CAMPUS NOTES

Nominations of new members for the Chancellor’s Staff Advisory Council (CSAC) will close on Aug. 1. CSAC is one of the primary channels by which staff members gain access to the chancellor, reporting directly to him, and providing advice on issues and policies. Members serve three-year terms; application forms and more details are available online at <www.csac.ucsb.edu>.

Tsuyoshi Hasegawa, professor of history, has been awarded Japan’s prestigious Yomiuri Yoshino Sakuzo Prize for his 2005 history of the end of World War II in the Pacific, “Racing the Enemy: Stalin, Truman, and the Surrender of Japan.” The award is for the best book in history or politics and has a $28,000 cash prize.

Horacio N. Roque Ramírez, assistant professor of Chicana and Chicano studies, has received a 2006-2007 Postdoctoral/Visiting Scholar Fellowship for oral history research and theory from UCLA’s Institute of American Cultures, the Chicano Studies Research Center, and the Center for Oral History Research.

Stephan F. Miescher, associate professor of history, explores the changing meaning of becoming a man in modern Africa in “Making Men in Ghana” (Indiana University Press, 2006).

Aquatic ecologist Stephanie Hampton, formerly a faculty member at the University of Idaho, has been appointed deputy director of UCSB’s National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis.

Ralph Nair, professor emeritus of education, died on June 9. The native of Newton, Kansas, was 92. He taught at, and helped administer, UCSB for 37 years before retiring in 1978 as assistant vice chancellor of student affairs. While retired he helped establish the UCSB Emeriti/Retirees Center in 1988. His wife, Imogene, died in 1995, but he is survived by companion May Seidner, a daughter, a son, five grandchildren, and eight great-grandchildren.

E. George Obern, former director of UCSB’s Office of Public Information (now Public Affairs Office), died on June 19 at his home in Santa Barbara. The Los Angeles native was 88. He was hired to direct the campus public information program in 1951 and retired with 30 years of service in 1981. Long active in the community—he was El Presidente of Fiesta in 1977—he and his wife of 64 years, Vie, were recently given a Community Service Award by the UCSB Environmental Studies Program. In addition to Vie, he is survived by a brother; two sons and a daughter; four grandchildren; and a great-grandchild.