A Night At The Museum

Evening programs are becoming more ubiquitous at museums. In an effort to make the experience more user friendly, they are bringing in music, late nights, and farm fresh food to enjoy along with the exhibits.

Starting on March 30th if you are in San Francisco, try Friday nights at the de Young. Join them for the 8th season of after-hours art “happenings” that include a mix of live music, dance performances, film screenings, panel discussions, lectures, artist demonstrations, special performances, hands-on art activities and exhibition tours.

The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art stays open until 8:45 on Thursdays to give you an opportunity to enjoy the exhibits, films, and various talks.

Once a month, the entire Natural History Museum in Los Angeles stays open until 10 pm and features live music, exciting scientific discussion, and behind-the-scenes curatorial tours. Since its inception in 2004, First Fridays has been has been an immersive program designed for audiences of all ages, bringing together a dynamic discussion with scientists on the cutting edge of their fields and musical performances by fresh and innovative artists.

The Hammer Museum in Westwood stays open until 9 P.M. on Thursdays.  Besides the exhibits you can catch a talk, screening, or grab a bite at the Wolfgang Puck Cafe in the atrium.

The San Diego Museum at Balboa Park has Culture and Cocktail nights through the year.  The next one is Thursday, June 21st at 6:00 p.m. The DJ spins, exotic beverages flow, and the new exhibit The Invention of Glory: Afonso V and the Pastrana Tapestries is on view.

These are great opportunities to perk up a date night, introduce kids to museum going, or mix and mingle with other art lovers.

Emerson College Comes To Los Angeles

Boston-based Emerson College, a training ground for many in the entertainment field, is coming to Sunset and Gordon Street.

President Lee Pelton said, ”Emerson College has a very strong brand in arts and communication, and this is an opportunity to strengthen and expand that brand in Los Angeles.”  By 2014, the building will include classrooms and training facilities for 200 students, double the number now studying in rented space on West Alameda Avenue in Burbank.

Emerson College commissioned the Morphosis Firm which employs the latest in computer designed architecture to erect a building that will have 224 rooms, three levels of parking plus a cafe and shops at the street level. Among the buildings designed by Mayne and his Culver City firm Morphosis Architects are the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art building in New York, the Cahill Center for Astronomy and Astrophysics at Caltech and the Caltrans district headquarters in downtown Los Angeles.

At the Hollywood campus, Emerson juniors, seniors and graduate students will study and have internships in entertainment, media and public relations. It will offer courses during fall and spring semesters, as well as a shortened summer session.

Emerson joins other schools that have expanded beyond their original footprint, including Penn State, University of Connecticut, New York University and Texas A&M, among others. Syracuse University plans on building a similar satellite campus in Sherman Oaks, Calif.

Summer In The City

Students who stay home over the summer might reap some surprise benefits.  Without classes, after school activities, and sports practice, they can focus on getting test prep out of the way.   With one aspect of the admissions package nailed down, seniors will have ample time to fill out applications, write essays, and prepare for interviews.

Eureka Review has two solutions for the students wanting to get ahead of the curve.

Our traditional one-on-one, in-home test prep where the tutor arrives on your schedule, works around any vacation weeks, and allows ample time for practice between sessions. Expert tutors in verbal and math stay with the student for the entire program.  Students communicate with tutors between lessons to make sure that strategies are being implemented correctly.

We also offer small group 4 student classes at select high schools and independent counselors offices.  This unique program includes three Mock SATs or ACTs and covers every aspect of the test over a three-week period.  Everyone has the benefit of an individualized curriculum based on their skill level.  Eureka Review expert tutors give customized feedback for every homework assignment and diagnostic test.

There are different learning styles so while some thrive with individual attention, others will work better in a team environment. However with all the Eureka programs, students see test anxiety go down and scores go up!

Teachers Are Twittering

As new teachers enter the school system, they bring social media tools for establishing online communities.  The questions that come up for new teachers and even veterans are aired to the Twitterverse for a collaborative solution.  These teachers use tweets and hastags to problem solve.

The Washington Post did an extensive story showing how Twitter provides a useful forum.  Teachers say the camaraderie and free, instantaneous help they find through Twitter — and its steady stream of pithy messages, maximum 140 characters each — is far more useful than traditional school training programs, which often feature fixed agendas, airless rooms and canned speeches by hired experts.  The Post gave this current events example.  When news of Osama bin Laden’s death broke on a Sunday night in May, it prompted immediate and furious tweeting among social studies teachers. Within little more than an hour, they had pooled links to Web sites, documents and other resources, collaborating to write Monday-morning lesson plans aimed at helping students understand the event.

This shows the dedication of teachers who are dealing with budget cuts and increasingly large classroom populations.  After hours, they are reaching out to colleagues across the country and internationally to improve the student experience. Twitter brings them closer to each other and closer to students who have been born into the landscape of social media.

New Puppies At Eureka!

We know it’s corny and we know it’s a little cheesy, however, who can resist cute and cuddly puppies?

On the left enjoying her chew toy is Athena, the newest addition to Rob Schwartz’ household. Rob and his family were the benefactors of a breeding event that was way more successful than expected.

Ryan Kiick already had one Yorkie when he passed by a pet store at the nearby Westside Pavillion. Now he and his wife have a matching set. This cutie on the right is named Whiskey Jack.

New Credentials For New Careers

These days with more and more specialization needed in the workplace, the college diploma does not fit every need or pocketbook. Several online certificate programs are outlined in the New York Times article “Beyond The College Degree.”  With the advent of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC) and other online programs offering informal credentials, acceptable certification is the new frontier.

The first time most of us encountered online classes was either traffic school or continuing education classes. They went over material the student was already familiar with rather than teach brand new concepts or curricula. With new skills, it is much more important to ascertain that the student has mastered the subject and is capable of performing in a job setting.

MOOCs need to show that they have taken time to ensure that the student isn’t cheating by taking the class several times under different account names or having someone else take the final. Maybe webcam technology will have to become like airport security, with eyeball scanning insuring that the test taker has a unique identity.

UCLA Advertising Campaign

The New York Times reported on the new campaign to promote UCLA using the tag line, “‘A’ in U.C.L.A. Is for ‘Achievement’.” The U.C.L.A. campaign is budgeted at less than $500,000 which is a relatively small.  However we were wondering why a school that receives over 60,000 applications, accepts only 25.5% of the applicants, and can boast of a freshman class with an average GPA of 4.11 and SAT score of 2038 needs to advertise.

If they do need this type of campaign, why did they hire the Philadelphia based agency called 160 over 90 which opened a Newport Beach office six months ago?  Surely with unemployment so high in California it isn’t necessary to bring in an out of state agency. Perhaps the reason is that they were looking for expertise on how to attract more East Coast students?

Everyone in California is already sold on the UC system, and UCLA in particular, as a world class. This quest for more applicants could only be directed at out of state and international students. What remains to be seen is how many Californians will be be graduating as UCLA looks for students who pay full price for tuition.