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Monday, July 28, 1997

Chancellor explores new L.A. post

CARNESALE:

Administrator takes time during summer to get comfortable with officeBy Mason Stockstill

Daily Bruin Contributor

Chancellor Albert Carnesale is spending his summer months familiarizing himself with UCLA, preparing for what he hopes will be a fruitful tenure as the university's leader.

Carnesale officially assumed UCLA's highest administrative post on July 1, leaving his previous position of provost of Harvard University.

The chancellor has not made any policy decisions yet, saying he would rather use the summer to get acquainted with his new surroundings.

"I look at this time as a learning opportunity," he said. "I'm taking this opportunity to become familiar with UCLA."

Since arriving at UCLA, the chancellor has met with various administrative committees, including the Academic Senate, but has not yet met with any student groups on campus.

"My instinct had told me that the student groups would not really be available to meet with me during the summer," Carnesale said. "But my instinct was wrong."

Because student groups are still active during the summer, Carnesale is planning to meet with student groups in the upcoming weeks.

The biggest question mark about the selection of Carnesale as the next chancellor was his ability to make the shift from Harvard to UCLA, given the institutions' many differences.

"He's never dealt with a public university before, and that's going to be a big challenge for him," said Richard Zeckhauser, a close friend of Carnesale and professor of political science at Harvard.

However, UCLA visiting professor Michael Dukakis, who worked with Carnesale at Harvard, feels otherwise.

"I think he'll have no problem translating from the private to the public sector," he said.

The chancellor acknowledged these issues, but was optimistic about making a smooth transition.

"The biggest difference is that UCLA is a much larger enterprise than Harvard," Carnesale said. "And the ratio of undergraduates to graduate students is much different here."

At Harvard, undergraduates make up only one-third of the student body, which consists of 18,310 students. UCLA is 68 percent undergraduates, with 23,914 undergraduates out of a student body of 34,935.

"Harvard is also the most decentralized university in the nation," Carnesale continued. "There, the deans of each school have a higher level of autonomy than at other universities."

Carnesale also appeared to be ready to handle UCLA's process of shared governance. "There are more formal processes for input from the faculty here," he said. "The advantage of this is that when decisions have to be made, the faculty is officially involved," as opposed to being ignored by administrators.

One of the main obstacles encountered by leaders of public schools is the dependence on state funding for a large portion of the school's operating budget.

Carnesale believes that because part of a public university's budget (22 percent at UCLA) is dependent upon the decisions of state government and vulnerable to political currents, administrators at public schools will turn more and more to private sources of funding to make up for the shortfall in state funding.

"I think chancellors will be, and already are, spending more time raising funds from the private sector," the Carnesale said. The challenge is one that Carnesale seems prepared to take on.

As well as getting around at UCLA, Carnesale has roamed about Los Angeles as well, to get a bearing on the local community he will be serving.

"I'm sure you hear this all the time down here," he said, "but I have to say that the weather is just great." "There's something about the fact that it's sunny all the time," he continued, "that I think really effects how people here think."

With reports from Tyler Maxwell.

JUSTIN WARREN/Daily Bruin

Chancellor Albert Carnesale

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