Mary Ries came to UCLA in 2001 as administrative coordinator in the Division of Undergraduate Education. During her seventeen years with the Division, she provided fundamental support to Associate Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education Betty J. Glick, Vice Provost of Undergraduate Education, Vice Provost and Dean of Undergraduate Education Judith L. Smith, and Assistant Vice Provost and Assistant Dean for Administration Susan Swarts. Under their direction, she has coordinated the planning of campus-wide events including Convocation and New Student Welcome (True Bruin Welcome), the Transfer Alliance Program (TAP)/Transfer Conference (the UCLA Transfer Conference), College Honors Day and College Welcome Day (Bruin Day), and the two College Commencement ceremonies for the College of Letters and Science. Mary and her involvement with planning commencement was featured in a June 2016 UCLA Newsroom article – The woman behind the scenes at every UCLA College commencement. Mary takes great pride in her ability to analyze and streamline procedures and policies benefiting both the department and division.
Kelly Wahl has conducted institutional research for over twenty years at institutions including large research-intensive public institutions (UCLA and the University of Massachusetts Amherst), medium-sized private institutions (Santa Clara University and Loyola Marymount University), and the largest urban community college system in the United States (the Los Angeles Community College District). He has participated on thirteen visiting teams for UCLA’s regional accreditor, the WASC Senior College and University Commission, most frequently serving as his team’s Assistant Chair. Among his special interests in institutional research are data mining studies of student information system data, institution-wide key performance measure identification and interpretation, and scale development using survey data. Recent publications include work appearing in the journal Inflammatory Bowel Diseases.
Eric Wells began working as an Academic Counselor in the UCLA Academic Advancement Program, a program designed to support the retention and graduation of under-represented, first-generation college students, in 2011. For the past two years, he has served as the principal policy analyst for undergraduate education at the UCLA Academic Senate, where he also co-manages the academic program review process. Among his special interests are shared governance structures, program assessment, and retention issues in higher education. He holds a Ph.D. in Near Eastern Languages and Cultures and regularly teaches Egyptology courses.
Mitsue Yokota returned to UCLA in 2004 after teaching in the Los Angeles Unified School District. She first supported the Office of the Associate Vice Chancellor for Institutional Planning and then the Dean and Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education. During that time, she served as the campus WASC Coordinator. She then directed student support programs in the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. She returned to the Division of Undergraduate Education in 2015 as the Director of Curricular Initiatives.