BY WENDY SODERBURG
UCLA Today Staff
Over the past year, more than 1,000 alumni have
generously volunteered their time and services to make the UCLA
Alumni Association’s many events and programs successful.
Greeting busloads of grade school students at college fairs
or football games, reviewing scholarship applications, raising
funds, calling new students to welcome them to UCLA, giving
informational interviews — volunteer activities run the
gamut, and alumni respond in volume. It’s a natural connection
for alumni, who realize the value of devoting time to their
alma mater.
But what about staff and faculty? Most of them
already spend more time at UCLA during the week than they do
with their own friends and families. Beyond fighting traffic
and toiling for eight hours or more at their jobs every day,
what more do they need to give?
The answer is, of course, nothing.
Which makes what 140 staff and faculty volunteers
do even more remarkable. These tireless souls often spend many
evening and weekend hours devoting their energies to the Alumni
Association’s network of committees and numerous events.
They receive little reward other than the satisfaction of doing
a good deed.
“We are especially grateful when faculty
and staff volunteer their time to be involved with the UCLA
Alumni Association,” said Keith E. Brant, the organization’s
executive director and assistant vice chancellor of alumni relations.
“Even long after graduating from UCLA, alumni love to
continue their interaction with faculty. The faculty-student
relationship is at the core of the academic enterprise, and
that bond can last a lifetime.
“We also appreciate when campus staff
are involved with association programs. Better than most, they
understand the UCLA of today and are in the best position to
know how to make a difference.”
Who are these intrepid souls, and how do they
get involved?
“Staff and faculty become involved through
a variety of means,” said Marci Weisblatt, associate executive
director of volunteer and project management for the Alumni
Association. “For some opportunities, we specifically
recruit individuals who will bring a certain perspective or
expertise to the table, such as asking faculty members to serve
on our Faculty and Campus Relations Committee, or asking an
admissions staff member to serve on the Educational Outreach
Committee.
“For many other opportunities, staff
and faculty contact us in response to a notice in our monthly
e-mail newsletter or in campus publications.”
Some faculty and staff are alumni themselves,
Weisblatt added, so they receive information about volunteer
opportunities through campus- and alumni-based communication
vehicles. “They often like to give back to their alma
mater in ways that might not be possible through their jobs,”
she said.
That’s true for Grace Basila, a 1991
graduate in sociology. Helping External Affairs staff takes
up the lion’s share of her job as program manager for
its human resources department. Yet, when she took the job in
1999, she immediately attended an Alumni Association Volunteer
Open House to deepen her involvement.
Since then, Basila has participated in various
programs ranging from career services to scholarships and leadership
development. “I really enjoy the activities that provide
opportunities for students and alumni to interact and share
experiences,” she said. “Whether you’re sharing
knowledge about life after UCLA or helping students to network,
it is truly an amazing connection that you make with fellow
Bruins.”
Through her service on the association’s
Committee for Ethnic Diversity, the Diversity Outreach Leadership
Program, the Distinguished Scholar Selection Committee and the
Ralph Bunche Committee, Lovell Sevilla became involved with
the Pilipino Alumni Association, serving as its director of
academics and scholarships and as a mentor.
“To volunteer with the association has
been extremely easy for me, since I work on campus as an academic
counselor in Honors Programs,” said Sevilla, who graduated
from UCLA in 1989 with a B.A. in history. “I am in complete
awe of these amazing students we will be graduating. It makes
my heart beam with pride when I interview students who I believe
will make long-lasting contributions to our society through
their academic and scientific research, their desire for social
justice and their spirit of community.”
Training of the volunteers varies, depending
on their specific role. Sometimes a staff or faculty member
brings just the right expertise to an activity.
Carlos Haro, a three-time UCLA grad and assistant
director of the Chicano Studies Research Center, has been volunteering
since 1994. His first role was hosting tables of parents of
prospective freshmen at several lunches for the Family Summer
Orientation Program. Haro easily slid into the role of adviser,
discussing the important part that parents play in getting their
children prepared for and admitted to UCLA.
Then he joined other volunteers in congratulating
thousands of newly admitted students through the New Student
Welcome Calling project. “I often asked that I be the
one to speak with the Spanish-speaking parents,” Haro
said. “Often, these parents had not gone to a university;
having their children move out of their home to attend college
was a new experience. I spoke to them as an alumnus, as one
who had experienced the institution, as the son of working-class
Mexicans who had not gone beyond a fourth-grade education and
as the parent of a daughter who was in the university. The parents
were often appreciative of my words, and I recall one father
saying, ‘Thank you. I did not want my daughter to leave
home, but what you have said is true; it is the best thing for
her.’ ”
Diane Childs, reference librarian and education
bibliographer in the Charles E. Young Research Library, found
out about the need for volunteers on the Distinguished Bruin
Award Committee to screen and interview juniors and seniors
who had distinguished themselves through service to UCLA, the
community and the classroom. Childs, a UCLA graduate who received
her M.L.S. in 1979, signed up.
“For two years now I have had the privilege
of reading dossiers for juniors and seniors who are award candidates,”
she said. “The interviewees are very bright, enormously
talented, highly motivated and quite interesting people. They
truly show why they are distinguished and will continue to be
leaders after graduation.”
One of the longest-serving staff volunteers
is Noelle Tisius, a 1980 UCLA grad in English who has been participating
since 1985, primarily in the scholarship area. Currently renewal
chair of the Scholarship Steering Committee, Tisius previously
was community college chair, community college area chair in
Northern California and a freshman scholars interviewer.
“It’s rewarding to meet the students
and other alumni and to be able to give back to the institution
that helped me get started on my career,” Tisius said.
“Working as a volunteer helps broaden my understanding
of different parts of the university, and helps me as well in
my position as associate director in the UCLA Office of Corporate,
Foundation and Research Relations.”
While many staff and faculty volunteers are
alumni, some are not. Ric Kaner, professor of chemistry and
biochemistry, is a Brown University graduate but finds that
UCLA’s Alumni Association “does great work.
“I’ve attended Dinners for 12 Strangers
14 out of the 16 years I’ve been at UCLA and have found
these to be a great place to get to know UCLA, its students
and alumni,” he said. “For the past two years, I
have served as one of the faculty advisers to the association’s
Faculty and Campus Relations Committee. We have come up with
what I believe are very nice events, including a fall tenure
reception honoring newly tenured faculty, and one-on-one meetings
between alumni and all new UCLA assistant professors. We’re
also making an effort to get more faculty involved in Dinners
for 12 Strangers.”
Joining Kaner on the Faculty and Campus Relations
Committee is Mathematics Professor Thomas Liggett, who noted
that during his first 33 years on the UCLA faculty, he had almost
no involvement with the Alumni Association. Now he attends quarterly
dinner meetings at the James West Alumni Center, where he provides
information about the faculty and the broader academic community.
“As faculty members, we serve the campus
in a variety of ways,” Liggett said. “This, together
with my activities with the Alumni Association, helps provide
connections that are particularly important in the large and
varied community that is UCLA.”
Finally, not all volunteer activity takes place
on campus. English Professor Fred Burwick found a unique way
to weave his field of expertise into his volunteer activity.
As faculty director for last September’s Alumni Association
cruise from Amsterdam to Budapest, Burwick lectured to the alumni
travelers on topics that matched the sites they visited.
“I lectured on ‘Rhine Romanticism:
The Loreley,’ ‘The Frescoes in the Wurzburg Residenz:
Giovanni Tiepolo,’ ‘E.T.A. Hoffman in Bamberg, 1808-1812’
and ‘The Stage Designs at the Vienna Opera House,’
” Burwick said. In June, he will give a talk on “Bacchus
in Romantic England” during a wine-tasting event in San
Diego and will serve as faculty director for another Alumni
Association trip, this time to England’s Lake District.
“Our alumni are wonderful people: witty,
intelligent and fun to be with,” he said. “I very
much enjoy the Alumni Travel programs and look forward to offering
my services for many years in the future.”
For more information on volunteer activities,
go to www.uclalumni.net/Involvement/Opportunities/.
