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GABRIELE WIENHAUSEN NAMED FOUNDING PROVOST OF SIXTH COLLEGE

Gabriele K. Wienhausen, Ph.D., biologist and award-winning educator, has been named founding Provost of Sixth College of the University of California, San Diego.

Wienhausen will immediately begin working with a faculty planning committee to develop the general education curriculum for Sixth College. The college, scheduled to open in Fall 2002, will have a thematic focus of "art, culture and technology."

A member of the UCSD Department of Biology, Wienhausen is vice chair for education in Biology and director of UCSD's Howard Hughes Medical Institute Undergraduate Biological Sciences Education Program. She is the current chair of the Academic Senate Committee on Educational Policy and is also a member of the Thurgood Marshall College curriculum committee and faculty advisory board.

Wienhausen began her academic career in 1978 as an assistant professor at Westfaelische Wilhelms-Universitaet, Muenster, Germany. She came to UCSD in 1981 to pursue biochemical research in metabolic adaptations to environmental stress. During her 18 years at UCSD, Wienhausen has received six teaching awards, including the 2000 Chancellor's Associates Outstanding Teaching Award; a 1995 Academic Senate Distinguished Teaching Award; a 1994 Revelle College Outstanding Faculty Award; and three Warren College Excellence in Teaching Awards (1994, 1996, 1998).

Since 1993, Wienhausen has served as co-director of the Doctoral Program in Mathematics and Science Education. She also is co-director of the Multi Media Interactive Learning Lab, which she helped establish by securing extramural funding and by developing CD-ROM-based and Web-based instruction materials.

"Gabriele is a natural for this position, given her strong dedication to undergraduate education and extensive administrative experience," said Marsha Chandler, Senior Vice Chancellor, Academic Affairs. "Her groundbreaking work in innovative teaching methods and instructional technology is a perfect fit with the theme of Sixth College. Gabriele brings to the Provost position a wealth of valuable experience, infectious enthusiasm and seemingly limitless energy. Her appointment is a marvelous beginning for UCSD's newest College."

Said Wienhausen, "I cannot imagine a more exciting theme for a new college than Art, Culture, and Technology. It reflects that contemporary knowledge crosses traditional academic boundaries and that art is central to all intellectual, social, and emotional human activities.

"I am looking forward to working with faculty and students to create a general education program that reflects the close relationship between art, science and culture," Wienhausen added. "The envisioned curriculum will intertwine disciplines that seem to have grown apart over the last centuries. It will seek to understand the impact of the new technologies not just as a communication medium, but as part of the environment that challenges how we experience reality, shapes our cultural experiences, and provides novel opportunities for artistic expression."

UCSD's planning for Sixth College is one component of the campus's response to the University of California growth surge that will add a projected 63,000 additional students to UC campuses over the next decade. Sixth College will build on UCSD's renowned undergraduate college system. The five existing UCSD colleges - Revelle, Earl Warren, John Muir, Thurgood Marshall, and Eleanor Roosevelt - each combine the benefits of a small campus atmosphere with the academic advantages of a major research university. Alumni surveys indicate that UCSD graduates place a high value on the academic breadth and general educational requirements fostered by individual colleges.