Well Wishes at the End of an Eventful Academic Year

Campus Update

Chancellor Block shared the following message with the UCLA campus community.

Dear Bruin Community:

With the academic year drawing to a close, I write to thank you for your hard work over many long months, to send well wishes to our students studying for finals, and to offer my hope that every member of our community will be able to find some time for rest and rejuvenation this summer. 

I also wish to offer some reflections on where we have been this year — and where we are going in the future.

This was UCLA’s first full year without COVID-19–related interruptions, and it was a significant one for our institution. Notably, we took a major step towards extending our impact across the region with the largest land expansion in UCLA’s history: the acquisition of the UCLA South Bay campus and the UCLA South Bay Villas. Additionally, among other efforts, we established the UCLA Affordability Initiative to bring down the cost of attending our university, opened our comprehensive Basic Needs Center to help students access critical resources and services, made progress towards becoming a Hispanic-Serving Institution, reorganized our teaching and learning enterprise, and launched the Faculty Forward initiative to better support scholars who have been historically underrepresented in academia. 

It was also a year of celebration, in which we notched two NCAA national championships, commemorated 100 years of Black Greek life at UCLA, completed a transformation of the Hammer Museum that was two decades in the making, and reconnected town and gown through our First Thursdays block parties.

Meanwhile, UCLA scholars continued to respond to pressing social issues — as evidenced by the Initiative to Study Hate, whose 23 projects across the disciplines will help us better understand and combat discrimination. Our researchers led the way in new areas of study, such as how microbial organisms in the gastrointestinal tract relate to body and brain health, the focus of the new Goodman–Luskin Microbiome Center. UCLA Health clinicians, for their part, continued to develop innovative and effective ways to support health and wellness; as just one example, the Homeless Healthcare Collaborative will significantly expand its street medicine program with the support of a $25.3 million grant from the state.

This is an astounding array of successes, and yet it represents just a sampling of all that our community has achieved in the past year. UCLA’s staff, faculty and students played the central parts in these efforts and many others — so thank you, sincerely, for all you have done to deepen our university’s impact.

I am certain that the coming year will be similarly momentous, especially as we finalize our campus strategic plan, which will lay out a vision and guiding principles for UCLA for the next five years. This effort will ensure that our campus can reach its full potential, continuing to widen the doors of opportunity, push the boundaries of knowledge, serve our communities effectively, and support the health and vitality of one of the most dynamic and diverse cities in the world. 

The last few days of spring are a wonderful time of year at UCLA, with energy and excitement in the air as we prepare to send off a new class of graduates. If you are able, I urge you to join or tune in virtually to our upcoming commencement ceremonies, or simply to spend time walking around campus and taking in the exuberance of this moment. Times like these offer a welcome reminder of the incredible impact our university has upon the lives of those we serve.

Thank you again for all that you do for our institution, and please take good care this summer.

Fiat Lux!

Sincerely,