UCLA VICE

Pete Blackman Winston Doby
Michael Eicher Rory Hume
Joseph Mandel Claudia
Mitchell-Kernan

Steve Olsen Roberto Peccei
Donna Vredevoe

By Marcelle Richards
Daily Bruin Senior Staff In the maze of Murphy Hall, nine vice
chancellors stake out their corner office space, surrounding the
chancellor literally ““ and figuratively, with their advice.
In the southwest corner of the second floor, a golden glow rims the
entrance to the chancellor’s office, which he shares with the
executive vice chancellor and vice chancellors of academic
personnel and research. Down the hall is legal affairs, student
affairs and business and finance; on the first floor are graduate
studies, administration and external affairs. Together they compose
Chancellor Albert Carnesale’s “invisible force”
of UCLA. But more reflective of how they conduct their jobs are
their personalities, which lend to subtle idiosyncrasies that
somehow soften their seemingly imposing titles. “(The vice
chancellors) enjoy each other’s company so much it’s
hard to start the executive meetings,” said Executive Vice
Chancellor Rory Hume, who runs the bulk of daily operations.
“They’ll be firing away at each other ““
it’s almost like handling a classroom of 5 year olds, and I
find that excitingly enjoyable.” They are the
chancellor’s next in line and his advisory staff. Meetings to
discern campus problems and plan for the future occupy the majority
of their time. After hours, the chancellor and his associates come
out from their offices for a break from having to deal with
problems. The desks occupied by stacks of documents and blueprints
are abandoned as the day’s end rolls around. Recognizable by
his crisp Australian accent, the EVC said his sanity is preserved
by the sanctity of sailing. “Sailing is my Prozac,” he
said. But the people and the challenge each day presents keeps him
returning to the office. Donna Vredevoe, head of academic
personnel, is the newest edition to the group and, as a former
chair of the Academic Senate, is one of the most seasoned in areas
of faculty affairs. The most interesting thing has been figuring
out the people she works with outside their business context.
“We all have lives other than this. It isn’t just
business all the time,” she said, as she listed her love of
gardening, drawing and hiking. Roberto Peccei oversees research,
but keeps a soft spot for Italian opera composers Puccini and
Verdi. “But I love Puccini more,” he clarified as he
thickened his voice with an impromptu Italian accent. “It
suits my personality more.” A knock was heard on his door.
“Yea!” he answered, still with a tinge of the accent.
He smiled and waved in the assistant. His tan and the pictures on
the wall give away the fact that he snorkels and peruses the
tropical islands on his spare time. Joseph Mandel is vice
chancellor of legal affairs, but he holds it an equal priority to
make sure Hume “appreciates” American baseball. In
Mandel’s office is a baseball signed by his boyhood idol,
Mickey Mantel, who was the surprise guest at his going away party
when he left a corporate law firm for UCLA. He wakes up to the
news, but once inside the office, the range of issues he’ll
deal with are presented on a card outlining his schedule. But
“surprises” seem to find him anyway. “If (people)
pop in, they think it’s a crisis. Sometimes it is, sometimes
I can calm them down,” he said. “Lawyers tend to think
linearly. There are a lot of administrators who are much smarter
than I am, but without sounding too congratulatory, some of them
don’t think linearly ““ that’s part of my
training.” Winston Doby of student affairs has been at UCLA
since his time as a student in 1968, which has earned him the
honorary title of the administration’s walking institutional
memory. He said working with students so closely keeps him young
““ after all, he still has to reach his goal of traveling to
every continent. His favorite place so far is St. Andrews,
Scotland, where he played on the “old course” where
golf originated. “It’s every golfer’s
dream,” he said. Steve Olsen, vice chancellor of finance and
budget, came to UCLA after serving under former Gov. Pete Wilson.
His title is self-explanatory, but harder to discern is his passion
for the cello. “Ask him questions about it and he slips into
a different life,” Hume said. He keeps the university in
touch with government affairs and, when speaking of his former day,
reminisces with a twinkle in his eyes. “I served at the
pleasure of the governor,” he said. Claudia Mitchell-Kernan,
vice chancellor of graduate affairs, is the “unflaggingly
devoted advocate” of graduate student welfare. “I
can’t think of an area of campus more interesting on
campus,” she said, as evidenced by her tendency to loop back
to graduate studies when asked to talk about herself. Her approach
is reflective of her background as a faculty member.
“I’m a person who’s very interested in the
whole,” she said. “I’m an anthropologist and we
study “˜How does it work, how does one thing affect the
other?'” Pete Blackman, the vice chancellor of
administration, tends to capital projects ““ and keeps a spare
jacket and dress shirt to replace his plaid shirt, if needed.
Described as articulate almost to a fault, Blackman is the lawyer
at heart whom colleagues liken to “50 engines all running
full speed.” His sentence to sum up his job weighed in at 155
words. “You didn’t write all of that down, did
you?” he said, stopping in mid-pace. He listed the necessity
of detailed planning and management as he continued to pace; sat
down, cheek in hand and then got up again to flurry around his
office. Michael Eicher is the man behind UCLA’s donor funds
as the vice chancellor of external affairs. With a $1.6 billion
fund-raising project under his belt, Eicher networks to get money
to support the academic and capital sectors of campus. Like most of
his colleagues, he didn’t expect to wind up as a vice
chancellor. He recalls being called into the office of his
predecessor: “The meeting wasn’t pleasant,” he
said. “I left there saying, “˜I’m going to stay as
far away from vice chancellors as I can,’ but here I
am.” While most had comments about the others, and some were
talkative when it came to themselves, the question of how to
categorize the group as a whole stumbled most responses.
“It’s hard to make descriptions that do them
justice,” Mitchell-Kernan said as she leaned back and threw
up her hands.