A Bronx tale
By Daily Bruin Staff
Sept. 24, 2000 9:00 p.m.
 PATIL ARMENIAN/Daily Bruin Senior Staff UCLA’s
eighth chancellor Albert Carnesale discusses
campus issues at the inverted fountain, his favorite place on
campus.
By Dharshani Dharmawardena
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
Chancellor Albert Carnesale walked briskly into the UCLA Faculty
Center in full suit and tie, smoothing down his hair with one hand
and shaking hands with the other.
“It’s the nice thing about living in California
““ you can always eat outside,” he said, heading towards
the terrace.
After enjoying a chicken salad and a caffeine-free diet cola,
the Chancellor, who will begin his fourth year at UCLA this fall,
folded his hands on the table.
“There are some who believe I never grew up,” he
said with a laugh. “But I got larger in the Bronx.”
The first in his family to attend college, Carnesale initially
went to public elementary schools and later graduated from Cooper
Union in Greenwich Village, with a degree in mechanical
engineering.
Growing up in an area where few people attended college,
Carnesale said he was labeled an “IQ kid” because of
his test-taking abilities, although his grades were never
great.
“There was never a question, when I was growing up,
whether I would go to college,” he said.
“I always felt that I was at least being taken
seriously,” Carnesale continued. “That no matter what
nutty idea I had at the time, or what I wanted to do, I was taken
seriously.”
By studying mechanical engineering, a person could easily enter
middle class after college, he said.
“My plan was very modest,” he said. “My plan
was to get a job, where you’re in the middle class, where you
can wear a white shirt and tie, you could enjoy it, and you make a
hundred dollars a week.”
After graduating, Carnesale found a job that satisfied all his
goals, and felt content in his situation for the time being.
“And that might explain why, after a year or so after
that, I started to look beyond that,” he said.
As a college graduate, Carnesale said he had achieved more
academically than both his parents and the people in his
neighborhood.
He then went on to graduate school and received a Ph.D in
Nuclear Physics from North Carolina State University.
Over the years, Carnesale built his career teaching as a
professor, working for the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament
Agency, and serving as the Academic Dean of the John F. Kennedy
School of Government at Harvard.
He came to UCLA as chancellor in 1997, amid student protests at
his inauguration in 1998 over the end of affirmative action in
admissions.
After his stay at Harvard, Carnesale said the only big
difference between the two universities comes from one being
private and the other being public, and the differences stemming
from that.
“They are a lot more similar than they are
different,” he said. “But, this is double the size of
Harvard in total number of students and four times the number of
undergraduates.
“So, Harvard is two-thirds graduate and professional,
one-third undergraduate,” Carnesale continued. “This is
the other way around.”
Being chancellor, he said, is not more prestigious than any of
his previous jobs ““ but different
“Chancellor is not higher than professor,” Carnesale
said. “In other words, you have to be careful not to look at
an organizational chart.”
To recognize professors, he said universities do not need to
promote them to administrative positions.
“We have the most distinguished scholars and
scientists,” Carnesale continued. “Nobel Laureates do
not normally become deans, provosts, and chancellors, but most of
them would much rather be professors and continue working in
science.”
With three years behind him as Chancellor of UCLA, Carnesale has
a completely different style than former Chancellor Charles E.
Young, said Assistant Chancellor Antoinette Mongelli.
Although Mongelli said she had limited experience working with
Young, she also added that Carnesale’s personality is the
opposite of Young’s.
“Chuck grew up in this place,” she said. “He
was here for 30 years, so he knew what so and so did over in that
corner because he knew all of those people.”
Over the years, Mongelli said UCLA has transformed into a
multi-billion dollar operation, which requires the type of
management Carnesale administers.
“Chancellor Young was sort of the pop of the “˜mom
and pop’ operation in building a business,” she said.
“Now we have a huge operation where all your lieutenants have
to be able to take their marching orders and go and do their
jobs.
“The CEO can’t know what that person in that
position does.”
Nonetheless, Mongelli added Carnesale tries very hard to listen
to students.
“He’s just very respectful of students,” she
said. “Even if there’s a point of disagreement, you
don’t feel like there’s a bad guy here.”
Carnesale himself said he sees the importance of keeping in
touch with students. He mentioned that during regular office hours,
where times are advertised through e-mail, and special
appointments, students can talk to him about appropriate issues
concerning UCLA.
“A student sent me an e-mail (saying) she thought the idea
of my having more interaction with students in an informal
environment, in addition to office hours, was a good idea,”
he said. “And so I asked to meet with her and we’re
actually following up on that.”
Mongelli said although Carnesale sincerely wants to meet
everyone who wishes to see him, his calendar is virtually grey with
appointments, leaving little time for impromptu meetings.
“I hear that everybody feels like he’s not as
available as he needs to be,” she said. “I hear the
criticism, but I see the reality.”
Currently, the chancellor said he sees two major problems UCLA
faces in the future: access and resources.
“How can we be sure that as a public university we really
are serving the people of California and not just one or two
segments?” he asked.
Carnesale said because students learn from one another, having a
diverse student body, racially, ethnically and socio-economically,
can ensure access to the best education.
“My number one responsibility is that the students who are
at UCLA get the very best education possible,” he said.
“And I believe firmly that they will all get a better
education if we have a diverse student body.”
Mongelli said she also understands Carnesale’s emphasis on
accessibility.
“When I was a high school student, I always thought about
UCLA as that sort of green jewel over there,” she said.
“I think he wants to take away that “˜over there’
part .”
The problem of diversity has become a major challenge for the
campus, Carnesale said, one that requires special attention through
outreach programs in secondary schools.
“The budget for outreach has probably gone up in the last
three years ten times,” he said.
With UCLA now receiving only 21 percent of its budget from the
government, maintaining a reputation as one of the top educational
institutions in the U.S., either public or private, is another
problem for the university, the Chancellor said.
“Ensuring that we have the resources to have the quality
of programs that the very finest universities have is
essential,” he said. “And seeing where those resources
will come from.”
Trying to remedy the resource problem by attending fundraising
dinners and meeting with faculty groups consumes many of the
Chancellor’s evenings and a great deal of his spare time.
“Is that social or is that work?” he asked.
“Well, the answer is it’s both because they’re
interesting people and I enjoy being with them.”
Carnesale said he uses whatever spare time he can find to try to
exercise. An avid walker, who can finish a mile in 14 minutes, he
rarely drives his car to campus.
“Almost any weekend day, you can see me walking around
campus or on the track,” he said. “But I do that
because if I’ve been doing exercise, my energy level is
high.”
Carnesale’s other hobbies include reading, especially in
his field of study, and the opera.
“I really got hooked on that when I was involved in those
strategic arms negotiations when I spent a lot of time in
Vienna,” he said.
“In the time that I spent in Vienna, the dollar was worth
a lot,” Carnesale continued. “You didn’t have to
think about what a ticket cost.”
Executive Vice Chancellor Rory Hume, who works closely with the
chancellor, said he wished Carnesale would allow more time for
himself.
“I would like him to take more vacations. Truly, he works
very hard,” Hume said. “He tends to overwork”“
that’s the only criticism I have of him.
“If he would take a little more time for himself and relax
a little, I think he’d be even better at what he does,”
he continued.
For Carnesale, the path to becoming chancellor has included many
changes, none of which were really planned.
“If you wanted to be chancellor of UCLA, first of all, you
wouldn’t have grown up in the Bronx,” he said with a
laugh.
“But if you trace back, there certainly are some common
threads,” Carnesale continued. “The reason that people
thought of me, I’m sure, as a potential candidate for being
chancellor of UCLA was because I had been provost at
Harvard.”
He also said he got involved in government because of his
knowledge of science and technology, not because of political
knowledge.
Despite the career changes, the chancellor said he liked all his
jobs, and credited his success with this enjoyment.
“I always did things that I enjoyed,” he said.
“And that’s why my advice to people in career planning
is what I describe as the “˜tingle theory:’ do what
makes you tingle.
“Do what excites you,” he continued.
“That’s what you do well at and other things will
evolve from that.”
