Candidate’s Statement for President of the Academic Senate

I am honored to have been nominated to represent my colleagues as President of the Academic Senate. Over the last two years, serving as Academic Senate Vice President and more recently for the past year as Academic Senate President, I have learned that the two most important keys to the success of our institution are maintaining a culture of accountability and exercising the principles of shared governance.

This is an extremely critical time in the history of Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science. We are facing multiple challenges and without significant changes in our culture of accountability and in our beliefs and practice of shared governance, we will not be able to survive.

These principles of accountability include setting clear cut expectations with oversight and consequences for not meeting those expectations. This accountability must be exercised within our institution at every level. We must all work towards this goal with administration and continue to hold each other as well as other members of the CDU community accountable for developing and maintaining a culture of excellence, focused on our mission of education, research, and service to the underserved.

If elected, I promise to serve the faculty to the best of my ability to change both our culture of accountability as well as our shared governance. I believe my academic experience, over two decades at CDU working with almost everyone both at COM and COSH and most recently with the newly established school of nursing, along with my relationships with community members, gives me the insight, familiarity, and connectivity to serve effectively as Academic Senate President.

What is most important is that CDU have a passionate individual to lead the Academic Senate in representing the interests of the Faculty. I will offer my full support and dedication to any individual that is elected to be in this position. I would like to thank you all for considering me as a candidate in this role to serve our University and community.

Candidate’s Statement for President of the Academic Senate

I am honored to have been nominated to represent my colleagues as President of the Academic Senate and I look forward to the possibility of guiding the Academic Senate on addressing the rights and welfare of faculty. From my early training I developed a keen interest in clinical science and research realizing its significance for the prevention and treatment of disease. The research studies in which I have been involved are part of the large scale effort aimed to discover treatment of many diseases characterized by chronic pain. My graduate degrees in Physiology and Clinical Research as well as post-doctoral training in Neuroscience allow me to provide training for the undergraduate, medical and nursing students as well as junior faculty. I am a faculty member in all three CDU colleges and Associate Program Director of Accelerating Excellence in Translational Science (AXIS) Center and Co-Leader of Research Education, Training and Career Development Program within Clinical and Translational Science Institute (UCLA-CTSI).

As a Chair of WASC-CDU Task Force on Assessment of Student Learning and Student Success I helped to develop strategies to ensure that all CDU courses have syllabi with clear, observable and measurable student learning outcomes. The effort of the Task Force helped the University to get full WASC accreditation. Currently, I serve as Chair of a university-wide Academic Program Review Committee (APRC) responsible for academic program review.

I have served on the Legislative Council of the Academic Senate over the last 5 years. At present, I continue to serve as Vice-President of the Academic Senate, Chair of Academic Program (former Curriculum) Committee and a member of the University Appointment and Promotion Committee. Last year I was a leader of CDU faculty representatives participating in the conference on shared governance organized by the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) held in Washington DC. This is a critical time in the history of our university, and faculty must keep up the work under the principles of shared governance: fairness, transparency, and respect. I believe my academic citizenship experience and my relationships with faculty will help me to serve effectively as Academic Senate President. In the long term, I wish to pursue my academic career in collaboration with the faculty in taking our institution to the next level: to become one of the top minority medical university in the nation.