Los Angeles

Barbra Streisand Institute To Open At UCLA

October 18, 2021 / 12:18 PM PDT / KCAL News

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LOS ANGELES (CBSLA) - UCLA and Barbra Streisand have come together to announce the Barbra Streisand Institute, a forward-looking program focused on solving societal challenges.

School officials announced the institute on Monday, with the goal of conducting research on societal issues including environmental health and climate change, gender relations, combatting misinformation on a national level and much more.

The institute will hold four research centers which will be housed in UCLA's Division of Social Sciences:

The Center for Truth in the Public Sphere
The Center for the Impact of Climate Change
The Center for the Dynamics of Intimacy & Power Between Women & Men
The Center for the Impact of Art on Culture

This institute is the latest achievement in a long line of societal work that Streisand has achieved over the course of her career. One of her earliest acts was funding climate change research as early as 1989 with the Environmental Defense Fund.

"It is my great pleasure to be able to fund an institute at UCLA, one of the world's premier universities," Streisand said. "This will be a place where future scholars can discuss, engage and argue about the most important issues of the day; where innovators will speak truth to power, help save our planet, and make glass ceilings for women an anachronism; and in the process give us a chance to have a brighter, more promising future."

This is not Streisand's first work with UCLA, as she also established the Streisand Chair in Cardiology in 1984. In 2014 The Barbra Streisand Women's Heart Health Program was founded at UCLA as well, with the goal of researching stress and the connection it has to both heart and mind.

"While it's easy to reflect on the past, I can't stop thinking about the future and what it holds for our children, our planet and our society. The Barbra Streisand Institute at UCLA will be an exploration into vital issues that affect us all ... and the fact that my father, Emanuel Streisand, was an educator makes this Institute even more meaningful to me,'' Streisand continued in her press release.

Streisand has supported cardiovascular research and education at Cedars-Sinai Hospital since 2007, and in 2012 the women's cardiovascular health center was renamed in her honor: The Barbra Streisand Women's Heart Center at Cedars-Sinai.

Along with these ventures, Streisand is also an advocate for gender equality, civil rights, democracy and truth in the public sphere - the Institute's first area of study, where students will be encouraged to focus on current threats to democracy, both nationally and globally, and how the increase of disinformation spread to the public can be detrimental to society.

The institute will be officially established once the full amount of the gift has been received. Until then, UCLA will house the Barbra Streisand Institute in the UCLA Center for the Study of Women.

Since her rise to stardom, Streisand has received awards and commendation in many different fields of entertainment. She is the first woman composer to receive an Academy Award, the first woman to receive a Golden Globe Award for Best Director, the first woman to direct, produce, write and star in a major motion picture and the only recording artist to achieve No. 1 albums in six consecutive decades, spanning from 1964 to 2014.

In that time she has been awarded two Oscars, five Emmys, one Tony, 10 Grammys - including the Legend Award and the Lifetime Achievement Award, 11 Golden Globes - including two Best Picture awards and three Peabody Awards, among many more. She has also received honors from the United States Government, including the National Medal of Arts and the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

UCLA