Faculty votes for senate vice chair
By Jennifer K. Morita
Daily Bruin Staff
Academic Senate election administrators are counting the votes
for vice chair and members-at-large today after 2,949 ballots from
UCLA faculty were due in the Academic Senate office Wednesday by 5
p.m.
"We usually only get a third to half of the ballots returned,"
elections coordinator Margaret Avila said Wednesday morning.
Avila said she is anxious to know the results, which should be
known this afternoon.
The Academic Senate represents university faculty while dealing
with issues of curricular reform and structure.
The vice chair holds the term for one year beginning in the fall
and takes over as chair the following year, according to senate
by-laws.
The three vice chair nominees are education professor Aimee
Dorr, Peretz Friedmann from the mechanical, aerospace and nuclear
engineering department and social welfare professor Rosina
Becerra.
"The position of vice chairperson is a very big job," Dorr said.
"This is a time when there’s a lot of change going on and when
carrying out education is up for a lot of consideration."
Among those changes is the increasingly shrinking budget
situation, said Dorr.
"I’m particularly interested in being involved in trying to
represent the faculty perspective on the changes in budget, how to
deal with restructuring and how they constitute the quality of
education," Dorr said.
Continuing Academic Senate activities is one of Becerra’s
concerns.
"It’s really not so much what is new, but to continue activities
that are important to faculty and that have been given prominence
in the past," Becerra explained.
"I’m very interested in maintaining the excellence of UCLA and
making sure that the faculty’s voice is heard in all activities and
programs of the university and to maintain shared governance," she
added.
Faculty salaries and student to faculty ratios are among the
issues that are critical to the recovery of the University of
California system, according to Friedmann.
"I shall strive to focus our attention on the important issues
… that directly affect the academic welfare of the faculty and
students, and which have to be dealt with if we wish to restore the
traditional excellence of our institution," Friedmann stated.
Strengthening the Academic Senate’s role in the shared
governance system is another one of Friedmann’s goals, according to
his candidate statement.
Nominees for executive board members-at-large are professor
Charles Berst from the English department, physics and astronomy
professor Charles Buchanan, sociology professor Oscar Grusky, Jason
Speyer from the mechanical, aerospace and nuclear engineering
department and professor William Oppenheim of the Division of
Children’s Orthopedics.