Westwood Village Rotary Club

Meeting from September 9, 2021. Fun times - but no speaker today.

Mike Sullivan was our speaker. Mike is president of Paulist Productions. He discussed with us the book Baseball As A Road to God, by John Sexton. The book is currently in the production phase by Paulist Productions.

Rotary Club of Hong Kong's President, and our club's member until his death at age 111, Henry Tseng.

Patrick Longano and Katie Tocci describe and discuss Rotary Impact Clubs.

Our speaker, Cori Garfias, is the Group Sales and Tourism Assistant for the Getty Museum. Her presentation was about John Paul Getty and these two Los Angeles jewels - the Getty Museums.

Jennifer Noble is the Director of the Westwood Public Library. Her topics include the joys of reading; what's special about their branch; how the library can help people.

"The Mouse that Roared." Opening Rotary to women. RC Duarte vs Rotary Intl. Sanford Smith is the lawyer that sued Rotary International in 1977 when his Rotary Club of Duarte had their club charter revoked for admitting women as members. After a long hard fought battle through the State judicial system he ended up in 1987 before the United States Supreme Court with a victorious ruling. For a bit more Rotary history, have a look at the eClub of Silicon Valley's excellent program with Sylvia Whitlock, the first woman president of any Rotary Club.

Rafe Esquith, a 1981 graduate of UCLA, is a teacher who taught at Hobart Boulevard Elementary School from 1984 until his resignation in 2015. Many of his students, who were all from a community of poor and immigrant families, started class very early, left late, and typically achieved high scores in standardized tests. Esquith has authored books about teaching and his annual class Shakespeare productions were featured in the 2005 documentary The Hobart Shakespeareans. His teaching honors include the 1992 Teacher of the Year, for The Walt Disney Company's American Teacher Awards, a Fellowship from Johns Hopkins University, Oprah Winfrey's $100,000 "Use Your Life Award," Parents Magazine's "As You Grow Award," National Medal of Arts, and Esquith was made an honorary Member of the Order of the British Empire. He gave a TED talk about this subject in 2012.

Dr. John S. Mulchaey is Director and Crawford H. Greenewalt Chair at the Carnegie Observatories, Pasadena’s oldest scientific establishment and a world leader in research on the evolution of the universe. In addition, Dr. Mulchaey is Science Deputy of the Observatories’ parent organization, The Carnegie Institution for Science, where he oversees scientific developments throughout the Institution’s six departments which span the physical and biological disciplines. Mulchaey earned his B.S. in Astrophysics from UC Berkeley, and his Ph.D. in Astrophysics from the University of Maryland. He was a Carnegie Postdoctoral Fellow before joining the Observatories as a staff scientist in 1999, and served as Associate Director for Academic Affairs before being named The Observatories’ 11th Director in 2015. Today, Mulchaey oversees Carnegie’s main campus in Pasadena as well as The Observatories’ large-telescopes facility in Las Campanas, Chile. He is also on the Board for the Giant Magellan Telescope, a next-generation telescope being designed in Pasadena. Dr. Mulchaey’s research focuses on many key areas in astronomy, including dark matter and black holes. In 1993, he led the team that discovered large amounts of dark matter in the local universe, a discovery that received front-page coverage in The New York Times and a feature in Time magazine. In 2016, he appeared in the press as part of the team following a mysterious fast radio burst for the first time. He is also a frequent consultant to NASA and the National Science Foundation. Dr. Mulchaey also leads numerous Carnegie outreach and educational activities throughout Los Angeles and beyond. He created the annual Carnegie Observatories Astronomy Lectures, a popular series held each spring at The Huntington Library. He hosts astronomy nights at many schools; secured funding for the creation of science rooms at three local elementary schools; and founded a program for gifted high school science students. In 2020 he received the Helios Award, part of the international Rotary Humanitarian STAR Awards program, for his achievements in scientific education.

Our speaker today was PDG Cozette Vergari. Cozette’s topic was one with which she has become very familiar - human trafficking. Did you know that there is a Rotarian Action Group Against Slavery? Or a Global Slavery Index? How about an organization called the Polaris Project (named for the North Star, which people held in slavery in the United States used as a guide to navigate their way to freedom), or another organization called Coalition Against Slave Trafficking? Cozette was instrumental in the recent establishment of a “cause-based” Rotary e-club - D5280 Rotarians Fighting Human Trafficking - and in the creation of an online resource for Rotarians to collaborate with law enforcement agencies, elected officials and non-profit organizations in assisting victims of human trafficking (composed of both sex trafficking and labor trafficking).

A senior lecturer in the UCLA English Department, Stephen Dickey has received numerous teaching prizes, including the Distinguished Teaching Award in 1993. He teaches various courses in Shakespeare, the English Renaissance, and the Beat Generation, as well as introductory courses in poetry and drama. From 2002-16, Dickey served on the faculty of the Folger Teaching Shakespeare Institute, an NEH-supported program for high school teachers from across the country, held biennially at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C. Recent publications include works on Romeo and Juliet, the Henry IV plays, American interest in Shakespeare during the Civil War, and the katabasis motif in Beat literature. In 2016-17, he curated America's Shakespeare: The Bard Goes West at the Los Angeles Central Library.

Financial Advisers' Day: Our in-house financial experts Steve Scherer, Dwight Heikkila, Jim Crane, Nancy McCready, and John O'Keefe give their predictions for closing prices on 12-31-22 for the Dow-Jones, S&P 500, NASDAQ, 1-year treasury, and 10-year treasury, and each panelist selected a best "post pandemic stock."

Miss California 2022, Catherine Liang, was today's speaker. Liang was born and raised in Sonoma County and was the first woman from the city of Windsor to be named Miss California. In 2014, Catherine served as Miss Sonoma County's Outstanding Teen, sparking her start through the scholarship program journey. Catherine then went on to represent the state of California as the first runner up at the national Distinguished Young Women of America competition in Mobile, AL in 2017. This earned her over $38,000 in scholarships for higher education. Catherine is a 4.0 Summa Cum Laude graduate of the University of Southern California Class of 2021 with a B.A. in International Relations Global Business and a minor in Piano Performance. Catherine's future scholastic endeavors include the Schwarzman Scholars master's and leadership program.

Hump Day with PP Tom Barron and his motley crew.

Today's speaker, Jennifer ("Jen") Levy runs City Greens Farm, an educational, non-profit farm where produce is grown in a refurbished shipping container turned into a hydroponic farm. The non-profit will be partnering with the West Los Angeles Veterans Association to oversee the education and planting of the VA gardens onsite by and for Veterans. She describes herself as "an educator and environmentalist turned farmer, explorer and water conservationist."

The Emerson School Speech and Debate Team is back competing in person and they shared with us how they have been doing.

Our speaker was Isabel Wang, Co-Founder and Executive Director of The Bridging Tech Charitable Trust. Bridging Tech’s mission is to bridge the digital divide for children affected by homelessness by giving laptops for learning and educational opportunities. They strive to impact the lives of the children through tutoring and mentorship programs.

Father Tom Gibbons is making a movie about St. Junipero Serra, who is very controversial now. He has interviewed Serra scholars as well as native Americans, who are part of the controversy. Title of his talk: Junipero Serra, Statue of Limitations.

District Governor Guity Javid has been a proponent of community service throughout her life. She has been a member of Rancho Park Rotary Club since January 1991. She served as the President and numerous other positions in her club and district 5280.

Today there were two for the price of one presentations!!! Our first presenter was Sunda Croonquist, who is an American comedian. She has appeared on Comics Unleashed, Premium Blend, and The View. As a new member, she gave us her craft talk. If you missed it, you'll want to watch this video. Sunda was followed by our second presenter, Ellen Simon. Ellen has been the Executive Director of Hear Center in Pasadena since 2007, after 24 years serving as HEAR Center's Pediatric Audiologist. She holds a Masters degree in Audiology from the University of Michigan and has been an active member of Pasadena Rotary since 2008.

Captain Jonathan Tom, LAPD, discussed the issue of "Home Protection" from the Los Angeles Police Departmentperspective and other other issues of importance to the citizens of Westwood.

Susan Fitzgerald Rice is an advanced certified fundraising executive. She has her own fundraising consulting firm. She has a Masters in Public Administration from UCLA and a PhD in Education from Pepperdine U. Dr. Rice led a dialogue with John O'Keefe on philanthropy, encouraging people to experience the joys of giving back.

Sandra Molina is the Volunteer Coordinator for Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center. Prior to joining the Reagan hospital she worked at Santa Monica UCLA in the Release of Information Department for three years. She joined the Volunteer Services team in July 2011. She has had the opportunity to recruit hundreds of volunteers from various professional backgrounds and walks of life, who all share the same purpose and desire to help support our patients by providing comfort and compassion. Sandra was joined by her boss, Carey McCarthy, Director of Volunteers at UCLA Health System.

Our speakers on September 30, 2021, Zachery Coil and Maureen Rivas, are from The People Concern. The People Concern is a non-profit that works with the homeless in West LA and Santa Monica. The homeless organization, West LA Homeless, has employed TPC to come into West LA to help get people off the streets. Mike Stevenson (President & COO of West LA Homeless) spoke to our Rotary Club last August.

Emerita Professor Breen is a Member, Cousins Center for Psychoneuroimmunology, and an Adjunct Associate Professor, Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences, at UCLA. She will talk on the topic of Mind, Brain, and Immune System: It Isn't Just in Your Head.