UCLA assembles search committee for diversity vice chancellor position

UCLA officials recently formed a committee to help the university find candidates for a new diversity-related vice chancellor position.

The committee will have 15 individuals, including professors, administrators, one graduate student and one undergraduate student, according to an email that UCLA Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost Scott Waugh sent to the campus community on Friday.

Chancellor Gene Block announced the creation of the vice chancellor for equity, diversity and inclusion position six months ago and began publicly searching for students to sit on the search and advisory committee about two months ago. Block created the position in response to concerns about racial discrimination on campus.

Jazz Kiang, a second-year Asian American studies student, and Ivy Onyeador, a graduate student in psychology and the Graduate Students Association vice president of academic affairs, were selected for the search committee. Carole Goldberg, the UCLA vice chancellor for academic personnel, will chair the group.

UCLA has also retained an executive search firm called Witt/Kieffer to aid in the search, Waugh said in the email. The firm is represented by Mary Elizabeth Taylor and Oliver B. Tomlin III.

Block and Waugh are expected to make the final decision in selecting the new vice chancellor sometime during the next school year. The university plans to collect feedback about the vice chancellor position through town hall meetings during the summer and fall.

Anyone who wants to weigh in on the vice chancellor position and search process can email comments to [email protected].

In his email, Waugh also asked members of the campus community to circulate an announcement about the position. Individuals can email questions, nominations and applications for the position to [email protected].

Here is a full list of the committee members:

• Devon Carbado – Honorable Harry Pregerson Professor of Law
• Mitchell Chang – professor of higher education and organizational change and Asian American studies
• Cindy Cordova – president of the UCLA Staff Assembly; assistant to the vice dean for faculty at the David Geffen School of Medicine
• Patrick Dowling – chair of Department of Family Medicine; Kaiser Permanente Endowed Professor of Community Medicine
• Miguel Garcia-Garibay – professor and chair of the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry
• Alicia Gaspar de Alba – professor of Chicana/o studies, English and gender studies; chair of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Studies Program
• Gilbert Gee – professor of community health sciences
• Darnell Hunt – professor of sociology; director of the Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies
• Jazz Kiang – undergraduate student
• Janina Montero – vice chancellor for student affairs
• Ivy Onyeador – graduate student
• Asma Sayeed – assistant professor of Islamic studies
• Brad Sears – executive director of the Williams Institute; Roberta A. Conroy Scholar of Law and Policy
• Victoria Sork – dean of life sciences in the College of Letters and Science

Compiled by Amanda Schallert, Bruin senior staff.