A GIFT A DAY

Look for Aggie gift ideas and holiday specials, a different one every day, on the UC Davis Facebook page, starting tomorrow. The specials include a Holiday Sale at all UC Davis Stores on Wednesday (Dec. 5). Read more about the sale and the stores' new Aggie Kickbacks Customer Rewards Program.

OTHER WAYS TO GIVE

Holiday drives are under way for food, toys, coats, money for pet baskets (for homeless people to care for their animals). Read the Dateline article.

This holiday season you can give your loved ones some of what UC Davis is made of, in gifts reflective of our academics and art, agriculture and the arboretum, and more.

Consider adding these to your shopping list:

• Beautiful bowls, handcrafted of wood from our very own trees.

• Silver pins and pendants in the shape of a valley oak leaf from the UC Davis Arboretum.

• Fine art by the staff at the Craft Center, and elegant scarves that exemplify our university’s artistic talent past and present.

• Insect art and jewelry, T-shirts and more from the Bohart Museum of Entomology, including The Story of the Dogface Butterfly, the California state insect — a children's book written and illustrated by UC Davis students.

• Books by our faculty members, books about our campus, and reprints of historic books rooted in our agricultural expertise.

• Olive oil-infused personal care products — body lotion, body butter, soap and lip balm — from our very own Olive Center.

• Olive oil and olives, from the Olive Center, of course, and dried tomatoes from the Russell Ranch Sustainable Agriculture Facility. See separate story about two tasting opportunities next week.

• More good eats, grown or produced by UC Davis graduates, in California Harvest Gift Boxes, being sold as a fundraiser for the women’s rowing sport club.

• All kinds of UC Davis apparel, of course, T-shirts and sweat shirts and the like, including a new line of infant wear. Plus unique gifts like the Aggie gnome and a UC Davis blue Santa hat!

Good Life and Campus Grown

UC Davis highlights many of its signature products in the Good Life Collection, including the Scarf Collection, books, and olive and tomato products.

The collection also includes Campus Grown, where you can find one-of-a-kind products made from salvaged wood — bowls, vases and salad tongs. The wood is from campus trees that required heavy pruning or needed to be felled for safety reasons.

Campus Grown also includes the new Arboretum Collection — oak leaf jewelry. Designer and metal smith Nancy Shapiro made the mold in the lost-wax technique, using an actual leaf from the arboretum as the basis for her work.

Shapiro, co-president of Friends of the UC Davis Arboretum, arranged for the casting of a limited supply of leaves out of fair-trade silver, then she did the finish work to turn them into pins and pendants. More information, including photos.

The Scarf Collection highlights art and poetry by UC Davis faculty and students, and works in the Fine Arts and Design collections. The first year’s collection (2011) included a Wayne Thiebaud scarf, while the second year’s collection includes an original design by Professor Annabeth Rosen, who holds the Robert Arneson Chair in Ceramic Sculpture.

Most products in the Good Life Collection are available from UC Davis Stores, online and in selected stores. Look for the arboretum jewelry, the scarves and salvaged wood items at the downtown store (Second and F streets).

Oh, baby, that looks good on you!

Our littlest Aggies have a new way of showing their allegiance, thanks to alumna Lisa (Wade) Wells ’03, a design major who works as a graphic designer in University Communications.

In recent years, when her Aggie friends started having babies, she started making UC Davis one-piece bodysuits for them. Eight months ago, Wells and her husband, Andrew, had a baby of their own, Lauren, and she, too, has a one-piece with the official UC Davis logo over the word “BABY.”

Then Wells started working with UC Davis Stores to make infant bodysuits and T-shirts available to everyone. The clothes should start showing up in the stores any day now.

Beyond clothes, the stores offer all kinds of other items with UC Davis logos and the university seal, from pens to paperweights — and, brand new, the ceramic gnome, 12 inches tall, wearing a UC Davis sweater and waving a “Go Ags” pennant.

Kelly Holt, supervisor of the UC Davis Store Downtown, says UC Davis woven throws are popular — so popular, in fact, that they are out of stock right now, with more due to arrive next week.

Books and more books

If you see a book by a scientist in the bookstore’s campus authors section, there’s a good chance he or she is writing nonfiction. Not so with physics professor emeritus Tom Cahill’s new book, a science fiction novel.

In Annals of the Omega Project, according to the publisher, EditPros, Cahill “describes what happens when a group of scientists investigating the beneficial powers of telepathic energy comes under savage attack by ruthless Coven members who subject their hapless victims to ancient mind-control techniques.”

Eric Smoodin explores make-believe of a different kind in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, all about the Walt Disney film classic of the same name.

Smoodin, a professor of American studies, and cinema and technocultural studies, discusses Disney’s career and the trajectory that made Snow White a logical next step, the film’s reception in the United States and around the world, and the film’s impact on so many aspects of contemporary culture.

UC Davis Stores can order the book for you: Call (530) 752-5923 or send an email to generalbooks@ucdavis.edu.

Two distinguished professors have contributed to the Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press:

• The Orchestra — By D. Kern Holoman, conductor emeritus of the UC Davis Symphony Orchestra.

• Colonial America — By Alan Taylor, winner of the Pulitzer Prize in history in 1996 for his book William Cooper’s Town: Power and Persuasion on the Frontier of the Early American Republic.

Agricultural history, our history

The Robert Mondavi Institute for Wine and Food Science offers a series of historical agriculture books, among them The California Vegetables in Garden and Field by Edward Wickson, namesake of our very own Wickson Hall.

He joined the UC Berkeley faculty in 1879, published California Vegetables in 1897 and later reviewed dozens of proposed sites for the University Farm. Then, as dean of agriculture from 1907 to 1913, he oversaw the farm’s development at Davis.

The other books in the series: The Wine Press and the Cellar, Cheddar Cheese Making and Elements of Dairying, and California’s Olive Pioneers.

All of the RMI books are available from UC Davis Stores (search for “Robert Mondavi Institute”), or from the RMI’s Kim Banister, (530) 752-5171 or kbannister@ucdavis.edu.

For campus history, pick up a copy of Abundant Harvest. And, if you want to bring the CoHo’s flavor to your own kitchen, you can buy the Coffee House Cookbook. Find them at UC Davis Stores or online (click on “Campus Interest”).

California Harvest Gift Boxes

Women’s crew sells these gift boxes every year to help support the sport club’s operations.

This year’s harvest: almonds, chocolate, sun-dried tomatoes, black olives, fresh garlic, honey, dried fruit and raisins, and organic popcorn — all packed as usual in wooden boxes with the Aggie athletics logo etched on top.

Only 500 boxes are being sold. The price is $36 price for pick-up (on campus), or delivery in Davis or to the Sacramento campus. The boxes can be mailed at additional cost.

The order form is available online. Or contact rowing coach Carissa Adams, (530) 867-1494 or cradams@ucdavis.edu. The rowing club can accommodate recharges, for departments wishing to buy the boxes for official UC business purposes.

Craft Center Staff Show and Silent Auction

Unique, handcrafted gifts are yours for the bidding in this annual fundraiser for Craft Center programs. Artwork includes jewelry, glasswork, textiles, ceramics, metalwork, woodwork, photography, painting, drawing, screen-printing and mixed media.

Written bids are acceptable any time the center is open, through 6 p.m. Friday, Dec. 7. The cutoff time will come during a closing reception, 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. A live auction will commence at 6 for any items that have interested, active bidders.

The Craft Center is in the South Silo. Regular hours: 12:30-10 p.m. Monday-Thursday, 12:30-7 p.m. Friday and 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Saturday-Sunday. For more information, call Jan Garrison, Craft Center coordinator, (530) 752-3096.

Bug bonanza

The Bohart Museum of Entomology holds more than 7 million specimens — and almost as many items in the gift shop: from scorpion suckers and insect collecting kits, to T-shirts, coffee mugs, posters and earrings, to the new children's book about the California dogface butterfly, by Fran Keller, a doctoral candidate in entomology, and illustrated by Laine Bauer, an art major who graduated in June.

And, for $2,500 you can obtain the naming rights for a newly discovered species: a “cute little black-and-white weevil with red polka dots” (genus Macrocopturus), discovered in Costa Rica by Henry Hespenheide, professor emeritus at UCLA and a member of the Bohart Museum Society.

“Your donation directly supports species discovery and student education in entomology through scholarships,” said Professor Lynn Kimsey, the museum director. “By naming this species you are promoting science education, species discovery and conservation.”

More information on this naming opportunity.

The Bohart Museum of Entomology, 1124 Academic Surge, is open from 9 a.m. to noon and 1 to 5 p.m. Monday through Thursday, and on selected weekend days during the year. The next weekend date is Saturday, Dec. 15, when the museum will be open from 1 to 4 p.m.

Cal Aggie Alumni Association

The association offers a number of holiday specials, including discounts on memberships ($12 for six months, a savings of $38), Mondavi Center tickets, the UC Davis Aggie Pride coffee table book and Aggie cruiser bicycles.

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