A man wearing a bold blue-striped tie and a wide smile walked
into a conference room filled with members of the UC Board of
Regents and members of the press. He sat in the most central seat
and began to speak after his introduction as the new chancellor of
UCLA.
Those strides to the seat and the speech following the
introduction marked the beginning of a new era at UCLA ““ the
start of new leadership under recently named Chancellor Gene
Block.
Block, the high-spirited provost from the University of
Virginia, spoke with enthusiasm about starting his new role after
the regents named him the ninth chancellor of UCLA on Dec. 21,
2006.
The sixth chancellor in UCLA history with a background in the
sciences, Block earned his bachelor’s degree in psychology
from Stanford and both his master’s and doctoral degrees in
psychology from the University of Oregon.
His expertise lies in the areas of cellular and neural
mechanisms of sleep and wake cycles, with research into the effects
of aging on cells in the brain that form the biological clock.
Block’s annual salary is set at $416,000, which is almost
$100,000 more than his predecessor, Albert Carnesale, and current
Interim Chancellor Norman Abrams. Block’s salary makes him
one of the two highest-paid campus leaders within the University of
California system, making as much as UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert
Birgeneau and more than UC President Robert Dynes.
Dynes recently declined a pay raise amid a scandal in which the
UC was accused of granting millions of dollars in unreported
compensation packages to university employees.
The UC Regents met by teleconference during closed session and
confirmed Dynes’ recommendation to appoint Block, ending the
yearlong search process initiated by Carnesale’s announcement
to step down.
Block, who said a hopeful message in a fortune cookie reassured
him that his decision to come to UCLA was a leap in the right
direction, said he sees diversity within the student body and
faculty as a priority.
“The student body doesn’t look like what the
population looks like. It’s out of touch with what the
population looks like, so I can’t overemphasize that we have
to work on diversity within the student body,” Block
said.
The two areas in which Block envisions improvement are the
enrollment of already accepted students from minority backgrounds
and the advancement of the K-12 school systems.
“One piece you have to make certain is that every student
from underrepresented groups that gets accepted into UCLA will want
to enroll” to improve the yield of those from
underrepresented groups that get accepted to actually choose to
come to UCLA, Block said.
“Also, in the long run you have to figure out strategies
to making students more competitive and that is done by improving
schools from the K-12 levels,” Block added.
Such interest is not foreign to UCLA, as Abrams helped integrate
the admissions process into a holistic approach.
In addition to working to diversify the student population,
training faculty to recruit a more diverse applicant pool is also a
task on Block’s to-do list.
But that will be a slow process, because faculty can be offered
tenured positions and usually stay for longer periods of time,
Block said.
Smiling and using his hands to gesture while speaking, Block
often showed his interest in a topic by physical movements. He said
his leadership philosophy is not much different in terms of seeing
interaction with others as an important part of his job.
“I lead by consultation. What I’ve discovered is
that you hire really bright people and you listen to them.
Collectively, they can produce really great ideas that individually
none of us would have come up with. It doesn’t mean a leader
shouldn’t have vision, but listening to others is very
important,” Block said.
The role of the chancellor is to oversee all aspects of the
university. Block said he sees himself as a “conductor
coordinating all the activities.”
“A lot of it is being a conductor and getting all the
pieces working together. It’s an orchestration with room for
creativity,” Block said.
Vivek Shetty, the chairman of the Academic Senate, said Block
seemed “like a very open person and the type of person that
would want to reach out.”
“UCLA has a wonderful collection of faculty, staff
administrators and students. I see them all as talented musicians.
The chancellor acts as a conductor of them and he will create and
sustain a world class of people and they will create music
together,” Shetty said.
John Oakley, a faculty representative to the regents, said the
board considered attributes besides Block’s scholarly
contributions and administrative experience.
“(Block) has the right kind of style and California
sunniness to fit in well with UCLA and to make the most of its
unique attributes, including the world-class cultural city UCLA is
centralized in,” Oakley said.
Present at the meeting when the announcement was made were
several students wishing to share what they expect from the new
chancellor. Among them was Jenny Wood, former Undergraduate
Students Association Council president, who also served on the
advisory committee to Dynes for the selection of the new
chancellor.
Wood said she wants the new chancellor to “make a
commitment to improving access to higher education to all
Californians and actively work to increase access to
underrepresented communities … and low-income communities here at
UCLA.”
Block will don a blue UCLA cap starting August 2007, when he
will take up the chancellorship.