Chancellor Julio Frenk shared this message with Bruin students.
Dear Bruin Students:
Welcome to a new academic year at UCLA. Whether you are arriving on campus for the first time, joining us as a transfer student, or returning for another year, you are an important part of this university. This fall, we welcome approximately 10,770 first-year and transfer students to our Bruin community. Each of you brings your own experiences and aspirations, and each of you will help shape UCLA in the year ahead.
You are part of a community that is proudly diverse and purposefully inclusive. I hope you will find ways to connect with one another and to the broader community around you — including through Volunteer Day this Saturday and the many opportunities throughout the year to give back to our campus, our city and our world. We all want to be part of something bigger than ourselves. At UCLA, you have that opportunity.
We live in a time of high connectivity, but very little connection. Technology allows us to reach one another instantly, yet meaningful connection still requires something more: listening, curiosity, empathy and a willingness to be present with one another.
That is especially important at a university. UCLA brings together people who may see the world very differently, but who share a place, a community and a common purpose. The world around us is changing at an unprecedented pace, but our shared mission as a community remains the same: to educate, discover, create, heal and serve society. It is the enduring foundation of who we are.
I hope you will carry that sense of purpose with you throughout the year — in the classroom and the laboratory, in the arts and on the playing fields, in your student organizations and in the ways you contribute to the broader community. Stay curious. Stay connected. And remember that the relationships you build here may be among the most lasting parts of your UCLA experience.
We are One UCLA.
Sincerely,
Julio Frenk
Chancellor