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OSCAR ALVAREZ/Daily Bruin Wyatt Rory Hume discusses how he helped shape UCLA as executive vice chancellor.

By Christian Mignot

Daily Bruin Contributor

cmignot@media.ucla.edu

Wyatt Rory Hume, executive vice chancellor, is finalizing his last plans in office before he clears his desk and hands over the reins of operating the nation’s largest public university to his successor, current School of Arts and Architecture Dean Daniel Neuman.

The second-highest ranking administrator, Hume will leave his post July 1 to return to his home country of Australia, where he will take over the role of president and vice chancellor at the University of New South Wales in Sydney.

The end of the year is approaching quickly, but Hume is working in Clinton-esque fashion to check off the remaining items on his to-do list.

His most pressing goal in the next month is to close out the strategic planning for the next academic year, – the primary duty of the EVC – mapping out the immediate future of UCLA.

Hume is also working closely with Neuman to prepare the future EVC for his role as the university’s chief operating officer.

Hume said he is briefing Neuman on the small details of the job and that Neuman is attending planning and decision-making meetings to experience his future job first-hand.

“I feel very comfortable handing (the position) over to him,” he said. “I’ve enjoyed working with him over the years and believe that he will lead well.”

The biggest challenge for Neuman will be dealing with the financial difficulties the state is going through at the moment, Hume said.

“He will have to decide what is most important to protect in the face of cuts,” he said. “It’s hard to balance the needs of academics with others such as the library or even the hospital, which is currently struggling not to incur losses in a very competitive health care market.”

Looking back over his term as EVC, which began July 1, 1998, Hume hopes to leave behind an important legacy at UCLA.

He was instrumental in revamping the university’s yearly strategic planning and budgeting process; encouraging greater faculty input; ensuring greater communication among academic units; and providing better feedback to the campus on administrative issues.

Chancellor Albert Carnesale praised the strength of Hume’s planning process.

“It provides opportunities for all of the relevant constituencies to provide input to the process and, equally importantly, informs them not only of the decisions, but also of the rationale leading to those decisions,” Carnesale said. “The result has been better use of the resources available to the university.”

Neuman also cited Hume’s close relationship with the Academic Senate as one of his greatest achievements.

“He developed a relationship with the Academic Senate that provides a model for the shared governance system,” he said. “It has yielded an authentic partnership that, in my experience, is unparalleled.”

Hume also launched the “UCLA in LA” initiative, which recognized the overwhelming involvement of faculty and students in Los Angeles and worked to strengthen community links with the university.

The initiative culminated with the creation in late April of an associate vice chancellor of community partnerships position, to which former director of the Center of Communications and Community Franklin Gilliam Jr. was appointed.

In his four years, Hume endeavored to make UCLA one of the leading universities in technology and research.

In 2000, he was the driving force behind the establishment of the California NanoSystems Institute, a joint effort between UCLA and UC Santa Barbara to apply the nanometer scale structure to biomedical research and manufacturing.

Professor James Heath, current acting director of CNSI, worked closely with Hume to put together the proposal for the Institute.

“Rory’s support has always been complete, and I and the other folks at the CNSI really learned to rely on him for simply making our task easier,” Heath said.

In starting his new position in Australia, Hume expects the biggest difference between the two jobs to be the amount of funding provided to the universities for research.

“Here we are very well supported by the federal and state governments, as well as private companies, but it will not be the same there,” Hume said.

Carnesale said Hume will be sorely missed both as a colleague and a friend.

“Rory Hume as been an outstanding executive vice chancellor at UCLA,” Carnesale said. “He and I have worked together as partners, and I have always had great confidence in his integrity, his values, and his judgment.”