Mitchel D. Covel and Susan D. Covel

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Mitchel and Susan Covel are richly deserving of the University Service Award. Thirty-seven years of dedicated service to one’s university is to be valued and recognized in any instance. When that service is as distinguished, creative, far-reaching and institutionally consequential as that of Mitchel Covel’s to UCLA, it deserves the highest honor that we, as alumni, can bestow upon one of our own, and when a volunteer partnership dedicate to university service flourishes for some 20 years, that also deserves special recognition.

As a clinical professor of medicine at UCLA, Covel has been very influential in a myriad of aspects with the School of Medicine. As associate dean of development and community relations, he has profoundly influenced the future of medicine at UCLA through his extraordinary ability to bring in not only generous financial contributions, but good will as well.

The Aesculapians, which Covel founded and has chaired since its inception in 1974, has raised over $12 million for research and teaching. This vitally important resource to the school provides the only unrestricted source of funding available to the dean for meeting priority needs, such as: graduate student fellowships, seed grants for faculty research, training programs for medical research scientists and medical equipment purchases. Susan Covel has worked continuously and tirelessly on Aesculapian balls from the beginning. Thanks in large measure to her fundraising and organizational skills, the balls are considered one of the hottest tickets in Los Angeles. A sellout for the medical school, this event is a highly successful fundraiser. Together, the Covels founded the Mitchel and Susan Covel Aesculapians Endowment Fund in 1989.

Covel has served at the highest levels of leadership in professional organizations such as the Los Angeles County Heart Association, the American Medical Association, the American Heart Association and The American College of Physicians. He has been honored as fellow of more, including the American Association for the Advance of Science. He always represents the highest standards of personal conduct and service, as well as excellence in medical training and practice, at UCLA.

Covel’s service to UCLA extends far beyond the medical campus, from Chancellor’s Associates and Bruin Bench to Royce Center Circle, Design for Sharing and the Alumni Association. He currently serves as chairman of the board for the UCLA Foundation.

Susan Covel has served as president of the American Heart Association and worked on campus, leading the UCLA Medical center Auxiliary, where she was treasurer for four years and president from 1983 until 1985. She has also served on the boards of Royce Center Circle, the Humanities Council, the College of Letters and Science Awards Dinner committees, the Aesculapians, the First Century Society and Women in Philanthropy. In 1996, the Covels served as co-chairs of the College Awards Dinner.

Covel has been a superb role model for thousands of medical students, interns and residents in the hospitals and clinics at UCLA as well as the other medical arenas in which he has practiced. Mrs. Covel inspires co-workers with both her dedication and her capabilities. In many was, their lives define university service.