For the first time since the late 1960s, former Chancellor Charles E. Young has returned to UCLA to teach his own class this quarter.
His class, Special Topics in American Government and Politics: 2008 Election: Policy Issues and Aftermath, Political Science 149, focuses on the 2008 presidential election and the electoral process, the history and the changes that have occurred over time.
“It’s an area of my expertise, an area I studied, certainly, parties and politics and things I taught when I was teaching,” Young said.
“It’s certainly a good topic to be teaching at this point in time with the election going on. It’s also something not normally taught in the way I’m teaching it, So I thought it would be a useful thing to do and good time to do it,”
Young said he was into his third retirement when several people asked him to come back to UCLA and teach a class.
“I was just at a point where I was here and had the time at least one quarter to be able to teach. I wanted to come back and give it a shot, and I thought this was a good time to do it,” Young said.
“It was my own choice, but several people have asked if I did want to come back and teach and pushed it a bit.”
The name of Charles E. Young will forever be linked with the development of UCLA into world-renowned university, said former University of California president Richard C. Atkinson.
A walk through UCLA is a reminder of the former chancellor’s legacy. The main street into UCLA as well as the research library is named after Young.
In addition, the annual Charles E. Young Award awards students doing community service in the community and encourages social needs for the future.
“UCLA today is the epitome of a thriving, modern research university, thanks in large measure to the indefatigable efforts of Chancellor Young,” Atkinson said in a 1996 interview regarding Young’s retirement from chancellorship.
Alex Nguyen, a fifth-year political science student, said that Young was the sole reason why he enrolled in the class.
“I thought it would be interesting to see the person who has played such an instrumental role in the creation of UCLA as a top tier public institution,” Nguyen said.
The seminar meets every Monday and allows students to discuss election issues in an intimate setting with Young. Although he said he was anxious and nervous to come back, everything has worked out and he is happy the students are doing well and participating.
Cody Smith, a fourth-year political science student, said that he took the class without knowing the former chancellor was the professor but is honored to be in his class.
“He’s a professor, but he’s also Chancellor Emeritus. I respect everything he says a lot more than a regular professor,” Smith said. “He’s kind of sage-like. It’s a seminar, so it’s very personal and different than a lecture.”
In 1955 Young earned a B.A from the UC Riverside where he was the university’s first student body president. Following graduation, he went on to earn his doctoral degree in political science from UCLA in 1960.
Young taught as a professor at both UCLA and the UC Davis prior to his appointment as chancellor of UCLA in 1968. At age 36, Young was the youngest man to run any American university when he was named UCLA’s chancellor.
During his 29-year tenure, the longest in UCLA history, the institution became one of the most widely recognized universities in the country. Extramural funding for research programs and private fundraising program greatly increased, according to UCLA’s past leaders Web page.
Young emphasized community development and service with the Los Angeles area. Being an advocate of intercollegiate athletic reform and raising academic eligibility standards for athletes. also led to his appointment to the NCAA President’s Commission.
He is also the former chairman of the Association of American Universities, an organization working on issues, like funding, that are important to research institutions.
“When I became chancellor in 1968, my stated goal was to move UCLA from the second level of good universities to the first rank of excellent universities,” Young said on Feb. 14, 1997, when he announced his retirement.
“The National Research Council rankings are a fulfillment of that dream. Having achieved my ambitious goals for UCLA, it is time to hand over the reins to new leadership with even bigger horizons to conquer.”
In 1995, UCLA was ranked in the top 20 of the National Research Council’s assessment of doctorate programs during Young’s term.
After resigning as chancellor of UCLA, Young served as president of the University of Florida for five years and the president of the Qatar Foundation, an organization dedicated to developing human potential through education.
He is returning to a university where he serves on many boards including the Geffen Playhouse, the Anderson School and the School of Public Affairs.
Young still continues to help with fundraising wherever it’s needed, which is “more things than someone who has tried to retire three times has ought to do,” he said.
Though the quarter has just begun, Young said he might come back again in the fall or winter quarter to teach a similar course that builds off of the one he is currently teaching.
“I’m enjoying it very much. Teaching is hard work, if you do it right,” Young said.
“I was hoping that everything would come out the way I hoped it would come out, that I wouldn’t stand up and forget what I was trying to do, but everything’s worked out very well.”