Letters to the Editor
A More Inclusive Caltech
[The following is excerpted from a note sent by Caltech’s academic leadership to the community on July 6, 2020.]
There are times of tragedy and tumult which demand change. We are at such a time now. Over the last few weeks, we have gathered as a community in conversation and joined in town halls that have provided valuable opportunities to learn from Black students, staff, and faculty about their personal and professional experiences. We have sought and received suggestions for interventions from faculty, from students, from staff, from alumni, from the President’s Diversity Council, including Caltech’s Chief Diversity Officer, and notably from the Black Scientists and Engineers of Caltech.
History has taught us that consistent and focused attention manifests change. History also demonstrates that when attention falters, so does progress. New generations of students, postdocs, faculty, and staff find themselves confronting the same obstacles faced by earlier generations. The lesson is clear: For there to be real change, the Institute as a whole must move forward with intention, and create a future that builds on the solid foundation of our collective efforts.
Today, as the academic leadership of Caltech, we provide an update on new steps the Institute will take to ensure that we continuously create and reaffirm a campus in which it is evident, in all that we do, that Black lives matter, that Black minds matter. We strive to become an example of how a diverse and inclusive community, committed to equity, permits individuals to thrive in fulfilling the Institute’s mission of forefront research and education.
We describe in the full memo to the community investments and actions that we can undertake immediately as well as those that will require more intensive examination and consensus building among the many constituencies that make up Caltech. We intend to expand the scope of interventions as success is demonstrated.
These steps range from immediate responses to programs and plans that will unfold over time. They all will move the Institute forward. There are possibilities in this moment that we must seize as individuals, as a campus, and as a community. We are committed to a Caltech that offers the access and support to ensure that every member of our community achieves their full academic and professional potential.
Stephen L. Mayo (PhD ’88), Division Chair, BBE
Richard M. Murray (BS ’85), Incoming Division Chair, BBE
Dennis A. Dougherty, Division Chair, CCE
Guruswami Ravichandran, Division Chair, EAS
John P. Grotzinger, Division Chair, GPS
Jean-Laurent Rosenthal (PhD ’88), Division Chair, HSS
Fiona A. Harrison, Division Chair, PMA
David A. Tirrell, Provost
Thomas F. Rosenbaum, President
Happy Memories
The print copy of Caltech magazine (Spring 2020) brought me some unexpected happy memories. When I was a sophomore at the University of Colorado, I was offered a job helping Karen Simmons and Larry Esposito, scientists with the Voyager 2 team, in the lead-up to and during the Uranus flyby part of the mission. I think I worked there maybe 15 months. It was a wonderful job, where I learned a great many new things, and, what’s more, it was my introduction to NASA and space missions. Honestly, it was a lucky break that opened many doors for me later on. So it was quite special for me personally to open Caltech magazine and discover the article about Voyager 2 (where I got my start, you could say) right there alongside the article about Spitzer, the mission I’ve been part of for the last 20-plus years. I’d have missed that, very likely, if I had just Googled over to the article in your online edition.
Matt Ashby, Center for Astrophysics
Harvard & Smithsonian
Becoming Caltech
Nice winter photo (“Becoming Caltech,” Spring 2020). Pre-smog. And when the “T” was prominent on the mountain (it was still just visible, smog cooperating, during my time).
Bob Wieting (BS ’74)
In the very interesting piece “Becoming Caltech” in the Spring 2020 issue, Martin Luther King Jr. is cited after his visit to the campus in 1958. I was the student host of the Kings and maintained contact with MLK afterwards. Another issue that we addressed in our correspondence was the issue of recruiting Black students to Caltech.
I was ASCIT president in 1959–60 but failed miserably in not forcing the matter of Black and female undergraduate admission with President DuBridge. In the paragraph “Harold Brown,” it is pointed out that 10 years passed before women were admitted, but I don’t know when the first Black undergraduate arrived on campus.
Tom Jovin (BS ’60)
Editor’s Note: The first Black undergraduate at Caltech was Grant Venerable (BS ’32), who transferred to the Institute as a sophomore from UCLA.
A Lasting Mark
I was stoked to see the article featuring my Escher mural (“Off the Wall,” Spring 2020).
It looks like it’s in very good shape. I was remarking to another Techer who saw the article that the mural is the only lasting mark I left on Caltech. As such, I’ve grown increasingly proud of it, now more than ever, with the attention that’s been drawn to it.
I was inspired to dig into my old letters and found the original flyer I created as an invite to the mural completion party. I decided to echo the Metamorphose motif and transformed a checkered pattern into a glass and bottle of wine.
Thank you for the article and photograph. I’m delighted, and I feel honored.
Tom Berto (BS ’83)
PS: Here is a copy of an old letter I wrote: it was eons ago, when I visited Ruddock and saw that someone had repaired the mural. I was so happy that I wrote the Ruddock house president a letter, hoping to pass along my thanks.
June 5, 1993
Dear mural restoring Rudds:
I am writing in thanks to you for working so hard to restore the M C Escher mural "Metamorphose" in Alley One, and so stave off a literal whitewash by the Housing Office.
I painted the mural in my junior and senior years, when I was UCC of Berkeley South. Every time I visit Caltech, I swing through Ruddock (after convincing someone to let me in) and check up on it. Over the years, I've noticed it take on a certain 'ambiance' as it has been scarred, scraped, scratched, and otherwise altered by daily life occurring around it (this happened even while I was working on it, but I was able to keep up with the onslaught). Most recently, I was back at Caltech for my 10th year reunion, and noticed that the mural was looking dramatically cleaner and brighter. I talked to a couple of Rudds (didn't get their names) who explained how a group had gotten together to restore it, in order to prevent its destruction. Listening to the story of their efforts made me feel absolutely wonderful. When I returned to the dinner at the Atheneum (after ten years, they give you dinner on the front steps), I told my fellow ex-Rudds, and they were all glad to hear the story, also.
Thank you very much. What you did made me very happy!
I was in Ruddock House from 1979 to 1983. Sometime before the start of my junior year, members of an alley to be un-named painted Alley One a pastel color picked in part because of its name: "Zesty Yellow." The new members of Berkeley South promptly painted the walls white, as they had been earlier. At that time, I had the idea of painting the mural. It was in part inspired by an incomplete effort done on the same walls by an earlier Rudd, Pete Martin (also UCC of Alley One, I think). Pete's version was based on the isometric cube section of "Metamorphose", but represented a significant departure from an exact copy, albeit a departure that started a rather short trip (it only went about eight feet).
I got a poster version of the mural from some head shop catalog from Colorado, and based the mural on that. At first, others helped with the layout of the black border and with the intersecting metamorphose section at the beginning of the mural, but after a few months, it boiled down to a solo project. I used three brushes and four colors (black, white, red, and a green mixed from two store-bought shades). The majority of the mural was done by measuring photocopies of the poster and re-laying out the enlarged dimensions directly onto the wall—most of the pencil lines for this are still visible, as they add to the interest of the mural. I think I did about one honeybee larva this way, then went to using projected macrophoto slides of the various bees and larvae, adjusting the projector until a few key points of the projected image matched up with points that had been measured off the photocopies and transferred to the wall in pencil.
I'm not sure how far along it was when I went home after my junior year—I think that I was still before the bees (my junior year was like everybody's junior year). In my senior year, I had more time, and I also started to really enjoy the work, so it went faster. The farther along it got, the more excitement it generated. My recollection is that I finished it in the last day or two before my graduation in 1983—so, in a way, the mural was restored in time for ITS tenth year anniversary. I spent something over 200 hours on it. When it was nearing completion, Sunney Chan (then MOSH) sponsored a mural party in the alley, with wines, cheeses, and bread.
One of the two Rudds who talked with me about the mural pointed out how one of the restorers had added a signature, and I think also a figure to the mural, in the Mediterranean coastal town section. What's fun about that is that I also added a figure to represent myself - that of the bicyclist.
Twisted minds think alike.
Thank you again for the love and work that went into fixing the mural. I'm more proud of painting the mural than I am of passing AMa95, and it's a great pleasure to know that people like it enough to have worked to save it.
Enjoy,
Tom Berto, BS (E&AS) 1983
Wrong Galaxy!
I must point out an error in your figure caption on the Contents page of the Spring 2020 issue of the Caltech magazine. The object in the image is the Cartwheel Galaxy (PGC 2248), not the Pinwheel Galaxy (M101). Also, that image includes light from the Chandra X-ray telescope, the GALEX UV-telescope and the Hubble optical telescope.
Thanks for your attention and I appreciate receiving the magazine at home.
Don Neill
I hope I am one of several people who write in to tell you that the picture of a galaxy in the table of contents of the Spring 2020 issue is NOT Messier 101. Far from it!
I could tell at a glance that it was ESO 350-40, also known as the Cartwheel (NOT PINWHEEL) Galaxy. In fact, that may be what confused you. Someone said "Cartwheel" and you heard "Pinwheel."
Anyway, it sure isn't M 101!
Douglas B. McElroy (BS '74)
I was surprised to see that you have incorrectly attributed the picture on the "Contents" page of the spring magazine to the galaxy M101. As one of the people responsible for producing the image of the Cartwheel galaxy., not the Pinwheel galaxy as stated, when I worked on the GALEX, Hubble, and Spitzer images, I wanted to let you know of the mistake. The caption should have read:
The Cartwheel collisional ring galaxy. The image is a composite of the Spitzer Space Telescope image (red), GALEX UV light (blue), and Chadra X-ray light (purple). The Cartwheel galaxy is the result of a head-on collision between a smaller galaxy and a larger disk galaxy, leading to the formation of a giant outer and inner ring. The red light from Spitzer near-IR data emphasizes the remarkable difference between the outer blue star formatting ring containing many point-like X-ray sources and the inner dusty ring, which is mainly devoid of strong star formation.
PS: The Spitzer image of the “Pinwheel” galaxy is beautiful as well, but the one you showed just isn’t the right one!
Philip Appleton, Caltech/IPAC
Editor's Note: The galaxy was indeed misidentified. Thank you to all the careful readers who contacted us about the mistake.
A Great Guy
It is with great sadness that I read the notice of Don Cohen’s passing ("In Memoriam," Spring 2020). He was a great guy. In 1967-68, I was a first-year grad student in applied math. I got a chance to know Don by playing table tennis against him in the aero lab in Guggenheim. He told me at the time that any grad student who beat him in table tennis or tennis was guaranteed to get a PhD. Although I couldn’t touch him in tennis, I was able to beat him in table tennis. I then interrupted my graduate education by spending 2+ years in the U.S. Navy, but I did return to complete my PhD. I remember thinking as I crossed the stage to receive my diploma that I’d proved Don Cohen to be right, and his guarantee still held.
Don Brabston (PhD ’74)