Bruce Baker

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Each year, Bob Goldberg’s students start out complaining about the workload in his biology classes. And each year, they end up praising the courses as the finest they have had at UCLA.

Particularly aware of the difficulty of engaging students when the class size is large, Bruce works to make himself more accessible and the material more meaningful in each psychology class he teaches. In addition to delivering compelling and informative lectures, he meets individually with each of the 150 to 200 students in his undergraduate classes. He requires them to attend weekly small group discussion sessions, and after the quarter, he invites “A” students to an informal reception in order to offer further guidance. Graduate students find Bruce an outstanding mentor – energetic, attentive and supportive.

Especially committed to introducing experiential learning into his classes, in 1975, the year he arrived at UCLA, Bruce developed the Developmental Disabilities Immersion Program (DDIP), in conjunction with the office of Experiential Education and the Department of Psychiatry. Now in its 17th year, the DDIP gives 30 undergraduates annually an opportunity to take a two-year quarter experience combining fieldwork, research and course work in the field of developmental disabilities. During this past year, Bruce has also developed a research training program for undergraduate psychology majors at Fernald School.

A distinguished undergraduate and graduate teacher, an innovator of undergraduate programs, and an outstanding scholar, Baker is a rare academician – one whose commitment to teaching is surpassed only by his enjoyment of helping others.