As part of a multifront approach to ensuring perpetual excellence, Chancellor Carnesale launches an ambitious $250-million initiative to secure the best faculty and graduate students

Illustration by Ann Zumwinkle

UCLA faces a number of critical challenges. Financial support from the State of California has been decreasing and, at the same time, there is increasing competition from within academe itself as the nation's top universities vie aggressively for the best faculty and students. In such an environment, world-class public institutions like UCLA have found themselves sliding farther behind better-funded elite private institutions such as Harvard, Princeton, Stanford and MIT in their ability to offer competitive incentives to attract the best of the best.

As part of UCLA's broad approach to address these competitiveness challenges, Chancellor Albert Carnesale has announced an ambitious plan to raise $250 million over the next five years to help recruit from among the very top faculty and graduate students in the nation. Among the goals of the Ensuring Academic Excellence initiative is to raise $100 million to fund 100 new endowed chairs for the recruitment and retention of professors across campus, $100 million to fund fellowships and scholarships in the UCLA College and $50 million for fellowships and scholarships in UCLA's professional schools. This would provide additional aid for up to 3,500 students a year.

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