‘Research, scholarship and teaching’: UCLA College Lecture Awards honor faculty excellence

While he did not dance, dance, dance across the Royce Hall stage, Randall Park hosted the Oct. 12 UCLA College Lecture Awards with style, his trademark wit and charm. He focused on Bruin faculty members and how their research, scholarship and teaching reflect the transformative power of higher education.

"These professors teach us how to ask deeper questions about the communities we shape and the world we inhabit," he said. "They give us the knowledge to solve problems we still don't understand. They push us to reach outside the narratives we know. They discover. They inspire. They educate. And I hope that you're as excited as I am to hear what they have to say."

Representing the UCLA College's five interconnected divisions, the honored faculty gave presentations highlighting a unique aspect of their work and commitment to advancing knowledge.

Helen Deutsch (humanities) discussed what's at stake when we prioritize the convenience of artificial intelligence over our humanity. She traced how disability, difference, desire and difficulty are at the core of what it means to be human, as evidenced by the writings of Alexander Pope and Samuel Johnson - and our collective societal response to Jimothy, the Internet-famous Seattle raccoon.

"Today we are being told that AI is the future, as if we have no choice in the matter. AI propels us forward. It promises instant gratification, immediate answers so that we can move on," she said. "As a humanist scholar, I am on the side of desire, of difficulty, of slowing down and struggling.

"Perhaps people love that weird, disabled, elusive raccoon because he reminds us of the importance of struggle and resilience at a moment when many of us are tired and demoralized," she added. "AI has recently been described as eliciting 'cognitive surrender.' In my classroom, we resist. We embrace the difficulty of the texts we encounter and our own embodied lives, sustained by the joy and curiosity that make us human."

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Introducing the audience to "Barry M. Ayan" - a single glowing atom - Wesley Campbell (physical sciences) ran through some of the incredible documented properties and as-of-yet-undocumented potential available to researchers at the quantum level … even though no one knows yet exactly how it all works.

Although countless possible applications are in the works for quantum computers, for example, Campbell drew attention to the work of physicists like himself, who are driven less by the specific answers to be found and more by the questions themselves.

As he pointed out, basic science coupled with curiosity led scientists to make discoveries for the sake of discovery that ultimately paid off in unexpected yet revolutionary ways, including the development of the MRI and GPS.

"Those questions are how we find that next frontier of human discovery," he said. "We study something because we believe we'll learn something interesting. All we have is curiosity."

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Martha Bailey (social sciences) gave a broader historical perspective on declining birth rates in the U.S., a near-universal phenomenon in high-income countries. After debunking common myths such as shrinking American families and rising childlessness, Bailey provided a data-driven, nuanced interpretation of the situation.

"Falling fertility rates are real, but the alarm is overstated: The American family is not collapsing. On balance, the evidence shows that women are delaying motherhood, not retreating from it," she said. "Research shows policies trying to reverse falling birth rates across the world have had, at best, small and temporary effects and often none at all."

She suggests "investing in policies and programs that expand every person's potential and opportunities," such as basic health care, reliable meals and quality schools, which her past work showed helps more children grow up to be educated, productive adults.

"The return on investment to some of these programs is so high that they not only pay for themselves, they produce a return for the government," Bailey said. "Some human capital programs are so effective they don't just make participants better off; they make all of us better off."

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Elaine Hsiao (life sciences) outlined the surprising interactions between our brains and our gut, which is our bodies' largest interface with the external world - roughly the size of a studio apartment, folded up inside us.

"As chronic conditions like autism, depression and Alzheimer's disease continue to increase, there's an urgent need to find safe, durable ways to shape brain function," she said. "By targeting the microbiome, we may be able to modify signals arriving from an accessible biological source and reshape brain activity without ever touching it with a scalpel or relying on heavy systemic medications.

"The microbiome has been called the body's 'forgotten organ' - not because it lacks importance, but because its biology remained largely unseen," she continued. "At UCLA, researchers are working to make the invisible visible: illuminating living communities, uncovering connections that shape life, health and the world around us, and transforming basic discoveries into solutions for the challenges that will sculpt our future."

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Eric Avila (undergraduate education) recounted a conversation he had in Rome with some scholars of that famous city.

"When I told them I studied the history of Los Angeles, they laughed incredulously: 'What history?'" he said. "LA may have scant history compared to Rome, which has 4 million people and is almost 3,000 years old, but it is home to some 19 million people and is barely 200 years old.

"So why does LA's history matter?" he asked. "Because something happened here worth studying."

Avila described LA as "the capital of the 20th century," highlighting its global diversity, technological and engineering advances, and the formative power of mass communication and storytelling - which offer valuable lessons for the 21st century.

"In this time of intense polarization and division, LA has something to teach us about coming together, crossing divides, bridging communities and learning from the past," he said. "We know the imperfections, we know the injustices, but still, we move forward: creating community, making art and inventing stories with a global reach."

UCLA Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost Darnell Hunt then spoke about his previous experience as the dean of social sciences and what everyone should know about the ripple effect of the UCLA College faculty's dedication to higher education.

"That work changes and even saves lives," he said. "But it all starts with rigorous, creative thinkers who are willing to devote their careers to teaching, discovery and the advancement of knowledge."

After distinguished alumni Meyer and Renee Luskin were recognized for making the event possible through the Luskin Lecture for Thought Leadership endowment, the faculty received their awards from the five deans of the UCLA College - Adriana Galván (undergraduate education), Miguel García-Garibay (physical sciences and senior dean of the College), Tracy Johnson (life sciences), Alexandra Minna Stern (humanities) and Abel Valenzuela (social sciences).

The celebration ended without Randall Park dancing, yet the audience gave him a standing ovation for his closing words:

"This fine institution continues to make a difference - not just for us lucky students, but for this incredible city we're a part of and for countless people around the world who benefit from the ideas, research and discoveries of professors like the ones on this stage," Park said. "Their passion and persistence, their curiosity and clarity, their commitment to excellence - they are keys to a portal we can all walk through: taking us into a world where we are smarter, safer, kinder, healthier and reaching for something better all the time."

[Click the button above to watch this video, created by the UCLA Studio Team. An audio descriptive version is available in at the YouTube link.]