SUBJECT:  Appointment of Sixth College Provost

It is my pleasure to announce that Dr. Gabriele Wienhausen has been selected as the founding Provost of Sixth College.

Dr. Wienhausen, a member of the Department of Biology and Thurgood Marshall College, currently serves as Vice Chair for Education in Biology and as Director of UCSD's Howard Hughes Medical Institute Undergraduate Biological Sciences Education Program. She is the current chair of the Academic Senate Committee on Educational Policy and is also a member of the Thurgood Marshall College curriculum committee and faculty advisory board.

Dr. Wienhausen began her academic career in 1978 as an Assistant Professor at Westfaelische Wilhelms-Universitaet, Muenster, Germany. She was attracted to UCSD in 1981 to pursue biochemical research in metabolic adaptations to environmental stress. During her 18 years at UCSD, Wienhausen has received six teaching awards, including the 2000 Chancellor's Associates Outstanding Teaching Award; a 1995 Academic Senate Distinguished Teaching Award; a 1994 Revelle College Outstanding Faculty Award; and three Warren College Excellence in Teaching Awards (1994, 1996, 1998). Since 1993, Wienhausen has served as co-director of the Doctoral Program in Mathematics and Science Education. She also is co-director of the Multi Media Interactive Learning Lab, which she helped establish by securing extramural funding and by developing CD ROM-based and Web-based instruction materials.

Dr. Wienhausen is a highly regarded educator, and her ground-breaking work in the development of innovative teaching methods and applications for instructional technology has been widely recognized. This pedagogical expertise, combined with her demonstrated commitment to undergraduate education and extensive administrative experience, make Dr. Wienhausen exceptionally well suited to provide leadership in the development of the new undergraduate program for Sixth College.

Dr. Wienhausen will soon begin working with a faculty planning committee that will be assembled to develop the detailed academic plan for Sixth College. Consistent with the Preliminary Plan adopted by the Academic Senate Representative Assembly in November, 1999, the college will have a thematic focus of "art, culture and technology." The goal of the faculty planning committee will be to submit the curriculum plan to the Academic Senate for review during Fall 2000. Sixth College is scheduled on open in Fall 2002.

We are delighted that Dr. Wienhausen is taking up this important and challenging position, and I know that you will join with me in giving her your support as founding Provost of Sixth College.

                                                         Robert C. Dynes
                                                         Chancellor