When Executive Vice Chancellor Wyatt R. Hume begins as the chief executive officer of the University of New South Wales (UNSW) in July, he will be taking charge of a young, energetic institution with a broad reach in research and teaching.

One of Australia's major research institutions, UNSW has the largest on-campus enrollment of international students in the country and possibly the world -- with more than 8,000 international students in a total student population of 35,000.

The school's relationship with its older rival, the University of Sydney, is as something of an upstart -- "rather like the UCLA-Berkeley relationship," mused Hume, a native Australian and former dean of dentistry at the University of Sydney. "So I'm choosing the UCLA one."

Hume, who has served as UCLA's executive vice chancellor since July 1, 1998, said he decided to take UNSW's top post as its new president and vice chancellor (a title that comes from the English academic tradition in which the chancellorship is largely a ceremonial position) because he realized that, at age 57, he needed to seize the opportunity now if he wanted to lead an institution on the rise.

"Once I recognized that I would like to be a college president, I started to seriously evaluate opportunities to find the right match. To my surprise and great pleasure, I found one at what I consider to be the one university in Australia of the quality, energy and trajectory I was looking for," said Hume.

In a statement, UNSW Chancellor John Yu noted that Hume was the unanimous choice of the University Council. "Professor Hume has an unsurpassed reputation for academic excellence, having made a major contribution to teaching and research in his chosen discipline both in Australia and the United States. As the executive vice chancellor of UCLA, he has been at the helm of a university recognised as among the world's most vigorous and innovative educational institutions."

When Hume leaves in July, the former dean of the UCLA School of Dentistry will be saying farewell to a campus that has changed for the better, one where communication flows more freely across units in a collegial, open atmosphere.

"Opening up lines of communication was really why Al Carnesale brought me here. That's been my principal role and what I have enjoyed doing," said Hume, who brought together faculty and administrators to work intensively on strategic plans for budgeting and for potential growth. He applied his skills at coalition- and consensus-building to other critical areas as well: information technology, the UCLA in LA initiative and protection of human research subjects.

"I've seen the importance of simple and open communication, of honoring commitments," said Hume. "I always believed in that, but the great value of harnessing the collective talents of a broad range of people became clearer to me. A single individual's plan is never as good as what can be achieved when you bring together a large pool of talented people. That's the way institutions plan and perform best."

Those lessons of the last four years have served UCLA well.

"He has led our efforts to build processes of consultation, planning and budgeting, involving the academic and administrative units, and the Academic Senate, in ways that enable us all to make better decisions in support of UCLA's many programs," said the chancellor in a letter to the campus announcing Hume's decision.

"One of the great things about UCLA, which Chancellor Carnesale identified early on," said Hume, "is that we are quite good at working together to break down barriers and cross boundaries between departments, units and disciplines. And we are getting better at it all the time."

A search for Hume's successor will be under way shortly.