Kennel chosen as executive vice chancellor
Kennel chosen as executive vice chancellor
Long-time faculty member to oversee Letters and Science
By Anne Mai
Daily Bruin Contributor
As the university prepares to enter the second millennium, one of its leaders will be Charles Kennel, UCLA's newly appointed executive vice chancellor.
After five months of deliberation, 11 hours of interviews and countless numbers of committee meetings, Kennel will assume his position on Feb. 1.
As the second highest ranked official at UCLA, he will be overseeing the daily operations of the College of Letters and Science, the UCLA Medical Center and the 11 professional schools. Kennel will take on the $144,000-a-year job left by Andrea Rich, who left last summer to head the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
"(Kennel) is an outstanding scientist and scholar and an inventive thinker who will help UCLA formulate the kinds of long-range planning necessary to position the university for preeminence in the 21st century," Chancellor Charles Young said.
Kennel, an internationally distinguished physicist and long-time UCLA faculty member, said he hopes to be at UCLA on a full-time basis by commencement.
"In addition to being intelligent, he (has) foresight and vision," said John Hajda, a graduate member on the search committee that recommended hiring Kennel.
For the last two years he has headed a NASA program, where he faced federal budget cuts and changes in perspective from the federal government, while on leave from UCLA.
Weathering the turbulence of the past two years in Washington has been a difficult but educational task, Kennel said.
"Charlie's been able to guide us well through those mine fields and we hate to see him go," said Mike Luther, director of flight systems at NASA.
Kennel's facilitating and personal relations skills were essential to NASA administration.
"He developed good relations with the Hill, the community and research communities outside of government," said Doug Norton, the director of management integration in the office of Mission to Planet Earth at NASA, where Kennel worked.
Those skills, coupled with his experience in government downsizing, appear to make Kennel a good candidate for a research-intensive university dealing with declining public support.
Despite those disappointing trends, Kennel appeared confident about the university's financial future.
"Now the economy is back. We took the worst that fate can give us and we came back on the other side. The university hasn't finished growing up," Kennel said.
Kennel also said his experience at NASA was valuable because of its broadening influence.
"By coming to Washington, I got to interact with all sectors of society ... this diversity of human experiences will help tremendously," he said.
This diversity, Kennel believes, has helped him to "(b)e open to understanding how a whole variety of people think."
This will prove especially valuable as it prepares him for one of the biggest challenges that officials see for Kennel: maintaining student and faculty diversity with the University of California regents' affirmative action ruling.
Kennel, however, said he is undaunted.
"I think it gives the university an even greater ethical obligation," Kennel said, claiming that the ruling places more responsibility on the university to maintain diversity on campus.
"Diversity means a complicated campus with many different points of view and we need to deal openly and ethically (with these)," Kennel said.
But most officials found Kennel's dual academic and administrative experience his most valuable asset.
"I am ecstatic over the selection. (The) message that UCLA is sending to the community and across the nation is that the vice chancellor is of academic status," said Melvin Oliver, a faculty member of the search committee.
"We don't want a university run by MBAs, but by people who are aware of the academic mission of the university."
Kennel hopes to promote academic satisfaction for undergraduate students even while taking budget issues into consideration.
"Ultimately our product is academic. And I will keep that ultimate academic goal in mind," Kennel said.
Described by Luther as a man with "an easy manner (who is) approachable to ideas," Kennel said he hopes to have input from staff, faculty and students in his deliberations as executive vice chancellor.
"In a job like this people will tell you what to do and I will listen."Comments to webmaster@db.asucla.ucla.edu
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