With this issue of UCLA Magazine, we hope to engage our Bruin family in a conversation that is of vital importance to the entire university community: “Can UCLA afford to be great? Can we afford not to be?”
Four years ago, I shared my vision that UCLA would continue its ascent among the world’s great universities. I remain confident, despite the challenges we face, that UCLA can and will realize that goal.
This is a challenge for UCLA primarily because our aspiration is so ambitious. Over the past 50 years, American universities have emerged as the best in the world. But to thrive in the 21st century, our nation’s research universities, UCLA among them, must adapt to powerful forces now shaping higher education — demographic trends, economic developments and the technological revolution, to name just a few.
The rise of democracy and economic opportunity has made higher education a priority for all citizens, not just the political and social elite. Today, nearly two-thirds of U.S. high school graduates enter college. As the role and mission of universities change, so, too, do public expectations with regard to the process and results of the academic enterprise. Universities must be accessible and affordable, and they must create knowledge that is applicable, with visible benefits to society.
The 21st century also is marked by a rapidly expanding universe of knowledge — both accompanied and driven by swiftly developing new technologies — that is changing the face of our world. In a knowledge-driven economy, the university makes increasingly important contributions to society; maintaining the capacity to make such contributions, however, has become increasingly costly.
Public universities like UCLA must also handle increasing competition from within academia itself. There is a significant and growing resource gap between UCLA and the best private universities, which have substantially more money available to spend on their students and faculty. While UCLA’s endowment is large in comparison to other public universities, it is not grand when compared to those of elite private universities (the market value of UCLA’s endowment at the end of Fiscal Year 2002 was $1.2 billion, compared with $17.5 billion for Harvard, for example). And while UCLA certainly faces short-term challenges in light of the state’s budget crisis, the magnitude of the differential between the privates and publics is so large that this resource gap would exist regardless of California’s financial condition. Furthermore, increasing numbers of private universities — universities that have not achieved the level of academic excellence of UCLA, but that have access to greater resources than do public schools — are scrambling to enter the upper tier of outstanding research universities.
Our strategy of growth and expansion has been altered to address this new reality. We must deploy our existing resources more efficiently, and we must continue to attract funds from non-state sources such as the federal government and private philanthropy. The strategy of making the very best use of our resources is clear: Focus on those areas in which a university must achieve excellence, and on those areas in which UCLA has a comparative advantage and can be a national leader. The university has already had much success with this strategy. For example, we have strengthened the foundation of our academic enterprise by investing more in the College of Letters and Science, by modifying and enhancing our libraries and by bolstering our information-technology infrastructure.
UCLA is also concentrating on interdisciplinary activities, which are of increasing importance in higher education and are a strong comparative advantage of ours. Most of the challenges and problems we face as a society are so complex that they cannot be solved by just one academic discipline or one profession. By crossing academic boundaries, universities can transform learning, prepare the future workforce and create applicable research through the development of new technologies and new industries.
In recent years, I have launched several initiatives that will assure UCLA’s place at the forefront of discovery. UCLA, for example, is the lead partner in the California NanoSystems Institute, an endeavor that promises to create new technologies that will transform health care, national defense, the environment and, indeed, our future. UCLA has also become our nation’s academic center for space research and exploration. In partnership with NASA, we are creating and leading scientific programs for spacecraft missions that will provide a fundamental understanding of our Earth, our solar system and even the origins of the universe itself.
UCLA is at the forefront of scholarly exploration in genetics; at least 16 departments and more than 20 organized research units with expertise ranging from molecular biology to biocomputing are engaged in this endeavor. I have characterized the Human Genome Project as the Manhattan Project of biology. UCLA is committed to addressing the impact of genetics research on our culture and daily lives. The recently established UCLA Center for Society, the Individual and Genetics will be a unique intellectual resource, with the broadest disciplinary approach of any university program devoted to genetics.
Society reaps the benefits of UCLA’s entrepreneurial work through our multidisciplinary expertise, and through the thoughtful dialogue, economic advances and scientific breakthroughs that are fostered here. And UCLA’s faculty, students and staff reap the benefits because all of this activity takes place on a single campus. Undergraduates take advantage of our interdisciplinary activities, for example, through the General Education Clusters, the result of a massive effort to fundamentally rethink and improve undergraduate education. Students in cluster classes have the opportunity to engage with our faculty in yearlong, team-taught, interdisciplinary explorations of themes like globalization, interracial dynamics in America and the history of modern thought.
Ultimately it is people who make a university — people who want to be a part of a great institution and who, through their commitment and achievements, make it even greater. In our efforts to attract the finest faculty, students and staff, UCLA’s reputation, location and academic and research programs are seldom at issue. When we do fall short in recruitment and retention, the reasons are usually financial.
Last fall I established a Competitiveness Task Force to help us meet head-on the challenges posed by the financial-resource gap. The task force is looking at ways in which we can ensure that we continue to recruit and retain the very best faculty and students. We are also looking to ensure that we make the kinds of investments in our capital programs that relate most to attracting and retaining the best people, such as increasing the amount of student housing, ensuring that quality child care is available, modifying our libraries and building state-of-the-art laboratory facilities.
In addition to maximizing the resources that we already have, we must also attract new resources. There is ample cause for optimism, given recent successes in both research funding and in private fund-raising. In Fiscal Year 2002, UCLA received a campus record $767.8 million in extramural research contracts and grants, keeping us among the top five universities in the nation for total research funding from all sources. UCLA jumped from 12th in the nation in 1997 to third in 2000 in federal funding for science and engineering research.
Last year was also a banner year for philanthropic contributions to UCLA; we raised a record total of $509.4 million, highlighted by David Geffen’s gift of $200 million to the School of Medicine, which was renamed the David Geffen School of Medicine to honor his remarkable pledge. Even if we had not had the great fortune of receiving David Geffen’s gift, last year would have been the second-best fund-raising year in UCLA history. We have developed a remarkably strong private-giving program, and Campaign UCLA, which is so vital to us because of the versatility of the funding it generates, now stands at close to $2.2 billion. Our campaign goal of $2.4 billion is well within sight. These successes reflect the strong support that UCLA enjoys throughout California and beyond. And they demonstrate that despite the resource constraints we face, greatness is within our grasp.
The UCLA family has never shied away from a challenge. Greatness can be thrust upon some as a result of timing or circumstance. For others, like UCLA, who have always had to do more with less, greatness requires a unique blend of creativity, imagination, perseverance, commitment, hard work and vision. By working together, we will ensure that UCLA continues its ascent among the world’s great institutions of higher learning.
Of the City, by the City, for the City
UCLA is in a unique position to effect change, says Frank Gilliam, associate vice chancellor for community partnerships and professor of political science. As a world-class university located in one of the most diverse and vibrant cities on the planet, UCLA is able to marshal its significant resources, manpower and expertise in the service of tackling critical community issues.
Chancellor Albert Carnesale’s UCLA in LA initiative, with Gilliam at the helm, strengthens ties between the campus and community and enhances residents’ lives through more than 200 programs in the areas of health care, economic development, family wellness and the arts.
“We are in a fundamentally unique position among American universities in doing this kind of work at this great a scope,” Gilliam says. “We are the only public research university in a major city that is reaching out to the broader community to this extent.”
Gilliam is now forging even stronger links between the university and the community. “This represents a new phase of public engagement and reaffirms our commitment,” he says. His strategies include tapping into the some 2,000 UCLA students who are enrolled in classes that involve community-based learning and more directly connecting them with affiliated community agencies. In addition, the university has recently established the L.A. Research Agenda through which UCLA, for the first time in its history, provides grants to nonprofit community organizations to nurture their independence.
“What we’re trying to do is more systematically, more centrally and more organically grow relationships between the campus and community,” says Gilliam. “This ensures that we build capacity with our community partners so that when UCLA researchers, programs and students eventually leave, what we will leave behind will be solid and self-sustaining.” — Judy Lin-Eftekhar
Sensing the Future
Just as the internet revolutionized how information is exchanged by connecting the world of computers, embedded-networked-sensing systems may one day connect us with the physical world using technology to monitor and collect information on environmental hazards and structural defects, create “smart spaces” that adjust to lighting and temperature preferences and serve as invaluable tools for scientific discovery and technological advance.
The Center for Embedded Networked Sensing (CENS) is laying the groundwork to fulfill that potential. Based at UCLA, the center has received National Science Foundation funding of $40 million over 10 years, and also enjoys significant opportunities for leveraged funding. Under the leadership of Professor Deborah Estrin, a computer science faculty member at the Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science, CENS has assembled researchers from fields that include computer science, electrical engineering, environmental engineering, geophysics and education and information studies. Ultimately, the group expects to bring in other disciplines, ranging from medicine and architecture to the performing arts.
Estrin, who came to UCLA in 2000 after nearly 15 years on faculty at USC, says highly interdisciplinary collaborations are essential to CENS’ mission. “You can’t build these systems in a vacuum,” she says. “There has to be daily interaction among scientists and engineers in these diverse fields.”
Meaningful and sustainable interdisciplinary work is difficult without physical proximity, so the major administrative challenge for CENS is to obtain funding to develop a common workspace. It’s an expensive proposition at a time when public universities are strapped for cash. “We have to work much harder to stay connected to our alumni and donor community, particularly when it comes to space development and graduate-student fellowship funds,” Estrin says. “Private universities do a better job of that.”
Nonetheless, Estrin remains convinced that UCLA is the ideal place for her ambitious initiative. “Before I decided to come here, I wanted to be sure I would have authentic collaboration opportunities across the school and the campus,” she says. “I have found the quality of my colleagues throughout the sciences and engineering to be excellent. But even more unique is their availability not just to say, ‘Here’s what I need; come back when you have it,’ but to engage in something that’s truly collaborative.” — Dan Gordon ’85
Genetic Impact
The sequencing of the human genome, the basis for all of human life, presents both tremendous promise and tremendous risk. UCLA’s Center for Society, the Individual and Genetics (CSIG) will tackle the often difficult issues that are raised by this new technology and its impact on society.
“The impact of genetics is apparent in every academic field,” and the goal of the new center is to “anticipate those societal impacts and try to address them prospectively, rather than retrospectively and reactively,” says Edward R.B. McCabe, a pediatrician and geneticist who heads the center.
While the human species may be enthralled by the advanced technology that has allowed scientists to decipher the codes of life, there exists a tension between the interests of individuals and the interests of society, says McCabe, who is executive chair of the Department of Pediatrics, physician-in-chief of the Mattel Children’s Hospital at UCLA and chair of the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services’ Advisory Committee on Genetics, Health and Society.
CSIG is a broadly interdisciplinary enterprise that will tackle issues ranging from ethical and legal impacts of the Human Genome Project to its broader cultural impact on business, literature, public policy and the arts. The center’s approach, says McCabe, “is very UCLA in its multidisciplinary nature. Because we’re a relatively young university, we are much less hierarchal.” Collaborations across the boundaries of disciplines occur more freely here than elsewhere, he says. “That’s a very different culture, something we just do naturally at UCLA that isn’t so natural at other institutions.”
Because of that natural crossover, McCabe says, CSIG makes it possible “to really engage the intellectual splendor of UCLA — wonderful, creative people in so many disciplines — in addressing these issues from different perspectives and bringing them to life so that we can help educate our community.” — J.L.E.
Freshman Opportunity
In the five years since it was established, UCLA’s General Education Cluster Program has become an important factor for many students and their parents when it comes time to make the choice between UCLA and other universities.
“Parents have told me that the program essentially turned their decision in our favor as they and their children considered UCLA and other schools like Berkeley and Stanford,” says Judith L. Smith, vice provost for undergraduate education and, as of July 1, interim executive dean of the College of Letters and Science. “They think the clusters are a wonderful opportunity.”
The clusters are yearlong, collaboratively taught, interdisciplinary courses that focus on topics of timely importance. Among the courses offered this year, taught by some of UCLA’s most distinguished faculty, have been “Towards a World Economy: The Perils and Promise of Globalization,” “Interracial Dynamics in American Culture, Society and Literature” and “Evolution of the Cosmos and Life.”
They have been a hit with most students. Wrote one freshman on a survey questionnaire after taking a cluster course: “I was exposed to so many new ideas and forced to argue my thoughts on controversial topics such as race, gender and sexuality. This course definitely promoted education and understanding between a melting pot of people.”
The main goals of the program — providing students with an interdisciplinary approach to problem-solving; offering small seminar classes to freshmen; developing a sense of academic community; and enticing some of the university’s best faculty to teach freshmen — presented some tough challenges, Smith says.
“You need a large research university like this because you really want to pull in faculty with different perspectives and backgrounds,” she explains. “We’re lucky to have a medical school and the other professional schools. And the faculty are very interested in providing UCLA students with this kind of wonderful beginning.”
The courses are rigorous, but students feel the challenge has been worthwhile as they embark upon their academic journey at UCLA. “If you can make it through this,” wrote one student, “you are ready for anything UCLA can throw your way.” — Wendy Soderburg ’82
The Art of Science
Ever since Victoria Vesna, chair of Design | Media Arts in the School of the Arts and Architecture, and chemist James Gim-zewski, a member of UCLA’s multidisciplinary California NanoSystems Institute, engaged in their first public dialogue in 2001, they have been working together to develop projects that transcend art and science.
In these projects they seek to make nanotechnology — the science of the very small conducted on the scale of a billionth of a meter, or at the level of the individual atom — more accessible and understandable to the broader public. At the same time, they want to provoke a larger philosophical discussion about the impact of this emerging science on the culture of the 21st century.
Vesna found the collaboration between herself as an artist and Gimzewski as a scientist to be quite natural. “He was very enthusiastic, and also very understandable,” she says. “A lot of times, science can be off-putting. You feel you need a translator. But Jim is very visual; the visuals he provided gave me a way to experience some of the ideas he was talking about.”
The core of their partnership, “Zero@wavefunction: nano dreams and nightmares,” premiered in August at the Biennial of Electronic Arts in Perth, Australia. To make the invisible nanoworld visible in a metaphorical sense, Vesna and Gimzewski, in a true collaboration based on their genuine interest in each other’s work, crossed the boundaries of their own disciplines to together create Buckyball Shadows, a playful projection of giant-sized, glowing, computer-generated buckyballs — ball-shaped carbon molecules reminiscent of a geodesic dome. Casting giant shadows against the wall, people can reach out to “touch” the images, which contract and move just as one can imagine molecules might when manipulated by a nanoscientist using a scanning tunneling microscope.
This key instrument, with its probe made of a single atom, allows nanoscientists to perceive the presence of atoms, not by sight, but by touch, says Gimzewski.
“Fingertips replace eyes in the nanoworld,” he says. “I hope these projects will give people a sense of the wonderment and interactivity we experience in science.” — Cynthia Lee
