Appointment of M. Belinda Tucker as Vice Provost of the Institute of American Cultures

UCLA Office of the Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost

To:  Deans, Faculty, Vice Provosts, Vice Chancellors, Chief Administrative Officers, Institute of American Cultures Staff, and Ethnic Studies Centers Staff

I am pleased to announce that Professor M. Belinda Tucker has accepted an offer from Chancellor Block and me to serve in the newly established position of vice provost of the Institute of American Cultures. The IAC will serve as the administrative hub for UCLA’s four ethnic studies centers and will initiate campus-wide research, educational programs and collaborations that support a wide range of disciplinary approaches to the study of American cultures.

Professor Tucker holds a faculty appointment in the department of psychiatry and biobehavioral sciences, and she is a faculty associate of the Bunche Center for African American Studies. She received her undergraduate degree from the University of Chicago and a Ph.D. in social psychology from the University of Michigan. Professor Tucker has enjoyed a long history of administrative service at UCLA, including most recently her position as associate dean in the Graduate Division from 2007 to 2011.

For 30 years and largely with NIH funding, Professor Tucker has examined and published extensively on the nature of close-personal relationships in a sociocultural context. She has directed or co-directed a number of major national studies, including the landmark National Survey of Black Americans, and well as the 21-city Survey of Families and Relationships, a panel study. She also has conducted research on inter-ethnic relations, the transition to adulthood among urban Black youth from distinct cultural groupings, the social adaptation of developmentally delayed adults over the life-course, and the impact of incarceration on family members and close ties. From 2003 to 2009, Professor Tucker directed the Family Research Consortium IV, a National Institute of Mental Health-funded collaborative network of scholars focused on family mental health, as well as an affiliated national postdoctoral fellowship program.

Under Professor Tucker’s leadership as vice provost, the IAC will advance the understanding of new social and cultural realities in America, especially those occasioned by recent unparalleled population shifts. UCLA already has great strength in this area, due in large measure to the work of our ethnic studies centers. I expect the IAC to build on our success, and to both deepen and broaden the study of American cultures at UCLA.

I encourage you to read the IAC’s academic plan, and Vice Provost Tucker welcomes your ideas for collaborative research and programs. Please join me in congratulating her as she begins this important new role.

Sincerely,

Scott L. Waugh
Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost