Letter from the acting chancellor
Marsha A. Chandler

Dear Friends: As we launch this new UCSD alumni publication at the start of a new year, I hope that you share my excitement about what lies ahead. Your many messages of interest and support over the past several months have made it clear that you want to make sure UCSD’s strong momentum continues. I absolutely agree. We must keep building our trajectory of success by increasing our strength in all three parts of our mission; education, research and public service.

The ongoing fiscal crisis has come at a time when we are in a crucial state of growth, which makes it more imperative than ever that we think strategically about that growth. We must be able to compete for the most outstanding talent with the nation’s best public and private universities.

We have been enormously successful in continuing to build the extraordinary reputation of this campus, and the fall quarter has started with a number of high points:

We have begun the 2003-2004 academic year by opening the magnificent new Eleanor Roosevelt College complex, which is already renowned as a model 21st-century undergraduate educational and residential facility, and by breaking ground on our School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, which will increase the reputation of UCSD and San Diego as a center of biotech innovation.

On October 5, Anthropology Chair Guillermo Algaze became our newest MacArthur Foundation Fellow and the 13th UCSD scholar (and the only UC scholar this year) to win this coveted “genius grant” award. Three days later, long-time UCSD economists Clive Granger and Robert Engel shared this year’s Nobel Prize in Economics, which brings the total number of current UCSD Nobel Laureates to eight.

This fall, UCSD became one of four new inductees into the “Balanced Scorecard” Hall of Fame, a national program that recognizes “innovative approaches to cutting costs, solving problems and increasing efficiency.”

The Alumni Association’s 2003 Awards for Excellence Gala, which you will read about in this issue, offered fresh proof that UCSD graduates continue to win acclaim as leaders and innovators.

We were thrilled to announce that “The Campaign for UCSD: Imagine What’s Next” passed the halfway mark by topping a half-billion dollars, a milestone in private giving for UCSD and the San Diego region.

Let me end with a personal request: UCSD has been fortunate to draw upon the energy and the ideas of our alumni, and your voices will be especially important to us as we navigate this era of growth. I am delighted that @UCSD is ushering in heightened two-way communication with our alumni, and in that spirit, I invite you to visit my Website at www-chancellor.ucsd.edu/ and to send me your thoughts about UCSD by emailing chandlerdesk@ucsd.edu.

With best regards,

Marsha A. Chandler
Acting Chancellor, UCSD