UCLA graduate student Ayappa Biddanda enjoys hobnobbing with music industry celebrities while working at his off-campus marketing job with a record label. But Biddanda has discovered that he doesn't have to leave the classroom to brush up against people with a measure of star power.
In the fall quarter he took a film course taught by Academy Award-winning producer Peter Guber. In the winter quarter Biddanda studied public policy issues with Michael Dukakis, the 1988 Democratic presidential nominee.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Tuesday April 05, 2005 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 1 inches; 51 words Type of Material: Correction
Celebrity instructors -- The Column One in Friday's Section A about celebrity instructors at college campuses incorrectly identified producer Peter Guber as an Academy Award winner. Guber was an executive producer of "Rain Man," which won the 1988 best picture award, but the Oscar went to the film's producer, Mark Johnson.
One of Biddanda's few regrets is that he hasn't been able to squeeze in a class with Kenny Burrell, the legendary guitarist who directs UCLA's jazz studies program.
In celebrity-rich Southern California, big names are a big deal, and academia has joined the chase. UCLA and USC are at the head of the class among the nation's universities in hiring instructors whose photos might be more likely to pop up in People magazine than in the Chronicle of Higher Education.
For some students, studying with notables who earned their fame outside academia "is a blast," said the 27-year-old Biddanda, who is working on a master's degree in public policy. "How often do we get a chance to learn from someone whose name can easily appear in the headlines?"
These celebrity professors -- some still famous, many others with their glory days in the past -- typically have thinner academic credentials than regular faculty and sometimes drop onto campus only a couple of times a year.
But their host schools say they often offer students inspiration and a sharper view of real-world experience, particularly in entertainment, the arts, media, politics and business. They also lend glamour to a campus and sometimes give schools ties to wealthy prospective donors.
"There's more of a public relations mentality in academia than there used to be, and this is one manifestation of it," said Alexander W. Astin, founding director of UCLA's Higher Education Research Institute.
Professional resentments, of course, flourish in academia, where faculty struggle to earn PhDs and tenure. Even so, most regular faculty welcome celebrity instructors, said Martin Kaplan, an associate dean at USC and director of its Norman Lear Center, which studies the impact of entertainment on society.
"It's exciting for everybody in the university community when accomplished or famous people come to you," he said. "People get the impression that you're a hot, happening place."
