carnesale

Published: Monday, August 18, 1997

Monday, August 18, 1997

Chancellor Carnesale's long-term ambitions for UCLA come to light

ANALYSIS:

Plans include new accounting system, cutting faltering academic programsBy Patrick Kerkstra

Daily Bruin Senior Staff

Chancellor Albert Carnesale has occupied his new office in Murphy Hall for less then two months. Most of that time has been spent immersing himself in UCLA's culture, meeting and greeting the university's elite, and building connections with the Los Angeles community that is now his home.

Carnesale is adamant that he has not been setting policy or making big decisions. Now, he says, is the time to learn. The decisions will come later.

Carnesale clearly has refrained from turning UCLA over on its axis during his first six weeks here, and he seems unlikely to do so even after becoming more familiar with the university. But underneath his cautious approach, Carnesale's methods and educational ideology are beginning to emerge and thus far, he does not seem uncomfortable facing the difficult decisions that might be necessary to achieve his ambitious goals.

For now, Carnesale is deliberately short on specifics. He prefers to talk about idealistic goals using very general terms.

"I hope by spring to be in a position where not only I, but I working with others, have figured out what's the best way ... to achieve what we all want for UCLA and that's for it to be on that short, rather subjective list of great universities," Carnesale said.

But while the university may have to wait (until spring, it seems) to hear Carnesale's explicit strategy, he is slowly revealing some of his basic assumptions.

For example, Carnesale believes that to be a great university, UCLA needs to be the absolute best in several academic areas. Not revolutionary. But Carnesale also suspects that UCLA may need to abandon other academic areas (which it does not particularly excel in) to achieve this.

"I've got to identify what's the strongest, what's the weakest," Carnesale says of UCLA's academic units. "And of the weakest, see which are the ones that deserve and require investment, and which are the ones that we might be able to either stop doing or reduce or narrow the focus of."

In short, Carnesale is contemplating cutting some of UCLA's weaker academic programs for the health of others after less then two months on the job. And although the chancellor says that academic decisions will not be made based on financial performance (a thought that has historically made faculty and students cringe), he does acknowledge that financial resources are finite.

"If there's some area that's absorbing a great deal of resources and is not providing the kind of education it should, and (if) by devoting those resources elsewhere I could provide a much better education for the same amount of money, I've got a responsibility to take that into account," Carnesale says.

Carnesale, who has faced a lot of questions about his feelings on UCLA's tradition of shared governance, emphasizes that these sort of massive decisions are not his to make alone. Nonetheless, they are strong statements in a school where the faculty is used to broad control over the university's academics.

In addition to evaluating UCLA's educational strengths and weaknesses, Carnesale emphasizes fund-raising and a new accounting system called RCM as important tools in improving the university.

RCM, or Responsibility Center Management, is a technical term for a system that basically requires UCLA's academic and non-academic departments to keep track of their own income and expenses. Under RCM, university departments generally receive more money then they have before, but they are also expected to pay for services, such as paper supplies, that were once free.

University administrators, including Carnesale, like the plan because it should give them a far clearer idea of who spends what money then the old system did.

"Departmental units will be more aware of the costs they incur," said Assistant Vice Chancellor Paula Lutomirski. "This will let departments rethink their budget strategies, and eventually cause more efficiency."

Although administrators are enthusiastic about RCM, faculty members have been more wary, fearful that academic decisions will be based on financial performance.

"People have this uncomfortable feeling that this (RCM) means that decisions are going to be made purely on the economics of each unit," Carnesale said. "And the answer is 'of course not.' "

But RCM should significantly shape the way UCLA does business. For example, Carnesale is willing to "out-source" university services, such as running lab procedures from the Medical Center, to private firms if it will save money.

PATRICK LAM/Daily Bruin

Chancellor Carnesale discusses what he hopes to achieve to make UCLA a great university.