Year-old initiative already a success
BY phil hampton
UCLA Today
After spending last fall as a visiting fellow at Oxford University,
UCLA Economics Professor Kenneth L. Sokoloff faced a difficult decision.
He could accept an offer from historic Oxford to join some of the
best scholars in his specialty, economic history. Or he could remain
at UCLA, where for nearly 25 years he and his colleagues have been
building one of the strongest programs in the country despite often
facing difficulty securing funding to support their research and
students.
Sokoloff said he was leaning toward leaving until UCLA, using a
private donation earmarked for faculty retention, countered with
an offer that kept him in California.
“UCLA made me a very generous offer with the focus on what
I indicated was most important — having ample funds to support
my research and graduate students,” Sokoloff said. “That
was something I placed a very high value on.”
Sokoloff’s story underscores the early success of UCLA’s
Ensuring Academic Excellence Initiative, a special campaign launched
one year ago to enhance financial support for faculty and graduate
student recruitment and retention. As UCLA faces increasing competition
from private universities with much larger endowments, the intent
is to level the playing field in the bid for top faculty and graduate
students.
The initiative’s five-year goal is to generate $250 million,
including $100 million to fund 100 new endowed faculty chairs across
campus, $100 million to fund student fellowships and scholarships
in the UCLA College, and $50 million to fund fellowships and scholarships
in the professional schools. Through early June, the initiative
had generated nearly $85 million in gifts and pledges.
Recognizing Sokoloff as one of the world’s leading economic
historians, College Execu-
tive Dean Patricia O’Brien said the initiative is proving
valuable. “UCLA can retain top faculty and maintain excellence
only with the philanthropic support of our friends,” she said,
noting the growing importance of private support in the face of
a long-term decline in state funding. “We’re grateful
for our many visionary donors, who provide resources needed to compete
with other
universities with larger and more established endowments.”
The donors who helped keep Sokoloff here were Josh and Judy Green,
alumni now living in Atherton, Calif. “The quality of an institution
always comes down to its people, and the role of faculty in research
as well as in teaching marks the quality of the university,”
said Josh Green, an attorney and member of the College Campaign
Cabinet.
Green asked where his gift would be of most use, and Scott Waugh,
dean of social sciences, identified Sokoloff’s retention.
Waugh combined the Greens’ gift with other resources to create
a package and a partnership that helped persuade Sokoloff to stay.
There’s also a great need for graduate student support, administrators
said. The quality of students plays a critical role in attracting
and retaining top faculty. Top graduate and medical students decide
where to study not just on academics, but also on economic factors
such as fellowships, scholarships and financial aid. Again, private
universities with larger endowments often make it difficult to compete.
Recognizing this need, Lorraine Strassburg of Encino pledged resources
for medical student scholarships. Since Strassburg’s death
in November, the David Geffen School of Medicine has received $5
million from the Strassburg Living Trust to establish the Neil,
Lorraine and Leo Strassburg Memorial Scholarship Fund to support
medical students.
Unrestricted funds provide deans and faculty with the greatest
flexibility in building incentive packages for top graduate students,
administrators said. To that end, A. Richard Diebold Jr., professor
emeritus of anthropology at the University of Arizona and a longtime
supporter of UCLA’s Indo-European Studies Program, last month
pledged $5 million for graduate student fellowships in the humanities.
“Professor Diebold’s gift represents a magnificent
beginning to what I hope will become an even more sizable endowment
fund for graduate fellowships in the Division of Humanities,”
Dean Gabrielle Spiegel said. “The exceptionally generous gift
will allow us to supplement state funding with necessary funds to
attract and retain the very best graduate students in the country.”
Sokoloff said his graduate students are an invaluable resource
whose contributions improve his work and independently advance knowledge.
The funding provided for his economic history research center will
allow him to support their work. It also eliminates the need for
him to devote time and energy to pursue additional grants, a key
factor in his decision to stay at UCLA.
“The current (funding) environment is very unfavorable for
public universities in California and elsewhere in the United States,”
Sokoloff said. “If, as I believe, it’s valuable for
society to maintain high-quality public universities like UCLA,
it will become increasingly important for those institutions to
mobilize funds from
private sources.”
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