SUBJECT:

1994-95 Salary Range Adjustment for Student Classes (Assistant I - III)

In December you were notified of proposed salary range increases for the student
classifications of Assistant I, II and III. The Office of the President
recently announced approval of these range increases retroactive to October 1,
1994 (September 25 for students paid biweekly). Ranges have been increased by
2.2% except for the minimum of the Assistant I range which remains the same.
The new salary ranges are:

   Assistant I   $4.25  -  $5.78/hour
   Assistant II    $4.92  -  $7.41/hour
   Assistant III   $6.17  -  $9.26/hour

These classification have "By-Agreement" rates, therefore, individuals do not
receive an automatic range adjustment unless an increase is required to bring
their rate up to the minimum of the range established for the class.
Departments are requested to submit PAFs with retroactive adjustments for any
students whose rates were below the newly established minimums and process rate
adjustments on the PTRs for the difference.

The rate paid to individuals in these classes may be adjusted within the range
at the discretion of the department. The following criteria are provided to
guide departments in determining the timing and amount of any increase they
recommend:

A. The timing of increases should be in accordance with the casual increase
policy (SPP 305.28); and

B. The increase may be any amount in terms of whole cents per hour and whole
dollars per month up to an amount equaling a maximum of 4.7%.

Rogers Davis Assistant Vice Chancellor - Human Resources

February 14, 1995

Media Contact: Warren R. Froelich, (619) 534-8564

DEVELOPMENTAL BIOLOGIST APPOINTED FIRST HOLDER
OF CHANCELLOR'S ASSOCIATES CHAIR IN BIOLOGY

   Michael Levine, professor of biology at the University of
California, San Diego, has been named the first holder of the
$500,000 endowed Chancellor's Associates Chair (IV).
   Levine's appointment is effective immediately and will
continue until he ceases to hold a full-time, tenured
professorship at UCSD. Funds for all five Chancellor's Associates
Chairs are unrestricted and set aside to recruit or retain
exceptional faculty members.
   "I am delighted that Professor Levine was selected to hold
this Chancellor's Associates Chair" said Chancellor Richard C.
Atkinson. "With the recognized excellence of our Biology
Department, it is a tribute to Professor Levine that he is the
first member of the department named to an endowed chair."
   Levine, who joined the UCSD faculty in 1991, has been trying
to find out how patterns are formed in living organisms--one of
the fundamental questions in the field of developmental biology.
In essence, the goal of developmental biology is to determine how
a single cell--the fertilized egg--forms a complex individual
composed of different and highly complex tissues and organs.
   Levine has devoted most of his career studying Drosophila
melanogaster (the fruitfly) to identify the "master regulatory"
genes that control development.
   "Interestingly, many of the genes that control the fruitfly
embryo are evolutionarily conserved and have been implicated in
the embryonic development of a wide variety of organisms,
including humans," he said.
   Among other things, Levine will use some of the funds from
the endowed Chair to start a new research project involving a
marine organism called Ascidians, or sea squirts. Originally
considered a primitive species (thought by Aristotle to be little
more than mollusc), scientists have learned that sea squirt
embryos actually are quite sophisticated.
   Like a frog or juvenile fish, they have a tadpole stage.
Like vertebrates, they feature a structure similar to a backbone
called a notochord around which a spinal column, muscles and
organs are organized.
   What's more, the tadpole is composed of only about 1,000
cells, making it far easier to study than say, a frog, which is
built from hundreds of thousands of cells. In fact, the notochord
of a sea squirt consists of a mere 40 cells.
   "We can therefore follow every one of these cells from their
beginning," said Levine. "We can follow the origins of each of
the cells that make up the notochord, from the very beginning,
right at fertilization."
   Insights gained from such studies could help scientists
learn more about how higher organisms develop, which ultimately
could be important for understanding what happens when such
processes go awry in humans.
   "How a fruitfly is patterned, how a sea squirt embryo is
patterned, is directly relevant to people, " said Levine.
   Prior to joining UCSD, for about seven years Levine was a
professor and assistant professor of biology at Columbia
University. His honors include a Jane Coffin Childs Postdoctoral
Fellowship, a Searle Scholars Research Fellowship, and an Alfred
P. Sloan Fellowship.
   Levine has published more than 80 research articles, book
chapters and reviews; he also is managing editor of Development;
on the editorial board of Cell and Genes and Development; and is
a director of the embryology course at the Marine Biology
Laboratory (MBL) at Woods Hole, Mass.
   Born and raised in Los Angeles, Levine obtained his
bachelor's degree in biology from UC Berkeley in 1976 and his
Ph.D. in molecular biophysics and biochemistry from Yale in 1981.
From 1982 to 1983 he was a postdoctoral fellow in Switzerland;
the following year he returned as a postdoctoral fellow at UC
Berkeley.