Closer To Division Day
Brie Hoffler
"This college will have a crucial voice in shaping the future of our campus," said Catherine Koshland, UC Berkeley's interim executive vice chancellor and provost. "We look forward to working with the Division of Computing, Data Science, and Society and colleagues across campus and the UC system to successfully transform CDSS into a visionary college that continues to lead in research and education in this complex interdisciplinary field, demonstrates the value of our public mission, and meets the growing interests of our diverse students."
Today, the division includes the Data Science Undergraduate Studies program, the School of Information, the Department of Statistics, the Berkeley Institute for Data Science and the Center for Computational Biology. It also shares the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences with the College of Engineering and D-Lab with the Social Sciences Division.
These committees and other efforts were led by individuals from fields ranging from the statistics to history departments. Ultimately, faculty urged university leadership to create one unit centered on computing, data science and society to help existing programs excel and foster interdisciplinary collaboration.
The university is more than 80 percent of the way to its $6 billion Light the Way Campaign fundraising goal, part of which includes the construction of the Gateway. The Gateway building will be the home of the proposed college.
The proposal is expected to be drafted by next spring. Christ and the advisory committee will review before submission into the formal proposal review process. The formal process includes a campus administrative and Academic Senate review before moving to a systemwide administrative and Senate review. If both campus and systemwide groups approve the proposal, it will be forwarded to the UC Board of Regents for final approval.
Div. 33 (Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities) has launched a yearlong membership drive to draw more members and graduate students interested in autism to the division, which has a traditionally strong focus on autism practice and research, among other areas.
"Some of the most exciting, creative research happening anywhere is happening in autism," says Div. 33 President Sara Sparrow, PhD, of the Yale Child Study Center at Yale University. "Psychologists who work with autism need a forum at APA and there isn't one--but we should be it."
With diagnosis of autism rising at alarming rates--some sources estimate diagnosed cases are increasing at a rate of 10 to 17 percent per year--more psychologists are working in the area, explains Sparrow. However, many of them don't think to join Div. 33 because they are coming to autism from a developmental or cognitive neuroscience background, she points out. She says she'd like to see all psychologists working in autism--whether it's in genetics, neuroscience, psychopharmacology or clinical research, to name a few areas--add their expertise to Div. 33.
"This is the point where all of us who work in autism can get together and really make things happen," says Sparrow. For example, division members can work to close the science-to-practice gap and initiate cross-university research projects, she says.
To accomplish their goal, division officers, members and graduate student members are reaching out to potential members and showcasing division activities on listservs. One activity Div. 33 will highlight is the division's role in shaping social policy: Qualified members are providing expert opinion in court cases that involve adults and children with autism, mental retardation and other developmental disabilities.
They'll also emphasize the division's focus on understanding the strengths of children with autism and other developmental disabilities and on the development of interventions to enhance children's learning and participation in the community, says Ann Kaiser, PhD, past-president of the division and a professor of psychology at Vanderbilt University.
The division also publicized its focus on autism in August at APA's 2004 Annual Convention in Honolulu, where it sponsored 44 sessions on autism topics ranging from behavioral genetics to cutting-edge assessment technology. Sessions on autism are being planned for next year's meeting as well, and the division leadership plans to propose joint meetings on autism with other groups, such as the American Association on Mental Retardation.
"Autism is a very complex problem, and one that no one discipline is likely to be able to solve alone," says Kaiser. "We need the methodology, clinical and developmental knowledge of many different disciplines. Our division can be a forum within psychology where we can bring knowledge from these different areas to bear on an important problem."
Div. 33 (Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities) was formed in 1973 as a home for psychologists committed to advancing psychology practice and research on mental retardation and developmental disabilities. The division has five special interest groups: behavior modification and technology, dual diagnosis, early intervention, aging and adult development, and transitioning into adulthood. Members receive the newsletter Psychology in Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities three times per year and can network and learn about funding opportunities through the division's listserv. To join, contact Dennis Harper,PhD.
As you would expect, LB&I has many employees with backgrounds in accounting and finance, but our workforce is made up of employees from many backgrounds. You may be surprised to know that we also provide careers for lawyers, economists, actuaries, data scientists and engineers, as tax administration requires skills from a variety of disciplines.
We operate as a team to ensure taxpayer compliance. Most of our technical employees in LB&I have responsibility for oversight of our taxpayer base of large business (both corporate and passthroughs) as well as some individuals. Our core work is led by revenue agents, who are generally accountants, with support from employees with a variety of expertise, including lawyers, economists, actuaries, subject matter experts, appraisers and others. Our work selection is driven by data analysis and sophisticated compliance models. In addition to this work, which is more in line with other divisions of the IRS, LB&I has some unique work highlighted below.
LB&I manages the overall IRS relationship with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and its subgroup Forum on Tax Administration (FTA). The OECD is an intergovernmental economic organization; its 38 member countries work together to stimulate economic progress and world trade. The FTA brings together the commissioners of 50 global tax administrations in a forum wherein they identify, discuss and influence relevant global trends and work to increase fairness and effectiveness across all agencies. A continued focus of this work is tax certainty for global taxpayers, which is related to many Competent Authority programs under LB&I oversight.
LB&I is responsible for both the Exchange of Information (EOI) and Automatic Exchange of Information (AEOI) programs. Exchange of information refers to the sharing of tax-related information for tax administration and enforcement purposes.
Our EOI programs generally deal with exchanges of tax-related information between national tax authorities that occur under the provisions of international tax information sharing agreements, including treaties and tax information exchange agreements (TIEAs). Tax authorities rely on global collaboration to implement international standards of transparency and effective EOI for tax purposes.
LB&I houses the Joint International Taskforce on Shared Intelligence and Collaboration (JITSIC), a multi-country workgroup that addresses cross-border tax avoidance schemes, transactions and structures. The JITSIC network consists of tax administrations from more than 40 jurisdictions, all member countries in the OECD Forum on Tax Administration.
Holly Paz is the Acting Commissioner of Large Business and International (LB&I), one of four primary operating divisions in the IRS. In this role, she is the United States Competent Authority and is responsible for tax administration activities for domestic and foreign businesses and partnerships with a United States tax reporting requirement and assets equal to or exceeding $10 million as well as the Global High Wealth and International Individual Compliance programs.
This year's Spring Conference, the biggest in the history of the nonprofit research and education organization that focuses on land use and development, included discussions of when demand will pick up, the future of office use and how to tap lower prices.
Rising interest rates and myriad macroeconomic pressures have made it tough to place bets on if and when the commercial real estate market would bottom out, but for some investors, this could be the year things finally begin to turn around, panelists said during a capital markets session.
As prices fall to a level they can no longer ignore, professionals across a wide spectrum of investment firms say there is a growing pool of opportunities that will begin to open capital markets that have largely been arrested by the challenged financing climate. While there is still plenty of ground to regain before the industry can recover some of its pre-pandemic momentum, panelists point to growing optimism that 2024 could be the start of a new demand cycle.
"I think we're closer to the bottom than we were before," Standard Real Estate Investments CEO Robert Jue said. "I also like the opportunity of getting involved before everyone else as opposed to after, because as a small guy, it's a good time. I'm on the side of starting to get more deals done for 2024 and thriving in 2025."
"It all depends on the asset class," he said. "If you're looking at multifamily now, some of it is trending in the right direction, but in other areas, not so much. For as large as Starwood is, we're nimble and can make decisions very fast. We have the flexible capital to invest where we think we'll get the best return, and if something doesn't make sense in one market, it might in another."
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