Office of the Vice Chancellor for Academic Personnel
To: Administrative Officers, Deans, Department Chairs, Directors, Emeriti, Faculty, Vice Chancellors and Vice Provosts
Dear Colleagues:
The Carole E. Goldberg Emeriti Service Award, established in 2015, recognizes UCLA emeriti for exemplary service to the university and their department.
Two UCLA Emeriti Professors have been selected to receive the 2020 – 2021 Carole E. Goldberg Emeriti Service Award, which includes a prize of $1,000: Professor Emerita Josephine B. Isabel-Jones and Professor Emeritus Paul Ong. Both recipients have had long and distinguished careers as UCLA faculty. The Carole E. Goldberg Award honors extraordinary service and we highlight their distinctive achievements in service to the University, their department and community through their respective fields.
Josephine B. Isabel-Jones, Professor Emerita of Pediatrics, retired in 2003 after a long career at the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine (DGSOM) dedicated to empowering others, particularly those at a socioeconomic disadvantage, and has continuously championed equity, inclusivity and diversity at DGSOM. As a nationally recognized pediatric cardiologist, she has remained active in children’s healthcare at UCLA and in the wider region. Dr. Isabel-Jones has long been a popular teacher, continued to do rounds, received multiple awards such as the 2009 Lifetime Achievement Award from the Association of Black Women Physicians and provided mentorship over the 18 years since retirement, which has unequivocally shaped the careers of countless students of medicine. Post-retirement, Dr. Isabel-Jones’s service to the University has continued unabated. A brief selection of her prodigious activity includes serving as DGSOM Assistant Dean of Student Affairs, notably for the past 42 years; as an Instructor in the Problem Based Learning Program; as a member of numerous committees including an appointed member by Chancellor Block to the Moreno committee to examine diversity challenges, whose recommendations were issued in January 2021. She founded and chaired the first faculty diversity committee in DGSOM and developed the Intergroup Dialogue to Enhance Action on Diversity (IDEA) with workshops to address implicit bias in mentoring underrepresented minority and women faculty members. These were pioneering efforts and Dr. Isabel-Jones was years ahead of her time in her work on diversity and inclusion, and her work in providing medical assistance to children with congenital heart disease in the underserved global community has been an inspiration.
Paul Ong, Professor Emeritus of Urban Planning, retired in 2017 after three decades of interdisciplinary social science teaching, policy-focused applied research and engagement with the community as well as with policymakers enabling significant change. In retirement this advocacy continued and Professor Ong’s commitment to research-as-service came to a fulcrum during the span of the pandemic with actionable policy research addressing the twin crises of the coronavirus and racial injustice. Professor Ong has served as Director of the UCLA Center for Neighborhood Knowledge (CNK) since 2013 and in the last year alone his productivity has been phenomenal – with nearly thirty published policy reports, as author or co-author. He is an extraordinary builder of intellectual relationships, transforming empirical research into critical policy discussions in local, state and national venues. His research collaborations intersect the UCLA campus from the Latino Policy & Politics Initiative to the American Asian Studies Center, the School of Education and Information Studies, the Ziman Center for Real Estate, the BRITE Center and the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research, plus many more. Professor Ong’s impactful research reveals real-world perspectives on social and economic outcomes for minority and underserved communities – addressing issues of homelessness, business closures, renters under threat of eviction, food security, student learning, health, inequality and racial injustice to assess vulnerable populations. The City of Los Angeles and UCLA Health have drawn on this research for its COVID-19 vaccine equity guidelines. His contributions have helped to mobilize and expand opportunity for the benefit of all Americans.
Please join me in wishing them a well-deserved congratulations as powerful examples of professional achievement and outstanding service to UCLA and in their respective fields since retirement.
Sincerely,
Michael S. Levine
Chair, Carole E. Goldberg Emeriti Service Award Selection Committee
Vice Chancellor, Academic Personnel
