Next Senate vice chair looks forward to new post
Eclectic professor Dorr specializes in education, media
By Jennifer K. Morita
Daily Bruin Staff
Next year’s Academic Senate vice chairperson and School of
Education Professor Aimee Dorr wears a Sesame Street watch on her
left wrist.
Senate vice chair-elect and 1996-97 chair-to-be, Dorr was voted
in by UCLA faculty in Academic Senate runoff elections that ended
last week.
But her senate and committee work aren’t the only things Dorr is
involved in. The mother of two sons with two stepchildren as well,
Dorr has worked extensively on child development.
"I’ve been always focused on children and teenagers and the ways
in which they understand and make sense of media material and what
we can do when we construct television or computer programs that
will make it more likely that kids will understand it, learn from
it and find it interesting," Dorr said.
After getting a degree in math from Stanford, she later decided
to switch fields and went into child development, getting a
doctorate in psychology.
"While I was at Stanford I became very interested in the ways
children learned about the social cultural world around them and
media, especially popular culture. It’s one of the ways you get
views of your society.," said Dorr, who grew up in Southern
California.
"During part of the time I was at Stanford, I was subjected to a
lot of discrimination as a woman," she said. "I was completely
unprepared for it.
"Of course I have strengths and weaknesses. It was very hard to
sort out what were my weaknesses and what were other people’s
prejudices," Dorr continued. "So I had a hard time for a while and
wasn’t quite sure what I wanted to do."
So she left Stanford for Harvard, where she continued her work
with children and teens, examining media’s role in their
development and children’s media literacy.
"After that, I had a career for sure," Dorr said.
But Southern California was calling Dorr home, and in 1978 she
came back to teach at USC. Three years later she moved to UCLA,
despite taking a cut in pay and losing the staff support USC
provided.
"USC has some fabulous programs … but the quality is more
varied," she said. "UCLA tends to be generally excellent. I benefit
from that because I can work with really great undergraduate
students … and it enriches me."
And Dorr said she also looks forward to her role in faculty
government.
"The Academic Senate has an opportunity to provide input and one
of the things I would like to promote is ways to attract and retain
and support the very best faculty we can get," she said.
"Fair" is one word a colleague used to describe Dorr.
"In terms of integrity I cannot think of a person who I could
recommend more for vice chair," said School of Education Professor
Romeria Tidwell. "She’s a very objective, very creative person.
"Her perspective on issues tends to be very broad and she’s a
very flexible person so she’s able to take in different points of
view and come to her own conclusion as to what she thinks is
appropriate.
"She’s definitely one of the leaders in the School of
Education," Tidwell said.
Another colleague, who had hoped Dorr would take on the role of
department chair in July, says Dorr is a groundbreaker in the
School of Education.
"She was one of the pioneers in introducing technology to the
School of Education," said Professor Sol Cohen.
Dorr, who has worked on the graduate council reviewing degree
and program processes, may be working on undergraduate and graduate
review processes as Academic Senate vice chair.
Although most of her work has been done at the graduate level,
Dorr said she feels undergraduate programs are just as
important.
"You can’t have a university without a good undergraduate
program," Dorr said. "I see undergraduate education and graduate
education and faculty scholarship all belonging together and
relating to each other and not separate."
By the same token, Dorr said that the strongest undergraduate
education is going to be at a university that has good graduate and
research programs.
"A research faculty is going to be very much up-to-date in their
knowledge of their field, what’s going on, who’s doing what and
what th e current issues are," Dorr said. "The pressure and the
opportunity to be up-to-date are greater at a research
university.
"If you have faculty who are transmitting that knowledge to
students then it provides for undergraduate the most up-to-date and
the richest view of what they’re studying," Dorr said.
When she isn’t at committee meetings, teaching, or working on
research Dorr spends time with her family, goes to the symphony and
reads.
When she was in New York she saw a play about Virginia Woolf
that started her on a "Virginia Woolf jag" that included reading
biographies and autobiographies on the author, reading "Orlando"
and then watching the movie.
"I know," Dorr said. "It sounds eggheadish … and it is."
Dorr also used to play in a women’s soccer league as well as
refereed a youth league her sons were in.
"She’s a Renaissance person," Tidwell said. "She’s able to do so
many different things."
Cohen agrees.
"She’s very well read in the classics and in contemporary
literature," Cohen said. "In discussion one can get citations from
Aimee Dorr from a broad range of sources."
And as Academic Senate vice chair?
"She’ll do marvelously," Cohen said.