New vice chancellor visits campus

Janina Montero, visiting the UCLA campus for the first time
since her appointment as the next vice chancellor for student
affairs, said she will rely on past experiences to tackle new
challenges. At the same time, she acknowledges that UCLA is very
different from schools where she was previously employed.

Scheduled to take office on July 1, the current vice president
for campus life and student services at Brown University indicated
she would enter her new position with a small-school approach.

This approach would stress the development of close personal
relationships with students and the establishment of easy access to
her office ““ achievements she has accomplished for the last
30 years at small private institutions.

Such a task would be much more difficult at a large university
like UCLA, and Montero admitted she would have to work harder.

“There will be more to do in terms of establishing a large
network of relationships with students,” she said.
“Students should feel like they have easy access to my
office.”

Montero will face several major challenges coming into her new
position, but she has extended previous experience dealing with
such issues.

With the state government slicing sizeable amounts off the UC
budget, Montero can draw on previous work done at Brown University
to minimize the effects of funding reductions on the quality of
student life.

To help reinvigorate Ackerman Union, Montero can put to practice
her planning skills utilized in the conceptualization and
development of the Princeton University campus center, a space for
the interaction of students, faculty and staff.

And as safety issues pressure the present administration after
two recent violent crimes on campus, Montero’s experience
dealing with public safety when she was an administrator at
Wesleyan University, an urban school near Hartford, Conn., will
come in handy.

Montero said the transition from small private institutions on
the East Coast provides her with an advantage when entering her
post at UCLA, despite the disparity between the size of student
bodies.

“At smaller institutions I got a lot more hands-on
experience,” she said. “You have points of reference
for projects, things are not as abstract.”

To maintain close contact with a larger student body, Montero
said she would be attending student government meetings on a
regular basis, attending student events, meeting with student
leadership from major campus groups, and holding open office
hours.

She also hopes to develop long-lasting relationships with
students as they move from college into the real world, like she
has done in the past at Brown and Princeton.

“When students join a university, it is truly a
relationship for life,” she said. “The four years a
student spends here is the foundation with long term
implications.”

And despite her background in private education, Montero said
she was a strong supporter of public education.

“I am glad I was given an opportunity at UCLA, part of the
premier public education system in the nation,” she said.

Chancellor Albert Carnesale, for one, was glad to give her that
opportunity.

“I am confident that she will be instrumental in ensuring
UCLA’s continued excellence in this crucial facet of
university life,” he wrote in a release when Montero was
hired.