Former Vice President Al Gore, UCLA's newest visiting professor in the School of Public Policy and Social Research, is preparing to launch a course to look at major problems ailing society and families in a different light - based on the combined expertise of academics and grassroots community leaders.
To build the framework and identify core themes for the family-centered, community-development course, Gore began his academic career with a roll-up-your-sleeves symposium at UCLA Jan. 31. Among the almost 50 community experts and faculty from UCLA, Columbia and other institutions were Deans Barbara Nelson of the public policy school and Linda Rosenstock of public health.
"This is the center of a new national effort to create a curriculum on family-centered community-building," Gore said after a long day at the James West Alumni Center pulling together ideas for the 10-session course covering such issues as early-childhood programs, school reform, transportation, youth development and labor. "UCLA is the national leader in this area so naturally I wanted to come here to create the curriculum. And I will be visiting the campus again to work more on curriculum-development and to do research."
Said Chancellor Albert Carnesale, who participated in the wide-ranging discussion: "We are delighted that Al Gore has joined UCLA as a visiting professor in the path-breaking field of family-centered community development. Our faculty and students will benefit greatly from his expertise and strong commitment to this important emerging discipline."
Dean Nelson likewise was thrilled by Gore's decision to seek UCLA's help with the project. "UCLA has the best of everything in all the areas. There really aren't many other universities that have this degree of expertise," she said.
Gore, who as a senator initiated annual conferences focused on family and community issues, is working with Professor of Pediatrics and Public Health Neal Halfon and the new campuswide Institute for Children, Families and Communities.
"He understands this is no different a challenge than when he took on the environment or disarmament," said Halfon, who plans to teach a section when Gore unveils the curriculum at Fisk University in Nashville and Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro shortly. "You have these very complex, multidisciplinary, multifaceted problems facing our families and communities. He's a guy who can think across categories and cut across different issues. And he has a lot of contact with community builders and a great deal of knowledge about very specific issues around family and community development."
Halfon has consulted on and participated in Gore's Family ReUnion conferences since 1998. At a planning dinner for the 1999 conference, the conversation turned to whether universities should be training people in community development.
"I started talking to the vice president about what we were doing here at UCLA, about the community education resource centers that I was helping to design, and the Elizabeth Learning Center and the Hope Street Family Center. I told him, 'These are the kinds of models I think you're talking about,' and he asked, 'Can universities take on this challenge?'"
From that charge grew the National Academic Consortium, an alliance of 15 universities that includes UCLA, UC Berkeley and Columbia, among others, that is helping Gore create the curriculum that may one day come to UCLA.
In the meantime, Gore said, "I hope to have opportunities to talk with members of the UCLA student body and faculty. I've really enjoyed this symposium. It was a very productive session."