A Message from the Chair
Dear Colleagues:
I had hoped to be able to comment
on the selection of a Chancellor for our campus, but as
recent news reports have made clear, the process has not
yet reached a successful conclusion. President Dynes
has said that the Advisory Committee will reconvene on
June 5th.
I also
recently learned that
Acting
Provost Rory Hume has been offered and accepted the post
of Provost of the UC system, pending approval by the
Regents.
While the future steps of the
Advisory Committee to select our next chancellor are
unknown at this time, we can look back at the steps that
have already been taken. The UCLA Academic Senate
played a part in the process: besides providing the
slate of names from which the UCLA faculty members on
the Advisory Committee were chosen, the Senate also
convened two groups of faculty to meet with the
Committee. These groups spoke to the Committee about
important issues facing UCLA and the qualities we are
looking for in a Chancellor; some of these comments were
also provided to the Advisory Committee as
written statements. Elsewhere in this issue
you will find a
description of the
process that was followed by the
Advisory Committee in bringing candidates forward to the
President. Clearly, the Advisory Committee members’
many hours of work have not yet yielded a positive
outcome. It is frustrating, but it is certainly not the
first time a search has run into snags.
I do want to briefly express my
disappointment about leaks to the news media. Our
search process is intended to be confidential so as not
to deter any candidate of interest to us from being in
the pool. One can debate whether or not this is the
best way to conduct a search; nonetheless, the
candidates were in the pool with that understanding. So
I am deeply chagrined that leaks to the news media
breached confidentiality, potentially embarrassed an
apparent candidate and her husband, and made the task of
attracting another candidate that much more challenging.
And now I look forward to a
positive outcome of the next stage of the search.
Sincerely,
Adrienne
Chair, UCLA Academic Senate
