Thomas Landefeld: Fixing the Leaky Pipeline of Minority Student Support Thomas Landefeld, professor of biology, presented “Leaks in the Pipeline: Do Faculty Mend or Create Them?” at East Mississippi Community College in Scooba, Miss., in late September. The presentation was part of a career development series sponsored by the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology Minority Access to Research Careers Program.

James Sudalnik: Thanking the Academy for Students’ Professional Development James Sudalnik, professor of communications, participated in the initial and final rounds of voting for the 2007 Primetime Emmy Awards. Sudalnik, who coordinates the communications department’s electronic media programming and production emphasis, is an active voting member of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences in the nonfiction peer group. He encourages students to join the Academy for internships and other professional experience that can prepare them for careers in the industry.

Photo above: Groundskeepers Bill Ota (Class of '76, B.A., biology) and Steve Kadota (center and right) help maintain the Japanese Garden in the lower level courtyard of the Social and Behavioral Sciences building under the direction of Haruo Yamashiro (at left).

Yamashiro, a renowned landscape architect, has contributed to the design and construction of numerous traditional Japanese gardens and structures, including the Japanese Pavilion at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and gardens at the Japanese American National Museum in Little Tokyo. He designed the Garden, which was completed in 1978 by a volunteer group of local gardeners, nurserymen and Dominguez Hills faculty and staff. Known as the Peace Garden, the site was the first collaboration between the university and its surrounding community. Ota’s father, Ralph, was among the volunteers.

For a pictorial history of the Japanese Garden in the Special Collections of the University Archives, click here. Photo by Joanie Harmon