Anyone who has been directly impacted by the recent generation of California wildfires can’t help but feel a visceral connection to our climate and the life-altering impacts of its current cataclysm. I’ve spent my entire life engaging with our natural landscape, appreciating its incomparable diversity, being nourished by its peerless beauty.

All those values are placed at risk now; many of our most precious assets have incinerated already. Supporting research into the nexus of climate and wildfire is simply a practical, tangible way of expressing my commitment to confront  and investigate the issues in play with this crisis.

That’s why I gave the gift of a postdoctoral position for UCLA’s Climate and Wildfire Initiative. I am committed to UCLA’s various environmental missions. To me, giving back to UCLA is just a natural way of giving back to the mountains that have given me so much. UCLA is where I learned to think. Everything that mystifies us deserves answers, and UCLA taught me how to find them, or at least how to initiate the quest.

I know there are a multitude of academic areas that are completely beyond my ken. That’s an entirely good thing. A great academic institution should challenge our capacity to maintain focus. Selfishly, I confine my support to areas that are somewhat familiar to me, ones I can keep in focus, adjusting my perspective as new knowledge demands. All Bruins should be proud to support the academic missions that once excited them, and hopefully still do.

—HOLLIS LENDERKING ’71