University of California officials and those involved in the
search for the next chief executive of UCLA have not confirmed or
denied a report that Deborah Freund, provost at Syracuse
University, is the sole remaining candidate to replace Chancellor
Albert Carnesale.
According to a report Friday by the Los Angeles Times, Freund is
in final negotiations with university officials about taking the
chancellorship; she and UC President Robert Dynes are in
negotiations over her compensation package. The Times cited
anonymous sources who are “close to the search.”
According to UC spokesman Noel Van Nyhuis, “the search has
not been completed and the chancellorship has yet to be offered to
anyone.”
Search committee members echoed that the search has not yet been
completed.
If selected, Freund would be the first female chief executive of
UCLA.
In addition to her current position as provost, Freund is the
vice chancellor for academic affairs and professor of public
administration at Syracuse, a private university in New York with
nearly 19,000 students.
She is a renowned health economist, especially in the areas of
PharmacoEconomics, a field she is credited for founding, as well as
Medicaid, according to Syracuse’s Web site.
While sources close to the search would not specify whether
Freund was interviewed or whether the committee made
recommendations, there are indications that the committee is
familiar with her qualifications.
“Looking at all the experience that (Freund) has and all
that she’s done, I think she would be a good chancellor of
UCLA,” said a member of the search committee, who asked not
to be identified due to the confidential nature of the search
process.
The Times also reported that the UC is currently in salary and
benefit-package negotiations with Freund, including a potential
appointment for her husband Thomas Kniesner, chariman of the
economics department at Syracuse.
But according to Van Nhyuis, such negotiations have not
begun.
“The first step is to choose the chancellor, the second is
to discuss those details, but the chancellor has yet to be
named,” he said.
Because of the confidential nature of the search process, search
committee members are expected to keep from disclosing specifics of
the committee’s progress until Dynes announces his selection,
which must be approved by the UC Board of Regents.
Search committee members interview candidates and give their
recommendations to Dynes, but are purely advisory and have no
bearing on the final decision.
UCLA Graduate Students Association President Jared Fox, who sits
on the search committee, said the search began with close to 1,000
candidates.
Undergraduate Students Association Council President Jenny Wood,
who also sits on the search committee, said the committee forwarded
the names of “under 10″ candidates to Dynes, but she
refused to confirm or deny whether Freund was one of them.
Fox, Wood and Student Regent Adam Rosenthal all said the
decision is not yet finalized.
The three committee members also said they were disappointed in
seeing the story leaked to The Times because it indicates that
someone discussed information that should not have been shared.
“Whoever said anything about the process, whether it was
true or not, violated the confidences of the regents. It was
totally uncalled for, and I was personally offended,”
Rosenthal said.
Van Nyhuis said Dynes hopes to makes his recommendation for
UCLA’s ninth chief executive to the UC Board of Regents soon,
but did not specify whether Dynes’ recommendation would be
announced in time to be approved at the regents meeting scheduled
for May 16 to 18 at UC San Francisco.
Carnesale announced in September that he would be stepping down
in late June after serving as chancellor of UCLA since 1997.
Before resuming teaching at UCLA, Carnesale plans to take a
one-year sabbatical to reacquaint himself with the current study on
his areas of expertise, which include nuclear weapons and foreign
and defense policy.
English department chairman Thomas Wortham was quoted in The
Times article saying he had friends at Indiana who knew Freund as
an “excellent administrator and a pioneer in promoting
interdisciplinary
scholarship,” though Wortham told The Bruin he does not
personally know Freund.
According to The Times, Freund is supposed to visit the UCLA
campus this week, but UCLA spokesman Phil Hampton said he did not
know whether this was true, and added he didn’t know why she
would be visiting if she did come.
With reports from Melinda Dudley and Charles Proctor, Bruin
senior staff.