Community Briefs

Friday, January 29, 1999

Community Briefs

Persian art display

to come to Hammer

The first major exhibition to explore visual arts in Persia (modern-day Iran) during the Qajar Dynasty, "Royal Persian Paintings: The Qajar Epoch 1785-1925" focuses on extraordinary large-scale court and popular religious paintings and will be presented at UCLA at the Armand Hammer Museum of Art and Cultural Center from Feb. 24 through May 9, 1999.

Organized by Layla S. Diba, Hagop Kevorkian Curator of Islamic Art at the Brooklyn Museum of Art, with Dr. Maryam Ekhtiar, senior research associate, the exhibition includes more than 100 works, on loan from 36 internationally renowned private and public collections in seven countries.

After its presentation at the UCLA/Hammer Museum, the exhibition will travel to the Brunei Gallery, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, where it will be presented from July through September 1999.

Program appoints new director

Sean L. Swezey, an entomologist and associate director of the UC Santa Cruz Center for Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems, has been named the new director of the systemwide UC Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program.

The announcement was made today by Henry J. Vaux, Jr., associate vice president of programs for the University's Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources. Swezey begins his duties Feb. 1.

"I am pleased to welcome Dr. Swezey as the new director of the Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program. He emerged as the top-rated candidate after a prolonged search for new leadership in SAREP," Vaux said.

"He has an impressive record of working with a wide array of growers, scholars and county-based Cooperative Extension personnel. All of these people have given him high marks and indicate that they are looking forward to working with him as the new director of SAREP."

SAREP was established in 1987 as the first sustainable agriculture program at a U.S. land grant university.

The program provides support for research and educational outreach activities that encourage California farmers, farmworkers and consumers to produce, distribute, process and consume food and fiber in ways that are economically viable, sustain natural resources and biodiversity and enhance quality of life.

For the time being SAREP will continue to be located at UC Davis.

Swezey takes the reins from Robert J. Reginato, who served as SAREP's interim director since July 1998.

William Liebhardt, the program's first director left SAREP in June 1998 to return to extension work in the UC Davis Department of Agronomy and Range Science.

UCSF partners

with local high school

With a ceremonial signing Thursday the future of health care and medical education in the Central San Joaquin Valley took a step into the new millennium, establishing the Health Professions Preparatory Academy at Fresno's newest high school, Sunnyside High School.

"The Academy is a true community partnership. It represents the joining locally of the finest educational and medical interests available anywhere," said Dr. Katherine Flores, director of the UCSF-Fresno Latino Center for Medical Education and Research.

A partnership has been created by Flores, that includes UC San Francisco; the UCSF-Fresno Medical Education Program; Fresno Unified School District; Fresno County Office of Education; the Partnership for Health Professions Education; and California State University, Fresno (CSUF).

Compiled from Daily Bruin wire reports.

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