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Ten Questions for Acaemic Senate Chair Harry
Powell
May 7, 2007
Dr. Henry C. Powell, universally known as “Harry,”
is a professor of pathology and the current Chair
of the Academic Senate. He served as vice chair for
his predecessor, Jean-Bernard Minster. Powell, who
received his Doctor of Medicine degree from University
College Dublin, in Ireland, is a renowned authority
in experimental neuropathology, and serves as director
of neuropathology and Electron Microscopy at UCSD.
Paul K. Mueller of University Communications, whose
assignments include the senate, recently asked Powell
to elaborate on the position, its challenges and
its rewards.
This Week (TW): You served as vice chair of the Academic Senate before becoming chair. What were the key insights you gained in that role that helped prepare you for the step up? Which issues or projects seemed most interesting (or most frustrating)?
Powell: Serving as vice chair is a critical preparatory experience, since it provides an opportunity to 'get up to speed' on senate issues, before having to personally handle them. The partnership between vice chair and chair is also a key issue, it is of great benefit for the chair to be able to seek the advice and counsel from the vice chair and, of course, the vice chair is always ready to step in to replace the chair at an event the chair is unable to attend. My first two visits to Academic Council in Oakland took place when I was vice chair—I found the experience very helpful in preparing for this current year. As vice chair, I also served as the Senate Representative to the Diversity Council here at UCSD.
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| Henry C. “Harry” Powell, professor of pathology and Chair of the Academic Senate at UC San Diego |
| Read related story about the Academic Senate here. |
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On the whole, my job is a hugely positive experience. If I have frustration, it is related to extramural issues such as the impact of Prop. 209 and the struggle to attract and retain students from historically underrepresented minorities. Knowing how education has
enriched my life in every way, I would like to see those opportunities extended as broadly as possible. A second worry is money. Our 10-campus university system rests on a very rickety fiscal infrastructure; it is amazing how much has been accomplished by so many with limited resources. An ongoing challenge is to keep the legislators and the public aware of the great value of a world-class university system, its place in our economic and cultural life, and its meaning to the future of the state’s children and young people.
TW: The Academic Senate has a full slate of important issues to address. Which of those issues do you, as chair, believe to be the most pressing, the most urgent?
Powell: Keeping
our system of shared governance working as well as
it possibly can. Nearly 300 faculty serve on
the many senate committees. Many of these faculty
have a long history of service and are pleased and
proud to serve this way. So, the most pressing
issue is getting newly recruited and newly promoted
faculty involved. Vice Chair Posakony and the Senate
Council spend a lot of time thinking about ways and
means to recruit younger faculty as early as possible
and to encourage them to develop the leadership skills
that the Senate needs in order to play its role effectively.
TW: As many of the university's
original faculty and other longtime faculty begin
retiring, UC San Diego has the opportunity to revitalize
faculty ranks. Are you confident that we have the
resources to attract and keep top-notch academics
and scientists?
Powell: I think that the University is doing quite well, not only at UCSD but system-wide, because great attention is paid to this need. Most often, concerns about housing, cost of living and keeping faculty salaries in a competitive range lead all other worries about this subject. But the concern doesn’t stop when faculty are recruited. We have to find better ways to engage them in campus life and clearly the Senate has a part to play in this effort. We aim to attract new faculty into the governance process as soon as possible. That way, the very positive experience that people like myself have every day can be more widely shared.
TW: What qualities are you and your Academic Senate colleagues looking for in the next senior vice chancellor for academic affairs? What has been your role in shaping the search?
Powell: Through our Committee on Committees we have nominated faculty to serve on the search committee. The Senate Council as well as individual faculty, have had productive conversations with Chancellor Fox about this recruitment, and philosophical discussions about how it fits into the University's evolving needs and organizational challenges. We look forward to a new leader skillful in managing scarce resources, collegial in relating to faculty and staff, and deeply committed to strengthening diversity and our relationships with the extramural community.
TW: You've been a strong defender of funding for research from controversial sources such as tobacco and energy companies. What do the opponents of such funding fail to understand about university research?
Powell: They fail to understand the importance of letting individual faculty members make their own best judgments about their areas of scholarly interest, and how to go about funding that research. They also fail to see the impact of a specific ban on broader areas of research in socially contentious areas. They see the tobacco companies as being
unique in terms of corporate wrongdoing, but other faculty are not certain that malfeasance is exclusive to this industry. One of the greatest challenges for the future of the university is posed by industry-campus relationships. Viewing this through the narrow prism of one problematic industry is short-sighted.
TW: UC San Diego is growing and changing, with students sometimes impatient with the faculty—as in the recent debate about athletic scholarships, which many faculty seemed to consider a threat to the academic and research missions of the university. What's the proper role of the Academic Senate in balancing sometimes conflicting visions of the university?
Powell: The senate needs to be attuned to broad aspects of campus life; we need to be alert to the expectations of students, faculty and staff, since all of us share this beautiful campus with its wide array of educational and entertainment opportunities. The senate is very interested in working with students and administrators, faculty and staff, alumni and emeriti in bringing everyone together in discussions about how to optimize campus resources so that we can enjoy them as one big community.
Two very important committees are the Undergraduate Student Experience Survey (USES) committee chaired by Vice Chancellor Watson, which considers all aspects of the student experience; and the Campus Committee on Community and Environment (CCCE), the senate committee charged with reviewing planning for buildings and the environment. Both committees in their separate spheres consider issues of great impact on our shared environment. The senate, the administration and the students are looking for ways to bring all of these conversations together, so that we can consider the student experience and the campus environment as related issues, for common discussion and ideas from the entire campus community.
TW: What kinds of issues are common to Academic Senate members across the UC system?
Powell: One of the greatest pleasures of my job is meeting and working with faculty from the 10 campuses. There is an immediate camaraderie, a sense of excitement about working together to make the system better, a curiosity about how different campuses address common challenges, and a sense of good fortune that we have a system of faculty
governance, which gives us a stronger voice than other institutions.
Common issues include salary concerns, preserving the excellent benefits we have—especially retirement and health benefits—as well as trying to improve child-care facilities on each campus. Relationships with local communities are also very important. External relations need great care and attention. Faculty should play a greater part in cultivating external relationships, including appropriate contact with community leaders—including legislators local and state-wide—so that those officials understand the great value of higher educational institutions, especially research universities whose
intellectual products are needed by society worldwide.
TW: How do you ensure that UC San Diego's faculty concerns and insights are adequately represented system-wide?
Powell: We are represented on the Academic Council, of course, but we also need to encourage our faculty to participate in the system-wide committees which usually meet in Oakland. I find that UCSD is really listened to by our colleagues to the north and east; our governance system is viewed as very healthy and a model for others. Part of keeping that positive perception is to encourage more people to serve on those committees and hope that they enjoy doing so as much as I do. I am very excited about the strong interest shown by our alumni. UCSD alumni are young, their numbers grow with the university, and they are going to be a great force for future success. One of my pet ideas is strengthening and maintaining ties between alumni, faculty, emeriti and students, keeping the UCSD community vital and vibrant. The Senate should be at the heart of that effort.
TW: If you had a reformer's wand (and were protected from all second-guessing), what changes might you recommend for the Academic Senate—to keep it in touch with new and changing faculty (for example), to make it more effective, to improve its visibility on and off campus?
Powell: The Senate is one of the best ways to find out what is going on; to get to know smart people in different disciplines; to become their friends and sometimes their intellectual collaborators. UCSD also has great staff and hard-working administrators, who I find to be very collegial and truly committed to excellence. So my 'wand' would wave over the new faculty and hasten their entry into participation in UCSD affairs. In doing so, they would find the sense of pleasure and pride that I feel, since my year of senate chairmanship has, I would say, been the most enjoyable experience I have had since joining the faculty over 30 years ago.
TW: Paint us a picture of UC San Diego in 2017: When you look across campus, what you do you see in your crystal ball as an experienced teacher, researcher and academic leader?
Powell: UCSD has a distinguished history in environmental science, most notably the rich legacy of the late Roger Revelle. At this point in human history, global concerns about climate, energy and sustainability have captured worldwide attention. Climate science is a universal concern and touches on other sciences, engineering, medicine and the humanities. I believe that UCSD's distinguished history of leadership in this area places us in front of most other universities, and provides our own sustained claim to distinction—if this and future academic communities at UCSD can maintain the legacy of Roger Revelle and the other founders of our campus. We have a very able and deeply committed chancellor in Marye Anne Fox. I like her vision for the university and I think that its impact will contribute to a very strong UCSD 10 years from now.
| Related link |
| Read the Academic Senate story here. |
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