By Brenda Fernanda Verano | CALO News | Jun. 14, 2024 | Photo Courtesy of David Esquivel
A Latino born in Mexico City will lead the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), of which 21% of its undergraduate population is Latino and nearly one-third of those who earn bachelor’s degrees at the university are first-generation students.
On Wednesday morning, the UC Board of Regents announced that Julio José Frenk Mora, also known as Dr. Julio Frenk, will soon become the university’s first Latino chancellor in its 105-year history.
The 70-year-old will be taking on the internal administration, operation, financial management and discipline of the institution beginning in January 2025.
Michael Vincent Drake, president of the University of California system, said Frenk’s leadership would build on the growth and strength the campus has already achieved. “Dr. Frenk is an excellent choice to take up UCLA’s chancellorship,” Block said in a statement. “He is widely respected across academia and well-known as an exceptional thinker, an administrator of considerable ability and a brilliant public health leader. UCLA is in great hands, and I am certain that our university’s star will rise even higher under him.”
Frenk, who will be the seventh chancellor of the public university, is a Mexican physician and sociologist. Currently, he is president of the University of Miami, a position that he has held since 2015. At the University of Miami, he also made history by becoming the first Latino and native Spanish-speaking president.
From 2009 to 2015, Frenk was the dean of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health at Harvard University and a professor of public health and international development at Harvard Kennedy School.
The appointment of the new chancellor comes amidst the current nationwide Gaza solidarity occupation on the UCLA campus, which was one of the first Los Angeles-based universities to participate in the National Student’s Justice for Palestine’s (SJP) University for Gaza movement.
On Monday night, just two days before Frenk was announced as chancellor, police arrested 27 protesters in support of the Palestinians after declaring the demonstration and set up of the campus encampment as “illegal.”
Protestors were arrested and cited for willful disruption of university operations, with one cited for interfering with an officer. They were issued 14-day orders to stay away from the Bruin’s campus.
According to UCLA police, any student arrested could face disciplinary action.
Frenk has not talked about the arrests or campus protests but he did say he has always considered himself “a boundary-spanner.”
“At this crucial moment for higher education, returning to the public sector to lead one of the top research universities in the world — including one of the 10 largest academic health systems — is an exciting opportunity and a great honor for me,” Frenk said in the school’s statement. “I look forward to adding my lifelong commitment to public service in education and health care to the vibrant, diverse and cosmopolitan community that is Los Angeles.”
The search for a new chancellor began in August 2023 when UCLA’s current Chancellor, Gene Block, announced his plans to step down at the end of July 2024.
“It is with bittersweet feelings, then, that I write to share that I have decided to step down from the role at the end of the coming academic year. This decision was by no means an easy one. But I have the greatest confidence in UCLA’s future, and I feel that the time is right — for me, for my family and for our campus,“ he said at the time.
Shortly after, Drake announced the formation of a search advisory committee, composed of UC regents, university faculty, staff, students, alumni and UCLA Foundation representatives that would support the international search for UCLA’s next chancellor.
Between July and January, UCLA Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost Darnell Hunt will serve as interim chancellor, UCLA announced.
Frank, whose father and grandfather were Jews, fled Germany in the 1930s to Mexico to escape growing antisemitism. After receiving his medical degree from the National University of Mexico in 1979, Frenk attended the University of Michigan, where he earned a Master’s in public health in 1981, a master’s in sociology in 1982, and a joint doctorate in medical care organization and sociology in 1983.
From 2000 to 2006, Frenk also served as Mexico’s secretary of health, during which he worked to reform the nation’s health system alongside Vicente Fox Quesada, the 62nd president of Mexico.
Frenk, who will soon be relocating to L.A., will earn a base salary of $978,904 as chancellor.
