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©2004
The Regents of the University of California
 

NAMES AND FACES

BRAVO

Molecular and Medical Pharmacology Adjunct Professor Sanjiv “Sam” Gambhir received the 2004 Award for Distinguished Basic Scientist at the Academy of Molecular Imaging’s annual conference in recognition of outstanding achievement for developing new approaches for molecular imaging with optical and micro-computed tomography techniques.... Timothy Lane, assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology, received a Young Investigator grant from the Alliance for Cancer Gene Therapy, Inc., for his research into seeking new targets for treatment of breast cancer.

SMASHING

Chemical Engineering Professors Panagiotis D. Christofides and Jane P. Chang, along with their students, have been selected to receive the 2004 O. Hugo Schuck Best (Application) Paper Award, one of the most prestigious Best Paper awards in the field of automatic control. Christofides has also been selected to receive the 2004 Donald P. Eckman Award, given by the American Automatic Control Council.... The UCLA Library announced the appointment of Rita Costello as head of the Eugene and Maxine Rosenfeld Management Library and assistant director for user services in the Anderson School’s Computing and Information Services.... By demonstrating compliance with the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations’ national standards for health-care quality and safety, UCLA Medical Center earned the joint commission’s Gold Seal of Approval.

GOOD SHOW

Kris D. Gutierrez, professor of education, received the 2004 Sylvia Scribner Award from the American Educational Research Association. The award is presented in recognition of work that has influenced thinking and research in the field of learning and instruction, particularly within the last decade.... Professor Stuart Kirk assumed the role of chair of the Department of Social Welfare on July 1. Kirk, who joined the department in 1994, holds the Marjorie Crump Chair in Social Welfare and served as the Ph.D. director for the department’s doctoral program for several years.

IN MEMORIAM

John Dreyfuss, who worked in media relations and planning and communications at UCLA’s Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center from 1995 to 2000, died Aug. 21 at UCLA Medical Center of complications from an emergency appendectomy. He was 70.

Known for his warm personality, quick wit and engaging storytelling, Dreyfuss came to UCLA after a 27-year career as a writer at the Los Angeles Times. Dreyfuss single-handedly built the cancer center’s media relations office from the ground up, almost immediately placing stories in major outlets. In 1998, he was promoted from public information director to director for planning and communications, taking on a more strategic role in operations.

Judith C. Gasson, director of the Jonsson Cancer Center, said Dreyfuss touched many lives during his time at UCLA, making connections with scientists, physicians, nurses and administrators throughout the cancer center and Westwood campus. His job title, Gasson said, never limited his activities.

“He was involved in everything,” Gasson said. “Everyone knew John and was touched in some way by him.”

Born in New York, Dreyfuss moved to California with his family when he was in his teens. During his varied career, he served in the Army, was a teacher in Carmel and first worked as a reporter for a small newspaper in San Luis Obispo. Eager to know the newspaper business from both sides, he also served as an advertising salesman at the Ventura Star-Free Press.

Dreyfuss joined the staff at the L.A. Times in 1966 as a beat reporter and covered higher education and the environment before becoming the paper’s architecture and design critic. He also wrote feature stories. He left the paper in 1993 and started a construction company with his son, James Henry Dreyfuss, and then worked briefly as a news writer for KTLA Channel 5 before joining the cancer center staff in 1995.

In addition to his son, Dreyfuss is survived by his wife, Katharine “Kit” Elizabeth Rich; three daughters, Karen Elizabeth Dreyfuss-Avendano, Katharine Marks Dreyfuss and Kimberly Anne Dreyfuss-Linse; a sister, Gail Dreyfuss-Wilson; and five grandchildren.

A memorial service has been scheduled for 11 a.m. on Sunday, Nov. 14, in Schoenberg Hall on the UCLA campus. No RSVP is required. More details about the service will be available at a later date.

In lieu of flowers, the family suggests donations be made to UCLA’s Jonsson Cancer Center Foundation, Box 951780, Factor Building, Room 8-950, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1780; or the Midland School, P.O. Box 8, Los Olivos, CA 93441.

David W. Golde, an expert in blood disorders who spent 18 years on the faculty at UCLA before leaving in 1991 to join the staff at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, died Aug. 9 at his Manhattan apartment. He was 63.

A hematologist and oncologist, Golde came to UCLA in 1973 and was named a professor of medicine in 1979, a position he held until 1991. He served as chief of the division of hematology-oncology and was first co-director and then director of the Clinical Research Center.

While at UCLA, Golde helped isolate and purify a protein called GM-CSF, which boosts a patient’s immune system during chemotherapy and bone marrow transplantation by increasing the production of white blood cells. Golde also helped discover the leukemia virus HTLV-II, which was being spread among intravenous drug users. Golde and his colleagues cloned the virus and developed a blood test to detect it. That research prompted Golde’s interest in AIDS research, and from 1986 to 1990, he directed UCLA’s AIDS Center.

Golde left UCLA in 1991 for Memorial Sloan-Kettering and served as physician-in-chief there from 1996 to 2002. He continued to treat leukemia patients there until his death.

Golde is survived by his second wife, Geri, and their daughter, Lea Marie, both of Manhattan; son Michael of Silver Spring, Md.; son Daniel of Los Angeles; a sister, Barbara Benedict of Hudson, Mass.; and two grandchildren.

Norman P. Miller, a longtime UCLA faculty member and administrator who served as UCLA’s first vice chancellor for student affairs for nearly 10 years during the 1970s, died on Sept. 7 at his home in Sherman Oaks, Calif., of natural causes after a long illness. He was 86.

“The UCLA community is deeply saddened by the loss of this valued member of our university family,” UCLA Chancellor Albert Carnesale said. “But Norm Miller’s legacy continues on our campus in many areas, especially in our athletic and recreation programs and facilities.”

Miller, born in Los Angeles on April 19, 1918, received his B.S. degree in physical education from UCLA in 1939. Bruin classmates of his included former Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley and legendary athletes Jackie Robinson and Kenny Washington. He received his M.S. degree in 1941 from Columbia University. Following service during World War II as a captain in the U.S. Army Air Force (May 1942 through March 1946), he returned to Columbia University, earning a doctorate of education in 1949.

Miller returned to Los Angeles in 1949 to join the UCLA faculty in the department of physical education as an assistant professor. He quickly developed a statewide and national reputation for his expertise in recreation programs. In 1962 with the encouragement of then-Chancellor Franklin D. Murphy, Miller left his faculty position to establish the UCLA Office of Cultural and Recreational Affairs, believed to be the first initiative by any major U.S. university to establish a student services office dedicated specifically to intramural and club sports activities and general recreation programs for faculty, students and staff. Previously, such programs were adjunct programs to either intercollegiate athletic departments or physical education departments.

Miller immediately championed the creation of an outdoor recreation center complex at UCLA. Opened in 1966 as the Sunset Canyon Recreation Center, the facility boasted a 50-meter swimming pool, a 25-yard lap pool, a family/children’s pool, a separate diving tank, numerous fields and volleyball areas, meeting rooms for arts and crafts, picnic areas and outdoor recreation facilities. The location for the Sunset Canyon Recreation Center was selected so that it could serve both the student residence halls as well as the larger campus community at UCLA. During 1966-67 — the same year that the Recreation Center opened — Miller also served as president of the UCLA Faculty Club.

“Together with Franklin Murphy, Norm Miller during the 1960s championed the theme of ‘community’ at UCLA — faculty, students and staff — in a manner that I suspect was unmatched at any other institution in the U.S. during that decade,” said former UCLA Chancellor Charles E. Young, who succeeded Murphy as UCLA chancellor in 1968 and who, as UCLA vice chancellor-administration during the 1960s, had worked with Miller on the recreation center project.

“The development in the mid-1960s of the outdoor Sunset Canyon Recreation Center near the UCLA residence halls was advocated by Norm and embraced by Franklin. That facility’s contribution to the quality of campus life for tens of thousands of UCLA students, and thousands of faculty and staff members and their families, has continued for nearly 40 years and is testimony to Norm’s vision.”

After serving as director of the Office of Cultural and Recreational Affairs for eight years, Miller was appointed in 1970 by Chancellor Young as UCLA’s first vice chancellor for student and campus affairs.

“Asking Norm to serve as UCLA’s first vice chancellor for student and campus affairs in 1970 was only appropriate, given Norm’s record of commitment to the quality of student life at UCLA. Together with other stalwarts of UCLA’s past, such as the late Barney Atkinson and Chuck McClure, Norm developed an organizational approach to campus activities and student life at UCLA that has been the foundation for the past three decades and more,” former Chancellor Young said.

In 1977 and 1978, Miller had a direct role in two other major milestone events at UCLA. He served as UCLA’s representative on the City of Los Angeles delegation that traveled to Athens to meet with the International Olympic Committee leadership to submit the bid of the City of Los Angeles to host the 1984 Olympics. At the same time, he oversaw the effort for a successful student referendum to approve a student fee for the construction of an indoor recreation facility near Pauley Pavilion and the Ackerman Student Union, now known as the John Wooden Center, named for UCLA’s legendary men’s basketball coach who had retired in 1975.

In 1979, at the age of 61, Miller stepped down as vice chancellor and headed UCLA’s 1984 Olympics office to help coordinate campus planning and receive foreign visitors during the following five years. “Having Norm lead the on-campus UCLA Olympics office following his retirement in 1979 was a capstone role for him,” former Chancellor Young said. “Norm told me of his memories of how, as a 14-year-old youth, he had sold newspapers outside the Coliseum during the 1932 Olympics in Los Angeles. Having the 1984 Olympics return to Los Angeles a half-century later and being able to have a pivotal role in UCLA’s role meant a great deal to him.”

Miller is survived by his wife, Nadine, and sister, Barbara Skinner. In lieu of flowers, the family encourages that contributions in his memory be made to Special Olympics-Southern California, 5875 Green Valley Circle, Suite 200, Culver City, CA 90230 (http://www.sosc.org/donation.html; phone: 310-215-8380).

Funeral services were held at the Chapel of the Oaks at Eternal Valley Memorial Park in Newhall on Sept. 11. A memorial service will also be scheduled at a later time at the Sunset Canyon Recreation Center on the UCLA campus.