Christine Lovely will serve as UCLA’s inaugural vice chancellor for campus human resources and chief people officer, UCLA announced Wednesday.

Currently Cornell University’s chief human resources officer, Lovely was appointed to the position and will start her new role Dec. 18, Chancellor Julio Frenk said in an email sent to faculty. 

She will join Frenk’s cabinet and report to Frenk as well as Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost Darnell Hunt, Frenk said in the email. She will oversee all campus human resources, which include departmental training and support groups and management consultation, he added in the email. 

Lovely will provide guidance on the recruitment, development, support and retention of faculty and work with administrative and academic leaders to create an approach to “workforce development and organizational effectiveness,” Frenk said in the email. 

UCLA Campus Resources currently provides services to over 40,000 employees, including some from UCLA Health. However, UCLA Health Human Resources will still report to John Mazziotta, the CEO of UCLA Health and vice chancellor for UCLA Health Sciences. 

UCLA Health employees will have a secondary reporting relationship with Lovely, Frenk said in the email.  

Lovely – who also currently serves as Cornell University’s vice president – oversees human resources work, the department of inclusion and belonging at Cornell University and the Cornell Office of Civil Rights. 

Cornell University reached an agreement with the federal government Nov. 7 to restore 1.1 billion dollars federal funding – which was suspended in April – which included complying with the federal government’s interpretation of civil rights law and using a memorandum on “unlawful discrimination” from the federal government as a faculty and staff training resource.

Prior to joining Cornell University in Aug. 2022, Lovely served as the associate vice chancellor and chief human resources officer at University of California, Davis for four years, where she oversaw the HR teams for UC Davis and UC Davis Health. Previously, she worked as the Associate General Counsel for the Sacramento County Office of Education. 

Originally from San Jose, California, Lovely received a bachelor’s degree in mass communication from UC Berkeley and a law degree from the UC Davis School of Law.  

Lovely was selected by a committee including Stephen Agostini, UCLA’s vice chancellor and chief financial officer; Steve Dubinett, the dean of the David Geffen School of Medicine; Carole Goldberg, a professor at the UCLA School of Law; Heather Caruso, the associate dean of the UCLA Anderson School of Management; and Alex Stern, the dean of humanities in the College of Letters and Sciences, Frenk said in the email.

“Lovely was chosen through a standard UCLA search-process,” Goldberg said in an emailed statement. “I am not involved in determining how her success will be measured.”

Lovely did not respond in time for request to comment on her appointment. 

Frenk said in the email that UCLA was impressed by Lovely’s extensive resume.  

“She is widely recognized for her thoughtful, inclusive leadership style; her skill in building productive relationships in decentralized environments; and her commitment to advancing diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging,” he said.