last week.

Earlier this month, the National Collegiate Athletic Association announced awards for three Aggie women’s teams, based on each program’s multiyear academic progress rate for the four-year period 2008-09 to 2011-12. The Aggie women's gymnastics and tennis teams achieved perfrect APRs of 1,000, while the women's basketball team was near perfect at 998.

The NCAA’s Public Recognition Awards are given to Division I teams with multiyear academic progress rates in the top 10 percent of all teams in each particular sport.

Academic progress rates are calculated on the basis of student-athletes’ retention and graduation, and eligibility for NCAA competition.

New rash of phishing attacks

A new rash of phishing attacks against campus email accounts shows why people need to know how to identify and avoid the scams.

In the past week, countless people with UC Davis email accounts have received email messages that pretend to come from senders like the "MyUCDAVIS Technical Team" or "Ucdavis Support." The messages urge recipients to go to a website and enter their user names and passwords.

These sham messages, like others over the years, are trying to steal access to your campus account. If you receive one of these messages, delete it without responding.

If you went to one of the scam sites and entered your information, you need to change your campus passphrase and challenge questions immediately. Call the IT Express Computing Services Help Desk, (530) 754-HELP (4357) if you need help.

Read more in this TechNews article.

SSC brown bag next week

Organizational Excellence-Shared Services Center brown bags are continuing this summer on a reduced and earlier schedule.

Two brown bags are planned, each on a Wednesday: June 26 and Aug. 28. Time and place for each: 11 a.m. to noon (that’s an hour earlier than normal), Meeting Room D, Student Community Center.

Agenda items for next week include updates on the Shared Services Center and the end-to-end administrative business improvement process.

Amateur radio field day, at the airport

Three amateur radio groups from UC Davis and Yolo County will set up a field site at University Airport on Saturday (June 22) — and the public is invited to visit as the hams communicate with others around the world.

About 25 members of UC Davis Amateur Radio Communications, the Yolo Amateur Radio Society and the Yolo County Amateur Radio Emergency Service will be participating in a North American field day with thousands of other hams.

Instead of operating out of places like the UC Davis Emergency Operations Center, which houses an amateur radio base station, the hams will work from remote sites independent of utilities and other amenities — akin to what the hams might face in providing radio assistance in emergencies.

The UC Davis team and the other Yolo clubs will operate three stations on different frequencies using voice, Morse code and other digital forms of communications.

A member of all three clubs, Gary Matteson, a researcher in biological and agricultural engineering at the university, said amateur radio, which transmits and receives messages on radio frequencies set aside for noncommercial use, is a reliable and powerful means of emergency communications especially when telephone and Internet services are compromised.

More than 35,000 hams are expected to participate in the American Radio Relay League’s field days event, Saturday and Sunday. The University Airport site, west of Highway 113, will be open Saturday only, from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Student-raised horses going up for sale

UC Davis animal science students complete six-month internships in equine management on Saturday (June 22) with the 2013 Horse Production Sale. The students served as stallion managers or foal managers for the horses going up for sale.

“We welcome both potential buyers and community members who are interested in horses to come out and enjoy the sale and support the Equine Management Program,” said Joel Viloria, equine facilities supervisor for the Department of Animal Science.

Twelve horses are going up for bid. They include weanlings, yearlings and a stallion. See the catalog.

The sale traditionally brings in $20,000 to $30,000 to support the Equine Production Program.

The sale is held at the Cole Facility arena, adjacent to the horse barn and opposite Meyer Hall on La Rue Road. The program: viewing of the horses, 3:30 p.m.; barbecue dinner, 4:30 p.m.; and auction, 6 p.m.

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