UCI officials are planning a multiyear, comprehensive fundraising campaign that could have a goal of raising $1 billion. This would be the first time UCI has attempted such an ambitious campaign, which is a regular feature at some big schools. (UCLA raised $3 billion in a 10-year campaign completed in 2005, and the Daily Bruin reports a new campaign could launch in 2012.) An official noted UCI cleared $100 million in fundraising in both 2006 and 2007 and “We want to keep that going despite the downturn in the economy” …
Meanwhile, there’s evidence UCI is becoming more of a party school: The annual Medal Awards is being stretched over two evenings. Nobel laureates, Pulitzer Prize winners, captains of industry and other past medalists will be recognized on Oct. 3, while an Oct. 4 gala will honor new recipients,Advanced Medical Optics’ chief Jim Mazzo, emeritus neurology prof Stanley Van Den Noort and former campus power couple now lighting up Washington, D.C., Ralph and Carol Cicerone. Surf band Papa Doo Run Run, artists from Syria, the Pacific Symphony and UCI students will entertain …
Henry Samueli’s PR advisers for his legal battle with the feds over Broadcom’s options backdating: to handle national media, New York-based Rubenstein Public Relations; to handle local media, former L.A. Times OC marketing director Bill Furlow …
Dueling fundraisers Wednesday night: John McCain at the Irvine Marriott, $1,000 a ticket; former ambassador Joe Wilson of the Plame-CIA leak affair, at Oak Canyon Park near Irvine Lake, for Dem congressional candidate Ron Shepston, $35 a ticket …
Irvine Assemblyman Chuck DeVore’s crusade to repeal California’s 32-year ban on nuke-plant construction has so far been short-circuited by Democrat lawmakers and anti-nuke activists. But suddenly he’s getting juice from unlikely sources. The conservative Republican recently penned a scholarly article on nuclear energy as a solution to global warming for UC Berkeley’s new ecology law journal. DeVore got another boost last week at the UCI-Milken Institute-New Majority Energy Alternatives conference at The Island Hotel. He touted nukes and dissed ethanol in a presentation to scientists, businesspeople and policy wonks. Moreover, he drew encouragement from a passing remark by none other than Jerry Brown. During a rambling, entertaining speech, the Democrat attorney general said, “We gotta look at nuclear.” Brown was gone by the time DeVore got to the podium, but DeVore seized on the comment, noting the irony that it was Brown who as governor in 1976 signed the nuclear-plant ban. He quipped that Californians love to recycle and may recycle Brown back into the governor’s office. Earlier this year, current Gov. Arnold said, “I think nuclear power has a great future.” But Schwarzenegger avoided the topic in his 10-minute address at the conference. He mentioned “solar” five times, “renewables” three times and “body building” once, but never uttered the N-word.
