Monday, September 28, 1998
Upcoming 80th year to attain new highs
PRIDE: Quality, diversity, improving education
key issues for chancellor
Fall is always an exhilarating time on university campuses, and
the start of the 1998-99 academic year inspires a particularly keen
sense of anticipation. Soon we will witness one of the rarest of
human chronological milestones, the dawn of a new millennium. And
UCLA. approaches a milestone of its own – the 80th anniversary of
its founding, on May 23, 1999.
Sometimes it is helpful to look back even as we point toward the
future. The events of the past year – my first as chancellor –
strengthened my conviction that UCLA is ideally positioned to
become one of the truly great universities in the world.
UCLA’s people and programs continued to soar in 1997-98.
Students reached new heights of academic achievement and service to
the campus and the community. Faculty members garnered prestigious
honors, including a Nobel Prize, a Pulitzer Prize and a MacArthur
Foundation "genius award." The Medical Center was again named "Best
in the West," and the UCLA Library ranked second in North America.
Our athletic teams made Bruin fans everywhere proud. We opened
several new facilities, including the Tom Bradley International
Student Center and the Arthur Ashe Student Health and Wellness
Center, and we celebrated the return of Royce Hall. Among numerous
important findings, UCLA research yielded the first genetically
engineered breast cancer drug and a new statistical model for
forecasting El Nino events.
All of this was business as usual for UCLA. But the abundance of
good news doesn’t mean that we are without challenges or concerns.
The predominant one is this: How can we advance the quality of
education at UCLA? How can we make UCLA the very best university it
can be?
First and foremost, we must continue to attract outstanding
students, faculty and staff, and we must provide the best possible
educational and working environments to enhance their experience
here.
Interest in attending UCLA has never been higher; we receive
more applications than any other university in the nation. We are
able to admit only about 30 percent of those high school seniors
who apply. As a matter of practical necessity, UCLA has become one
of the most selective universities in the United States.
For many years, each freshman class arrived with record-high
grades and test scores, while the ethnic and cultural diversity of
the student body increased simultaneously. In fact, UCLA is proud
to have convincingly demonstrated that academic excellence and
ethnic diversity reinforce one another.
Unfortunately, as we are all painfully aware, UCLA’s
achievements in this realm are now in jeopardy. The entering
freshman class of 1998, admitted under the constraints of
Proposition 209, is less diverse than the freshman class of 1997.
If this trend is to continue, we will lose a critical aspect of the
vitality of the UCLA community: the marvelous enrichment that comes
from exposure to classmates of varying backgrounds and
cultures.
The recent changes in UC admissions policy have stimulated
debate on our own campus and throughout the state. It is important
for us to continue to address these concerns together. We must not
fail in our mission to serve the people of California.
Encouraging and protecting diversity at UCLA is a top priority
for the coming year – and every year. Experience has already taught
us that targeted outreach to K-12 students can be highly effective
in encouraging them to consider and prepare for higher education in
general and UCLA in particular. Last spring’s post-admission
recruitment effort, which engaged faculty, administrators and
alumni, as well as current students, actually led to an increased
yield of admitted underrepresented students choosing to enroll at
UCLA. This year, we will devote even more of our attention and
resources to K-12 education and outreach programs, including
expanded partnerships with Los Angeles-area schools. Our message is
simple: underrepresented minority students are needed, wanted and
welcome at UCLA.
Another hallmark of the 1998-99 academic year will be our
ongoing efforts to enhance the quality of undergraduate education.
For example, we are working hard to transform the general education
curriculum. The centerpiece of that program is the new first-year
cluster courses, which delve into thematic, interdisciplinary
subject matter and are team-taught by distinguished faculty.
Updating and expanding UCLA’s facilities is another ongoing
priority, an essential one as we prepare for the future. The
various construction sites around campus may be something of a
nuisance, but the finished projects enhance both the physical and
educational environments of UCLA. This year we will open the Hugh
and Hazel Darling Law Library and the Gonda (Goldschmied)
Neuroscience and Genetics Research Center, as well as expanded
parking facilities. Additional undergraduate student housing is
under construction, and the seismic upgrading of Haines Hall will
soon begin.
Information technology also requires our attention. UCLA is the
first university in the country to offer a web site for every
undergraduate course and a home page for every undergraduate
student. We must invest in information technology at a level
sufficient to ensure that UCLA maintains its leadership in teaching
and research.
To meet all of these objectives and realize our ultimate goal of
serving society and advancing UCLA, we will make every effort to
boost the financial resources available to the campus – and we must
look to multiple sources for those funds. We rely on public funding
from the state budget, which is generous enough this year to permit
a 5 percent reduction in UC student fees for California resident
undergraduates, and from federal sources, both for student
financial aid and faculty research support. And we will continue to
ask our alumni and friends to support UCLA philanthropically; the
landmark campaign, that UCLA already has, raised some $650 million
in private gifts, including about $60 million for student
scholarships and fellowships.
Our guiding philosophy for the longer term will be what I refer
to as "Concentrating on Excellence." This is a strategy for
focusing resources on the areas in which UCLA does, and can do,
best. To succeed, this strategy must be embraced and implemented by
those directly engaged in the academic enterprise. It will, over
time, influence the critical decisions that departments and
programs make about their future direction. And it will, over time,
enable UCLA to maintain the highest levels of academic
distinction.
UCLA is a complex entity, and our efforts on all of these fronts
– nurturing diversity, improving undergraduate education,
recruiting the finest students and faculty, adding top-notch
facilities, boosting resources and focusing them on areas of
excellence – are closely intertwined. Working together, the UCLA
community will make substantial progress in each area in the coming
months. I am confident that 1998-99 will be a productive and
memorable year for all of us.
Albert Carnesale is the Chancellor of UCLA.
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