Spring 2005
What's at Stake
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A panel of community, academic and business leaders discuss UCLA's vital role in the state of California and the risks that the university faces from a widening resource gap

by David Greenwald
Illustration by Dan Page
Photos by Reed Hutchinson, UCLA Photographic Services

EVERYONE BY NOW HAS HEARD or read discussion about the decline in state support for public higher education and the critical funding gap that is confronting UCLA, and their implications for the university’s continuing ability to compete successfully with better-funded private institutions for top faculty, top students and critical research dollars. There are numerous initiatives under way to try to close that gap and to maintain UCLA’s place as a center for fresh ideas, dynamism, innovation and creativity, including Chancellor Albert Carnesale’s Ensuring Academic Excellence Initiative to raise $250 million over the next five years to help recruit and retain the very best faculty and graduate students in the nation.

Providing quality education to the state’s citizens is important, but why should the people of California care about the funding problems confronting UCLA when we are faced with so many other pressing issues? To answer that question, and to talk about the contributions of the university to California and the state’s citizens, UCLA Magazine brought together a group of business, community and academic leaders for a roundtable discussion.

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