Donation Could Aid Faculty Recruitment

UCLA has received a $100 million gift from philanthropist David Geffen, allowing the university to move forward with plans for a new academy that will provide an innovative college preparatory education for Los Angeles-area students in grades 6 through 12...

(Chancellor) Block noted that the Geffen Academy will help UCLA recruit and retain top faculty, whose career decisions are often influenced by the availability of college preparatory education for their children. That will in turn benefit the education of UCLA’s undergraduate and graduate students and campus research programs...

The university anticipates that the Geffen Academy will be open for the 2017–18 school year, with approximately 125 students enrolled in the sixth and ninth grades, eventually growing to more than 600 students in grades 6 through 12. To house the academy, UCLA plans to renovate the campus’s Kinross Building. Later, as enrollment grows, the university plans to construct an adjacent building...

Full media release at http://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/david-geffen-donates-100-million-to-launch-innovative-ucla-school-for-grades-6-through-12

It might be noted that UCLA's Lab School (K-6), which at one time was known as the Corinne A. Seeds University Elementary School (UES), has in the past had very few slots for faculty children. Access to the early grades as a matter of faculty recruitment is an issue that also needs addressing.

In the LA Times story on the donation, Geffen is quoted:

UCLA has "not been able to attract certain talent because of the costs of educating their children," Geffen said in a telephone interview.He said he particularly wanted the UCLA medical school, which bears his name, "to be competitive with Harvard and Johns Hopkins and the very best in the world. And the truth is that this is part of what it takes. It's an expensive neighborhood."

Full story at http://www.latimes.com/local/education/la-me-geffen-ucla-20151112-story.html