August 8, 2003
TO THE CAMPUS COMMUNITY
Dear Colleagues:
We are extremely pleased to announce the appointments of Professor Mark Rose as the Associate Vice Chancellor for Academic Personnel and Professor Maria Herrera-Sobek as the Associate Vice Chancellor for Diversity, Equity, and Academic Policy, effective immediately.
Their appointments are the result of a thorough campus search. We would like to thank Professor Laura Kalman and Professor Art Gossard, co-chairs of the search advisory committee, as well as all of the committee members for their outstanding work. The members of the committee are listed below. The committee would also like to thank Pat Sheppard for her staff support during this search process. The committee established a set of criteria for candidates for these positions, solicited applications and nominations, reviewed nominees, and extensively interviewed a short list of candidates. The committee also consulted the Academic Senate and academic administrators.
In the process of reviewing the job descriptions and interviewing the candidates, the committee recommended the title for the position of Associate Vice Chancellor for Academic Policy be changed to Associate Vice Chancellor for Diversity, Equity and Academic Policy to better reflect the programs and responsibilities that have evolved for this position over the past year. We concur with the title change, as it also reflects the importance given to diversity and equity issues by this administration.
Dr. Rose, who has been serving as Acting Associate Vice Chancellor for Academic Personnel this past year, is a professor above-scale in our Department of English. He has taught in this department for twenty-five years and has twice served as department chair. He has served on many campus and systemwide committees, and he is the former director of the University of California Humanities Research Institute, located at UC Irvine. He studied at Princeton, Oxford, and Harvard, where he received his Ph.D. in English literature. Professor Rose has won numerous fellowships and awards for his contributions to the study of English literature, including two NEH fellowships. He is the author of three highly regarded texts on Renaissance literature, a historical novel, a prize-winning study of science fiction, and numerous other scholarly works. Professor Rose has a special interest in copyright matters, and is frequently called upon as a consultant and expert witness for the film and television industries. His book on the emergence of copyright in Britain in the eighteenth century was a finalist for a National Book Critics Circle Award.
Dr. Maria Herrera-Sobek has been serving as the Acting Associate Vice Chancellor for Academic Policy this past year. She is a professor Step IX and former chair of our Department of Chicana and Chicano Studies. She is also the holder of the Luis Leal Endowed Chair in Chicano Studies. Before joining UCSB, Professor Herrera-Sobek was a member of the faculty at UC Irvine, as well as a visiting professor at Stanford and Harvard. She held a number of leadership positions at UCI, including director of the Women's Studies Program, acting chair of the Department of Spanish and Portuguese, acting director of the Latin American/Chicano Studies Program, and director of the Chicano/Latino Studies Program. Here at UCSB, she has served on numerous committees, including the Academic Senate's Committee on Educational Policy and Academic Planning. She also has served our community and our state, as a member of the board of the California Council for the Humanities and as a member of the Governor's Task Force on Sexual Assault, to which she has just been appointed. Professor Herrera-Sobek has received many honors and awards for her scholarship, leadership, and service. She has published a number of influential books, including The Bracero Experience: Elitelore versus Folklore, The Mexican Corrido: A Feminist Analysis, and Northward Bound: The Mexican Immigrant Experience in Ballad and Song. She has also edited 13 books, including the most recent award-winning books Culture Across Borders: Mexican Immigration and Popular Culture and Santa Barraza: Artist of the Borderlands. Her books, poems, and scholarly articles are read and cited around the world.
Both Professor Rose and Professor Herrera-Sobek have done an outstanding job in their respective positions this past year, and we are confident that they will continue to serve our campus well. We look forward to exciting and productive years ahead. Given the challenging times in which we live, we are truly grateful for the dedicated efforts of all members of our campus community to maintain and enhance UCSB’s stature as a leading research university.
Sincerely,
Gene Lucas Henry T. Yang
Acting Executive Vice Chancellor Chancellor
Search Advisory Committee for Associate Vice Chancellor for Academic Personnel
and Associate Vice Chancellor for Diversity, Equity, and Academic Policy
Arthur Gossard, Co-Chair, Professor, Materials
Laura Kalman, Co-Chair, Professor, History
James Blascovich, Professor, Psychology
Jenny Cook-Gumperz, Professor, Education
Constance Penley, Professor, Film Studies
Cedric Robinson, Professor, Black Studies
Chela Sandoval, Associate Professor and Chair, Chicana and Chicano Studies
Robert Sugar, Professor, Physics
Consultants to the Committee:
Raymond Huerta, Coordinator, Affirmative Action Office
Joe Castro, Executive Director, Campus Outreach