UCLA faces a number of critical challenges. Financial support from the State of California has been decreasing and, at the same time, there is increasing competition from within academe itself as the nation’s top universities vie aggressively for the best faculty and students. In such an environment, world-class public institutions like UCLA have found themselves sliding farther behind better-funded elite private institutions such as Harvard, Princeton, Stanford and MIT in their ability to offer competitive incentives to attract the best of the best.
As part of UCLA’s broad approach to address these competitiveness challenges, Chancellor Albert Carnesale has announced an ambitious plan to raise $250 million over the next five years to help recruit from among the very top faculty and graduate students in the nation. Among the goals of the Ensuring Academic Excellence initiative is to raise $100 million to fund 100 new endowed chairs for the recruitment and retention of professors across campus, $100 million to fund fellowships and scholarships in the UCLA College and $50 million for fellowships and scholarships in UCLA’s professional schools. This would provide additional aid for up to 3,500 students a year.
Such an initiative, says Chancellor Carnesale, is an essential component of UCLA’s multipronged effort to maintain its momentum as an intellectual engine that helps, among other things, to drive the economy of California, lead the way toward advances in health care and initiate improvements to K–12 education. The announcement by UCLA was met with enthusiasm from many who see the initiative as a major step to support the university’s ability to compete on a more level playing field for topflight students and faculty, and to maintain its place as an outstanding center of excellence so necessary to the societal and economic health and well-being of California. “By performing cutting-edge research and by training the future leaders of our industries, UCLA and the state’s public research universities form a pillar of California’s economic prosperity,” says Henry Samueli ’75, M.S. ’76, Ph.D. ’80, co-founder and chairman of Irvine, Calif.-based Broadcom Corp. “Preserving UCLA’s strength and enhancing its ability to compete is imperative to the economic future of California.”
Here, Chancellor Carnesale talks with UCLA Magazine about the challenges and UCLA’s response to them.
Why are measures such as this new initiative necessary at this time?
UCLA is an outstanding community of scholars and students, and investing in UCLA is critical for our regional and state economies. UCLA and the other campuses of the UC system are economic engines for our respective regions, and for the entire state of California. A study by the Milken Institute in March amply demonstrates this point. The study shows that investment in science and technology assets, from higher education to access to venture capital, is crucial in determining a state’s future economic success. Continued investment in the university as a whole, and in its individual campuses, is vital for this success and for the well-being of UCLA and all Californians.
Of the some 3,000 colleges and universities in the United States, just 62 are recognized through invitation to be a member of the Association of American Universities as being truly outstanding. Nine of those 62 universities are in California, and six of them, including UCLA, are campuses of the University of California. The regions surrounding great research universities are populated by technology and medical centers, arts and cultural opportunities, innovative businesses and steady, productive economic development. In a knowledge-based economy, universities create knowledge and, in so doing, generate hundreds of billions of dollars in economic development.
Research breakthroughs at the university will undoubtedly be among the key drivers of the state’s economic recovery, as well as its global leadership in the high-tech and biotech industries. Clearly, then, it is in the best interests of our region and the state to have the brightest scholars propelling discovery and innovation, and to have the brightest graduate students working in partnership with them.
How is competition from private universities affecting us?
Private research universities, which have not suffered cuts nearly as severe as those that have been made to public universities, are working hard and spending lots of money to attract the best and the brightest away from elite public research universities like UCLA.
We need to see exactly what our competition looks like. At Johns Hopkins, Duke, MIT and Stanford, for example, 90 percent of doctoral candidates are fully funded. At UCLA, we can commit to multiyear funding for just 20 percent of our doctoral students. That is a disparity we have to narrow. We also need to consider the fact that because competition is so fierce, the funding margins are amazingly thin. Often $1,000 can mean the difference between winning and losing a world-class doctoral student. The competitive situation is similar for young faculty. In this environment, our faculty are attractive targets for recruitment by other institutions. We are fortunate that in recent years UCLA has been able to retain about 70 percent of our professors who have received offers elsewhere. Still, many are receiving multiple offers a year in regions of the country where housing is more affordable and salaries are greater. This is why the Ensuring Academic Excellence initiative is so important for us right now.
Is the recent agreement between Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the UC to stabilize funding helpful in this effort?
While the budget compact that was reached in May between the University of California and the governor improves the predictability of state funding, the long-term trend of restricted state support for public universities compounds our challenge, demanding a focused fund-raising effort in which everyone can play a part and a rededication to our academic core of faculty and students.
Is this initiative enough to close the gap? What are some of the other steps that are being taken to address these resource challenges?
The resource gap is real and growing, and it is something we want to correct before it gets out of hand. This initiative, in conjunction with other steps we have already taken, will make a substantial difference. Through Campaign UCLA, for example, we have raised $290 million for faculty and student support. We are nearing completion of an 840-unit graduate student apartment complex, Weyburn Terrace, which is scheduled to open in Fall 2004. Because academic fees for top graduate students may be fully covered by the university, the hike in student fees will mean increased costs to the Graduate Division — we estimate that these increased costs will total $4.6 million in 2003–’04 and $3.2 million the following year — and I have committed to cover these increased costs. And we will expand permanent funding for the support of merit-based aid to graduate students.
In addition, we are leveraging our substantial strengths, including location, breadth and depth of fields of study and academic talent. In light of our many competitive advantages, we don’t need to close the resource gap entirely. We can do more with less, so long as it’s not too much less.
