Spring 1996
A Student, A Teacher, A Place to Learn
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Because
it’s incomplete, the term "research university" -- a familiar way
of describing an institution like UCLA -- may not be helpful for
this task of persuading. Why don’t we say "research and teaching
university"? Not just because four words are too many for snappy
copy. The fact is that our great research universities, through
much of their dramatic growth since mid-century, have not always
worked hard enough at teaching. A more salient fact is that universities
are working hard at it now, and UCLA is leading the way.
UCLA
faculty leading our Science Challenge are applying new media and
-- more important -- new thinking to the reform of the undergraduate
science curriculum. Their colleagues in marine science are extending
these innovations to the schools and to the city through the Ocean
Discovery Center at the Santa Monica Pier. Other faculty and students
are serving on a work group planning an even broader improvement
of general education. Deans and chairs are finding ways to bring
new excellence and efficiencies to the curriculum. Assisting these
efforts, the Academic Senate has reorganized the faculty governance
of undergraduate education in a new Undergraduate Council, which
has just launched a series of faculty conferences devoted to the
improvement of teaching. These initiatives for better learning and
teaching take strength from the context of discovery that only a
research university can provide.
We’re
doing a better job of learning and teaching at UCLA because we do
it as a research university.
To
make their work in the classroom and laboratory more compelling,
UCLA faculty draw on the creativity that research requires. The
passion that fuels research fires passionate teaching, the eagerness
to help others learn in a climate of discovery. Discovery keeps
UCLA faculty at the edge of inquiry, the best vantage point from
which to see knowledge advancing. UCLA students -- working in a
laboratory through the Student Research Program, participating in
a class taught by someone whose research defines the field -- can
learn in the context of discovery because our faculty create that
context.
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