Career Boost Camp Inspires Professionals to Seek Best Job for Their Skill Set

UC San Diego Alumni and UC San Diego Extension’s Center for Life/Work Strategies have teamed up to offer an inspirational and eye-opening “Career Boost Camp” that will take your career to the next level. Executives, managers and recent grads will gain a new sense of control and a conviction to energize their work style, create unique value and build a blueprint to take control of their lives.

The Career Boost Camp will take place Saturday June 2nd, 8:30 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. at the UC San Diego Institute of the Americas conference hall. Registration is $10 per person and includes breakfast and a raffle ticket for books and Extension workshops. Parking is free (recommended parking at N. Torrey Pines and Pangea Dr.).

Kicking off the morning session is Associate Vice Chancellor, Armin Afsahi, which will be followed by keynote address from Will Marré, Co-Founder of the Covey Leadership Center and Emmy-Award Winner.

According to Marré’s research, only 19 percent of professionals today are truly satisfied with their careers. He will share with you ways people are thriving in today’s job market by turning their talents and passions into value to maximize their opportunities, earnings and fulfillment.

A panel of entrepreneurs and UCSD alumni will share their journeys to building successful businesses. The experiences of these innovators range from career entrepreneurs to an alumnus who decided to start his own business after years in industry. Moderated by Lisa Gordon, San Diego Small Business Ambassador, the session will include stories from Erik Maki ’08, Founder of Maki Longboards, Joon Han ‘96, Business Strategist, and Elizabeth Kaplan ‘88, Founder of The Pure Pantry.

U-T San Diego Job & Career Columnist and Co-Author of Closing America’s Job Gap, Henry DeVries, ’79, will discuss how to grow companies and land good jobs in the age of innovation. Interviewer Elizabeth Gibson, Advisor to UC San Diego Extension’s Career Transition & Development for Professionals Program, will share her perspective along with Henry on what it takes to secure a job along a successful career path.

The event’s closing session will feature Christine Didonato, Director, Talent & Organizational Development, Sony Electronics. She’ll address the tough questions many professionals experience today: how do you get developed and promoted in a time when organizations are in the midst of constant change and have limited resources?  Through her 7 Must-Have Mindsets™ Didonato will help you to understand the unspoken beliefs to give you an edge and accelerate career progression.

To register for this though-provoking and insightful Career Boost Camp event, visit http://alumni.ucsd.edu/careerboost.

Questions? Contact ksears@ucsd.edu or (858) 534-8178.

Purposeful, Persistent, Re-Engaged, Supportive, and Life Changing

By Sarah Spicci, Director, Center for Life/Work Strategies, UC San Diego Extension, and David Narevsky, Business Analyst, San Diego Workforce Partnership

These are just a few of the adjectives used to describe the impact of the Career Transition and Development for Professionals program at the alumni networking event held at UC San Diego Extension in March.

The San Diego Workforce Partnership (SDWP) placed 185 participants in a total of 12 cohorts.  Funded through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), the Career Transition program provides a sense of community and accountability through networking, mentoring and coaching to the many degreed professionals who are in transition.  The program was designed by UCSD Extension in partnership with the SDWP in an effort to provide tools and resources for these formerly higher income wage earners to market themselves more successfully in a challenging job market.

Graduates of the Career Transition program have been very successful with approximately 70% having landed jobs.  The all-cohort networking event was a reunion of many program participants.  A panel consisting of four graduates who have “landed” shared how they went from being “in transition” into career management mode.  Camille Primm, the program’s primary instructor, moderated the panel and invited attendees to participate as well.  Participants shared success stories and acknowledged their personal and professional growth since they went through the program.

Both UCSD Extension and the SDWP have heard from a number of program participants who have successfully moved from “in transition” to fully employed.  The investment of federal funds into educating these participants has been unqualified success on many levels.  According to Sarah Spicci, Director of the Center for Life/Work Strategies, “the most-qualified candidates do not always land the position; rather, it is the candidates who know how to package their skills and communicate and market themselves the most effectively who do.”

The program has greatly assisted those in need of hope, encouragement, new skills and direction and it has helped the regional economy as well by putting tax-paying professionals back to work.  That is why the SDWP points to it as a model for aiding unemployed professionals who are trying to reenter the job market.

The next Career Transition program will begin on Monday, June 18^th. Learn more at an upcoming information session on June 4th, 9:30-10:30 a.m, 6256 Greenwich Dr., San Diego, 92122.

UC San Diego Extension offers a number of programs to assist those in transition, or those currently employed but seeking to improve their job skills. For further details on this program, or others offered through UCSD Extension’s Center for Life/Work Strategies, please contact Sarah Spicci at (858) 246-1037, sspicci@ucsd.edu, or see a list of courses offered at extension.ucsd.edu/careers.

The Top Ten Mistakes of Web Design

By Tristan Loper

There was a time when simply having an online presence was enough: businesses and creative people followed an “if they build it, customers will come” mentality.

Today’s dynamic web is virtually unrecognizable from its early days. Technology has evolved, and every corner of the Internet begs for both our attention and interaction. Because of this, ease of use is paramount to fostering visitor loyalty.

Effective user interface design allows people to easily digest web content, and the easier a site is to use, the longer people stay. “Bounce rate”—or the percentage of visitors who enter a website and leave without viewing other pages—is an important metric for both content creators and advertisers.  A high bounce rate signifies a site that doesn’t draw people in, which means fewer ad impressions. This can mean that a site has uninteresting content, or it can mean that it’s just too painful to use.

Finding the right balance between an effective website and a beautiful one can be tricky, and getting it right is often an ongoing process. Nobody wants to lose a sale or a reader, though. Fortunately for busy people, there are tried-and-true practices from our in-house expert, John Lane, that you can implement right away.

John Lane, B.A., is the principal of J. Lane Designs, a local design studio maintaining a national and international client base. In addition to teaching courses in Illustrator, InDesign and Dreamweaver, Mr. Lane is the faculty/program advisor and lead instructor for the Digital Arts Center program at UC San Diego Extension. He is also a recipient of UC San Diego Extension’s Outstanding Instructor award.

We asked John for a list of ten mistakes of web design. Here’s what he had to say:

1. Don’t Make It Hard to Read: Choose your fonts wisely; don’t use small font sizes, keep the contrast high between text and background (e.g. dark text on a light background).

2. Don’t Use Non-Standard Links: Links are the web’s number one interaction element. Violating common expectations for how links work is a sure way to confuse and delay users.

Five big mistakes for links:

• Not clear what’s clickable: for text links, use colored, underlined text (and don’t underline non-link text).
• No difference (colors) for visited and unvisited links.
• No explanation of what users will find at the other end of the link; e.g., no key information-carrying terms in the anchor text itself to enhance scan ability and search engine optimization (learn more below).
• Don’t use “click here” or other non-descriptive link text.
• In particular, don’t open pages in new windows (except for PDF files and such).

3. Don’t Use Flash: Despite good intentions, most of the Flash that web users encounter each day has no function beyond annoying people. Flash should offer users additional power and features, not a jazzed up experience. If your content is boring, rewrite text to make it more compelling; don’t make your pages move.

4. Don’t Use Content That’s Not Written for the Web: Writing for the web means making content that’s short, easily scanned, and to the point. Web content should also answer users’ questions in common language (which also improves search engine visibility, since users search using everyday terms).

5. Don’t Ignore Search Engine Optimization (SEO): Search engine optimization simply means using terms that make it easier for people to find your website when using search engines like Google. Everything else on this list is pretty easy to get right, but optimizing your site’s searchability requires considerable work and attention to best practices. The key is that it’s worth doing because search is a fundamental component of the web user experience, and it helps to separate your site from the pack.

6. Don’t Design Just for Internet Explorer: Internet Explorer is still a widely used browser, but enough people have abandoned it for Firefox, Safari, and Chrome that we all need to design our sites with all browsers in mind.

7. Don’t Make Forms Long and Cumbersome: Web users are already confronted by numerous forms – often featuring excessive questions and options. It’s important to make information gathering as smooth as possible, so cut questions that aren’t needed, make some fields optional, and allow flexible input of phone numbers, credit card numbers, and the like. Why lose orders because a user prefers to enter a credit card number in nicely chunked, four-digit groups, rather than an error-prone blob of sixteen digits?

8. Don’t Forget to Include All of Your Company Contact Information: Even though phone numbers and email addresses are the most requested forms of contact info, many people won’t consider giving money to a company with no mailing address.

9. Don’t Use Frozen Layouts with Fixed Page Widths: The worst offenders are sites that freeze both the width and height of the viewport (area in view) when displaying information in a pop-up window. Pop-ups are a mistake in their own right. If you must use them, don’t force users to read in a tiny peephole. At an absolute minimum, allow users to re-size any new windows.

10. Don’t Forget That the Web Is a Visual Medium:  One of the long-standing guidelines for e-commerce usability is to offer users the ability to enlarge product photos for a close-up view. Seeing a tiny detail or assessing a texture can give shoppers the confidence they need to place an order online. The worst mistake is when a user clicks the “enlarge photo” button and the site simply displays the same photo. Such do-nothing links and buttons add clutter, waste time, and increase user confusion.

Learn more from John Lane and other UC San Diego Extension instructors, both online and onsite, in one of our web design courses. Summer 2012 classes include Introduction to Blogging Design Software, WordPress I, WordPress II, Dreamweaver I, Dreamweaver II, and more. For details, visit http://extension.ucsd.edu/digitalarts.

Creating Good Design in the Blog World

By Tristan Loper

Graphic designers and artists are fueled by a fundamental drive to express their thoughts, ideas, and vision. Writers, for their part, write for many of the same reasons.  Although writers and artists have flirted with each other’s callings for centuries, it wasn’t until the age of communication, facilitated by the Internet, that vast, prolific, and numerous forums about design really came into their own.

Today, thousands of artists, designers, and writers run their own design blogs. They share tips like “Top Nondestructive Photoshop Techniques,” ideas, document and set trends, sell products, and show us all kinds of eye candy (like the following video entitled Rear Window Timelapse from Jeff Desom via Vimeo).

Holiday Matinee is one such blog. With writers in in San Diego, San Francisco and New York, Holiday Matinee is dedicated to “creative inspiration,” and professes to be “all about spreading positive vibes to the masses and connecting with anyone who’s committed to making this world more awesome.” Sometimes it’s a simple as that.

Blogs like Holiday Matinee work well as “media curators” – people who sift through and share interesting things online – which is especially helpful in a world that can often feel oversaturated. Recently, I interviewed Holiday Matinee contributor Catrina Dulay about this very subject. We covered everything from what makes great design, and how to run a successful blog, to a subject that preoccupies much of the Internet: cats.

Tristan Loper: How did you get into design?

Catrina Dulay: Much of my appreciation for design comes from my early interest in art. Ever since I was a child, I knew that I wanted to do something creative. I didn’t know exactly what it was going to be, but I was certain that it had to be visual because I loved creating things and living out of my imagination.

When I discovered graphic design, it didn’t take long for me to realize that I wanted to do something serious with it, so I worked on it continuously throughout middle school and high school until I eventually studied it in design school. I love it more today than I did when I started doing it, but probably not as much as I love cats.

TL: Fortunately the digital age has been good to graphic design and cats. How did you get into blogging?

CD: I got into blogging when I was in middle school, but it was really embarrassing, juvenile personal blogging. Nowadays, I just blog about things that I enjoy and things that actually matter to me. It is less painful to read (for me and the reader).

TL: What do you look for in great design?

CD: Going with Holiday Matinee’s motto, “Love your work, work your love,” I look for evidence that the designer has put love into it. I like it when I can look at a design and see how much love was put into it based on the attention to detail and how well it performs its job.

TL: Who are your favorite designers/artists?

CD: My favorite designers are Ji Lee and Paula Scher. Ji Lee has done great independent projects and editorial design, and I love Paula Scher’s environmental graphic work. My favorite artists are Gustav Klimt, Bernardo Bellotto, and Dave Gibbons. Klimt’s Byzantine-inspired work is my all-time favorite, Bellotto’s realistic treatment of urban landscapes is amazing, and Gibbons is my all-time favorite comic book artist.

TL: Blogging is often about spreading the word about what you like, from design to art, to music, food, and more. What would you say are the keys to creating a successful design blog?

CD: I think it’s not just about what material you post, but how you present it. On Holiday Matinee, we write about the things that we really enjoy, and we use language that we’d use if we were talking to our friends. It’s so much more natural to communicate our excitement about something without sounding like we’re reciting a math word problem.

TL: Once success has been achieved, how does one stay successful?

CD: In design, having a healthy interest in things beyond design is really important because narrowing your focus is never inspiring. Second, it helps to avoid putting on a protective shell to hide your deficiencies. If you can’t deal with your deficiencies properly, you’re going to have a very difficult time improving upon them. Third, be a sponge! Absorb things! Absorb things you wouldn’t be traditionally into! That’s how you make discoveries that can be used as research and inspiration. From personal experience, even the most unlikely bits of inspiration can be practical.

TL: On the website, Holiday Matinee founder Dave Brown lists “People who care about good design and social responsibility” as the #1 most important thing to him. Obviously, Holiday Matinee is all about good design. How does social responsibility tie in?

CD: Good design promotes social good by putting adding creative flair to small causes that need the attention. I think that’s why it’s important for design to be good in the first place. If good design isn’t there, it’s not design at all. It turns into visual stuff that doesn’t communicate anything. I think it’s important to remember that good design should keep people in mind and when you’re using it to promote a good cause, and it’s extra important to make sure that the message is very clear, exciting, and creative.

TL: What are some of your favorite blogs and what about them appeals to you as a consumer and a designer?

CD: Two of my most favorite blogs are Nicholas Bate’s advice blog and The Strange Attractor. What I like most about Nicholas Bate is that he writes in a seemingly haphazard way (sometimes he even writes on paper, scans it, and posts it as an entry). It’s almost as if he thinks about something on the spot and publishes it immediately, even if it’s just two sentences or a few effective words about idea making, work habits, and accomplishing things. He doesn’t think twice about it! He just writes.

The Strange Attractor is a design blog I’ve been following for a while, and one of the things I’ve noticed about it is that I consistently see content that I’ve never seen re-blogged or re-posted anywhere else. It’s very refreshing, and for that reason, I’m always looking forward to what the blog contributors post every day. Other informative blogs I enjoy are The Simple Dollar (a money advice blog) and Unclutterer (an organization and cleanliness blog). The Simple Dollar is neat to follow because I’m always trying to find ways to save money, which is very important for someone who is always tempted by nice products that are posted on blogs all over the place. I love Unclutterer because it helps me improve the way I get things done every day.

TL: What advice would you give to new bloggers?

CD: Don’t talk about yourself too much, keep it simple, and write about things that matter to you.

UC San Diego Extension offers classes in graphic design, web design, and blogging, so you can start taking Catrina’s advice to heart right away. Spring 2012 classes are open now, and include a range of courses including WordPress I, Adobe Dreamweaver I, Web Design: XHTML & CSS for Designers, Digital Media, Adobe Photoshop I and more. Get a solid, working knowledge of essential design skills while you learn the top software for developing attractive, well-functioning web sites and blogs.

The Titanic Arrives Next Week

Carl H. Larsen, long-time San Diego journalist and freelance writer, is a resident expert on the Titanic disaster. He has visited many of the sites tied to the fatefully sunken ship. He is teaching a course starting in April on the disaster, The Unending Voyage of the Titanic, to explore the Titanic story from the ship’s creation, through its sinking, its discovery on the ocean floor—and its continuing hold upon us today. One class meeting includes a guided tour of the San Diego Natural History Museum’s Titanic exhibition, where enrolled students will get into the exhibit at a substantial discount. Other class meetings will feature guest speakers such as UC San Diego literature professor Steven Cox, and Barbara Chronowski, a San Diego actress who worked on the Cameron movie in Baja California for six months, has since become another Titanic “rivet counter,” giving talks about working on the film, the ship, and the expected roles of “first class” women during the Edwardian period.

Both in pursuit of his passion and to prepare for the anniversary, Larsen has been wading through the 90-plus new books due to publish in conjunction during the anniversary of the shipwreck.

“The books come in all varieties,” he notes, “from an examination of gay passengers and crew aboard the ship to a new Sherlock Holmes mystery set aboard the Titanic and which involves a submarine.”

First, the class will discuss a pictorial summary of the Titanic story by the editors of Life magazine. Larsen notes, “With Titanic, you usually see the same photos over and over, but the Life editors have scoured photo archives and have found some gems I hadn’t come across, including an overview of the extravagant funeral procession held for John Jacob Astor IV, the wealthy American who died in the disaster.”

Next, John Maxtone-Graham, the dean of authors who write about ocean liners, has detailed the use of the Titanic’s Marconi “wireless” system to summon rescue ships.

And, finally, historian Hugh Brewster takes a deeper look at the careers and lives of many of the first-class passengers, including one who was a well-known artist leading the committee evaluating designs for the Lincoln Memorial.

Larsen recently attended a San Diego preview of the James Cameron film “Titanic,” being re-released in early April, this time in 3D. “It’s much more vivid,” he said. “Especially Gloria Stuart, the actress who portrays Old Rose. And, the post-sinking scene of hundreds flailing in the 31-degree ocean brings home the enormity of what happened.”

Take some time to discover the many ties San Diego has to the Titanic’s tale, hear special details and tidbits about the hands-on history from those who know the tale, stem to stern, and discuss how this epic disaster has come to be “one of the great mythic events of the 20th century,” often recreated in literature, music, film and theater.

Carl Larsen, MS in Journalism from Northwestern University Medill School of Journalism, is a freelance travel writer. A longtime San Diego journalist and a former section editor at the San Diego Union-Tribune, he currently writes for Creators Syndicate. His most recent excursions have included travels to the UK and N. Ireland on the Titanic Trail. He is teaching The Unending Voyage of the Titanic, starting Wednesday, April 4, 2012.

Finding a Place for Jane (Austen)

By Peter Clark

Jane Austen created some of the most memorable characters ever to appear on literature’s grand stage. Born in 1775—the year marking the start of the American Revolution—she lived during the age of the French Revolution and Napoleon, but her characters rarely talk about or even allude to these massive turning points in European and American history. For that reason,  she has been labeled,  mainly by male critics, as a miniaturist,  as opposed to such 19th century titans as Tolstoy or Dostoevsky who focused on some of the major movements of their day. However, since when is human nature a small subject?

Jane Austen’s continuing appeal to all ages comes from the fact that she writes about real human beings in such depth and with such artistic wit and irony. In some ways, Austen herself is an enigma, a spinster aunt who never rubbed shoulders or exchanged ideas with the literary elite of Regency England. She never married and perhaps was courted just a time or two, yet every scene involving Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy—even when they seem to dislike each other—crackles with romantic energy and tension. Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy seem to Austen’s millions and millions of followers in countries around the world as real people, not simply make-believe characters in a novel. Her characters pop off the pages and walk around your home as if they were members of your family.

Though she lived only 42 years, four of her six books—Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, Persuasion and Emma—are classics that appeal to one generation after another and which seamlessly translates into movies. Why? Because she is a master of dialogue, so much so that directors usually let the books tell the story without changing so much as a noun or pronoun. Not even Shakespeare invented a comical character as hilarious and entertaining as Reverend Collins in Pride and Prejudice, whose pompous vocabulary and toadying to his superiors leaves us in awe of Austen’s wit and her mastery of irony.

Other authors, nearly all of them male, often discounted Austen’s writing. Henry James underrated her work, sniffing that she accidentally found her metier and produced tolerably decent novels dealing with the manners and morals of the English country gentry, but of course nothing like his more “sophisticated” books. Mark Twain claimed he hated Austen’s novels, although his famous line (“I hated Pride and Prejudice the first time I read it and still hated it after a sixth reading”) suggests otherwise in ironic fashion.

Peter Clark earned a Ph.D. in History and Literature from the University of California-Berkeley. He has taught numerous courses in both subjects for the UC San Diego Extension program, including courses in English, Russian and American literature. He is currently teaching The Genius of Jane Austen which begins April 12, 2012.

Please note, in a previous version, a research paragraph was added by an editor that lacked proper attribution and was included without Dr. Clark’s knowledge. We apologize for the error. It has been corrected in the current version.

Free Workshops at Career Development Night, 3/22

UC San Diego Extension will host its 4^th annual Career Development Night, where attendees can sit in on free workshops, meet Extension program managers, and learn how they can advance their careers. The event takes place this Thursday, March 22^nd, 5:00-7:30 p.m. at UC San Diego Extension’s University City Center, off the I-805 at Governor Dr. (map).

Will Marré, inspiring thought-leader and co-founder of the Steven Covey Leadership Center, will teach you how to tap into your potential to land a successful career you love in his 5:15 p.m. session. Today only 19% of us are satisfied with our careers, but you can change that. Discover how people are thriving in today’s job market by turning their talents and passions into value to maximize their opportunities, their earnings, and fulfillment. Take Marré’s Career Quiz to see if this session is right for you. Or, sign up for his 3-session class, which starts Thursday, April 12^th: How Your Unique Design Will Help You Reboot Your Career.

Phil Blair, CEO of Manpower will be speaking at 6:30 p.m. on Strategies for Success: What HR Won’t Tell You. His pragmatic, insightful and entertaining presentation will address the three essentials you need to know for every job search and interview. As one of San Diego’s most visible and respected business leaders, Blair will share with you how to read between the lines and discover what HR is really looking to find.

Additional speakers at Career Development Night include, Tom Greifendorff from Mitchell International, James Gharib, Senior Director of Technology Development from NuVasive, Natasha Balac, Director of Data Applications from the San Diego Supercomputer Center, and Recruiters from Time Warner Cable, ESET, HD Supply, Life Technologies and SAIC.

Career Development Night attendees will receive vouchers for $25 off a spring course enrollment.*

*Discount restrictions apply: Discount valid only for those who attend the event (attendance is recorded at check-in table).  Discount applies only to Spring 2012 courses in the following areas of study: Business, Engineering, Law, Leadership and Management Development, Life Sciences, and Information Technology. Expires Friday, March 30, 2012.

To sign up for Thursday’s event, visit extension.ucsd.edu/careernight.

Quiz: Is My Career Right For Me?

By Will Marre

Research confirms that your career is the cornerstone of your personal well-being. Yet sadly less than two in ten people are fully engaged with their work.

Take this short, 10-question quiz to see if your career is right for you. This spring’s new course, “How Your Unique Design Will Help You Reboot Your Career,”  course could transform your life.

Discover where to invest your time and energy to attain your best future.

Quiz:

1. Do you find yourself looking forward to going to work?
   Yes, frequently
   No or very rarely

2. Do you consistently engage yourself in new activities that make your work more fulfilling and enjoyable?
   Yes, every week or every other week
   No or very rarely

3. Do you work with good friends that you trust and encourage you?
   Yes
   No, not really

4. Are you actively developing your strengths and talents to get more out of work and life?
   Yes, consistently
   No

5. Do you have a low stress work style that is enjoyable in terms of its pace, variety, and growth?
   Yes, usually
   No, rarely

6. Do you usually have high energy and feel fit and healthy?
   Yes, usually
   No, not as often as I’d like

7. Are you in a highly satisfying relationship with your boss that makes you feel valued and affirmed?
   Yes
   No

8. Are you frequently coming up with and taking action on new, creative ideas to make both your work and your life better?
   Yes, frequently
   No, rarely

9. Are you clear that the career you’re investing yourself in is the right one for you?
   Yes, I am clear and happy
   No, I often wonder about it

10. Do you have an excellent coach or expert friend that helps you make great decisions about your work and your life?
    Yes, I talk to him/her every week
    No, I try to figure it out on my own

Score:
# No
# Yes

This quiz is based on the forces of the new science of Life Harmony, which studies human thriving when our careers, relationships, and lifestyle are aligned.

Understanding Your Score

• If your Yes score is 9 or above: Congratulations.  You are in the top 10% of people who are thriving in their work and consistently taking action to keep their life progressing in a fulfilling and rewarding direction. Why you should take the class: As a hungry learner your thirst for development will be maximized by the quick and efficient tips, techniques, and insights you will receive over three fast paced sessions.  And you will likely enjoy encouraging and inspiring others to achieve what you’re achieving.
• If your Yes score is 7 or 8: Be encouraged.  You are very close to having self-inspiring career.  Your score means you have a lot of things right and just a series of small, consistent changes may add up to a big change in how you feel about your career.  Your score may reveal a certain area you can focus on that the new skills and science based know-how that you will learn from the course will help you conquer.  You are close.  Join us.
• If your Yes score is 6 or below: You are a member of a very big club of the vast majority of people who are suffering every day with stress and uncertainty wondering what to do.  Our “Reboot” course is designed to free you from the little, invisible mistakes you are likely making and give you the power to change your work, improve your performance, and remodel your career into a more fulfilling, and enjoyable one virtually every day.  Our Career Center is a growing community of people just like you that are making positive, life-fulfilling changes every day.  There will never be a better time to free yourself from whatever is in your way.

Will Marre’s next class, “How Your Unique Design Will Help You Reboot Your Career,” begins Thursday, April 12th from 5:30-7:30 p.m. at UCSD Extension University City Center, 6256 Greenwich Dr., San Diego.  The class meets three times (4/12, 4/23 and 5/7).  Fee is $95, and includes eight assessments. Parking is free.

Will Marré is the co-founder and former president of the Covey Leadership Center where he translated the concepts of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People into powerful leadership courses taught to millions of executives worldwide.   Today Will is an evangelist of socially strategic enterprise that transforms Corporate Social Responsibility into Corporate Social Opportunity. Will is founder and CEO of ThoughtRocket, a learning community systematically designed to center your life around your personal purpose so that you have enriching work, fulfilling relationships, and a lifestyle of full engagement. Read more about Will

UC San Diego Extension’s Center for Life/Work Strategies is a nexus of resources to help professionals manage their short and long-term career paths. As the job market has fundamentally changed, so must the way in which people approach their employment—it’s up to individuals to understand and build upon their strengths and develop a plan to meet their career goals.  Workshops, assessments, coaching and online careers resources are available at extension.ucsd.edu/careers.

Spring Arts Spree Presents “MLK: The Man Behind the Myth”

Join in on UC San Diego Extension’s annual Spring Arts Spree and attend a free lecture, March 21, 7 p.m., entitled Martin Luther King, Jr.: The Man Behind the Myth, presented by Rabbi Ben Kamin, a nationally-renowned expert on race relations and civil rights. Explore the conflicts and contradictions that plagued this extraordinary man, the guilt and anguish which haunted him even at the moments of his greatest successes, the darkness that oftentimes weighed down the man who shed such an intense light on what it means to be a human being. No matter how much or how little you know about MLK, you owe it to yourself to be there.

- Stan Walens, Program Representative, Humanities & Performing Arts, UC San Diego Extension

Dr. King and Me

by Ben Kamin

For some 44 years, I have carried a memory in my head, an ache, a yearning—to help fulfill, in some small way, the mission of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. The intonation of his unique and historic ministry lives in every book I write, every sermon I preach, every time I eulogize, bless, name, or marry someone. All the emotional and doctrinal rivers of my life run into the sea of his plaintive oratory; his anguish for a nation in need of moral outrage, his unbridled disdain for war, and even his profound personal loneliness inform my life as a father, husband, community worker, and certainly as a rabbi.

People ask me, why do you care so much about this Dr. King—you are a Jewish leader after all and shouldn’t you have been inspired by a Talmudic sage or at least another rabbi? And I respond that Martin King was both of these and more. The power and vision of his rhapsodic journey transcend any denominational context even as God cannot be reigned down by any one religion.

The triumph of his painfully short duration as the conscience of this nation, from the Montgomery bus boycott of 1955 to the Memphis sanitation workers strike of 1968, was that this reluctant “drum major for justice,” this rather small, almond-eyed man who was given to depression and who so feared death, converted the scripture into ethics. And so the morning after his assassination, when I was a 15-year old sophomore at Cincinnati’s racially-charged Woodward High School, I was changed forever. My black classmate and close pal, Clifton Fleetwood, skinny, mischievous, wickedly funny, literally pushed me away from a fiery demonstration by 400 grieving African American students—chastising me that “No, Ben, this is not for you.” But it was, and remains for me; I am inextricably locked into the essence of MLK.

Clifton would find out 36 years later, after I searched for and found him (and the reason he said such a thing), that this rejection led me to a path from which I have never strayed. My account of this quest, set against the background of the churning, frightening, yet redeeming 1960s, and the imprint of King’s life and death became my 2010 book, Nothing Like Sunshine. Having spoken about Dr. King in countless community and academic settings, made deeply personal pilgrimages to his tomb in Atlanta and the former Lorraine Motel in Memphis, having written about his legacy in The New York Times and as a regular columnist for The Cleveland Plain Dealer, I was invited to launch this book at the National Civil Rights Museum—Lorraine Motel in Memphis.

Next month, I return to the Museum, and its sanctified balcony where Dr. King was felled by a bullet, to launch my newest book, ROOM 306: The National Story of the Lorraine Motel. During these last several years, I have commiserated with so many of King’s closest colleagues and protégés—brave men and women, from Rev. James Lawson, the Gandhian leader of the Memphis garbage men’s strike to Maxine Smith, the indomitable NAACP director, to Clarence B. Jones, King’s personal attorney and drafter of the I Have A Dream preachment to Dorothy Cotton, the director of education of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference to Rev. Samuel “Billy’ Kyles, who was standing next to King at the moment of the assassination. I also value a close association and partnership with Prof. Clayborne Carson, director of the King Institute at Stanford University.

These remarkable people and others like have become my friends and teachers. They have allowed me to live a heartbeat away from my spiritual mentor. No, Clifton, this was for me.

Rabbi Benjamin Kamin (D.D., Hebrew Union College), author of Nothing Like Sunshine: A Story in the Aftermath of the MLK Assassination, is a nationally-known teacher, counselor, and author (7 books and over 250 newspaper articles), and a frequent presence on radio and TV. He serves on several national boards dealing with community affairs and interfaith relations.

Celebrating a Decade of Jazz Education at UC San Diego

SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA — UC San Diego’s division of Extended Studies is proudly sponsoring the tenth year of Jazz Camp on its La Jolla campus June 24-29, 2012. A five-day summer program designed for intermediate to advanced musicians ages 14 to adult, UC San Diego Jazz Camp offers a diverse, one-of-a-kind journey into the world of jazz workshops, private lessons, faculty concerts and more. Each year, more than 50 students, ranging in age from 14 to 73, and in conjunction with more than fifteen local, national and internationally-known jazz musicians, immerse themselves in an action-packed week of classes, jam sessions, and concerts.

In support of scholarships for the 2012 camp, UC San Diego is hosting an all-ages camp alumni concert led by three-time camp alumnus Joshua White on piano, fellow alumnus Fernando Gomez on drums and camp faculty member Rob Thorsen on bass, who will be joined by a variety of guest alumni soloists. The concert takes place on Sunday, March 18, 2012, 4-6 p.m. at the Conrad Prebys Music Center on UC San Diego’s campus. Tickets are $15 for the public, $10 for students, and all proceeds go toward the scholarship fund for the 2012 edition of the camp. Parking is free on Sundays in the Gilman Drive Parking Garage. Visit extension.ucsd.edu/spree, or call (858)534-3400 to register in advance, or attendees can pay at the door (cash only, please).

Several UC San Diego Jazz Camp alumni made it into the national spotlight in 2011. Joshua White, alumnus of the camp in its first three years from 2003-2005, won second place and a $10,000 prize in the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz’s International Competition, the jazz world’s most prestigious annual awards honor. He was selected as one of the three finalists by an all-star panel of judges that included such jazz piano icons as Herbie Hancock, Ellis Marsalis and longtime James Moody Quartet pianist Renee Rosnes.  Another camp alumnus, Chase Morrin, took first place in the Open Combo Division at the Monterey Jazz Festival’s Next Generation Festival along with fellow alumni Fernando Gomez and Tyler Eaton.  Morrin, who is a skilled composer, also took the top prize for his piece, “Mumphis” which was performed at the 54th Annual Monterey Jazz Festival by the Next Generation Jazz Orchestra.

More information about UC San Diego Jazz Camp is available at jazzcamp.ucsd.edu, or inquiries can be made via email, jazzcamp@ucsd.edu, or phone (858)534-5760. Registration closes for the 2012 session on May 24^th.