Lonely App

From the Daily Bruin: ...Resonance, an app created by psychology professor Matthew Lieberman, is partnering with UCLA Student Affairs and Enrollment Management to help users form friendships based on their compatibility. The app, which will be free for all UCLA students for the 2026-27 academic year, matches users with potential friends based on their answers to a series of questions about their personalities, Lieberman said. Lieberman said he created the app in 2022 after asking his students about their experiences with loneliness. About 65% of the students in his UCLA class reported experiencing loneliness, having difficulty making friends and not having as many close friends as they wanted, he said...

Following a pilot test of Resonance in 2023 – which involved about 2,000 UCLA transfer student users – students reported a 41% reduction in loneliness, Lieberman said. In addition to one-on-one connections, users can join specific online communities based on shared characteristics or interests, he said. At UCLA, for example, students can join groups with people of the same year or major...

Full story at https://dailybruin.com/2026/09/17/ucla-partners-with-professor-designed-friendship-app-to-combat-student-loneliness.

Also - From the Daily Targum (Rutgers): ...The platform does not fully reward total similarity. Due to how the algorithm works, identical survey responses will only score two people at 78/100 compatibility. To reach the 95/100 score required for a match between two people, they will need to differ in the right ways. That way, this app will not simply section off people with identical personalities but will instead serve as a means to bring people together who complement one another...

Full story at https://www.dailytargum.com/article/u-alum-launches-new-app-to-increase-social-connection-on-campuses-worldwide-20260916. 

UC & Other Universities Support Harvard

From The Dartmouth: [Dartmouth] signed onto an amicus brief filed July 22 with the First Circuit Court of Appeals in support of Harvard University’s April lawsuit against the Trump Administration. Thirty-five other colleges and universities also signed the brief, including all Ivy League universities except Harvard. In the ongoing case, the Trump administration is appealing a September 2025 ruling in favor of Harvard after the administration froze $2.2 billion in federal grants because the university refused to comply with federal demands to make institutional changes such as reforming admissions and hiring practices, shutting down diversity, equity and inclusion practices and addressing antisemitism “or other bias” in campus programs. 

The brief argues that “even temporary cuts” to federal research funding could have “permanent effects” which “endangers” the “life-changing and history-altering innovations” that arise from “basic research” conducted at colleges and universities... Amici institutions listed advancements in “scientific progress” made possible by federal funding — such as the computer, DNA sequencing, the pacemaker and the “decades-long collaboration among academia, government and industry” which produced the internet — as “enormous long-term benefits” of university research...

Full story at https://www.thedartmouth.com/article/2026/08/flavin-dartmouth-signs-brief-in-support-of-harvard-in-research-funding-lawsuit-against-trump-administration. 

List in image above and brief at:

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.ca1.53667/gov.uscourts.ca1.53667.00108480602.0.pdf.