it's a family affair

It was a family friendly weekend at UC San Diego as more than 1,000 parents, guardians, and other family members visited the campus, see its landmarks, works of art, new transfer housing and music hall, Birch aquarium and sustainability projects Oct. 23-25.

Although there was no shortage of activities, Anson Kwan said he planned to go to a few events with his son, Allan. "We liked going to the movies and the aquarium," he said "This is my first visit since he started school; it's nice to see how he's adjusting. It's really an opportunity to bond again." The La Jolla Light featured a story on family weekend. Click here to read more.

campus kicks off holloween celebrations tonight

Students are getting freaky this Halloween season. They don’t have to wait ‘till the 31st to start trick-or-treating, students at Muir College will meet tonight at 9:30 p.m. at Half Dome to trick or treat in the Muir Apartments. Costumes are encouraged and the first 75 to show will get a free reusable bag and free candy.

Friday UCSD is hosting its annual costume contest from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. where hundreds of members of the UCSD community try to outdo one another and win prizes.

Also on Friday is UCSD's legendary pumpkin drop. Muir College will be dropping two 200 lb pumpkins from the 11th story of Tioga Hall, the tallest building on the Muir College campus, at 12:30 p.m. Inside the pumpkin will be an assortment of individually wrapped candy which students scurry to claim. The pumpkin’s “splat” is measured each year.

Art Taken to the Sixth Level

How do you break the barrier between art and artists? Sixth College and ArtPower! have teamed up to answer that very question through the Arts6 program. The program encourages students to engage with world-renowned artists through discussion, observation and performance. The program has allowed students to dance with the Jant-Bi Dance Company, perform with the Taikoproject drummers and this Wednesday they’ll be drumming with Brazilian percussionist Cyro Baptista at the Loft.

The mission of the program is to get students to explore the college’s Culture, Art and Technology academic theme through exposure to vibrant, challenging, multi-disciplinary and multi-media performances.

Students not only get a chance to get up close and personal with talented artists from around the world, they also are given discounted tickets to ArtPower! events all year long. To learn more go here.

students fight fees by giving back

Budget cuts from the state and rising fees -- being a college student ain't easy these days, but UCSD students are taking matters in their own hands with the Act, Advocate, Give campaign. Tomorrow on library walk student volunteers will be helping fund scholarships and will raise awareness about the rising costs of education. They'll have laptops available to send online letters to our state legislators and there will be paper petitions to sign attesting to the importance of state support for higher education.They'll also be collecting donations for the Student Foundation's scholarships.

To learn more go here.

ellen creates twitter frenzy on campus

It was a Twitter Frenzy Thursday night as hundreds of students gathered at the Price Center to enter in Ellen DeGeneres’s Twitter Challenge contest. Five UC San Diego students won trips to Los Angeles and tickets to one of Ellen DeGeneres’s 12 Days of Giveaway tapings.

DeGeneres, who has more than 3.5 million followers on Twitter, started hinting to UC San Diego students Wednesday night that her show would come to campus.

Excitement started building in the Price Center about 4 p.m. Thursday when DeGeneres announced that the contest would soon begin. The crowd erupted at 5:45 p.m. when DeGeneres announced the challenge: “Students of UCSD: The first people to bring Aaron any kind of corn at the Price Center are in the running for an incredible prize.”

Winners were taken to the second floor of Price Center where the production crew was filming. DeGeneres gave the group of students the next challenge: have a picture taken of themselves wearing nothing but a red towel with someone in any kind of uniform in less than 15 minutes.

Austyn Gabig started calling her friends on campus to see if anyone could bring her towel and luckily a friend at Sixth College was doing laundry and rushed a sopping wet towel to Gabig. “I was full of adrenaline,” she said. “I found a community service officer when I walked into Price Center. My phone doesn’t have internet access, but a girl in the market took our picture and e-mailed it to The Ellen Show.”

Although she was supposed to give one prize away to the student with the best picture, Ellen decided to award all five for their efforts. Gabig is a long-time Ellen fan who went to an Ellen Show taping when she was in high school. “I really enjoy watching her show, I just think she is hilarious,” she said.

The competition airs Monday on KNSD at 3 p.m.

unbroken soldier

Justice Castaneda was 20 years old when he went to a military recruiting office. At the time, he had been involved in drugs and seen many of his close friends go off to prison.“I knew I had to get out,” he said. “I was making bad decisions, hanging out with a bad group. I was sitting inside of my friend’s car who was driving without a license when I saw the Military Recruiting Office — I knew that was where my future was headed.”

Castaneda has come a long way since then. Now a senior at Thurgood Marshall College, the 29-year-old serves as the president of the university’s Student Veteran Organization (SVO).

Castaneda grew up in a working class neighborhood in Madison, Wis. and got into the Marines “by the skin of his teeth,” he said. Castaneda spent the first year in sobriety, working as an information analyst, but quickly rose up the ranks to Sergeant in two years, and was promoted to Staff Sergeant three years later.

In 2004, Castaneda was deployed to Iraq, where he worked as a security team leader in the village of Fallujah. Now the honor student organizes events for his fellow vets on campus and also volunteers as a tutor and mentor to underprivileged youths at a local high school.

“As veterans, we’re dedicated students,” he said. “We’re older, we know what we want and we want to give back. We learned a lot from serving in the military. Now it’s our time to engage with the campus community and our fellow students.”

To read more about Justice, go here.

new mural to electify ucsd community

The campus at UCSD is brighter now that world-renowned artist Mario Torero has created the Chicano History Mural which can be found at Peterson Hall. The mural represents key elements of Mexican-American history and culture in California and feature iconic figures such as Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta. "Torero’s images are at times considered provocative by non-Latino publics and always resonate positively for those familiar with the cultures of Spanish-speaking peoples in the Americas,” said Jorge Mariscal, UCSD professor of literature and director of the Chicano Studies program. The new mural will be celebrated on Wed., Oct. 14 where Mariscal, the Chancellor and Torrero will give remarks.

Senior is Washington D.C.’s First ‘Green’ Intern

What do you do when you've already built a 20-foot long, 200-pound concrete canoe and helped install photovoltaic solar panels on the roofs of several campus structures? Well, just ask Mark Galvan who has topped himself once again by landing a job as Washington D.C.'s first green intern. I've had the pleasure of meeting Mark on a number of occasions and he's genuinely one of those cool, hard-working, dedicated and humble students.

I'm not surprised that others, such as Congresswoman Susan Davis (CA-53) and the Capitol’s chief administrative officer, Dan Beard were also impressed with him when they came to visit to UCSD. The two have given Galvan the opportunity to work in a multi-faceted internship that is the first of its kind and a unique opportunity for Mark to do what he loves, help build a sustainable future :) Click here to get the full scoop on Mark and his new gig.