UCI Prof. Richard Matthew speaks for the whole hour as Director of the Center for Unconventional Security Affairs (CUSA), known for making humanitarian inroads into looming local, regional, and international problems. Sustainability and Public Private Partnerships get intense scrutiny; and then on to specific ventures that demonstrate the value of bottom up, multi-disciplinary approaches – including BuildAFRICA and FloodRISE. More information for special lectures and other events presented by CUSA are available at: http://www.cusa.uci.edu/.

Guest hostess, U.C. Berkeley student Helen Kirkby, joins the show to make measure with UCI sociology professor David Meyer and UCI student Parshan Khosravi, examining student activism in California and beyond. The high cost of learning, voting behavior, news consumption, racial justice, and climate change get their attention. In the second half, Executive Director of the Environmental Nature Center, Bo Glover, launches plans for the Center’s new preschool, scheduled to start in January 2017. The curriculum will offer an alternative to sanitized early learning lessons in the burbs. Information about the Center’s preschool campaign as well as current ongoing activities is available at: http://encenter.org/.

Dr. Joshua Grill, Director of Education at UCI’s MIND (Memory Impairments and Neurological Disorders), and the Alzheimer’s Research Center, covers ongoing clinical trials at UCI and in collaborations with other health care research centers around the world. Information about enrolling in research, and upcoming events is available at: http://mind.uci.edu/. Josh Grill will return to this program on many future occasions.

Scott Martelle, journalist and author, talks about his recently published fifth book entitled, “The Madman and the Assassin: The Strange Life of Boston Corbett, the man who killed John Wilkes Booth,” on the eve of the 150th anniversary of the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln. Published by Chicago Review Press, the book is available at: http://www.chicagoreviewpress.com/ or as a premium at KUCI’s upcoming spring fund drive this April. Follow Scott @smartelle or at www.scottmartelle.com.

For the larger share of the hour, Raul Fernandez, UCI Chicano and Latino Studies Emeritus Professor and current Chair of the UC-Cubaa Academic Initiative, gives a nuanced look at the changes taking place in Cuba amidst US-Cuban rapprochement . Briefly, United Farm Workers President Arturo Rodriguez speaks in advance of the 50th Anniversary of the UFW, celebrated in Orange, CA. on 3-7-15. Mr. Rodriguez will return to the program for a longer interview in September with new initiatives planned for launch at that time. Stay tuned!