Gore accepts academic position at UCLA

  The Associated Press Al Gore addresses a
luncheon in a surprise visit in New York last Thursday.

By Michael Falcone
Daily Bruin Senior Staff

Former Vice President Al Gore announced Friday he would soon
begin an academic relationship with UCLA, but information about
what exactly his role will be is being kept in something of a lock
box.

Though the details of the nature and duration of Gore’s
involvement with the university are still tentative, Barbara J.
Nelson, Dean of the School of Public Policy and Social Research,
said Gore will have a teaching presence at the school, making
regular interaction with faculty and possibly with students.

Gore will visit UCLA Wednesday to participate in meetings and a
faculty symposium with Chancellor Albert Carnesale and Pediatrics
and Public Health Professor Neal Halfon, among others.

In conjunction with Halfon, who is the director of UCLA’s
Institute for Healthier Children, Families and Communities,
Gore’s work at UCLA will be in the emerging academic
discipline of family-centered community building.

The new approach to the study of communities integrates various
areas of public policy, economics, social sciences and even
architecture.

“(Tipper and I) have both made a strong personal and
professional commitment to supporting and strengthening the family
at a time of tremendous cultural and economic upheaval,” Gore
said in an interview last week with The New York Times.

Nelson said Gore would be working extensively with the faculty
involved with this new interdisciplinary approach to community
development. Along with Linda Rosenstock, dean of the School of
Public Health, and Arleen Leibowitz, SPPSR chair, Nelson will also
meet with Gore to discuss the substance of his work.

“UCLA has on its own faculty probably the strongest
concentration of experts in the combination of these fields of any
major university in the country,” Nelson said.
“That’s the reason that Vice President Gore chose to
have this affiliation with UCLA.”

The former vice president has had a long-standing relationship
with Halfon and other members of UCLA’s faculty, Nelson
said.

Halfon, who originally founded the Institute in 1996, could not
immediately be reached for comment.

According to its newsletter, the Institute is a program of the
UCLA School of Medicine’s Department of Pediatrics and the
UCLA School of Public Health, with faculty participation from
School of Public Policy and Social Research, the School of Law and
the College of Letters and Science.

The Institute’s goal is to improve “society’s
ability to provide children with the best opportunities for healthy
and well-being and the chance to assume productive roles within
families and communities,” according to its Web site.

The addition of Gore to the campus community will not only make
him the second former Democratic nominee to join the ranks of UCLA
scholars but also the second man who lost the presidency to a
member of the Bush clan.

The first, visiting professor and former Massachusetts Gov.
Michael Dukakis currently teaches one undergraduate class on
California public policy issues and a graduate level class on
bureaucracy and public management.

Dukakis said Gore and his wife, Tipper, have long been
interested in family and community issues.

“(Gore) is as committed as I am to encourage young people
to go into public service, and the more campuses he can touch the
better,” said Visiting Professor Michael Dukakis.

Several major newspapers reported last week that Gore already
accepted teaching posts at three campuses: Columbia University in
New York, Middle Tennessee State University and Fisk University
““ both located in Tennessee.

In the Jan. 25 New York Times Gore did not say whether or not he
would make another venture into politics anytime in the future but
did sound enthusiastic about his new academic involvement.

“I’ve always wanted to try teaching and I’m
particularly excited about teaching these courses on community
building because it’s something new to me and very
exciting,” Gore told the Times.