William TrombleyThe budget cuts of recent years "are not due to a downturn in the economy," Young said during a recent interview in his office on the Westwood campus, but are part of "one of those cyclical changes that occur periodically in history."
"We have entered a time when public higher education is not going to receive anywhere near as large a percentage of public funds at the state level as it has in the past," he said. "I expect more pressure from both the federal and state governments to demonstrate the usefulness of the research process...and I expect there will be more competition from private corporations, government agencies and others-they will be doing things that research universities used to do."
Young is skeptical that university officials, especially those at the systemwide offices in Oakland, are prepared to deal with the fundamental changes that are taking place.
"There is a lot of talk about basic change, but I think a lot of our people still really believe this is a transitional phase, that there will be a recovery. I don't think so," the chancellor said.
He continued, "I sit through discussions in the university and I hear people talk about going back to the state for money for this or that purpose. Someone will say, 'let's ask the Legislature for additional funds so we don't have to raise student fees.' I don't think that's going to happen. We may get more money to replace the fee revenue but it will just be taken from someplace else in our budget. We are not going to get new money."
As he listens to these discussions, Young said, "increasingly I have a question about what is the value added of the central office. I don't mean this as an ad hominem comment (aimed at UC President Jack W. Peltason and his statewide staff) but as a general observation.
"A research university (like UCLA) is very complex, for a lot of important reasons. As much as people might want to whine about it, shared governance (consulting widely with faculty, staff, students and others before making key decisions) is essential. It's difficult, it's time-consuming, but I don't know any great universities that don't practice it. But the value of an added layer of complexity from the statewide administration is questionable."
Young said he agreed with many of the criticisms made by former UC Regent Harold Williams, who said, in farewell remarks to the Board of Regents last year that the university was drifting from crisis to crisis, without a long-range strategic plan.
Despite shrinking state financial support and increasing enrollment demand, "we have to maintain the (undergraduate) access that was promised in the Master Plan for Higher Education," Young said. "I believe we ought to take more undergraduates and cut back on some of the graduate programs. We are now turning away freshman applicants with 4.0 high school GPAs (grade point averages) while some graduate programs on other UC campuses are accepting students who couldn't begin to get into UCLA. That doesn't make sense."
Nor does he think it makes sense for each of the eight UC general campuses to try to develop across-the-board strength in all academic departments and professional schools.
"All should be research campuses but they don't all have to do everything," Young said. "There needs to be more specialization and more cooperation. We need to avoid duplication, especially at the graduate level, and take advantage of the fact that we are a system."
These comments will not be well received on developing UC campuses such as Davis, Irvine or Santa Cruz, but Young does not believe the financial resources, either public or private, will be available to develop each campus into a Berkeley or a UCLA.
As state and federal financial support decline (only 24 percent of UCLA's $1.6 billion 1993-94 operating budget came from the state, 12.3 percent from the federal government), he said, "we've got to get really thoughtful and persuasive about developing a policy that calls on students and their families to pay a little more than they have in the past, while at the same time we maintain, or even increase, access."
And he said the university needs a "new relationship with the state, perhaps a contract, in which we agree to provide quality education for those who meet the requirements in exchange for funding-not an appropriation but more a 'quid pro quo.'"
In these and other areas, Young believes, Peltason and other top UC administrators have been unwilling to disturb the status quo. Not only has this deprived the university of needed leadership, he said, but it has emboldened some members of the Board of Regents to try to take control.
"They see what's going on and they say, 'now is the time for us to take over this operation,' and boy, are they doing it," the chancellor said. "Some of them are into all kinds of administrative detail. You wouldn't believe the time that now goes into answering questions from the regents because they think they might be asked a question by some reporter."
He criticized some of Governor Pete Wilson's most recent regental appointees who, Young said, "equate being a member of the Board of Regents with being a member of the Public Utilities Commission. They talk about 'consumer complaints' all the time. They deal with the campus administration as just another constituency, like the faculty or the students. We're not just another constituency; we run the place. That doesn't mean they shouldn't listen to other people but they should give a certain amount of deference to the people they've hired to run these places."
Young, 63, who holds a Ph.D. in political science but has spent most of his career in administration, was named UCLA chancellor in September 1968. He is still the youngest person ever appointed to such a post, and has headed a major university longer than anyone else in the country.
Young has presided over UCLA's development into one of the nation's premier research universities (more than $350 million in research contracts and grants last year), and, at the same time, one with a racially diverse student body. Last fall, 57.4 percent of UCLA's 35,000 students were non-white, including 30.3 percent Asian American, 14.9 percent Latino and 6.2 percent African American.
He was a candidate to succeed UC President David P. Gardner, who resigned in 1991. But the regents deadlocked between Young and UC San Diego Chancellor Richard C. Atkinson, selecting Peltason as a compromise.
Now the board is seeking a replacement for Peltason, who has said he will leave by October 1. But Young is not thought to be in the running. "I wanted the job then but I don't now," he said.
Perhaps that has left him freer to express his opinions about the direction the University of California is taking. In any case, in recent months he has emerged as a vocal supporter of UC's affirmative action policies, taking on Ward Connerly, a Wilson-appointed African American regent who wants to abolish or drastically revise those policies.
Now Young has spoken out against regental interference in campus administrative matters and what he perceives to be a "don't rock the boat" mentality on the part of the UC statewide administration. Time will tell whether his voice, heard loud and clear in Los Angeles, will find an audience elsewhere in the state.