The search is on for UCLA’s next chancellor ““ or at
least it will be, barring another delay by University of California
officials in their announcement of the official search
committee.
If all goes according to plan, by the end of today, UCLA will
know who, exactly, will be on the group that interviews chancellor
candidates, pares down the list, and ultimately hands off a
recommendation to the UC Board of Regents.
It’s unfortunate that the over 38,000 UCLA students will
only have two representatives on the committee ““
undergraduate student President Jenny Wood and graduate student
President Jared Fox. It’s up to the both of them to
effectively represent the concerns of their student constituents.
And to do that they will have to temper some of their idealism with
pragmatism.
After all, as great as it would be to have a chancellor who
never allows student fees to be raised and boosts funding to
outreach and retention efforts tenfold, that person will be next to
impossible to find. But the student representatives can still
balance what will likely be a technical discussion about who or
what the next chancellor should be with some reasonable
requests.
Probably one of the most important things from the perspective
of the student body is the preservation of free-speech rights. This
university’s current chancellor understands this; its future
chancellor must as well. Chancellor Albert Carnesale once told The
Bruin that he felt college administrators should “bend over
backward in favor of free speech.”
Anyone who succeeds him should talk along a similar vein.
Because as ugly as Meyerhoff Park’s shouting matches can
become, they are ultimately part of living and learning in a
college environment.
It would also be nice to have a chancellor who is willing to
exert a little more political capital when it comes to advocacy. As
the chief executive of one of the UC’s two flagship campuses,
and the leader of one of the world’s most renowned public
universities, the chancellor of UCLA wields a lot of potential
power.
Carnesale chose to exert much of his influence on shoring up
UCLA’s coffers and its reach in the community, and Campaign
UCLA’s multi-billion dollar fundraising drive and the
“UCLA in LA” program are evidence of this. These are
worthy endeavors. But a chancellor who is willing to put as much
time, effort and visibility into representing the concerns of
students, staff and faculty to outside groups ““ from the
regents to the U.S. Congress ““ would be better.
Ultimately, the task facing Fox and Wood is to make sure the
student voice is heard on the committee. And that is exactly what
they should look for in a new chancellor: attention to the student
voice. A chancellor who goes beyond holding quarterly office hours
and teaching a class every now and again would, at the very least,
show that he or she is invested in the student community.
Both Fox and Wood said they have started to solicit opinions
about the chancellor decision from undergraduates and graduate
students. This is a positive step, and hopefully they will continue
to gather student input as the process progresses. Because, if done
right, their two voices can be over 38,000 strong.