Our Four-Point Plan for a Safer, Stronger UCLA

Campus ClimateCampus Update

Interim Chancellor Hunt shared this message with the Bruin community:

Dear Bruin Community:

When I began my tenure as interim chancellor last month, I shared that many members of our community had been spending the summer assessing UCLA’s policies and processes related to free speech and campus safety, developing new initiatives to promote dialogue and well-being, enhancing efforts to combat discrimination in all its forms, and establishing plans to help Bruins rebuild connections following a challenging spring. 

Today I write to share a framework for the programs and operational changes we will be putting into place, which I am calling our Four-Point Plan for a Safer, Stronger UCLA. 

The plan — which we are introducing today, but which you’ll hear more about in the weeks ahead — focuses on:

1. Enhancing community safety and well-being;
2. Fostering a culture of engagement, learning and dialogue across difference;
3. Promoting freedom of expression in line with University of California and campus policies; and 
4. Continuing to evaluate and improve how we support our diverse community. 

At the heart of the effort is a commitment to inclusive excellence — the recognition that UCLA’s diversity gives our university and its community great strength. As a campus that promotes inclusive excellence, we must protect the ability for Bruins of all backgrounds and identities to feel safe, welcome, respected and able to participate fully in campus life. We may not always see eye-to-eye on important and topical issues, but if we engage one another with respect and empathy, we can both grow as people and maintain a healthy academic environment for everyone. 

Below, I offer a summary of the components of our four-point plan as well as some of our initial efforts in each area.

1. Enhancing community safety and well-being

The first of the four parts of our plan focuses on safety and well-being — because each of us must first feel safe if we are to focus on learning and working.

This past spring, on the heels of several incidents of violence related to demonstration activity on campus, we created the Office of Campus Safety in recognition of the fact that UCLA urgently needed a senior officer, reporting directly to the chancellor, dedicated to holistically coordinating our campus safety efforts. Oversight and management of our policing operations and emergency management programs moved to this office.

I am grateful to Rick Braziel who, with just a few days’ notice, stepped into the newly established leadership role to help address several immediate needs: managing UCLA’s response to major demonstrations in the final weeks of the spring quarter and ensuring that we could hold the commencement ceremonies our students and their families deserved. Braziel also initiated a review of UCLA’s safety protocols and police response to the events of last spring — which I will share with you when it is available. 

Moving forward, while the Office of Campus Safety will continue to address safety issues related to campus demonstrations, it will have an adjusted and expanded charge. Incorporating guidance from recent reports on campus safety developed at both the systemwide and campus levels, the office will coordinate and enhance UCLA’s safety efforts across all areas, implementing approaches that take into account the varied perspectives and lived experiences of all those who make up our diverse community.

Priorities for Office of Campus Safety leadership are to continue meeting with and listening to members of the campus to gain additional perspectives on policing and community safety; help our leadership team continue to improve policies and procedures for addressing potentially dangerous situations on campus; strengthen systems for notifying the campus when emergencies arise; and educate our community about our safety practices.

UCLA must be a place where we address community safety concerns effectively and fairly, and the Office of Campus Safety, with its expanded charge, will play a central role in making this so. Yet beyond safety, I also want to acknowledge that UCLA’s sense of community and our trust in one another have been damaged by the events of the last year. We must repair these things. Another aspect of this first part of the plan will entail community healing and rebuilding efforts led by Student Affairs; the Office of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion; and the Semel Healthy Campus Initiative Center. You will be hearing more about these efforts directly from the leaders of these organizations in the coming months. 

2. Fostering a culture of engagement, learning and dialogue across difference

In a diverse community such as ours, part of our learning and growth comes from engagement with viewpoints we may not agree with or readily understand. While this may be uncomfortable, it is also what helps us deepen our thinking, weigh different approaches and consider new ways of looking at an issue. Ultimately, it advances truth, knowledge and understanding.

A precursor to such engagement is seeing one another as real people shaped by complex backgrounds and experiences — not as simple stereotypes. That is why UCLA provides anti-discrimination training for our employees and students. Last fall, approximately 90% of new students voluntarily took the training; it is our goal to have 100% of incoming students participate this year.

Not only must we recognize one another’s humanity, we must also learn to engage respectfully. In line with this, UCLA is substantially expanding its Dialogue across Difference (DaD) initiative, which will now move under the banner of UCLA’s Bedari Kindness Institute. Sady and Ludwig Kahn Professor of Jewish History David Myers, who leads the DaD initiative, has been named director of the institute. 

New DaD programs beginning this fall include a speaker series called Compassionate Conversations, where experts from campus and beyond will engage in challenging but empathetic conversations on topical issues. The first event is on Nov. 13 featuring Dr. Yasmeen Abu Fraiha, a fellow with the Middle East Initiative at Harvard’s Kennedy School. Additionally, Speaking Across Conflict Workshops will be offered to Bruins to delve deeper into a core skill for having more constructive conversations across charged political differences. A UCLA staff and faculty workshop will be held on Oct. 9 and a student workshop on Oct. 25. These workshops use the methodology of nationally recognized nonprofit Resetting the Table.

DaD is also planning an expanded facilitator training program to help academic and administrative units build up a bench of facilitators to manage interpersonal conflicts, a new student internship program and a teaching fellows program featuring 16 faculty from across campus who will share the principles of effective dialogue with their academic colleagues. You may sign up for updates about these programs from the Bedari Kindness Institute, and I have asked leadership of the institute to share information about upcoming offerings and to keep you apprised of DaD’s progress. 

These campuswide efforts add to those happening within our schools and individual units. For instance, the David Geffen School of Medicine has partnered with an L.A.-based community organization, NewGround: A Muslim-Jewish Partnership for Change, to conduct workshops in engaging across difference. The UCLA Library hosts community-building sessions for its employees and offers dedicated processing circles that allow colleagues with a range of perspectives to connect with one another through shared values. And UCLA’s First Year Experience program has chosen the book The War for Kindness — focused on how we build up our capacity for empathy — as the common experience for all incoming students to read. 

3. Promoting freedom of expression in line with University of California and campus policies

We lift up the free expression of ideas as fundamental to UCLA’s academic mission and to the search for truth. Aside from an institutional value, it is also a right: As a public university, UCLA is barred by the Constitution from prohibiting speech or other forms of expression based on the viewpoint of the speaker. 

While we support the ability of our community members to make their voices heard, UCLA — and all other universities — also maintains policies that govern how to host events on campus and when, where and how community members can express themselves, called Time, Place and Manner (TPM) policies. These policies are designed to allow community members to express themselves and use UCLA properties in ways that do not jeopardize community safety or disrupt the functioning of the university.

UCLA’s TPM policies have been updated to comply with directives recently issued by the University of California to all 10 UC campuses, and were shared with the community earlier this week. Members of the campus may provide feedback on the new policies during the 60-day comment period. At the start of the academic year, I will share with you additional information and relevant policies related to free expression at UCLA. 

4. Continuing to evaluate and improve how we support our diverse community 

The last component of our four-point plan for a safer, stronger UCLA is a commitment to continuous improvement in our policies, protocols and actions. UCLA is a spectacular place, but it is by no means perfect. When challenges arise, we must prioritize reviews of our systems and approaches, and then make improvements based on those reviews.

At present, the University of California and UCLA’s Office of Campus Safety are each reviewing the university’s safety protocols and police response to the events of the spring. In addition to its regular work enforcing UC’s anti-discrimination policies, the UCLA Civil Rights Office is conducting a review of reports of antisemitism and anti-Arab or Islamophobic discrimination and harassment that may have interfered with students’ abilities to access the university’s educational programs and activities under the systemwide Anti-Discrimination Policy. 

A commitment to rigorously studying the challenges we have faced and how we have addressed them — and making changes based on those findings — is essential if UCLA is to best serve its important academic mission and meet the needs of its students, faculty and staff. I make this commitment to all of you.

This fall, I invite each of you to consider how you can help foster a healthy academic community and to engage with the numerous initiatives and programs that will be rolled out as part of our Four-Point Plan for a Safer, Stronger UCLA. By investing in efforts that advance safety, respect and mutual understanding, my great hope is that UCLA can continue to be a model of inclusive excellence and a place where every Bruin — regardless of background or identity — is able to thrive.

Sincerely,