It ought to be a double major.

Betsy Knapp. UCLA, Unabashed.

“You can’t walk onto this campus without sensing that there’s a grand experiment afoot, a delicious conspiracy. Understanding it takes a little longer. I’ve taken several classes here and taught a few, and this is what I’ve figured out so far:

“If UCLA were simply a world–class university, it would still be exceptional. But it happens to be a world–class research university, and that makes it extraordinary.

“Through the years, that extra dimension has caused a wide variety of disturbances and disruptions. Consider the time–honored conflict between teaching and research. Here they’re virtually synonymous. Well, how about scholar as monk, the inventor as loner, the academic life versus the ‘real world’?

“Not here. Not at UCLA.

“From their first day, undergrads engage in critical thinking and analytical discussion as a collective process. They’re drawn into the company of leading thinkers and doers they would never expect to know if there weren’t a research university in the neighborhood.

“Trade secret: The faculty love teaching multidisciplinary classes to a roomful of brand–new, high–energy Four Point Ohs. You can feel their passion for their specialty, their joy in missionary work, and always, always their search for those who will ask the great questions, see the connections, join the dialogue, and take their ideas to the next level. They’ll tell you it’s their hardest teaching job and their most rewarding.

“Somehow, in that four–year instant, right in front of everybody, UCLA students will become scholars, and — as part of the same mystical process — those scholars will become dues–paying citizens of the world.

“ ‘Scholar/Citizen.’ It ought to be a double major.”

UCLA, Unabashed.

Eli Broad Brad Delson Diane Watson Julia Gouw Sherry Lansing

Moctesuma Esparza Paul Boyer Richard Ziman Warren Furutani Karen Bass