Briefs

Group promotes sustainability

The California Student Sustainability Coalition is coordinating
a new lecture series at five University of California campuses to
promote sustainability through different specialized
perspectives.

At UCLA, the course is being offered through the environment
department and begins today. Guest speakers will lecture each week
on topics ranging from ecology, politics, arts and
spirituality.

“We want to create an academic program to attempt to
articulate what sustainable living is in an academic format,”
said Michael Cox, founder of the coalition at UCLA.

Cox added that the course is an opportunity for students to
learn about the world as it truly is: interconnected and
interdependent.

There are currently 90 students enrolled at UCLA and 700
students enrolled throughout the UC.

Inmates get their diplomas

Gay inmates had something to celebrate at the Men’s
Central Jail: 15 inmates graduated after earning high school
diplomas or completing 10-week drug rehab or anger management
courses.

“˜”˜I am the most free I’ve ever
been,” one graduate said during last week’s
hourlong ceremony at the jailhouse. “˜”˜I am finally able
to like me. Today, everything is so bright, even when I close my
eyes. I died years ago, and now I’m alive.”

Despite the rite of passage, the graduates weren’t going
anywhere ““ yet.

The Social Mentoring Academic and Rehabilitative Training, or
SMART, program is available to the 350 inmates in its three
gay-only dormitories and has been a remarkable success. The
recidivism rate for graduates is very low.

During the program’s 4.5 years, fewer than one-third of
the 157 inmates who completed the 10-week life skills course have
returned to jail, said deputy Randy Bell, a former teacher who
co-founded and co-directs the program.

Before SMART, nearly 95 percent of gay inmates eventually
returned to prison.

Because of a 1985 federal court order, the county automatically
segregates gay inmates from the jail’s general
population.

Reports from Bruin staff and wire services.