Dear Colleagues and Friends:
Welcome back to campus in this new beautiful year! Hoping your 2025 will be filled with inspiration, happiness, and illumination; and may we all see each other with hope and optimism for a better UC San Diego.
We have an interesting year ahead of us with the arrival of two requests, known as Memorials in UC academic parlance, from UC San Francisco’s Divisional Academic Senate, which call for the inclusion of individuals appointed in the HS Clinical Professor and Adjunct Professor series (with 50% or more appointments) in the Academic Senate. As these requests are of very high impact for the Senate, we have organized two virtual Town Halls to deliberate the issues. The materials submitted by UC San Francisco’s Senate are posted on the San Diego Senate homepage. Dates and times are as follows:
Friday, January 24, 3:30-5:00 PM (register here)
Thursday, January 30, 3:30-5:00 PM (register here)
We will then consider the Memorials at our February 18 Representative Assembly meeting, which will take place in person at the Liebow Auditorium in the Biomedical Sciences Building (our usual location). Your participation in the decision-making process is essential and very welcome. Join us for the Town Halls and Representative Assembly. Your voice is valued.
This quarter, we continue efforts in organizing our Academic Senate Seminar series. I send a heartfelt thank you to Professor Barbara F. Walter for her presentation at our first ever Tritons Belong + Academic Senate Seminar on January 10. The seminar was incredibly insightful and timely, setting the stage for a growing collaboration between the Academic Senate and the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Equity, Diversity and Inclusion. Our next Academic Senate Seminar is scheduled for Wednesday, January 22, at 3:30 p.m. Our speaker will be Professor Tom K. Wong, who will speak on immigration policy considering the new federal administration. The announcement can be found here. Join us!
Thank you to those that were able to participate in our Representative Assembly meeting this past January 14. I was very glad that President Leslie Vallejo-Avila and Vice President of Academic Affairs Rishi Yalamarty of the Associated Students joined us. It was beautiful to be in community with them. During the meeting I mentioned several Senate gatherings to which you are all invited. We will host Happy Hours and lunches at the Faculty Club, Coffee Chats at the Senate Office, and (very importantly) our annual Senate Service Reception on Monday, February 24, from 3:00 to 5:00 p.m. at the Faculty Club, where we will be honoring this year’s recipients of the Donald F. Tuzin Distinguished Service Award, Professor Pamela Cosman (Electrical and Computer Engineering) and Professor Karen Pierce (Neurosciences). Congratulations Pam and Karen!
Among the many excellent speakers we had at Representative Assembly, representatives from Undocumented Student Services (USS) came to speak to us about the services they provide to our students. Many of you have asked what we can do to support undocumented students. In fact, USS has excellent resources for faculty and staff. In addition, I encourage you to connect with Professor Abigail L. Andrews, who is actively working on establishing a bridge between USS and faculty. We are only as good as the team that surrounds us. Through Abigail, let us collaborate with our UC San Diego Administration to form that team.
When I was growing up in Tijuana, I committed many weekends to help in the refugee camps that grew on the outskirts of my city during the inflation and poverty-induced Mexican mass migrations of the 1980s. These refugee camps, despite the hardships endured, were places full of hope. Many of the families I met eventually came to the United States and worked hard to establish themselves in this new land. They brought with them the hope they found in the camps and an ethic of hard work. Their children and grandchildren are now our students. Let us work together to support them. Si se puede (it can be done!).
As always, I can be reached at senatechair@ucsd.edu. I am here to listen, and I am here to serve.
