ALICE LAM Vice chancellor of student affairs
Winston Doby speaks to the Daily Bruin about state
budget cuts, the SAT I, and student life in Westwood.
DB: You’re the vice chancellor of student affairs.
That sounds like a pretty big job, what does it entail? WD:
The vice chancellor of student affairs is essentially responsible
for student life outside the classroom. At UCLA there are a number
of services, programs and activities that we offer students to
ensure that their stay at the university is as rewarding and
pleasant as possible. We are responsible for everything from the
recruitment of students to their admission, providing their
financial support for their residential life experience, for their
health and welfare through the Student Health department, and for
their psychological well-being.
DB: How would you characterize the student body? What do you
think of us? WD: First and foremost, I think our students are
brilliant. We’re able to attract the best and the brightest.
Also, I think our students are caring. So many of them are
concerned with issues and efforts that go beyond their own
self-interest. The number of students who demonstrate that concern
by their involvement in service ““ both to the campus
community and to the larger Los Angeles community ““ is really
quite remarkable. Their projects are varied and the communities
they serve are diverse. The students themselves come from so many
different kinds of backgrounds that we have what I think is the
richest educational setting you can ask for as a student. I wish it
had been like this when I was an undergraduate student here.
DB: Did you like being a student here? WD: Oh, I loved
it! But this was many years ago. It was in the late ’50s.
There wasn’t the development we have now. There was only one
residence hall for women. The rest of us lived in a co-op. The
building has since been torn down and they built a new one. But
that was our living arrangement. So things have changed in the last
40 years. DB: You’ve seen the university transform itself.
WD: I have seen the transformation!
DB: For the better? WD: Oh, yes. Absolutely for the
better.
DB: So, why do you think UCLA is the most applied to school
in the nation? WD: We combine ““ better than any public
university ““ excellence of many types. Academic excellence,
athletic excellence, excellence in the arts. There are just so many
ways that this university is outstanding that students who visit
this institution just cannot escape the vibrance that’s here.
So, given our physical location and that tradition of excellence,
it is not a surprise to me that we are the most popular campus.
DB: What do you think, given all these things, should be the
role of students in this environment? WD: I’ve thought
about this a lot. And the way I would tackle it is to say that if I
were to write a job description for students, much like the
chancellor has a job description and the faculty have one, what
would the job of a student be? I’d have to say that first and
foremost, the responsibility of a student is to learn how to learn.
Particularly an undergraduate. All of the experiences in which
students engage are learning opportunities. And this process of
learning how to learn is not necessarily a formal part of the
curriculum. You never take a course on learning how to learn. But
in effect, learning to learn is the essence of a university. The
people in our environment who exemplify this more than anybody else
are our faculty. They are constantly exemplifying the art of
learning. In the center of learning, is the ability to formulate
questions to pursue, and the willingness to withhold judgement
about the answers to those questions until all the evidence is in.
A willingness to change one’s position given the information
collected. This is the process students go through over their time
here, and many don’t even realize it until after that time
has come to an end. You say, “Gee, I wish I’d done
this. I wish I’d taken advantage of that experience.”
And so given that as the heart of a student’s role, then
I’d say it’s the student’s obligation to seek out
as many different learning opportunities in as many different forms
as possible. To look beyond the classroom to other ways in which to
become involved and engaged in the university that essentially give
rise to different forms of learning and growth and development.
DB: A lot of undergraduate students don’t realize that
there’s more than the book learning aspect of the campus. And
the university has more responsibilities that just educational
aspects of this. What are some of the responsibilities UCLA has to
the community around us? WD: We are a city within a city. We
have obligation in our mission to service. But we are also a large
employer and there are lots of people who work here that help make
this university the great institution it is. So we have obligations
as an employer. As a very large segment of the West Los Angeles
area, we have to be mindful of our relationship with all of those
neighbors who share this part of the city with us. Our faculty,
under the leadership of our chancellor, has taken a much more
cohesive approach to this notion of UCLA in L.A. We just celebrated
our 75th anniversary last week, and we all saw how UCLA is involved
well beyond what exists on the campus. Our responsibility lies in
teaching, research and service.
DB: What about when those responsibilities compete with each
other? How do we focus on students when there’s pressure to
produce research and to be in the community? WD: Well, in
terms of the faculty, one of the things I believe in strongly is
that their continued pursuit of knowledge contributes to their
ability to teach. Our faculty are continuously asking questions and
pushing the frontiers of new knowledge ““ and they share this
with their students. There is pressure in terms of how faculty
divide their time between teaching, research and service. But the
three are not totally independent. The service gets interwoven with
the teaching and the research gets interwoven with the service.
They all combine together to make for a very rich practice. One of
our students’ concerns, and something I believe needs
attention, is the extent to which our students are able to
establish a meaningful relationship with faculty. Whenever we
survey students, it is that one statistic that stands out as not
being complimentary to UCLA. Our undergraduate students believe
that they do not have adequate opportunity to establish meaningful
relationships with faculty. We have to pay attention to that
concern, and find ways to do it.
DB: Any good ideas yet? WD: Well, we’ve actually
turned to the UCLA faculty’s response to Sept. 11 — the
one-unit seminars. One can generalize that experience and ask our
faculty to offer more opportunities like this for undergraduate
students, particularly freshman and sophomores. They would not be
full-blown courses, but mini courses. This puts faculty in a
position to interact with undergraduate students without having to
prepare a 10-week course. It would also simultaneously give
students an opportunity to establish a relationship with at least
one faculty member, much like the Sept. 11 seminars have. I do a
seminar, and we meet right here at my office. Seven students.
DB: And they all get to know you. WD: And I get to know
them!
DB: Shifting gears, there are a few things going on right
now that are affecting students lives outside the classroom. One of
those things is the massive state budget cuts. How are we going to
ensure that students’ needs are met when these kinds of
budget cuts are going on? WD: Well, in a way, I can say
we’ve been there and done that. This is reminiscent of what
happened in the late ’80s and early ’90s when the state
faced something like a $14 billion shortfall. During that period,
we had to suffer massive cuts to the budget. And during that
period, student fees skyrocketed. It’s not clear yet how the
president’s office and the regents are going to respond to
this budget challenge. But it’s pretty clear that there is
going to be a need to confront the shortfall of state funds. In the
student services area, the registration fee is not a state fund.
But generally when the campus faces a budget situation of this
sort, the approach has been to treat all services and programs and
activities in the same way: the first and foremost objective is to
protect the quality of the educational experience. What our
approach to that hopefully will be is define quality to encompass
the totality of the students’ experience – both in and
outside the classroom. One can actually look at this crisis as an
opportunity to think creatively about how we do things and come up
with innovative ways to ensure our students are harmed as least as
possible. That should be our foremost objective. The quality of
education should not be unduly harmed by this challenge. And we can
do it.
DB: Will students be included in the input process? WD:
Always. We have a student affairs budget review team and it
includes students. This was actually put into place during the last
budget crisis and we simply kept in place for the whole decade.
Students will be intimately involved, not only in how we approach
this challenge, but also in the ultimate decisions.
DB: More change going on. Westwood has changed it’s
face lately. We’ve got a Ralphs, a Best Buy, and a Longs Drug
store. A lot of people think the relationship between the students
and Westwood Village residents in surrounding areas are at odds
with each other. Is that an accurate depiction of what’s
going on? WD: There are clearly pluses and minuses to the
relationship. But I think any resident will agree that the pluses
far outweigh the minuses. The tensions between businesses run in
the Village and the enterprises students run on the campus will
always have tensions. There are concerns that the university
enterprises have an unfair advantage, and we seek to monopolize.
But on a whole, our relationship to the Westwood Village is a
positive one, and has actually improved significantly over the last
several years ““ and I’ve seen it since the days when
the village was indeed a village. In many respects, our
relationship to Westwood is one of our assets. It can only be seen
as a positive. I personally am pleased to see markets return to the
Village and think that the individuals responsible for this joint
effort are really visionary in the way they see the long-term
future of the university and the Village being so intertwined.
DB: What about the social aspect of Westwood? WD: I
guess I’m not sure that I see that as a big deal. Clearly
we’re not Madison, Wis., where there’s not a whole lot
to do. Westwood is a small aspect of the Los Angeles community and
the choices students have are incredible. In my day we had to
travel to Hollywood to experience certain kinds of social life that
weren’t available here in Westwood. But I thought that was
great! It was accessible and didn’t take that long. There are
so many different options in Los Angeles, and I don’t think
any restrictions on Westwood will really affect students’
social lives. Students find a way.
DB: Another concern students have is the constant
construction going on. Will there ever be an end to the
construction at UCLA? Many people are concerned about the trucks
going down Young Drive, what action is the university taking to
ease that burden on students? WD: That’s one of the
awful byproducts of a growing community ““ having to put up
with construction. I don’t remember any time ever in my
40-year experience with UCLA that there has not been construction.
It’s a way of life in any city that is seeking to ensure
it’s future. Following the earthquake in the early
’90s, UCLA looked at that situation again as an opportunity.
We restored our facilities to state of the art condition. During
that period students had to survive not having Royce Hall or Powell
Library. But now that part of the campus is gorgeous and will
withstand earthquake and will be around for a long time. The
sacrifice we make ““ those of us who are in the environment
during the construction ““ translates into benefits for future
students. For example, building the new hospital. It’ll be an
incredible addition when it’s done, but the pain of going
through it is there! I try to look at things in terms of the
long-term. The pain of living with construction is real, but
it’s worth it. I can’t remember when Bruin Walk was not
tied up. It’s unsettling ““ it’s an eye sore. But
I can envision the time when the Men’s Gym will be completed
and when Pauley Pavilion will be renovated ““ and those things
will be spectacular. Now, it’s true that students are only
here for a short period. They’re unwilling to look at it in
the long term. I lived in Dykstra Hall without the benefit of a
dining hall. We ate our meals in Kerckhoff. But we did it. It was
part of life ““ part of being a student. Sure, we complained
about it, but now when I look at that hill I say “Dang! That
hill is a great resource.” Imagine if we had said no more
construction — we wouldn’t be here. I’m very pleased
by the careful attention the campus administration pays to the
development of this campus. They have kept it a gorgeous place,
even with the construction. With the IM Field, we’ve had to
find creative ways to find new play space for students. And when
it’s done, everyone can park and everyone can play. And
““ it will be a much improved field. So you can say that each
time you make a change, you also make a significant
improvement.
DB: One more change to talk about. Some students want to
know if future Bruins will have to take the SAT. What do you think
— should we get rid of it? Keep it? WD: Eliminating the SAT
is not the same as eliminating a test requirement. What UC
President Richard Atkinson is proposing is eliminating a particular
kind of test, which allegedly measures a student’s aptitude
rather than a student’s performance in specified subject
areas. You also took three achievement tests, right? He’s not
proposing the elimination of achievement tests. What he is
proposing, is a series of tests that will more directly measure
student achievement in the A-G academic subject requirements as a
much more appropriate indicator of student achievement and
potential. The UC president’s office has been conducting
validity studies for a long time and the most recent results
I’ve read, once you take into account a student’s
grades and their performance on achievement tests, the SAT adds
virtually nothing as a predictor of how students will perform in
their first year of college. If an exam has little value added, why
require students to take it and pay the fee? I think his proposal
is quite a valuable one, and one the senate and faculty and
administration will soon be taking up.
DB: We talked about how things are now, what are you looking
forward to for the future of UCLA and it’s students? WD:
The future of UCLA is like it’s past. It’s gonna be
filled with excitement and a continued quest to be the very best in
all dimensions of the university experience. We were put on this
path to greatness by the founders of this campus, and the
leadership over the years has ensured that we will stay on this
path of being one of the great public research universities in the
world. I am hoping that over the course of time UCLA will also
continue it’s commitment to serve all the people of
California. That we not, as a result of circumstance or policy
constraints, end up being an institution that is not broadly
representative of all of the people. The state is changing and so
are its demographics. The demographics of UCLA are not changing
nearly as rapidly. That’s the challenge that will always be
in front of us.
DB: Do you think we’ll meet it well? WD: Like all
challenges, we’ll do our best. But the stakes are high as are
the obstacles in the way of achieving it. But it takes resolve and
commitment. We simply have to never give up.
Interview conducted by Maegan Carberry, Daily Bruin Senior
Staff.