March 2005

Dear Colleagues:

An Extraordinary Inauguration

I want to express my sincere appreciation to everyone who helped make my March 3 inauguration a joyous celebration. I truly was overwhelmed. The inauguration tradition, as our Academic Senate Chair Donald Tuzin noted in his remarks that day, dates back to an ancient Roman custom of reading omens when someone was admitted to office. For me, the energy and enthusiasm that marked all the day’s events were wonderful omens for our future together.

I am greatly indebted to the members of the inauguration planning committee, especially its chair, Social Sciences Dean Paul Drake, and its honorary chair, Ellen Revelle. And I was honored that the inauguration’s academic cornerstone event was a lecture by Dr. Alfred G. Knudson, Jr., presented as part of the Kyoto Laureate Symposium. Dr. Knudson, a senior member of the Fox Chase Cancer Center and recipient of the 2004 Kyoto Award in Basic Sciences, had this advice for our students: “Don’t get so fixed on only one way of doing something. Be aware of opportunities.” I hope we all will follow that wise counsel as we embark on a new and exciting era in UCSD’s history.

For more details about the March 3 festivities, please read coverage in This Week @ UCSD.

Black History Month & César Chávez Celebrations

UCSD’s Black History Month (BHM) celebration was a resounding success; we set a new campus record of 40 events in the 2005 February BHM calendar, ranging from conferences for high school students to cultural performances to alumni gatherings. This year’s theme, “Powerful Voices: Celebrating the Voice of the African Diaspora,” delivered an important educational message to our students about Africa’s rich heritage. I am proud that the Office of the Chancellor was a major BHM sponsor, along with the UJIMA Network and the Office of the Vice Chancellor, Student Affairs. I congratulate Dr. Willie C. Brown, Professor Emeritus of Biological Sciences, on his receiving the Award for Outstanding Contributions to Higher Education at the Third Annual UCSD Black History Month Celebration and Scholarship Brunch, and I want to give special thanks to the BHM organizing committee and its co-chairs, Revelle College Dean of Student Affairs Renee Barnett-Terry and Student Affairs Executive Administrative Officer for New Initiatives and Community Relations Darlene Willis.

Another important campus tradition kicks off this month with the March 25 César E. Chávez Holiday. UCSD’s 2005 César E. Chávez Celebration will encompass a series of presentations and festivities throughout April. They will include an April 5 opening reception honoring Claudia Smith, Director of the Border Project, California Rural Legal Association, and an April 22 Lumumba/Zapata College Retrospective featuring UCSD alumni who, as student activists, were instrumental in the creation of Third (now Thurgood Marshall) College. For a calendar of César E. Chávez Celebration events, please visit the Chicano/a~Latino/a Arts and Humanities Website.

SRTV: Balancing Rights and Responsibilities

Many people have contacted me in recent weeks to voice concern about programming on UCSD’s Student Run Television Station (SRTV). As Chancellor, I was very disappointed that a few students chose to express themselves in the “Koala TV” broadcast on this closed circuit campus television station. Although SRTV’s operating budget is funded by students through their fees, the program did not reflect well on our campus and its students, and it was not in keeping with SRTV’s educational mission. The Associated Students (AS) Council, which oversees SRTV, has denounced the episode. SRTV and AS officials have said they will work to revise SRTV rules and regulations, and they hope to establish a formal grievance procedure for students this quarter. As AS Commissioner of Student Services Kian Maleki stated in an email to his Council colleagues, the broadcast “…stepped completely beyond the bounds of what might reasonably have been considered political or artistic speech.”

The university administration investigated the issue and noted that the broadcast violated the SRTV charter and our university’s “Principles of Community,” the guidelines for interactions among campus faculty, students and staff. We shared our findings with the AS leaders and advised them of their need to take a stance about the broadcast. I am pleased that we worked with our students in this collaborative manner, and I am proud of the decisions they have made and the actions they have taken. They have learned valuable lessons about the standards of their fellow students and the expectations those students have for services paid for with their fees.

All democracies strive to balance individual rights with responsible conduct. Universities, which exist to foster an open exchange of ideas, are ideal settings to find new ways of achieving such balance. That intellectual exploration is central to the educational process, and it helps prepare today’s students to be tomorrow’s leaders.

Coming in April: “Chancellor’s Corner”

Starting next month, these “Chancellor’s Website News Updates” will be reconstituted in a new format and given a new name. Our 5-month-old campus e-newsletter, “This Week @ UCSD,” will launch a new biweekly section, “Chancellor’s Corner,” as my vehicle for communicating with the UCSD community. “Chancellor’s Corner” will continue to publish three regular features from the Website News Updates: “Letter from the Chancellor,” Q&As with campus leaders, and “Letters to the Chancellor.” And it will include new features to convey the viewpoints of core campus groups and to elicit greater feedback from all of you.

A key impetus for launching “Chancellor’s Corner” was to streamline campus e-mails and avoid duplication of messages from the administration. Unlike the Website Updates, “Chancellor’s Corner” will not be distributed automatically. If you want to keep receiving these communiqués, all you have to do is subscribe to “This Week @ UCSD,” a roundup of campus news items that is informative and easy to browse. Visit “This Week @ UCSD" to sample the latest issue. Click here to subscribe.

As always, I encourage you to provide comments via my web page. Please pass along any suggestions via my chancellor@ucsd.edu email address.

With warm regards,

Marye Anne Fox