Meeting of the Senate Leadership with the
Committee to Advise the President on the Selection of the Chancellor of UCLA

Introduction

Speaker: Adrienne Lavine, Chair, Academic Senate

 Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

Good afternoon.  I hope you’re still alert after a day of meeting with all the varied constituencies at UCLA.  I’m Adrienne Lavine, Chair of the Academic Senate; the individuals in this room all play leadership roles in the Senate, either on our Executive Board or as chairs of standing committees.  In case some of you don’t know what the Senate is, it’s the faculty governing body, and carries out the faculty’s responsibilities in the shared governance of the university.   The group who just left also included some senate committee chairs and other faculty members as well.  Together with that group, we are here to represent the faculty voice to inform your search for a new chancellor.

All of the constituent groups you’ve met with today contribute to the greatness of UCLA, but I would like to suggest that the faculty are at the heart of our mission of teaching, research, and public service.  The faculty educate our graduate and undergraduate students, conduct seminal research and other creative undertakings, bring three-quarters of a billion dollars to the campus annually in contracts and grants, treat patients, and, through the Senate, contribute to the governance of the university.  So we bring a perspective to the committee today that is informed by our position on the front lines in achieving the university’s mission.

You have received a page containing some statistics about UCLA, so you know that we are a large, comprehensive campus, impressive in very many ways.  We are unusual in being a major research university located in a major metropolitan area.  We are a young university that has risen to world-class stature in a mere 80 years.  And we must continue that upward trajectory, although the challenges are great.

What we wish to convey is what makes UCLA special, what challenges UCLA faces, and what that tells us about the characteristics we should be looking for in a Chancellor for UCLA.   This group has worked together to identify six topics that we think are critically important; you will hear from six speakers who, with input from the group, have generated statements on those topics.  These statements are in the pages I’ve handed you, in case you want to refer to them daily to inspire your search.  In closing my remarks, let me just say that no one wishes you greater success in the task before you than we do.

Scale and Range of UCLA and its Implications for Leadership Style

Speaker: Stephen Yeazell, Professor, Law

Because UCLA is both large and academically diverse (with more academic units, more faculty, and more students than any other UC campus) its Chancellor has two challenges not faced by those on other campuses.  First, this scale and range make it impossible for the Chancellor at UCLA to lead from the top.  Second, the same scale and range make work across boundaries both more difficult and potentially more creative.

These two circumstances imply two characteristics in an effective chancellor at UCLA: 

·        Because the Chancellor at UCLA cannot lead from the top, he or she must instead be responsible for a process that identifies and develops academic leaders – at the vice-chancellorial, decanal, and departmental levels.  To a greater extent than may be true at other UC campuses the Chancellor at UCLA should be judged by his or her effectiveness at building the next generation of academic leaders.  The same responsibility applies to processes that lead to replacement of leaders who prove ineffective.  

·        Because UCLA’s scale and range make collaboration a particular comparative advantage, the Chancellor at UCLA must be able both to inspire and to facilitate work across boundaries – those between traditional disciplines, those between graduate and undergraduate education, and those between professional schools and doctoral education.  Inspiration implies the ability to articulate themes and to relate to faculty, students and staff.  Facilitation implies an ability to identify and remove operational barriers to such work. 

UCLA:  Challenges Posed by a Comprehensive University

Speaker: Margaret Haberland, Professor, Medicine – Cardiology

UCLA offers rigorous academic and research programs in eleven professional schools and the College of Letters and Science.  These units, together with the UCLA Hospitals & Clinics and community engagement programs like UCLA Extension and UCLA In LA, define the comprehensive features of our university.  The comprehensiveness at UCLA surpasses even that offered by Berkeley.

The UCLA traditions of academic excellence in research, and the creation of knowledge and innovation across a wide range of disciplines, rival those of private institutions.  The intellectual creative efforts only occasionally cross academic and professional school boundaries.  The future Chancellor of UCLA faces integration of our comprehensive strengths in three key areas: resource allocation to the College, intellectual synergy, and renaissance.

First, the heart of our academic enterprise in undergraduate education is the College.  The College has implemented innovative offerings like General Education Clusters that fundamentally rethink and improve undergraduate education.  Departmental teaching profiles, however, have been impacted by decline in graduate teaching assistants so vital to undergraduate instruction.  The Chancellor faces critical commitment together with fiscal resources to support the College in education of nearly 25,000 enrolled undergraduates.

Next, the Chancellor faces harnessing the strengths of each professional school to benefit the university at large, and the College in particular, crossing academic and administrative boundaries to develop interdisciplinary intellectual synergy.

Finally, growth through physical expansion is limited. The Chancellor faces growth through renaissance, by focusing resources on areas in which UCLA has achieved excellence, must be excellent, and has the potential to achieve excellence.

Graduate Education and Funding Challenges

Speaker:  Rogers Brubaker, Professor, Sociology

The crisis in graduate education

UCLA's status as an eminent international research university depends on its ability to attract the very best graduate students from national and international applicant pools.   This ability has been seriously undermined in recent years by severe funding shortfalls, compounding problems caused by a substantial longer-term decline in the ratio of graduate to undergraduate enrollments. 

The consequences of the crisis in graduate education ramify into every branch of the university.  Faculty are demoralized when top graduate prospects regularly choose to attend other institutions; this demoralization cannot help but impact faculty recruitment and retention, especially in the context of stagnating salaries, sharply curtailed staff support, and a decline in other forms of university support for research. Undergraduates lose the benefit of interaction with top-flight graduate students; cutbacks in TA funding entail larger discussion sections (and more large lecture courses without TAs).  Researchers increasingly have to cover rapidly rising tuition and fees from their grants, reducing the funds available for research and hampering their ability to compete for external support. Perhaps most fundamentally, the research enterprise itself is weakened, since outstanding graduate students are an integral part of the research teams that are working at the frontiers of knowledge.

The crisis is in part a systemwide problem.[1]  The key element systemwide -- besides declining long-term support for graduate education and the recent budget crisis -- is the exorbitant nonresident tuition (NRT) charges that have made international students prohibitively expensive for some programs and extremely costly for all.[2]  The steep decline in enrollment of foreign students[3] has occurred precisely as the internationalization of education and scholarship has increased the number of superbly prepared foreign students eager to pursue graduate training at top universities in the US or elsewhere.  Increasing insularity in a rapidly internationalizing scholarly world severely threatens the intellectual stature and competitive standing of UC as a whole (and substantially reduces diversity of background and experience as well).

Clearly, the NRT problem can be addressed most effectively at the systemwide level, and it is encouraging that several proposals for mitigating the problem are currently being discussed.  Yet UCLA cannot afford simply to wait for systemwide action; there is ample room -- and urgent need -- for energetic leadership at UCLA as well.   Moreover, threats to graduate education come not only from NRT; the crisis has local as well as systemwide causes (and solutions!).

Even apart from the special problems of NRT, graduate support packages at UCLA are not competitive with those of other leading universities.  Although this is a problem throughout the UC system, UCLA fares badly even within the system.  In 2001-02, the net per capita stipend offered by UCLA to PhD students ranked eighth among UC campuses; adjusted for differences in cost of living, UCLA ranked last.  Total graduate fellowship support was 24% greater at Berkeley than at UCLA, though UCLA has 1,500 more graduate students.  A UCOP survey showed that average first-year stipends offered by competing institutions outside UC exceeded  those offered by UCLA by $2,288; adjusted for cost of living, the difference was $4,790.[4]    

A further problem is UCLA's extremely low, and long-declining, ratio of graduate to undergraduate students -- a ratio much lower than at comparable leading institutions, public and private.  Thirty years ago, graduate students comprised 18% of all students in the College of Letters and Science; today, the figure is less than 12%.   General Campus graduate enrollments have declined in both absolute and proportional terms over the last thirty years.[5]

Confronted with a steady deterioration in -- and long-term relative neglect of -- graduate education, the UCLA faculty have taken the lead in the last few years in highlighting the gravity and urgency of the problem.  In March 2004, more than forty UCLA department chairs came together to formulate a cogent diagnosis and a concrete set of recommendations.[6]  In response, Chancellor Carnesale committed additional resources for graduate funding, and announced the "Ensuring Academic Excellence" initiative, aiming to raise an endowment of $100 million for graduate fellowships in the College and $50 million for fellowships in the professional schools.[7] 

These were certainly welcome steps in the right direction.  But to deal effectively with the crisis of graduate education -- and to avoid the transformation of UCLA from a "preeminent international university" to "just another regionally-based large public university"[8] -- many additional measures will be required.[9]  We believe that a credible candidate for Chancellor should demonstrate a commitment to leadership on this issue, of vital importance to the long-term standing and stature of the university.  

Fiscal Challenges

Speaker:  Ajit Mal, Professor, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

State support for the UC system has declined steadily over the years. Some of the campuses, including UCLA, have so far been able to supplement their revenue through a significant increase in grants and contracts as well as funds from private sources. In 2002-03 UCLA’s budget was around $3B, of which about $600M came from the State of California. In recent years, funding from grants and contracts has increased at a yearly rate of about 8% and we have been very successful in raising funds from private sources. On the other hand, the state support has decreased at a somewhat higher rate. The total budget this year is $3.8B of which about $450M is from the state! 

Our success in raising extramural funds and a great deal of advance planning helped us ride out the budget reductions for three years in a row (2001-2004) without incurring permanent damage to our academic units.  However, it is not clear what the future will bring. The rate of increase in our extramural support has slowed significantly and the trend is not encouraging. In the meantime the cost of maintaining the physical and intellectual capital of the campus is increasing at an alarming rate. The “Facilities” has been running a large deficit for several years due to the unexpected rise in the price of natural gas and the needs of its unionized workforce. As a result of recent large increases in nonresident tuition for international students, the cost of supporting each student has increased to about $50K per year, or around $200K per Ph. D!  Faculty recruitment cost has also increased significantly – often a million dollars or more in some areas.  Some of the academic units have had chronic “structural” deficits for many years – and have been bailed out by the Chancellor a number of times. The recent compact between the university and the state will help, but not by much. There is also widespread belief or perception that UCLA has a disproportionately large and highly opaque administrative budget (>$104M in 2002-3) – that may require careful scrutiny.

We believe that the new Chancellor should be willing and able to instill a sense of fiscal responsibility in all units of the campus. He/she should encourage the office of planning and budget to work with the academic units and the academic senate to develop strategic plans and pragmatic budget decisions throughout the university without losing sight of our main mission.

The ability of the Chancellor to raise funds from the private sector cannot be overemphasized. He/she must be willing and able to seek out and appeal to all local, national and international sources to raise funds. The Chancellor represents UCLA at numerous events in the city, state and nation. The better his/her public image and business acumen, the better his/her ability to attract external funds to the campus.   

Diversity

Speaker:  Jody Kreiman, Professor, Surgery – Head and Neck

Diversity is a defining feature of California's past, present and future, and is integral to the University's achievement of excellence.  Education that truly incorporates diversity promotes mutual respect and prepares students to participate in an increasingly complex, pluralistic society.

Given these considerations, we seek a chancellor who will actively renew UCLA's commitment to promoting diversity and equal opportunity in all facets of university life.  Data clearly indicate that UCLA is failing overall in its attempts to increase or even maintain current levels of faculty diversity.  For example, the number of women faculty members significantly lags availability at every level in every division of the university except the School of Nursing, and numbers are actually declining in some areas where female PhDs outnumber males.  Although there are a number of female senior administrators on campus, there are few women serving as department chairs, so it is unclear where the next generation will gain its experience.  Faculty recruitment also lags availability in most disciplines for Latino and African American scholars.  Some progress has been made increasing diversity among the student body, particularly with respect to foreign-born and low-income students, but many significant issues remain as well.  For example, this year UCLA succeeded in enrolling only 641 Chicano/Latino students and a mere 125 African-Americans, only 24 of whom were not recruited as athletes.  These data cannot be excused by appeals to Prop 209 or claims of an inadequate pipeline.  They document an acute need to remove barriers to the recruitment, retention and advancement of qualified students, faculty and staff from historically excluded or currently underrepresented populations.  An ideal chancellor will view these goals as central to institutional excellence, and will passionately articulate that vision to the campus community.  As evidence of this commitment, we encourage the committee to seek a candidate who has effectively translated these ideals into action throughout his or her career.

Shared Governance

Speaker:  Vivek Shetty, Vice-Chair Academic Senate

Professor, Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery

My colleagues have elaborated on some of the qualities desired in our new chancellor. Important as these chancellorial traits are, they will be of no consequence unless the new chancellor has a genuine appreciation of and commitment to shared governance.

Shared governance with the Academic Senate is the defining feature of the University of California system - the guiding force that unifies the ten campuses of the University under a uniform standard of excellence.

It is the framework that provides the faculty with a mechanism for participating in the development of policy to guide the university in its continuing quest for excellence in all its missions.

By creating a culture of collective responsibility and ownership, our system of shared governance has helped unleash a collective synergy that has catapulted many of the UC?s divisions into the rank of world class institutions within a very brief period.

To a professional administrator who views the university from the perspective of a corporate chief executive, UCLA?s distinctive process of faculty consultation and shared governance can be seen as an irritating nuisance. In our experience, academic managers recruited from entrepreneurial universities administered outside of shared governance procedures often have difficulty recognizing the benefits of deliberation and compromise involved in shared governance. Such recruits run the risk of ending up as cultural misfits, unable to engage or utilize the vast expertise and experience at hand among the faculty, accumulating unpopular decisions and frayed relationships to the point of institutional paralysis.

A chancellor who, through intent or ignorance, sacrifices shared governance procedures for managerial expediency would deprive the university of one of the principal forces driving its constant progress towards excellence in its teaching, research and service. Without the faculty there would be no prestigious research accomplishments. Without the faculty there will be no educational program. No administrative fiat can direct an individual faculty member to the next great research breakthrough or can direct individual faculty to inspire a classroom of undergraduates with the joy of the discovery of new knowledge.

Woodrow Wilson said it best: "We must not only use all the brains we have, but all that we can borrow." This former college president knew there was no place better from which to borrow brains than the university which employs some of the very best brains available. We hope that the chancellor you help us recruit would be equally perceptive.