Establishing the Office of Strategic Communications

Campus Update

Chancellor Block sent the following message to the UCLA campus community.

I am pleased to announce that effective today, University Communications and Public Outreach, which had formerly resided in External Affairs, will become a separate division in my administration called the Office of Strategic Communications.

Communications is an increasingly dynamic and important field, with rapid technological advances affecting the way we receive and consume information. This realignment will help us meet the challenges of an environment that demands we become increasingly nimble and responsive.

Over the past year, we have carefully reviewed how our peer institutions approach communications; that process affirmed this is the right decision for UCLA. A search for the leader of this team will begin soon and the heads of the departments that currently constitute university communications — Marketing, Media Relations, Executive Communications, Public Outreach, and Special Events and Protocol — will remain in place. Visit the Strategic Communications website to learn more about each unit and contact its director.

I firmly believe that this new structure will enable us to respond even more effectively to the demands of 24-hour news cycles and social media. It will also allow us to even better coordinate communications across our campus, as we work to tell UCLA’s story, conveying the breadth and depth of all the remarkable work that our students, staff and faculty do.

It is my expectation that these changes will allow us to best serve the interests of the entire university community.