UCLA CS 可能没有大家想的那么好

我是一个UCLA CS grad school学生。在入学以前，我一直都觉得这是一所cs学生很向往的学校：学术强，研究机会多，教授同学友善，工作机会多。但是今天发生的一件事和以前的种种事情，彻底改变了我对这个学校的看法。
我在这里把今天的邮件贴出来给大家看，隐藏掉相关同学的身份信息。大家可以从邮件里看到，cs department head Eli Gafni是多么的aggressive和unprofessional. 甚至在最后还拿自己的tenure作为威胁学生的资本。不说了，请看邮件。

另外我在这里恳请大家，不要引入骂战。非常感谢。

Hi All,
Until **‘s email I did not realize that students are involved.
All I saw is some email name on what I thought is dist-faculty (containing
adjuncts I do not know) telling our
Emeritus Professor ** what term to use or not to use, albeit in a very
polite way.
We are in a University! On the one hand we should not be ``political,'' on the other hand
I have a tenure not as a Job Perk but in order that discussion is not censored.
To me Dick was censored.
Now, I may have misjudged and did not know that perhaps ``Wuhan Virus'' term
to some, has attained the celebrity of ``hate speech.''
On the face of it, as you call the Spanish Flu ``Spanish,'' Dick called it by its place of
origin.
Being a Professor, nevertheless, I scan though many Newspapers every day as I am a
``Politics Junkie'', and I know that Essentially China Town in SF is ``closed'' but that
was never hang on the neck of the term ```Wuhan Virus.'' (It is just the ignorant
association of China Origin (and it is!) with say Chinese food + I was at Sea Empress Dim Sum
in Gardena Saturday and it was 80% full. Yes usually there is a waiting line)
It would have probably been better for the one who replied to DIck, to email
me, explain the sensitivity, and then I send the email of ``lets refrain from using this term.''
As I wrote, the notion of ``brave student'' (ahh it was the brave student...a brave Israeli like me only without Tenure :))
is abhorrent to me by the implication of speech control, and the brave student who I know who he is now,
knows who is the department head and his email (I communicated with him personally in email in the past).
So next time Eli. email Eli, before you are a brave hero.
I was told that this got ``out of hand'' and I have become a celebrity for better or worse.
Just the other day I bragged to friend that I am a celebrity as a student
wanted a Selfie with me on account that I am ``the famous CS professor who ride to school
in Motorcycle.''
I would have been content just with this level of celebrity.
Eli.

On Fri, Mar 13, 2020 at 12:17 PM Eli Gafni <gafnieli@gmail.com> wrote:
Good.
Lol is a good end to this thread!

Only after Was email I realized this isnt only dist-faculty.
But I consider everybody above 18 is adult (stupid they cannot drink to 21), and don't see any reason language or anything else should change because students a privy to what is said...when it comes to...Corona:)

On Fri, Mar 13, 2020, 12:07 PM wrote:
Lol I grew up in Singapore.

On Fri, Mar 13, 2020 at 12:04 Eli Gafni <gafnieli@gmail.com> wrote:
Let me give you ** another example to my sensitivity.

Calling *** brave, implies to me that my Department is China, and my Communist party will use harsh retributions against Eli, and he was courageous to speak truth to power.

That is insulting to me. And my words  may insult you if you are Patriotic Chinese.

Don't you get the point of "react to your sensitivity in a private way ( in some contexts)".  

This is departmental forum, in which we do not educate each other what terms to use or not to use.

On Fri, Mar 13, 2020, 11:52 AM wrote:
Thanks a lot to ** for bravely pointing it out and thanks a lot to the understanding and respecting from the others.

I believe that everyone here is friendly enough to not intentionally using any offensive expression. While I do agree that we should not be too political, I don’t think caring about the naming of the virus is overly sensitive. Especially when we consider what’ve been going on in some news reports using that offensive name and how mean their comments were.

Probably without that piece of prior knowledge, Chinese people seem to be overly-reacting to simply a name. But that name was abused to hurt our feelings so often during the last few months.

Every nation, every gender, every age group, every kind of people might feel offended by some words in some certain period of time. In most cases I’m afraid it’ll be too abstract to simply conclude all those concerns into “polices issues”. And what they need is most likely no more than “I’ll keep that in mind next time”.

Thanks for everyone’s understanding, and **, thank you for expressing your concern straightforwardly. Bravery, typical Gryffindor (no just kidding we’re not Hogwarts... wait are we?)

May everyone in the world be understood and respected by the others.

Best regards,
**



On Fri, Mar 13, 2020 at 11:42 AM wrote:
Dear Professor Gafni,
.
I have the same feeling as ** and **. ** was very polite and was not making anything political. We just want to clarify it's better to call it Coronavirus disease (COVID-19), instead of "Wuhan virus" or "Chinese Virus".

I think professor *** words could have been innocent like you said, but right now everybody is sensitive to those public emails, especially when they were related to political issues such as "attribute it to the US Army".

Best,
**



On Fri, Mar 13, 2020 at 11:22 wrote:
Professor Gafni,

I think ** was very polite and was not making anything political, just expressing how that phrase made him feel, and I think it’s better that it was public so that others also know how microaggressions like that can hurt people.

This list is constantly used for things outside what it’s designed for. I think since ** spoke so respectfully the least you could do is treat him with a similar amount of respect. If you disagree with him, you are also more than welcome to take that up with him offline.

Best,
**

On Fri, Mar 13, 2020 at 11:17 AM Eli Gafni <gafnieli@gmail.com> wrote:
**,

** using this name could have been innocent. By pointing it out you make a political issue out if it.
This list isn't for political issues and not to educate ME what terms to use.
You could have asked ** personally to avoid the term in the future.

And perhaps you can email some sources in China who attribute it to the US Army. This is just for example how things get out of hand if politics creep in.

Pls avoid.

Eli.

On Fri, Mar 13, 2020, 11:11 AM wrote:
Dear Prof. **,

I am deeply impressed by your academic achievements and would like to
thank you for your contribution to the computer science.

However, one minor thing I would like to point out: the usage of
"Wuhan virus", in my humble opinion, is inappropriate. Personally, I
feel slightly discomfortable and offended as the family member of my
. Waral dи,father side are all from Wuhan. I believe it is the best practive to avoid
associating a virus with a city (or any cultural, social, national,
regional, professional or ethnic groups) [1].

Best,
**

[1] WHO best practices for naming of new human infectious diseases.
https://www.who.int/topics/infec ... ng-new-diseases/en/

On Fri, Mar 13, 2020 at 5:47 AM wrote:
>
> **,
>
> Thanks for this. Very interesting.
>
> I have a problem with one central issue in the paper that has to do with
> reducing the “rate” of spreading the virus.  It seems to me that there are
> two parameters at play. One is the “branching factor” which is how many
> people a sick person will infect. (I think this is estimated to be between 2 and
> 3 for the Wuhan virus).  The second factor is how long before a sick person
> infects another.
>
> I did not see these clearly distinguished. Does “social distancing” reduce the
> branching factor, or the time until the infections take place, or both?  If you just
> delay the time until a sick person infects 2 or 3 others, then I believe the epidemic
> will grow as before (presumably only stopped ultimately by total population.)
>
> A more detailed model would be one that has a distribution of time a person with
> the virus is contagious and a model for rate of interactions with others and probability
> of infecting each. Cutting down the time a sick person is contagious and cutting down
> the rate of interactions will each reduce the branching factor … hopefully to less than 1.
>
> Does this make sense?
>
> **
>
. 1point3acres.com >
> On Mar 12, 2020, at 7:38 PM, wrote:
>
> Worthwhile reading
>
> https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/c ... ll-die-f4d3d9cd99ca
>
> Stay well
>
> **
>
>


--
. 1point 3 acresEli Gafni
Comp. Sci. Dep.
UCLA 461 Eng VI
.. LA CA 90095
eli@ucla.edu
310 825 3211

补充内容 (2020-3-14 11:37):
这些邮件的主要含义就是：一个教授用武汉肺炎称呼这次疾病，一个学生用很有礼貌的语言请教授不要用武汉称呼这次肺炎，然后cs部门的头就站出来开始aggressively说学生违反言论自由，

补充内容 (2020-3-14 11:39):
然后说声援这个学生表达诉求的人imply他的部门是department of china. 然后用他的tenure威胁任何敢发表不同意见的学生。

补充内容 (2020-3-14 11:40):
楼主一开始没有做总结，是担心自己的见解影响客观事实，但是既然大家都想有一个概述，那么楼主就提供以上概述。请不要引来骂战，谢谢大家支持。写这些的初衷就是，给大家在选学校时候有一个更好的判断吧。

补充内容 (2020-3-13 20:53):
另外各位，我想表达的并不是武汉肺炎这个说法多么不妥，因为大家都有自己看法，但是我想说的是，一个dept head不能不尊重其他族裔学生表达的诉求和看法。

补充内容 (2020-3-13 20:54):
更不能把问题政治化，更何况这是一个专门用于学术内容的邮件list。

补充内容 (2020-3-14 15:30):
谢谢大家的理解和支持 本文初衷不是为了贬损UCLA 只是因为这件事情实在让作为ucla一分子的我感到失望和耻辱 只有我们一起抗击这样的傲慢与偏见 才能在社会有立足之地

和学术、找工有关系吗？我想大家都没功夫欣赏你们学校内部的nonacademic affairs

补充内容 (2020-3-15 20:12):
抱歉大家！我对很多政治或歧视上的事理解太浅哈，给地里的朋友道歉。谢谢大家的教导，我会记在心上！做人的态度是第一位的！

oliverrrrrrrshu 发表于 2020/03/14 11:14:42
和学术、找工有关系吗？我想大家都没功夫欣赏你们学校内部的nonacademic affairs

1. 有关系。2. 有工夫。3. 这个版块讨论这个很正常。4. 你的语气很贱。

没耐心读完 不如lz介绍下发生了什么

oliverrrrrrrshu 发表于 2020-3-14 11:15
和学术、找工有关系吗？我想大家都没功夫欣赏你们学校内部的nonacademic affairs

请不要引来骂战，谢谢支持。写这些的初衷就是，给大家在选学校时候有一个更好的判断吧。一个dept head能说出这些话，可想而知这个dept在学术上都在做什么。

Maleficent 发表于 2020/03/14 11:46:38
呃，武汉肺炎有什么不妥吗，国内不也说非洲猪瘟，美国流感 = =

问题不在武汉肺炎上，问题在于，dept head并不尊重学生表达观点和诉求的权利

lz一边说不引战一边又“可想而知”把nonacademic affairs 和平时系里上学术上做什么 混为一谈

chenGrant 发表于 2020/03/14 11:54:08
lz一边说不引战一边又“可想而知”把nonacademic affairs 和平时系里上学术上做什么 混为一谈

如果系里每天都搞这种敏感东西 何谈学术呢