New Economics Program Started This Fall
Betting that today’s economics graduates are not solely satisfied with a career in finance or marketing, USF started a new master of arts program in international and development economics this fall. The program, which takes three years to complete for a working adult and one and a half years for a full-time student, includes a two-month summer field study requirement in El Salvador, the Philippines, or possibly West Africa.
“The purpose of the program is to train graduate students to be research economists and policy analysts in the fields of international and development economics,” said Bruce Wydick, assistant professor of economics, who directs the program. “To be able to foster economic growth among the poor in developing countries, we have to first understand the causes of poverty, and then potential policy solutions. This is the one of the main goals of the program.”
The program’s first cohort this fall has 10 students, seven of whom are full-time graduate students and three who are in the economics department’s five-year BA/MA program.
“I couldn’t be more excited about our new students,” Wydick said. “Our goal is to develop very capable research economists. Already they’re planning their field study topics.” Some of Wydick’s students will be sent abroad with part of a $297,000 grant Wydick and a team of UC Berkeley economists won from the United State’s Agency for International Development to study how the rural poor in developing countries can gain better access to credit through the formal financial sector.
The economics department is also planning to launch a master’s of science in financial economics next summer. That program will last two to three years with a greater focus on applied mathematics for working adults interested in furthering their careers as financial analysts. The master’s program will be offered both in San Francisco and at USF partner schools in Asia.
Union Contract Signed for Five Years
The University of San Francisco and the Office and Professional Employees (OPE) union, representing all office clerical employees, reached a three-year agreement on salary increases and a five-year contract for all other policies on Aug. 21. The contract, ratified by the union on Aug. 28 and the USF Board of Trustees on Sept. 24, grants a 3.5 percent increase retroactive to June 1, with 2.5 percent annual increases over the next two years. Years two and three also include a merit increase. The reimbursement schedule for university tuition remission benefits was reduced from five years to four. Bereavement leave was also expanded, from three days to five for services outside of the nine-county Bay Area. Savings to the university were also realized as employees agreed to pay for a greater share of their health care benefits costs, said David Philpott, assistant to the associate vice president for labor relations.
“Both sides worked very hard. We arrived at a final settlement which meets everyone's needs,” Philpott said.
Arts and Sciences Launches Web Site
 With the launch of its new Web site Oct. 15, the large and diverse College of Arts and Sciences has finally linked all of its departments, programs, centers, and institutes on one site.
Liza Locsin Enriquez, assistant to the dean of arts and sciences and coordinator of the project, said the site will make it easier for students and faculty to search for information about events and majors in the school.
“There was a link to each separate major, but no home page for the college,” Locsin Enriquez said. “Each department or program designed their own page, so they were all different. We wanted to make it more uniform.”
The site features streaming audio and video images, scrolling news and events, and easily navigable links and databases. The site is designed in such a way that faculty and staff in individual departments or programs have the ability to update their own department or program pages easily and quickly.
Locsin Enriquez said she hopes the site will attract students to a major, but her main concern is making the community more aware of arts and sciences events. “No one ever knows what we’re doing, despite the many fliers we put out,” Locsin Enriquez said. “[Arts and Sciences] hosts events almost every day and we want the community to be aware of them.”
Jonathan Lui-Kwan ’89 and his Web design company, BoldFocus, which employs several alumni, was hired to design the site. Lui-Kwan said the project was developed to give the College a streamlined, recognizable look.
To reach the page, go to artsci.usfca.edu.
 Kiriyama Pacific Rim Book Prize Awarded
Two writers from Southeast Asia were named co-winners of the 2002 Kiriyama Pacific Rim book prize, sponsored by the University of San Francisco Center for the Pacific Rim and San Francisco’s Kiriyama Pacific Rim Institute. The institute funds the $30,000 prize money, split by the winners, and Barbara Bundy, director of the USF Center for the Pacific Rim, helps pick judges and announce the winners.
This year’s winners are Indian-born Canadian novelist Rohinton Mistry who won for his novel, Family Matters (left), and Burmese born English citizen Pascal Khoo Thwe who won for his memoir From the Land of Green Ghosts: A Burmese Odyssey. The prize was announced Oct. 29.
The institute was funded by the Rev. Seiyu Kiriyama, a Japanese philanthropist, who also gave $2 million to USF to endow a revolving professorship, the Kiriyama Chair at the Center for the Pacific Rim.
Well-Life Health Fair Focuses on Heart
Nutrition information, art, and heart patient stories will all be employed this fall by the Well-Life program’s “Matters of the Heart” program on heart health. A Nov. 6 health and benefits fair featured experts on coronary care and showcased faculty and staff art from an ongoing class on using art for heart health. Speakers featured in a panel discussion included heart attack survivor Drew Case who exhibited no known risk factors prior to his attack; Richard Kamler, USF assistant professor of visual arts, who teaches art as a way of diminishing sadness, anger, and hostility; Bay Area cardiologist Kent Gershengorn, who discussed the newly researched risk factor C-reactive protein as well as family history; and medical nutrition therapist Allison Horton, who discussed trans-fats and their role in premature heart attacks. For information about “Matters of the Heart,” call Well-Life Director Christin Anderson at (415) 422-2442.
USF Landscaping Wins Honor
The University of San Francisco’s campus grounds, and the gardeners who maintain them, won an Honor Award last month in the category of best urban university grounds from the Professional Grounds Management Society. The university last won an award for its grounds maintenance in 1997. “The grounds crew deserves this award,” said Jay Stafford, grounds crew foreman. “It’s a reflection that we’re progressing and maintaining the grounds at a high standard.” To read more about the campus’s natural world and its caretakers, go to www.usfca.edu/usfnews/08.05.02/ac1.html.
Memory: A Mixed Blessing
A conference on the philosophical, emotional, and mechanical meaning of memory will be held Nov. 16 at the Lone Mountain campus. Writers, book collectors, academics, and medical experts will discuss the biological and imaginative process of memory making and how memory and historical records conjoin. Panelists include poet Kay Ryan; Anthony Bulloch, professor of classics at UC Berkeley; and Locke Morrissey, head of collections at Gleeson Library/Geschke Center. A reception and dinner will be held in the evening. For more information or for tickets, call (415) 422-2036.
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