For the majority of his time as chancellor of UCLA, Gene Block has had an hour-long interview with the full Daily Bruin Editorial Board each quarter to discuss student life and campus policy.
But recent changes by the chancellor and his media team are jeopardizing the newspaper’s access to the university’s top administrator.
Last week, senior executive director of media relations Steve Ritea suddenly told the board that this quarter’s interview would have a changed format: only three members of the 12-member editorial board would be allowed to attend, and the meeting would take place in Block’s office as opposed to the Daily Bruin conference room where it is usually held.
Block later had to cancel the meeting to attend to a personal matter, but this board takes issue only with the changes Ritea has implemented to the interview.
The unprecedented arrangement fundamentally undermines the ability of the board to conduct a full interview with the chancellor and casts doubt on his commitment to transparency and accountability. Beginning next quarter, the chancellor and his media representatives should revert to the old format and allow the full Editorial Board to interview the chancellor in the Daily Bruin conference room.
The sudden change, Ritea said, was the result of a desire to explore a new format for the Board’s quarterly interviews with the chancellor. Ritea said the questions the Editorial Board had been asking the chancellor during these interviews were “too specific.”
The apparent trepidation of the chancellor and his media personnel lead this board to believe that Block does not want to be interviewed by a group of 21-year-olds from a student newspaper. Block is paid $425,000 a year to lead the most applied-to university in the country; if he cannot answer some college students’ questions once a quarter, he is not fulfilling a basic responsibility as the chancellor of UCLA.
“Specific” questions are necessary to get at the root of student concerns, and it’s the responsibility of the Editorial Board to ask them. Block should be willing and able to answer those questions. At the last interview, Block was unable to adequately address questions about the search for the vice chancellor of equity, diversity and inclusion, mental health funding at the UC and UCLA’s Title IX investigation.
The changes to the interview format are also a part of a larger pattern. Last quarter, the chancellor told the board that he could bring vice chancellors to the next interview to help him field questions about specific topics. When the board requested the presence of vice chancellors at this quarter’s meeting, the request was denied.
The Board also requested an additional half hour with the chancellor for this quarter’s interview; that request was also denied.
Students deserve to be able to hold Block accountable, but it’s difficult to do so when the average student’s only opportunity to speak with him is during his quarterly office hour, where only six students are chosen by random lottery to meet with him for 10 minutes.
If the chancellor shirks his responsibility to maintain active, engaged conversation with the Daily Bruin, students further lose their ability to hold him accountable.
It’s now up to Block and Ritea to make sure that this doesn’t happen.