June 9, 1995 Contact: Francine Tyler (408/459-2495)

UC SANTA CRUZ TO HOST A VARIETY OF SUMMER CONFERENCES

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

SANTA CRUZ, CA--The Conference Office at the University of California, Santa Cruz, will host more than 50 conferences, symposia, meetings, institutes, and camps this summer, on subjects ranging from Summer Bridge, a program to acquaint incoming freshmen with UCSC, to invertebrate reproduction.

The ten-week conference season is expected to bring roughly 13,000 visitors to the campus between late June and early September. Some conferences introduce a diverse group of students to UCSC and promote enrollment. Others feature faculty and staff in their areas of expertise. Approximately 60 percent of summer bookings come from UC Extension, UCSC Summer Session, and academic programs sponsored by faculty and staff. Youth groups, businesses, sports teams, and government and professional organizations make up the remaining 40 percent of bookings.

The conference program generates roughly $3 million each year for UCSC. In addition to purchasing food and professional services from the campus, conference guests occupy the 2,400 beds at the campus's eight residential colleges during the season. The income generated helped to offset room-and-board rates charged to UCSC students by about $200 last year. The conference program also employs more than 30 students.

Some of this year's conferences include:

-- "Reading Our Mutual Friend: Charles Dickens and Serial Production" (June 25-July 29). At this conference, twenty-five high school and community college teachers will read Dickens's last complete novel in serial installments and discuss the social and political context of the work. The conference is supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities grant and presented by the Dickens Project.

-- West Coast Dowsers (June 29-July 5). An annual conference on the art of finding water, oil, and gold with a diving rod, West Coast Dowsers brings approximately 110 people to campus each year. A dowsing school will be offered Friday, June 30, for people interested in learning how to dowse.

-- Summer Bridge Program (July 8-August 11). This challenging five-week academic program prepares incoming freshmen for college-level work at UCSC. One hundred students will take part in the program, which includes academic, social, and cultural activities designed to help students become familiar with the campus.

-- Marine Activities, Resources, and Education (MARE, July 9- 21). This twelve-day residential institute offers hands-on instruction for teachers using the MARE program, a marine science- based curriculum for students in kindergarten through eighth grade. UC Berkeley's Lawrence Hall of Science sponsors this conference, which features guest speakers, fieldwork, and leadership training for 40 teachers from northern California schools.

-- Camp Santa Cruz (three one-week sessions, July 16-August 4). As many as 85 children ages eight to fifteen will come to UCSC each session for a week of tennis, volleyball, jazz dance, martial arts, sailing, and a variety of other sports-related activities. UCSC teachers and coaches, and other instructors lead the camp; evening activities include a trip to the Boardwalk, a beach barbecue, and a talent show and dance.

-- Dickens Universe (July 30-August 5). Scholars, graduate students, teachers, and the general public will focus on Great Expectations by Dickens and Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte during the annual conference, which is sponsored by the Dickens Project.

-- The Seventh International Congress on Invertebrate Reproduction (August 5-11). More than 250 people from around the globe will attend this conference on the reproductive biology of invertebrates. This is the first time the international congress has met in the United States since 1979.

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