This post was updated Oct. 25 at 8:13 p.m.

Interim Chancellor Darnell Hunt answered questions Friday about UCLA’s response to protests, leadership transitions and the move to the Big Ten.

The Daily Bruin Editorial Board meets quarterly with the university chancellor to discuss topics and policies affecting the campus community. Although former Chancellor Gene Block met with The Bruin in fall 2023, 2024 winter and spring meetings did not occur.

At this quarter’s meeting, Hunt was joined by Vice Chancellor for Strategic Communications Mary Osako, Administrative Vice Chancellor Michael Beck, Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs Monroe Gorden Jr. and Interim Vice Provost for Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Mitchell Chang.

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Daily Bruin: How would you evaluate the administration’s response to the protests and the encampment activity on campus last spring?

Darnell Hunt: We can always do better, and certainly what happened last spring is not anything any of us wanted to see. We’ve been spending the summer trying to gain understanding step-by-step what occurred. I think the 21CP (21st Century Policing Solutions) report … is going to give a very detailed timeline of exactly what happened with facts and statistics. They’re going to make a series of recommendations. Then, our own internal investigation by Rick Braziel, who is our new associate vice chancellor for campus safety, is going to then offer a report on implementation. How do we actually respond to those recommendations? Some of the recommendations we’ve been anticipating and already made changes, and so he’ll be tracking our progress towards those.

At the end of the day, we’re going to have a really good plan and path forward. We have the office in place. We’re actually building the office as we speak, in terms of giving it the resources it needs to maintain campus safety. When I say campus safety, I’m thinking very broadly not just in terms of disturbances like that: active shooter issues, if there was an earthquake, if there were fires. All those things are under the purview of the Office of Campus Safety. I feel confident that we learned a lot from last spring, and that we made important changes that will put us in a much stronger position to address whatever may occur this year or beyond.

DB: With the anniversary of Oct. 7 coming up fall quarter, what steps, if any, do you believe still need to be taken?

DH: I think it’s going to be a very solemn occasion to remember what happened on Oct. 7, and we’re hearing news of possible disturbances. We have our directives from the (UC) Office of the President in terms of how we have to respond. We won’t tolerate encampments. We won’t tolerate obstructions to buildings and pathways and things like that. It became an issue last year.

The bottom line is we’re going to have to enforce the TPM (Time, Place and Manner policies), which is why it’s so important to communicate clearly to the campus community, so everyone understands where the boundaries are. We want to encourage free speech and people to protest in ways that align with UC and UCLA policies. … On Oct. 7, we are expecting there to be protests of various sorts, but they have to be done in a way that maintains campus safety and respects the rights of other students, staff and faculty.

Monroe Gorden Jr.: We also have to remember that UCLA is a public campus, and so we will have individuals who are not faculty, students or staff who will be on the campus, and who do have expectations as citizens of the state to be able to come to the university. … How do we support everyone?

There is a need to educate our campus community about how we intend to support all of the various members of the community and where those programs are and how they become accessible to all the members of the community.

DH: One of the major points of interest of the Dialogue across Difference (program) is empathetic listening. In fact, our entire leadership team, over the summer, went through training on how to hear other people’s point of view and how to privilege their narratives and their stories so you can respond to them in ways that are respectful and not dismissive. I think that serves to de-escalate rather than escalate.

I’m really excited about Dialogue across Difference, and I appreciate the work of Professor David Myers and his team and others on campus to keep this program moving forward.

DB: In terms of what happened last spring, could you tell us a little bit about your experience on May 1 when you went to the Palestine solidarity encampment?

DH: From the moment the encampment was erected, we were trying our best not to follow in the footsteps of other places where things ended badly. Our goal was to try to find a way for members of the encampment to voluntarily dismantle it and permanently, because in some cases, when force was used to remove encampments, they popped up the next day or so. We didn’t want to follow into those footsteps.

I reached out to faculty members who were affiliated with some of the student leaders in the encampment and began discussing with them possibilities for how we might achieve that goal. We had a series of conversations that were, I thought, promising, and it seemed like we were making some progress. BDS (Boycott, Divest and Sanction) was off the table – the (UC Board of) Regents had already pretty much said that divestment wasn’t an option, and some of the other demands were not an option. Much of what was being demanded was under the purview of the regents. It wasn’t a UCLA thing. So we were trying to find other ways that would, in spirit, allow the students to express themselves. I even talked about the creation of a Palestinian studies center to give folks voice and to bring scholars together on campus issues as one option, and it seemed to be gaining traction.

Everything changed when counter-protesters attacked the encampment. I had already promised to meet with the encampment. Once that happened, I knew going into the encampment, it wasn’t going to be a pleasant experience, and I knew that the students in the encampment were traumatized and frustrated, but I had made a promise to go. And so I went, and it was a very difficult experience to hear their pain and to hear what had happened to them.

I tried to explain to them that we did the best we could under the circumstances. We obviously didn’t know the counter-protesters were going to come or that they would come with the numbers they did, and all those other types of things. We had security in place, but it was an unprecedented attack. Nothing like that happened in other places that we were monitoring.

DB: Chancellor Block, in his testimony to Congress, said the decision to essentially prepare for the clearing of the encampment had actually been made April 28 after clashes between pro-Israel and pro-Palestine protesters. Were you aware that that decision had been made before the counter protester attack and subsequently, how did that influence your approach to conversations with the encampment?

UCLA declined to comment on the details of the timeline relating to the spring encampment, instead referring the Daily Bruin to the 21CP report, which has yet to be published.

DB: What was that transition like between Chancellor Block and you? How are you making preparations now as the interim chancellor to prepare for the next incoming chancellor?

DH: I’ve worked with former Chancellor Block for many years, so it was a very smooth transition. We talked and we planned on what needed to happen as he wrapped up loose ends and then I picked up other strands of activity that were going forward.

I’m also meeting with Chancellor-designate (Julio) Frenk when he comes to LA, and he’s been visiting for a week or so each month before he permanently gets here in January. … He’s been meeting with individual leaders on campus, faculty, folks in the broader community, elected officials, donors. I think there’ll be a seamless transition. … He’ll already be up to speed and running in January.

In the meantime, … my job now is to try to stabilize the campus as much as possible, to work on our climate, to move forward the Four-Point Plan to ensure that the campus is safe, that we’re stronger as a community, and that we can work together and experience UCLA side by side despite our differences. That’s the goal. I feel pretty good about where we are right now. We’re working on activating a lot of the innovations that have been put in place through the Office of Campus Safety to ensure the campus is safer. I have a lot of confidence in Rick Braziel and the work he’s done. We’re probably going to face challenges. … I feel that we’re going to be as prepared as we can be.

DB: What do you think in 2024 are the most pressing issues that students face throughout all of your experiences, and how do you plan on addressing those?

DH: Obviously we’ve been talking a lot about last spring, and we’ve been talking about the continuing crisis in Gaza (and) the Middle East. That’s going to be a challenge that students can face. There’s a lot of division still in our community around what all of that means and how one should respond to it. I’ve read impassioned emails from a number of students and their parents on different sides of the issue about the ways in which they feel marginalized or threatened by the views of other people. That’s not acceptable at a university like this. We have to create a safe space for everyone, regardless of what you believe, who you are, where you come from (or) how you practice your religion. Everyone needs to feel safe and included.

Some of the initiatives that I’ve talked about, like Dialogue across Difference, initiatives to study hate, empathetic listening, are designed to move us in that direction. It’s going to take time, and I’ve asked every Bruin, what can you do to help create a better campus climate?

The presidential election is going to be a challenge, regardless of which way it goes. … The last couple of election cycles have been unprecedented within recent history. … Dealing with that is going to be a challenge. I’m hoping that all students will get engaged civically and vote and take a role in our democracy in that way.

There’s a number of students who have challenges in terms of getting by financially, food insecurity and things like that. We’ve worked hard at UCLA to ensure that any student who comes here is able to thrive and take advantage of our great university.

MG: Preparing students to have opportunities to be able to dialogue regarding whatever identity they hold is really a key priority for us. Also basic needs, as the chancellor just said, continues to be a huge priority for us as it relates to students.

One thing that we haven’t spoken about over the last few years, but has certainly been a continuous undercurrent, is how we build resilience amongst our students. We’ve used the words “mental health services” before, but really it’s broader than mental health services. … The ages between 17 and 24 is one of the hardest times of anyone’s life. Trying to navigate that with everything else going on at a highly, highly competitive public institution can be very challenging for students.

The last thing I’ll say is building leadership skills, which is one thing that we’ve really tried to work very hard on the last six years or so. Some of you were here a few years ago when Chancellor Block talked about the leadership, innovation, networking and knowledge class that we have for students. We’ve included now what we call leadership academies and these are opportunities for very short interventions for students to go to our South Bay campus, to engage with one another, to learn about these kinds of leadership skills.

Mary Osako: I’ve also heard Chancellor Hunt also talk about just shining a light on the great things and what makes students’ experiences here memorable. Part of that is … all the programs, the leadership academy, internships, football games – all of that. That’s part of what we think about every single day – it’s not just tackling the challenges.

Michael Beck: As we look at the basic needs of students, in the last three years, we’ve built almost 6,000 new beds for students. But yet, we’re at the highest triple rate on the Hill this year that we’ve ever been at because the demand is so high.

We have a new project called Gayley Towers, which is under construction right now, which will add about 550 beds. These are designed as a shared sort of co-living environment. It’s intended to be our lowest-cost product but still have the high quality that you all expect from UCLA. The pricing is intended to be around $600 a month, including shared food staples in the kitchen.

We just ended up purchasing an apartment building near our other properties, just off campus. We’ll be demoing that particular complex and adding almost 1,000 new beds for UCLA in that environment. For graduate students, which has not had as many successes in the expansion of housing as we’ve had for undergraduates, we purchased a new apartment building that’s just getting finished up right now. That’ll open up next month for 150 new graduate students.

DB: It’s a big move to the Big Ten recently. In the past couple of years, UCLA Athletics has dealt with financial deficits and gone through some big changes. Do you anticipate UCLA Athletics will be in a post-deficit state? How are you anticipating our Big Ten move will be for student-athletes and student experience?

DH: There was clearly a financial motivation to move to the Big Ten because of some of the challenges that the Pac-12 was facing in terms of television rights and revenue. We’re here three hours behind the East Coast, so some of our games are ending at 1 a.m., and you’re just not getting the same viewership, which translates into dollars and becomes a real challenge when you’re competing at the highest levels.

The other advantage of moving to the Big Ten was really for the student-athletes themselves. In this new environment that we’re in with NIL (name, image and likeness) and eventually paying student-athletes, having visibility becomes an important part of their experience. The Big Ten is the most watched conference across the board. … It translates into recruiting certain athletes to campus who help advance our competitiveness in certain sports, which is something I think the students enjoy, as well as the alumni. It’s a big part of the UCLA brand.

We have Title IX. We have to balance our sports in terms of male and female athletes. We have certain sports that are revenue generating and other sports that actually cost us money. And so figuring out how to balance all that can become a real challenge. I think moving to the Big Ten puts a much stronger position to be able to balance those things.

DB: One of the anticipated challenges for student-athletes is travel time. How will that impact the experience our student-athletes have?

DH: I know that this was an early concern because we travel more miles than any other team, or close to No. 1 in terms of miles traveled.

There’s an attempt to optimize the schedule so that you minimize the amount of times you have to travel. … Here in town, there are ways that they’re thinking about scheduling games. I haven’t seen the projected schedule for the future, but at least the concept is to schedule the games in a way that you can minimize or group the trips away in ways that don’t require as much travel. I think it’s even more possible with basketball games, because they tend to be twice a week and so they can do that.

We’re putting a lot more money into student-athlete support in terms of meals. They’re getting meals now, many more meals (than) they got before. Academic support, mental support – there’s a lot more revenue going into the holistic well-being of our athletes, in addition to some of the benefits they will gain from competing in a conference that has a lot more visibility.

MB: One of the things that happens here, which I think we should be proud of, is the goal of our student-athletes to actually be student-athletes. … I remember (former UCLA football coach) Chip Kelly commenting about how proud he was of the GPA for the football team, and I know that’s a priority for Martin (Jarmond) and for folks throughout the division of intercollegiate athletics. As the chancellor mentioned, there’s been a stronger commitment toward academic support for those students, making sure they’re getting the assistance they need, as their travel may have increased in the number of hours that they’re away from the campus.

DB: In January, the regents tabled a plan to establish on-campus job opportunities for thousands of undocumented students. What would you like to see when they revisit these discussions this academic year?

MG: We want to see all of our students be able to be provided the opportunities that allow them to move beyond UCLA. Certainly, that includes our undocumented students. There are some legalities. There are always legalities, and so that’s part of why the regents made a decision to take a little bit of a pause, to go back and to do some more research and to look at the best way in which we can do that. … We have to remember, we’re a part of the UC system, and so UCLA is unable to move beyond the UC in terms of doing some of these things.

We will also want to make sure our students are protected. A few other campuses in the UC developed fellowship programs for undocumented students, which is not exactly the same as job opportunities for every other student, but at least it provides our undocumented students opportunities to work in certain fields that are not just academic on campus and to acquire skill sets while also getting funding. It is a fellowship, so it’s an academic-based opportunity for our students, but it is at least a way to move toward that goal.

But overall, the goal is to ensure that all of our students are able to take full advantage of the opportunities that we provide at UCLA.