We don’t talk about it. We don’t want to admit it. But racism is still here, still present, and each one of us feels its weight in some way. How can we still believe that a person’s worth can be defined by the color of their skin or where they were born? How many times have I heard, “Oh, you’re Italian? So, the mafia? Pizza? You don’t do much, do you?” Stereotypes. Labels. Concepts created decades ago that somehow still manage to stick. It’s in my bones, this feeling of being judged, of being categorized. I don’t have darker skin, but I was born Italian. I don’t deny it. I embrace it. And yet, I feel the sting of assumptions, of remarks that make me feel misplaced in a world that should have moved past this nonsense already.
The Steering Committee of the Faculty Board has recently met and approved several updates to the Honor Code process. Most of these pertain to faculty and instructors, but it is important for students to know and understand their rights.
Sandy Krasner has dedicated over 45 years to his work as a System Engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). He is also the leader of the Pasadena-Foothills chapter of Citizens’ Climate Lobby (CCL), an international nonprofit organization advocating for national and global climate action, and a Pasadena 100 climate coalition member.
You have probably walked along Catalina Ave. near Caltech or on Caltech campus and have seen the signs warning of coyote activity in the area. Perhaps you have even seen coyotes yourself on campus! I’ve definitely had my fair share of coyote sightings on campus. One day I came out of lab and walked past the lawn on S. Wilson Ave. near the Broad Center. There chilling on the lawn was a coyote by himself. I looked at him. He looked at me. I walked on the sidewalk. He sat on the lawn. When my sidewalk path neared him on the grass, I kept my trajectory clear and steady, but turned to the coyote as he watched me, and I gave him a subtle nod and said “’sup”. He looked at me, unphased and calm. I was also unphased and calm. I continued walking and he continued chillin’.
DeepSeek is a new China-based startup that has created a Large Language Model (LLM) chatbot as capable as the current industry standard, ChatGPT. DeepSeek was founded in 2023.
From random backyards and patios to overpasses and warehouses, these shows have some unconventionally cool venues. One such memorable show took place at a skatepark, where people were doing tricks on motorcycles and some guy brought a microwave into the pit. Consisting of the dry, dusty backyard of a suburban household, the “cum house” was another favorite. By the end of that concert, there was dirt under our fingernails and in the fold of our eyelids.
We are deeply saddened by the news of the passing of Jenijoy La Belle, a trailblazing administrative leader, devoted professor, and outspoken advocate for academic integrity and the rights of women. Along a career trajectory marked by keen intelligence, unyielding resolve, and passion for literature, La Belle was the first woman to be hired as a faculty member at Caltech. The indelible contributions she has made to Shakespeare, William Blake, Theodore Roethke, and 17th-century poetry remain attached to scholarship in literature.
JPL implemented its third round of layoffs in 2024 on November 13, cutting 325 employees—roughly 5% of its workforce. This latest reduction follows earlier waves: 100 contractors in January and 570 additional employees and contractors in February. As a result, JPL’s workforce now stands at approximately 5,500 employees. These job cuts stem from a funding crisis centered around the Mars Sample Return (MSR) mission, a flagship NASA initiative designed to retrieve and analyze Martian rock and dust samples on Earth.
Nicholas Winton is an English stockbroker who has a comfortable life in 1930 London but knows that Hitler’s Germany is invading Praga, Czechoslovakia; with a humanitarian group, he helps save 669 children from Nazism. Winton worked quickly to find foster families for hundreds of children—a beautiful and sad biographical story. Winton was a kind of Schindler but an English one. Nicholas saved these children, but always wondered what was going on with them. He kept this story a secret. Only the people who helped save these children knew until his wife found a scrapbook with photos of the children decades later (in 1988) and, talking to her husband, discovered the whole story. Grete, his wife, shared this story with a historian, which led to a British TV show. This widely-watched program interviewed him and allowed him to meet these “children” again, who were already adults at the time, in a very moving encounter that was the film’s climax.
I had the opportunity to hear Dr. Parker speak at my astronomy club and was greatly dismayed at how brutally and abruptly he was laid off at your prestigious institution. I worked at JPL as a temporary secretary while working on my software engineering degree in the early 1980s and loved it there.
The U.S. Department of Education issued a letter to universities on February 14th, broadly declaring all race-conscious programs illegal under federal law, including any decision affecting “aspects of student, academic, and campus life.”
In our annual review of the ASCIT Bylaws, ASCIT Board of Directors has decided to propose the following amendments. These propositions have been approved unanimously by the Board of Directors, and we now bring them to the undergraduate students to be voted into action. The Review Committee will send out voting procedures today, Tuesday, February 18th, and we want to take the time to outline the amendments that are being proposed, why they are being proposed, and elicit your vote.
