June 2006

Now that the academic year has drawn to a close, I want to thank the entire UCSD community—faculty, staff and students—for your hard work and dedication over the last several months.  Each and every one of you has played a key role in making this an exciting and productive year.

Congratulations to our graduates!

It’s that time of year when we celebrate our graduating students.  I want to congratulate the 5,400-plus students who graduated this year – you made it!  Your education at UCSD will serve as the foundation to build a bright future. We hope that you, as alumni of UCSD, will stay connected to the university. Remember: you’ll always be a member of our family.  

On June 3, we recognized a monumental benchmark for UCSD. Twenty-four members of the Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, one of only two public schools of pharmacy in the state, received their Pharm.D. degrees.  UC President Bob Dynes and former UC President Dick Atkinson, who both played pivotal roles in bringing the school to fruition, joined us for the ceremonies.

On June 30, The Preuss School, the only charter school of its type to be located and operated by a major university, will graduate its second class of 87 students. Of the graduating class, 98% have been accepted to 4-year colleges, including UCSD, other UC campuses, Harvard, Stanford, MIT and Amherst. This represents an outstanding achievement for a school that was designed to increase the pool of college-eligible students among underrepresented and economically disadvantaged groups.  Congratulations, Preuss and Preuss graduates, you have made UCSD very proud!

Let’s Get Walking, UCSD!

On June 9, more than 200 members of the campus community joined me in kicking off Walk UCSD, a program to encourage staff, students and faculty to get out and enjoy the campus and get some exercise. More than 400 people have registered for the program online. UCSD Recreation director Dave Koch has identified nine campus routes with varying levels of difficulty ranging from the half-mile Sun God Stroll, which we successfully traversed at our kick-off event, to the more strenuous four-mile campus loop.  A campus walking program was initially suggested in a letter to me and I thought it was a great idea for such a beautiful campus with such lovely weather. The credit for developing the program goes to Laurie Titus, who sent me the suggestion, and the staff in Business Affairs and Student Affairs.  For more information about Walk UCSD, please visit the website at: http://walk.ucsd.edu.

Let Me Hear From You at the Town Hall on June 22

On June 22, I will hold a Town Hall meeting from noon to 1 p.m. at Eucalyptus Point for all UCSD staff.  This is the last of three town halls we have scheduled to provide members of the campus community with the opportunity to have an open dialogue about various campus issues. Approximately 100 students participated in the Town Hall for students.  The issues discussed ranged from environmental sustainability and economic justice to campus diversity and the Porter’s Pub lease. The Town Hall for faculty, which approximately 70 faculty members attended, addressed issues such as child care on campus, UC’s sexual harassment policies, areas of emphasis in the UCSD Capital Campaign, and UC compensation.

Because many of our staff members are not located on the main campus, we will provide shuttle bus service to and from the June 22 Town Hall meeting for staff at Hillcrest, Thornton and Scripps.  In addition, I am approving one hour of administrative leave with pay and I have encouraged supervisors to allow staff to attend if it does not interfere with their essential duties.  I look forward to seeing many of you at the June 22 Town Hall meeting.

A Few Campus Highlights

A few other significant events occurred in spring quarter that should not go unmentioned. 
Calit2 at UCSD hosted the US-India Summit on Education, Research & Technology to promote and nurture research, education and scientific innovation between India and the U.S. This high level, high-tech “talk” included several dignitaries from India, including Kapil Sibal, India’s Minister of Science and Technology and Ocean Development.  In addition to the cabinet minister’s visit, a keynote speech was delivered by the President of India, Abdul Kalam, via Calit2’s high-definition video over an ad hoc optical-fiber network linking the UCSD campus to the presidential palace in New Delhi. The Summit included visits between Sibal and several other high level Indian officials and other world-class research organizations, including Scripps Institution of Oceanography, Qualcomm, and General Atomics. The Summit also included officials from the National Science Foundation, the UC Office of the President, CONNECT.

UCSD’s San Diego Supercomputer Center, widely known for its world-class data archive resources, held a groundbreaking ceremony to kick off its expansion efforts.  SDSC already has the distinction of having more data storage than any other academic facility in the nation, and with its expansion, that capacity will be tripled to 18 petabytes. The expanded facility will also help support the Center’s role in creating a greatly enhanced cyberinfrastructure which is vital for the scientific and engineering projects of the 21st century.  It will also bring all SDSC staff under one roof; they currently are spread across six different campus locations.

Greetings and Farewells

After nearly 40 years of dedicated service to the university, Dick Attiyeh, UCSD’s Vice Chancellor for Research and Dean of Graduate Studies, is retiring.  Over the years, Dick’s contributions to the university in the areas of graduate education, research, and academic affairs, have been substantial. Dick joined UCSD as a professor of economics in 1967 and has served as Vice Chancellor for Research and Dean of Graduate Studies over the last 24 years, a period of tremendous growth for UCSD. Dick will be sorely missed, but we wish him well in retirement. The campus community celebrated his numerous contributions to UCSD and gave him a fitting send-off on June 15.

On August 1, it will be official: Thurgood Marshall College will have a new provost, Allan Havis.  Havis, a playright and a member of the Department of Theatre and Dance faculty since 1988, succeeds longtime TMC provost and musician Cecil Lytle. Lytle, an outstanding campus leader, has played and integral role in The Preuss School and its successes. Cecil has returned to teaching and an associate director role at CREATE, after 17 years of service as TMC’s provost.  I’d like to thank Cecil for his amazing achievements and contributions as TMC’s provost and welcome Allan Havis as new provost of TMC. I’d also like to thank Linguistics Professor Robert Kluender for his service as acting TMC provost for the 2005-2006 academic year.

I wish you all an enjoyable summer.

Sincerely,
Marye Anne Fox
Chancellor