Crystal Denmon was raised by a single parent in South Los Angeles, where gangs were common and graduating from high school was not.

Starting in second grade, she woke up at 5:30 a.m. to catch the bus that took her an hour across town to school, where she was often the only African-American student in her class.

UC Board of Regents chair Sherry Lansing says in a video statement that she is "shocked and appalled" by the images of police actions during recent student protests at UC Berkeley and UC Davis.

Lansing supports UC President Mark Yudof's effort to review systemwide procedures so that students can engage in peaceful protests.

"We regents share your passion and your conviction for the University of California," Lansing says. "We want all of you to know that we fully and unequivocally support your right to protest peacefully."

Long before UC Berkeley author Michael Pollan told us omnivores had a dilemma in books that questioned the industrial food complex, college students were at the forefront of a movement to rethink what we eat.

Back in the 1960s and 1970s, when organic was a foreign word to most Americans, students at UC Davis and UC Santa Cruz were part of a wave of environmental activism that sought alternatives to agricultural methods that distanced people from farms and relied on heavy use of chemical pesticides and fertilizers.

From the time Elizabeth Pierson was 7 and her parents came downstairs to find her in the kitchen mixing baking soda and vinegar — dressed in a raincoat, swimming goggles and rubber gloves — the UC Berkeley senior knew she wanted to be a scientist.