IN THE NEWS:
Academics
Feb. 1, 2026 9:25 p.m.
Daniel Walker Howe, the former chair of UCLA’s history department and a Pulitzer Prize winner, died Dec. 25 at 88 years old. Howe – a historian of 19th-century religion – studied religious movements and their impacts on American culture. (Courtesy of the Howe family)
Daniel Walker Howe, the former chair of UCLA’s history department and a Pulitzer Prize winner, died Dec. 25. He was 88 years old.
Howe was a faculty member in UCLA’s history department from 1972 to 1993 and served as the department’s chair from 1983 to 1987.
By Zachary Turcios
Los Angeles
Aug. 27, 2025 8:06 p.m.UCLA alumnus, Catch One founder, HIV/AIDS activist Jewel Thais-Williams dies at 86
Jewel Thais-Williams, a UCLA alumnus, the founder of LGBTQ+ nightclub Jewel’s Catch One and an HIV/AIDS activist, died July 7. She was 86.
Thais-Williams opened Catch One on West Pico Boulevard in 1973 to serve as “a sacred space” for underserved communities of color, said Donald Kilhefner, who was a close friend of Thais-Williams for more than 40 years.
By Caitlin Brockenbrow
A Closer Look
May 15, 2025 9:51 p.m.Sandra Harding, pioneering feminism scholar and former UCLA professor, dies at 89
Sandra Harding, a former distinguished professor of education and gender studies, died March 5. She was 89.
Internationally recognized for developing “standpoint theory” – which frames science as shaped by cultural and social contexts rather than as purely objective – Harding’s work critiqued classic academic theories that often overlooked the impacts of race, gender and ethnicity on knowledge production and the practice of science.
By Vivian Stein
Campus
Aug. 10, 2024 7:07 p.m.The Rev. James Lawson Jr., civil rights activist and labor educator, dies at 95
This post was updated Aug. 11 at 10:14 p.m.
The Rev. James Lawson Jr. – a civil rights activist, UCLA faculty member and the namesake of a UCLA Labor Center building – died June 9.
By Celia Powers
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