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The 2000-2001 academic year was one of great achievement. The University family continued to advance our tripartite mission of education, research, and service across the UCLA campus, within our local community, and beyond.
The record number of freshman applications we receive each year illustrates that students know the value of a UCLA education. The trend continued last year with more prospective students applying to UCLA than to any other school in the nation. The University received nearly 41,000 applications from students competing for the 4,200 places in the Fall 2001 freshman class.
The overall percentage of underrepresented students entering UCLA increased to 17.5 percent, the most since 1997. The University’s commitment to enhancing the diversity of our student population remains steadfast. We work diligently at helping our region’s young people to prepare for a college education. Last year, we actively engaged with dozens of public schools, and we helped to reshape the curricula of many of those institutions in order to achieve academic excellence. In all, we conducted 192 programs in our region’s K-12 schools, and that number continues to grow.
Our distinguished faculty continue to be a source of great pride. Among this esteemed group of scholars is mathematician Terence Tao, described by a colleague as a talent that appears “only once in a generation.” Dr. Tao was promoted at age 24 to the rank of full professor, having joined the UCLA faculty just four years before. Also last year, seven UCLA faculty members were elected Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and UCLA plant biologist Robert B. Goldberg was elected to the National Academy of Sciences. National Medal of Science recipient and Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Professor Jared Diamond, added to his growing list of accolades when he was awarded the Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement for his role in pioneering the field of conservation biology.
Just as our faculty and students bring honor to the University through their many awards and achievements, UCLA is pleased to honor individuals who have made extraordinary and distinguished contributions to their professions, to higher education, and to society by bestowing upon them The UCLA Medal. Among last year’s medallists was one of our nation’s most venerable leaders, former President Jimmy Carter, who visited our campus with his wife, Rosalynn.
Many significant capital improvement projects changed UCLA’s physical landscape in 2000-2001. Haines Hall’s seismic-correction project concluded in the Spring Quarter, when construction of the Physics and Astronomy Building, a new College of Letters and Science facility, began. The first phase of DeNeve Housing opened to nearly 1,000 students, and we are delighted to say that 93 percent of all new undergraduates truly were able to call the UCLA campus “home.”
We are enormously proud of our medical science enterprise. In 2000-2001, the UCLA Medical Center was ranked “Best in the West” by U.S. News & World Report for the 11th straight year. The first phase of UCLA’s largest and most ambitious capital project, the Academic Medical Center, was well under way. Among the many facets of this remarkable project are the Westwood Replacement Hospital, a new building for neuroscience research, and a new facility for research in immunology and biological chemistry.
Campaign UCLA has benefited from the favorable economic conditions of recent years. In fiscal year 2000-2001, the University received nearly $283 million in private gifts and grants, making it the second-most successful year for fund-raising in UCLA’s history, and the fifth consecutive year in which total private giving topped $200 million. Campaign UCLA is approaching its overall goal of $1.6 billion. We move ahead fully cognizant of the economic uncertainty of the present and the foreseeable future. Nevertheless, we are confident that support for UCLA will remain strong.
The data on the pages that follow are confirmation of UCLA’s fiscal soundness. However, in a climate of declining state resources, multiple sources of funding continue to be essential. These difficult economic times emphasize the ongoing need for public-private partnerships, which are more important than ever to the future of our programs and facilities.
Our enthusiasm for the success of our students, of our campus, and of the broader community we serve compels us to continue carrying forth our mission. Through the generous support and commitment of our alumni and friends, UCLA forever will be the place “where great futures begin.”
Albert Carnesale
Chancellor
