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Photo by Reed Hutchinson
UCLA Photographic Services
New Academic Senate Chair Clifford Brunk is encouraging the administration
to hold “fireside chats,” much in the way that Franklin
D. Roosevelt did during the Great Depression.
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a challenging year
New chair advocates shared information
By cynthia lee
ucla today staff
With a recall election approaching, a new leader at the helm of the University
of California and faculty returning to campus to face the harsh realities
of a tight budget year, Clifford Brunk is, in his words, in for “an
interesting year” as chair of the Academic Senate.
A molecular biologist who has studied the evolution of a one-celled
animal called a tetrahymena for more than a decade, Brunk has clearly
defined his mission as he prepares to take leadership of the Senate at
a time of great uncertainty.
“My strong feeling,” said Brunk, “is that the role
of the leadership of the Senate this year will be to assist and encourage
the administration to articulate to the faculty, at a number of venues,
the fact that, despite these budgetary constraints, UCLA will continue
to move forward on a trajectory toward greatness. These lean years will
pass.”
Brunk said the campus’ highly skilled administrators have done
a good job of devising a budget plan that deals with cuts totaling $20.5
million while at the same time protecting essential academic and administrative
functions. Now is the time, said the new chair, to communicate clearly
with the faculty what was done, why it was done this way and what were
the considerations that went into the decision-making.
“What we need is what Franklin D. Roosevelt gave the American
people during the Great Depression,” Brunk said. “We need
a fireside chat, if you will. Shared governance, in this case, really
amounts to shared information.
“The faculty do not want to tell the administration how these
cuts should be made. That would not be a good idea,” he said, adding
that campus administrators are much better equipped to make those central
decisions. “But there is a major need to transmit information about
these budget cuts to the faculty, at meetings with the Legislative Assembly,
town-hall meetings and departmental gatherings.”
The recall election has also made faculty uneasy.
“If the voters elect a new governor this fall, we could have a
reexamination of the state’s budgetary priorities,” Brunk
said. “There’s a chance we could have additional budget constraints
beyond those we’re already experiencing this year. If the recall
is successful, then all bets are off.”
Ever since he joined UCLA’s then-zoology department in 1967, after
receiving his master’s degree in electrical engineering and Ph.D.
in biophysics from Stanford, Brunk has thrived on the excitement of being
a teacher, researcher and faculty representative both on campus and systemwide.
He’s been chair or vice chair of many major Senate committees and
served most recently as chair of the systemwide equivalent of the Graduate
Council (which he also chaired locally earlier).
“It makes for an extremely exciting life,” said Brunk of
his various roles. “You stay young forever because you’re
continually in contact with young students and, at the same time, you
grow intellectually. I’ve seen the culture of UCLA change dramatically
in the 36 years I’ve been here.” |
