Contributing to the Public Good

I’ve been part of the UC San Diego community for 36 years now – first as a graduate student in Linguistics then as a professor in the Department of Communication. I am honored to play a role in shaping the future of the Division of Social Sciences. As I start my service as dean, my first goal is to find out what do we need in this division? How do we support our faculty and our students to do even better at what we do so well?

It is clear that one of the things we do well is the recognition we have received from the Washington Monthly magazine for the last five years running: We are the nation’s top university for contributing to the public good. These rankings are based on three categories – social mobility, research and service. The magazine ranks us first in recruiting and graduating low-income students, for producing cutting-edge scholarship and PhDs, and for encouraging students to give back to their communities. It is a rare combination to do well in both research and service, and it is one that we in the Division of Social Sciences are proud to embody.

We are the university’s largest academic division, with 10 departments and six interdisciplinary degree-granting programs. Nearly 50 percent of UC San Diego undergraduates earn a degree in the social sciences. But it is not our size that makes us exemplary of the Washington Monthly ranking. It is how we do what we do – and what we strive to keep doing.

To name just one example, the division’s Yankelovich Center for Social Science Research is dedicated to finding practical solutions to our nation’s most urgent problems. Its current focus is on narrowing the opportunity gap, in education, jobs and more. Our newest major in global health and its first graduate, Risa Farrell, who is featured in this issue’s spotlight, also speak to our mission – to identify and address pressing social issues, to bring global concerns to human scale, in short, to do the science of society.

Service is a fundamental part of the picture, not only in the Yankelovich Center and the new major but also in the division as a whole. To pursue our work, we get out in the world to understand it better. To create change, we first seek to find out what it is that needs changing.

Let me close this first letter as dean by saying that I look forward to talking with you in the coming months. Students, faculty, staff, alumni and friends: What is your experience with the social sciences? What do you observe in your communities? What do you recommend our division should do more of or do better? Please join us in our continuing efforts to make a difference.