Faculty elect Academic Senate members
Runoff results: Aimee Dorr wins post, Charles Berst
member-at-large
By Jennifer K. Morita
Daily Bruin Staff
UCLA faculty elected education professor Aimee Dorr to the
office of Academic Senate vice chairperson in a runoff election
which ended Friday.
None of the candidates for either vice chair or member-at-large
were able to gain a majority vote during the senate’s first
election last month, resulting in the recent runoffs.
"I felt very pleased and gratified and enthusiastic about doing
the job," said Dorr, who was vying for the post against Peretz
Friedmann, a professor in the mechanical, aerospace and nuclear
engineering department.
The Academic Senate office sent out about 3,000 ballots to UCLA
faculty and about a third were returned by the deadline at 5 p.m.
Friday, said elections commissioner Margaret Avila.
"We got the average amount of people responding," Avila said.
"It’s about the same amount of people who responded to the first
election."
Election officials counted the ballots on Monday and notified
the candidates Tuesday about the results.
In the other race of member-at-large, English professor Charles
Berst was elected over William Oppenheim from children’s
orthopedics.
"Those were the people I voted for so I’m happy about it," said
Henry Hespendeide, a biology professor. "We were distributed
summaries of their past service and I know Berst. He seems like a
reasonable person."
"I do tend to favor candidates from Letters & Science as
opposed to people from other schools," Hespendeide said. "My view
of UCLA is as an undergraduate institution and it’s not clear that
people from basically graduate schools have quite a good a view on
undergraduate education."
Dorr will serve as vice chair next year and then will assume the
position of Academic Senate chair during the 1996-97 academic
year.
"Once I thought about doing it I felt very challenged because
it’s a very big job. Fortunately I have a full year to work into
the full swing of it," Dorr said.
"Vice chair is definitely chair-in-training," she added. "I
already got called … to participate in planning the new faculty
orientation for next fall."
For the past two years, the senate and administration have
jointly organized a welcoming orientation day for new UCLA faculty.
The Academic Senate chair plays a large role in the planning,
explained Dorr, who will be attending planning meetings as vice
chair.
"Often the vice chair takes on some special responsibility," she
said. "One possibility for me might be looking at our review
processes for academic programs such as course and degree
programs."
During Dorr’s work with the graduate council, the main senate
review system for graduate programs, she helped to coordinate the
reviews of graduate and undergraduate programs within the same
departments.
Dorr also chaired a subcommittee that revised all the
system-wide review processes.
"So I know lots about review processes," she said. "It’s a very
reasonable thing for me to work on that as vice-chair."
Optimism over Dorr’s election is high among her colleagues.
"I think she’d be really good for the university, good for the
Academic Senate," said Harold Levine. "She has a real commitment to
the university. She has a commitment specifically to
academics."