November 2004

 

Blumenthal, Brunk Assume Top UC Senate Posts

 

On September 1, two highly respected UC faculty members stepped into the Senate’s top posts for 2004-05. George Blumenthal, Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics at UC Santa Cruz, assumed the Chair of the Systemwide Academic Senate, and Clifford Brunk, Professor of Cell and Molecular Biology at UCLA, became the Senate Vice Chair. Blumenthal and Brunk will serve as the Faculty Representatives to the UC Board of Regents throughout the year. Both bring a wealth of past Senate experience to their new leadership roles.

 

Professor Blumenthal’s engagement with the UC Senate has a long history, having begun when he was an assistant professor at Santa Cruz where he eventually became the divisional chair. At the systemwide level, Professor Blumenthal has played a key role in a number Senate significant efforts. As Chair of the University Committee on Privilege and Tenure, he was the architect of extensive revisions to the Senate Bylaws dealing with grievances, early termination and disciplinary cases, and as Chair of the Academic Council ad hoc Committee on the Bylaws, he led to completion the long-term and sizable task of updating and amending the Senate bylaws. Blumenthal also worked closely on the 2003 revisions to the Faculty Code of Conduct, and as Chair of the Academic Council Special Committee on the National Labs (ACSCONL), was responsible for reporting to the Regents on the Senate’s activities and position regarding UC’s relationship with the labs, coordinated the development and implementation of a universitywide survey of senate faculty on the question of whether UC should continue management of the labs, and oversaw the creation of an accompanying set of educational white papers.

 

Professor Brunk has served on a number of local and universitywide senate committees and most recently as Chair of the UCLA division. In addition to his other duties as Council Vice Chair this year, he will also be heading up the Academic Council Special Committee on the National Labs and will be the Senate’s point person in regard to transfer and articulation issues among UC, CSU and the California Community Colleges.

 

As central items for the year ahead, Chair Blumenthal cites support for graduate education; the research environment; the current university-wide long-range planning effort; full launching of UC Merced; and undergraduate admissions and transfer issues. Looking to the future of the Academic Senate as well, he sees communications technology enabling more efficient meeting styles and more thorough participation among all Senate bodies, especially the Assembly. In fact, the relative roles of the Academic Council and the Assembly may, he believes, arise as an important item for long-range planning for the Senate itself.