Author Archives: Jonathan Van Dyke

Dr. David Hayes-Bautista gives a presentation to the California Latino Legislative Caucus during a trip in early February. (photos courtesy LPPI)

UCLA’s Latino Policy and Politics Initiative (LPPI) officially launched last December and has wasted little time in getting its message to the public, and the elected officials who serve California.

Part of that process was a trip to Sacramento February 8-9, whereby over half-dozen LPPI members visited legislators and their staff, and presented applied policy research before the California Latino Legislative Caucus. Under the guidance of new Luskin School of Public Affairs Dean Gary Segura, UCLA Government and Community Relations and LPPI have embarked on a collaborative effort to promote faculty research and innovations.

“LPPI was created to close this gap in both research and attention to the needs of ethnic minorities and low-income Californians,” said Sonja Diaz, LPPI executive director. “That being said, there are very important policy considerations, challenges and opportunities taking place nationally, so LPPI at this point is focused on state and local government innovation.”

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UCLA Professor and Department Chair Chris Lynch speaks before a special California Senate joint committee hearing on higher education and the aerospace industry. (photos by Jonathan Van Dyke)

Approximately $61.6 billion of revenues go to the state of California annually from the aerospace industry, with a good portion of that activity coming from the Greater Los Angeles area.

“Folks may know that aerospace is a larger revenue for the state of California than the entertainment industry — than agriculture,” said California State Sen. Ben Allen. “It’s a pretty amazing thing that is sometimes lost in the broad discussion of our various industries in Sacramento.”

Conversely, the average age of an aerospace industry worker is 52 — there is a need to inject more youth to its ranks.

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Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon, muralist Judy Baca, architect Frank Gehry and theater director Peter Sellars, discuss the role art and artists in California play in the public sphere. (photos by Jonathan Van Dyke)

Artist Judy Baca, architect Frank Gehry and director Peter Sellars spoke at UCLA as part of the Assembly Speaker’s lecture series

When California Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon looks to make sense of the world in a time of uncertainty, he said he has often looked to his own state’s diverse and exceptional art community.

“There has always been this sort of rendering of California as different than the rest of the country,” Rendon said. “And that’s always been interesting to me, and there seems there has been no better time to discuss this than there is now.”

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Democratic Leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi speaks on Feb. 9 before the House of Representatives. Rep. Ted Lieu watches on.

Democratic Leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) spoke on behalf of Dreamers and DACA recipients for eight hours and seven minutes on Feb. 9, hoping to pressure House Speaker Paul Ryan to take up the issue for a vote.

The move was slightly unusual for the House of Representatives, as there is no equivalent to the Senate filibuster. However, the Speaker and the Majority and Minority leaders are allowed to hold the floor continuously after recognition from the Speaker. This was the longest continuous House speech dating to at least 1909.

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TV producer Norman Lear had the crowd eating out of his hand during a conversation punctuated with jokes and sharp observations. (photos by Les Dunseith)

Television producer Norman Lear is one of the most influential people in his business. On the night of Jan. 17 in the Real D Theater in Beverly Hills, the 95-year-old creator of some of TV’s most legendary shows — who is still working on two current shows — gathered with members of the UCLA community and the public to reflect on his career, philanthropy and advocacy efforts after a screening of the documentary “Norman Lear: Just Another Version of You.”

The screening was part of a special conversation hosted by UCLA’s public policy magazine, Blueprint — the latest issue of which focuses on philanthropy. Editor-in-chief Jim Newton moderated the event.

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UCLA students and Chancellor Gene Block in front of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. (Zoya Chhabra/UCLA)

When UCLA students lined up at a diner counter top replica in the National Museum of African American History and Culture for an interactive exhibit, they were handed touch screens that asked them questions about how they would respond to living through the Civil Rights Movement. This opportunity to imagine living as someone else aligned with a major goal of Chancellor Gene Block’s recent trip to Washington, D.C.

“It gave you the chance to sort of feel what those people felt when they were doing a sit-in,” said third-year Naomi Kisel, who is a first-generation college student whose parents fled the Soviet Union for a better life and identifies herself as a political conservative.

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