By Noah Grand
Daily Bruin Reporter
The College of Letters & Science is continuing its one-unit
Sept. 11 seminar series this winter after receiving positive
feedback from students and faculty.
The seminars were created last quarter in response to Sept. 11,
featuring topics from national security to international politics
to stress management, to help students cope.
Due to the success last quarter, the seminars’ basic
format will remain the same. There are 37 seminars offered this
quarter, 12 fewer than last quarter.
“This has been so successful that we are looking at a way
of perpetuating this into the future,” said Judith Smith,
Vice Provost of undergraduate education.
Danny Yaffe, a second-year biochemistry student, said he
enrolled in two seminars, “Biological and Chemical Weapons:
Assessing the Threat” and “Civil Disobedience as an
Alternative to Violence in the Middle East and the U.S.,”
because he wants to learn more about the issues surrounding Sept.
11 to be able to talk about it with others.
“The seminars are a good idea,” Yaffe said.
“If you know what’s going on you won’t be as
worried.”
The small seven- to 20-student class sizes and a pass/no pass
grading system were among the most popular aspects of the series,
Smith added.
Small class sizes allowed students to directly interact with
faculty, the chancellor and several vice chancellors, something
usually difficult in larger classes. Smith said this interaction
was the reason freshmen and sophomores get priority to enroll in
the seminars.
“We’re trying to have them get involved with senior
faculty early in their career,” Smith said.
The seminar series also gives administrators an opportunity to
teach. Chancellor Albert Carnesale is teaching a seminar called
“Rethinking National Security” for the second time this
year.
Joseph Mandel, vice chancellor of legal affairs, is also getting
an opportunity to teach a seminar on the First Amendment. Mandel,
who had a career in corporate law before joining the
administration, taught only once, in 1993, before the Sept. 11
series.
“Post-Sept. 11, I couldn’t resist the demand to dust
off my First Amendment course, so I did it,” Mandel said.
Although he has not received formal evaluations from students
yet, he is still making some changes to his class.
“Both of my colleagues who are assisting me agreed that I
talked too much,” Mandel said. “That is a good example
of how we are trying to change the approach to the
teaching.”
However, Mandel said the biggest change from most teaching is
that because students were not focused on their grades in the
pass/no pass format, they were more focused on the material in the
class.
“It’s a unique opportunity for UCLA students to have
a small class environment to let their hair down and argue without
worrying about grades because it’s a pass/no pass
class,” Mandel said.
These opportunities may continue in the spring, but with a new
central topic, Smith said. She is trying to develop a seminar
series to focus on the 10th anniversary of the civil unrest after
the announcement of the Rodney King verdict in 1992.
The seminars have drawn national attention when they were the
subject of Tom Kuntz’s Nov. 4 New York Times column, and have
also been featured in Newsweek and The London Sunday Times.