Gen. Wesley Clark, a 2004 Democratic presidential candidate,
will join UCLA’s Ronald W. Burkle Center for International
Relations as a senior fellow, university officials announced
today.
Clark, a retired four-star general with 34 years of military
experience, plans to do research, publish papers, guest lecture in
undergraduate and graduate classes and host an annual national
security conference.
Clark said he is looking forward to becoming involved with
UCLA.
“I always planned to be affiliated with an academic
institution,” he said. “I love teaching and I think
UCLA is a wonderful institution.”
“Gen. Clark’s involvement with the campus will add a
unique and valuable dimension to the Burkle Center’s
exploration of the contemporary world and the role of the United
States in global security and military, political, social and
economic affairs,” said Patricia O’Brien, executive
dean of the UCLA College, in a statement.
The Burkle Center and the UCLA International Institute fall
within the UCLA College.
Clark said he will likely be on campus one or two days a month
and will guest lecture in classes where he feels his experience
will be relevant.
In addition to campaigning for the presidency in 2004, Clark is
the former supreme allied commander of NATO, and he negotiated
peace in Kosovo in the 1990s.
He also spent three years teaching at the U.S. Military Academy
at West Point.
He said he thinks his wide-reaching experiences will be relevant
to students.
“(I’ve had) a very diverse background,” he
said. “I think you have to have the right balance of theory
and practicum, and I’m fortunate enough to have had a good
balance.”
Professor Ronald Rogowski, interim vice provost for
international studies, dean of the UCLA International Institute and
director of the Burkle Center, said Clark would be a valuable
addition to UCLA.
“Wes Clark brings incisive and visionary analysis to
questions of economic and security policy, particularly as they
relate to future U.S. relations with Asia and Latin America,”
Rogowski said in a statement.
Clark plans to arrive at UCLA around Oct. 1.