Securing a meeting with Chancellor Albert Carnesale can be as
hard as getting into UCLA.
But the chancellor gave five students 10 minutes each on Monday
to exchange ideas, praises, hopes and concerns for the
university.
The students, who met with the chancellor in his office early
Monday evening, were chosen at random from over 200 requests to
attend the chancellor’s quarterly student office hour.
Each quarter, the chancellor sends an e-mail to the entire
student body announcing his office hour and his hopes to
“maintain accessible and effective lines of
communication” in a large university.
Students were able to bid for time with the chancellor by
responding to the e-mail, and were then selected by a random
lottery-style drawing. Those selected were notified a week before
their meetings. Six students were picked to meet with the
chancellor, but one wasn’t able to attend.
“It’s very important in a position like mine to know
what’s going on with the students,” said Carnesale
after the office hour.
A mixture of people come to the office hour, Carnesale said.
Some had no particular agenda, some had certain broad issues and
didn’t know where to go, and some had concerns specific to
them, he said.
Shaun Ginsburg, one of the students who met with the chancellor,
saw it as an opportunity to “meet the man who plays a huge
role in what takes place in our school and who oversees the various
issues that arise.”
Ginsburg also believes making a personal connection with
Carnesale was important so that students know where the chancellor
is coming from.
Ori Neidich, a fourth-year film student, used the meeting as an
opportunity to go straight to the top.
“It’s not like people don’t listen to our
complaints,” Neidich said.
“The problems arise when you’re hoping that your
complaints trickle up to the top and bureaucracy gets in the
way,” he added.
Neidich said 10 minutes wasn’t really enough time to meet
with the chancellor and that he had to wrap up his opinions into
“a really succinct and simple message.”
Other students believed the office hour was too short of an
event to express the student voice, and didn’t believe 10
minutes for a small fraction of UCLA’s student body was an
effective means of dialogue.
“One hour for the whole school seems ridiculous,”
said Michael Wahl, a second-year chemical engineering student.
Pavan Tripathi, a second-year electrical engineering student,
offered a solution.
“It’s hard to get anything across to the chancellor
in a 10 minute limit,” Tripathi said. “Maybe it’s
unrealistic, but an open-door policy … Or not an hour, but an
entire day.”
Anica McKesey, president of the Undergraduate Students
Association Council, agreed that Carnesale needs to do more to
promote interaction with students, adding that last year the
chancellor didn’t attend any USAC meetings.
“It’s out of the ordinary for him to come to any of
our meetings,” McKesey said. “I would encourage his
attendance.”
The chancellor oversees many of the important decisions
affecting students, and it would be to his benefit to get the input
of the students before making any decisions, she said.
“A concrete example is Janina Montero, who took the
initiative by coming to our council meetings herself,”
McKesey said, referring to the vice chancellor of student
affairs.
Carnesale said he does a number of things to interact with
students ““ including teaching courses, attending football
games and interacting with students in the press box, hosting
receptions for student leaders at his on-campus residence, and
having dinner in the residence halls.
Carnesale, like UC Davis Chancellor Larry Vanderhoef, also has
quarterly meetings with the campus newspaper. However, Vanderhoef
has a more institutionalized program for the inclusion of student
voice in his decisions.
“(Vanderhoef) has two students who are student assistants
to the chancellor,” said Lisa Lapin, director of the UC Davis
news service.
The students are selected from a pool of applicants and serve
for an entire year.
“Students have an interest in what’s going on with
the administration,” said Mike Lagrama, one of UC
Davis’ student advisers to the chancellor. “The more
ideas you bring to the table, the better the final outcome of the
decision.
“They have offices in the administration building and the
chancellor consults with them on a real frequent basis as a sort of
eyes and ears of the students,” Lapin said.
Former UC San Diego Chancellor Robert Dynes met with the
campus’ student government regularly, said Win Cox, UCSD
associate vice chancellor for university communications.
“When he was named (UC) president, the past (student
government) chairs talked about what close contact they had with
him,” Cox said.
In his e-mail to the student body, Carnesale said he hoped
“to meet with a wide variety of students representing a broad
spectrum of interests and concerns.” This goal is something
McKesey said is hard to accomplish with the current office-hour
system.
“I think it’s easy to see the good intentions behind
the chancellor’s office hours. However, as with faculty
hours, the amount of time spent, and the quality of the office hour
is a concern for many students,” McKesey said.
“I definitely think that better attempts at making the
chancellor accessible to students need to be implemented,”
she added.
“If I only met with 18 students in the course of three
hours (a year), I would probably be recalled.”