Albert Carnesale
By Timothy Kudo and Linh
Tat
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
Chancellor Albert Carnesale discussed major issues facing UCLA
““ from the tenure process to student group funding to the use
of the SAT I ““ with The Bruin Wednesday.
“It was a more philosophical talk than we’ve
had,” Carnesale said after the meeting.
He sat down the day after a heated town hall meeting with
students who demanded he sign a petition calling for the repeal of
SP-1 and 2, measures passed by the UC Regents in 1995 that banned
the use of affirmative action in university admissions and hiring
practices. But when the chancellor refused to sign it, students
marched out of the meeting.
“Obviously it’s a disappointment when you get to
have a full interchange and where students don’t get to ask a
full range of questions because one group decides to make a
demonstration of it rather than a discussion of it,”
Carnesale said.
Though Carnesale would not sign the students’ petition, he
said he would have sided against SP-1 and 2 had he been at the
university when it passed. Carnesale was inaugurated in 1998.
“I would have joined with the other chancellors and I
would have preferred (SP-1 and 2) not be policy,” he said.
“I believe that not being able to use affirmative action does
harm the University of California.”
Last Wednesday, Carnesale extended the deadline for members of
the Undergraduate Students Association Council to amend its bylaws
regarding student group funding and sponsorship to April 13.
Working on changes to their bylaws since summer, USAC members
wrote two separate letters to the chancellor four business days
before the deadline, one urging him to enforce the original Feb. 27
deadline, another asking him to eliminate it. Part of the problem,
some council members said, is that a federal judge has not handed
down a decision regarding student funding in Wisconsin, thus making
it difficult for USAC to know what is constitutional.
Carnesale responded to USAC by stating in a letter that he did
not wish to act until the members made a joint decision as a
council.
“I didn’t want to intervene between factions in
USAC,” Carnesale said. “I said unless I get something
from USAC, I’m not going to do anything.”
Afterwards, USAC sent a letter to Carnesale asking the
administration not to freeze student funds while the council
finished amending its bylaws. The request was granted, but not
without Carnesale setting a new deadline.
“The administration, ultimately me, has a responsibility
to be in compliance with the law as we understand the law, not just
until some judge tells us “˜you can’t do that
anymore,'” Carnesale said. “So the question
becomes … how well do we understand the law at this
stage?”
Funding sources for the university have changed significantly
since its inception, when it was almost entirely state-funded. When
budget cuts forced the UC to look to the federal government,
philanthropy and the private sector, administrators have had to
balance the strings attached with such money with the
university’s mission.
Recently, UCLA was designated one of three sites for a
California Institute for Science and Innovation, which are funded
in part by private corporations, as part of Gov. Gray Davis’
original proposals.
“There are a whole host of issues that arise when
universities get in collaborative efforts with research with the
private sector,” Carnesale said. “A whole bunch of
issues that have been around for a long time but are more
pronounced now.”
Out of the donations UCLA receives, less than one percent comes
without an area it is directed toward, Carnesale said.
Funding that comes in may go toward medical research or possibly
scholarships and endowed chairs, but there is a bias toward the
sciences, which receive more of the funding.
“It’s a big problem,” Carnesale said.
“It’s the National Institutes of Health budget that
keeps growing, not the National Endowment for the Humanities, not
the National Endowment for the Arts.”
“If it’s not related directly to health or economic
development, you are dependent on philanthropy and
foundations,” he continued.
Carnesale also noted how problems are arising for the university
because of intense growth in the information and biological
technology sectors.
Information technology is creating headaches for the university
by forcing administrators to determine whether intellectual
property belongs to professors or the university. As an example,
Carnesale said a professor who uses university property and
resources to write a book is entitled to all profits earned from
it. But could a professor teach at another university even if that
university did all the work and the professor only had to go teach
for a couple hours a week?
“The answer is no, you can’t do that,”
Carnesale said. “Your teaching belongs to the
university.”
But information technology has created all kinds of problems in
the area of distance learning, for example.
“Take a third case, an online course: now, is that like a
book or is that like you’re teaching, in which case, when you
ask your lawyer or colleagues, they say that’s a very good
question,” Carnesale said.
In biotechnology, the field of genetic sequencing has provided a
twist on traditional patents. In the biotech field, researchers
have been able to patent discoveries rather than inventions.
“That has not been the practice in the United States.
It’s not as if you were the first person to discover
uranium-235 you can say, “˜Anyone who wants to use this
element, that’s mine, I found it first,'”
Carnesale said.
Regarding another topic, while the chancellor may recommend to
UC President Richard Atkinson that he overturn the Academic
Senate’s decision to deny tenure to geography Professor Josh
Muldavin, Carnesale said he cannot enforce such actions and would
only recommend it in an unusual case.
“Much of the system in the university is purposely
designed so an administrator can’t appoint people who he
wants to appoint to the faculty,” he said.
Carnesale also commented on Atkinson’s proposal to stop
using the SAT I in admissions decisions. Contrary to popular
belief, he said, UCLA has a comprehensive admissions process that
places little weight on the standardized test.
Additionally, for the 50-75 percent of students who must be
evaluated solely on academic criteria as part of SP-1, UCLA uses
much more than just GPA and SAT scores. UCLA was the first of the
UCs to do this, followed by UC Berkeley, he said. UCLA looks at
GPA, SATs, high school’s status, honors, and course load
difficulty.
“I don’t know about any of the others, because
it’s very expensive to do, but we do it,” Carnesale
said.
He noted though that eliminating the SAT I could have negative
side effects.
“It is, for us in many ways, the greatest value in
spotting someone who doesn’t have a very high GPA but has a
high SAT I,” he said. “You want to look at that more
carefully. Someone doesn’t get a 790 on the math by sheer
chance.”