Los Angeles is part of UCLA’s name, and Chancellor Gene Block believes the city should be just as much a part of the work the university does.
Increasing UCLA’s involvement in the greater Los Angeles community has been one of Block’s major goals since he took office close to a year ago.
“We have to remember we’re a public university,” he said. “I think (that) means you have a focus on your community that distinguishes you from the privates. … You focus on Los Angeles in ways that assist the people of Los Angeles.”
To that end, Block has been pushing several initiatives he hopes will engage UCLA more with the surrounding community.
One is a new institute aimed at identifying and offering solutions to social problems in Los Angeles, Block said.
The institute would select a particular issue to focus on, and then a group of faculty from different areas would work together to find innovative approaches to dealing with that problem.
“We (would) begin to work on that problem and begin to identify what remedies, what countermeasures could help curb the problem, and then go back into the community with a demonstration project to show that it works,” Block said.
Octavio Pescador, associate director of the Center for Community Learning, which runs service learning programs for undergraduates, said he believes UCLA has not only a responsibility but a strong opportunity to engage with the community.
“At the institutional level, we have tremendous resources,” he said. “We are supposed to be creating talent and science and knowledge that will address real needs. … Los Angeles is a kaleidoscope of needs.”
Block said he believes the institute not only would be a way for UCLA to engage more with the city, but also could be a valuable educational resource for students.
“The problems of Los Angeles are the problems of the nation, so it educates students (about) social problems there are today. It’s an important educational opportunity to actually work with Los Angeles,” Block said. “Hopefully (students will) leave with a public-spiritedness and an understanding of big social problems.”
The issue selected by the institute would become part of an annual theme for UCLA, and students could take seminars or participate in research on the topic, he added.
Pescador said he believes such opportunities would complement the knowledge students gain in classrooms.
“Experience gives you an ability to ascertain if what you’re learning is actually applicable to what you’re trying to tackle,” he said.
Block said the institute is still in the planning stages, but representatives from various organizations, including the mayor’s office, are already involved and giving their input.
“This is really not being done in a vacuum,” he said. “We’re listening.”
Outreach and engagement in Los Angeles is also important to the university’s future, Block said.
He said he believes UCLA could be especially valuable in helping to improve the city’s K-12 education system, which feeds students into the university.
Block said UCLA officials are currently working with the Los Angeles Unified School District to create “learning communities” in area schools.
UCLA would be involved mostly with creating and managing the learning communities, which would be targeted at underserved students, he said.
“We might be developing the curriculum; we might be mentoring the teachers,” Block said.
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, a UCLA alumnus, has in the past stressed the importance of higher education institutions to the city’s well-being.
During a visit to UCLA last year, Villaraigosa said there is a “paradigm of failure” in Los Angeles schools, but higher education institutions can play a role in raising standards.
“If we want to build the middle class, we have to understand that it’s about … investing in our institutes of higher learning,” he said.
Ultimately, helping to improve the K-12 system in Los Angeles is necessary to maintaining diversity at UCLA, Block said.
“We have to be in it for the long haul. We’re not going to get students from the inner city; we’re not going to be successful unless we play some role,” he said.