Dynes meets with staff leaders
BY ANNE BURKE
UCLA Today Staff
Just six months into his tenure, UC President Robert C. Dynes
is earning high marks from campus leaders for focusing attention
on staff.
“This is a man who has staff on his radar,” said Staff
Assembly President Susan Corley. “He’s really setting
a different tone for the university.”
Corley’s comments followed a Faculty Center lunch meeting
attended by Dynes and about 25 staff leaders. The meeting was one
of a series of get-to-know-you gatherings Dynes is holding with
students, staff and faculty at UC campuses across the state.
The meeting came a day after Dynes stood alongside Gov. Arnold
Schwarzenegger and CSU Chancellor Charles B. Reed in Sacramento
to announce agreement on a six-year state compact to set future
fee increases and minimum funding levels. The compact, which is
not legally binding and represents a handshake agreement, provides
for long-overdue staff salary increases.
“You remember that word — raises? We can actually
begin looking at these in the year 2005,” Dynes told the audience.
Luncheon attendee Alex Tucker, president of the UCLA Black Faculty
and Staff Association, praised Dynes for his warm and open manner.
Tucker said he especially likes “Dynes’ Desk,”
the president’s inbox for e-mail. “I actually read them
all,” commented Dynes, who insisted on being called Bob.
Tucker, administrative specialist for the Bunche Center for African
American Studies, urged the president to take a leadership role
in boosting faculty diversity, which the staff leader said later
is abysmally low for many minorities. Dynes said his office would
begin looking at the diversity of the applicant pool in an effort
to remedy the problem.
Dynes’ fast-paced UCLA visit began with a morning run with
more than 100 students, staff and faculty. The day concluded with
a hard-hat tour of the Westwood Replacement Hospital. The president
also met with academic and administrative leaders.
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