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Jan 30, 2012

Tucker appointed to head administrative hub for ethnic studies center

Professor M. Belinda Tucker has been appointed to serve in the newly established position of vice provost of the Institute of American Cultures, the administrative hub for UCLA’s four ethnic studies centers. In her new role, she will initiate campuswide research, educational programs and collaborations that support a wide range of disciplinary approaches to the study of American cultures.
 
Belinda-TuckerThe Institute of American Cultures (IAC) was founded in 1969 as a collaborative initiative to foster and advance ethnic studies scholarship at UCLA and to build connections among the four centers. Under a new academic plan, it's being restructured and re-envisioned to advance understanding of the new social and cultural realities in America.
 
Under Professor Tucker’s leadership as vice provost, the IAC will advance the understanding of the emerging America, defined by recent unparalleled population shifts, but also by increased fluidity with regard to race, ethnicity, identity and culture. "UCLA already has great strength in this area, due in large measure to the work of our ethnic studies centers," said Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost Scott Waugh in announcing Tucker's appointment. "I expect the IAC to build on our success, and to both deepen and broaden the study of American cultures at UCLA."
 
Professor Tucker holds a faculty appointment in the Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences. 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. During her long history of administrative service at UCLA, she served most recently 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 as well as the 21-city Survey of Families and Relationships. 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, she 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.
 
To learn more about IAC's academic plan, go here.