Diversity vice chancellor candidates to visit UCLA for interview, forum

Four candidates for a new UCLA diversity vice chancellor position will visit campus in the next month for interviews with university leaders and open forums that all students, faculty and staff can attend.

The search committee for the vice chancellor for equity, diversity and inclusion recommended the finalists for the position to Chancellor Gene Block and Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost Scott Waugh, said Carole E. Goldberg, search committee chair and vice chancellor for academic personnel in an email to the campus community Thursday.

UCLA invited each of the candidates to campus for interviews with community members and UCLA leaders between Jan. 29 and Feb. 13. The university chose to include open forums in the decision process because it wanted broad participation in the campus interview process, said Ricardo Vazquez, UCLA spokesperson, in an email.

The new vice chancellor is tasked with advising Block and university leaders on diversity-related issues on campus and leading efforts to create a more inclusive campus.

The candidates include Franklin Tuitt, associate provost for inclusive excellence and associate professor of higher education at the University of Denver. Tuitt will come to campus at the end of January.

The university will release the names of the other candidates before each of their visits once the schedules are confirmed and UCLA gets the candidates’ permission, Vazquez said in the email.

Block and Waugh will choose the new chancellor in spring, taking into consideration input from the search committee, campus leadership and the UCLA community, Vazquez said in the email.

Jazz Kiang, the only undergraduate student representative on the search committee, said the search has been a long process and that the search committee has evaluated many candidates for the job. He added that he thinks the four candidates all have the right qualities for the position.

“I think it is really a matter of how UCLA leaders, students, faculty, alumni and the greater community feel about these candidates; that kind of input is most critical,” said Kiang, a third-year Asian American studies student and director of the Asian Pacific Coalition.

Block announced the position’s creation in December 2013 following the release of an internal report that found UCLA’s policies and procedures for addressing racial discrimination among faculty inadequate and unclear. Since the release of the Moreno report in October 2013, the university has hired two discrimination prevention officers and appointed diversity specialists in divisions and schools across campus who will all report to the new vice chancellor.

The search committee for the new position, formed in June 2014, is made up of 15 faculty members, administrators and students. In addition to the forums to come, the search committee has held town halls for undergraduate and graduate students as well as faculty and staff to collect input about the traits UCLA community members want to see in the new vice chancellor.

Individuals can give feedback to Block and Waugh after each forum by emailing [email protected].

Compiled by John Peter Cavender, Bruin reporter.