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Christopher Waterman Appointed Acting Dean of UCLA School of the Arts and Architecture

Carolyn Campbell (ccampbel@arts.ucla.edu) (310) 825-6540
For Immediate Use Friday, June 28, 2002.

Christopher Waterman, chair of the Department of World Arts and Cultures at UCLA, has been named acting dean of UCLA’s School of the Arts and Architecture. The appointment was announced by Chancellor Albert Carnesale and approved by the University of California Office of the President, effective July 1. Waterman succeeds Daniel Neuman, who has accepted appointment as executive vice chancellor of UCLA.

“I am grateful to Professor Waterman for assuming the pivotal role of acting dean, and I look forward to working with him during this important transitional period for the School of the Arts and Architecture,” Carnesale said. A national search for a permanent dean is being initiated.

Waterman, 47, is an anthropologist and musician who specializes in the study of music and popular culture in Africa and the Americas. He joined UCLA in 1996 as a professor in the Department of World Arts and Cultures, becoming chair of the department in 1997. He has conducted extensive field research among the Yoruba people of Nigeria, and is the author of “Juju: A Social History and Ethnography of an African Popular Music” (University of Chicago Press, 1990) and co-author of “American Popular Music: From Minstrelsy to MTV” (Oxford University Press, 2002).

In his capacity as a bassist, Waterman has performed with such artists as Zoot Sims, Larry Coryell, Buddy Emmons, the Glenn Miller and Jimmy Dorsey orchestras, and I.K. Dairo (M.B.E.) and His Blue Spots.

Waterman is also an award-winning teacher, whose courses on music have received notice in publications such as Rolling Stone.

Prior to joining UCLA, Waterman was associate professor of music at the University of Washington, where he served as head of the ethnomusicology program and chair of the African studies committee. He received his Ph.D. in anthropology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and a B.Mus. degree in composition and electric bass from Berklee College of Music.


“I am delighted at this opportunity to serve UCLA, one of the world’s most innovative and diverse institutions of higher learning, and a national leader in arts education,” Waterman said. “Much has been accomplished in the School of the Arts and Architecture in recent years, and the main task before us is to maintain our impressive forward momentum in the areas of teaching and research, public arts presentation, and extramural support for our students and programs.”

One of 11 professional schools at UCLA, the School of the Arts and Architecture consists of six departments: Architecture and Urban Design, Art, Design | Media Arts, Ethnomusicology, Music, and World Arts and Cultures.

Degree programs include the B.A., M.A. and Ph.D., as well as M.F.A., M.M. and D.M.A., plus M. Arch I and M. Arch II.

The school has approximately 116 full-time faculty and an average current enrollment of 870 undergraduate and 423 graduate students.

The school also contains public arts units: the UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History; the UCLA Hammer Museum, which houses the Grunwald Center for the Graphic Arts; and UCLA Performing Arts.


Contact: Carolyn Campbell
Phone: (310) 825-6540
Email: ccampbel@arts.ucla.edu