UCLA Chancellor Search - Part 2

On Wednesday, the "listening sessions" of the chancellor search progress took place via Zoom. Yours truly attended the one for faculty chaired by Nancy Chen-Lane from systemwide HR. She said the timetable for the various steps (see image) is supposed to produce a candidate in May. (That seems like a tight time line unless there is an inside candidate waiting in the wings. So there could be an interim chancellor before the process is complete.)

Yours truly also asked if there is some overlap - formal or informal - between this search and the one also underway for a new chancellor at Berkeley. One could imagine candidates that could be suitable for either campus. The answer given was that there is no link other than the fact that President Drake is chairing both search committees. The fact that UCLA has a medical school and Berkeley doesn't was cited as one reason for the separation. It was also noted that Stanford has a search underway.

There was discussion by various participants of the importance of arts education, UCLA Extension, shared governance, entrepreneurship and cooperation with the business sector, K-12 (UCLA has its own K-12 schools), staff pay, faculty housing and recruitment/retention, the scholarly profile of candidates, fundraising, ability to create and lead a management team, diversity of candidates, the merits of candidates with a background in public vs. private universities, undergraduate issues, and athletics issues related to student-athletes. Basically, notes were taken about the candidates. None of these topics were actually debated.

I don't know what went on at the other listening sessions for students, staff, and alumni. As far as I know, no recordings were made available after the fact of the various sessions.