With UC Santa Barbara Chancellor Henry Yang stepping down after 30 years, the search is underway for the university's next leader.
Faculty and students say they want a chancellor who makes housing a priority, addresses the campus's aging infrastructure, and prioritizes academic freedom.
On Wednesday, UCSB students, staff, faculty and alumni got to share their priorities for the next chancellor at a series of virtual town halls with the Chancellor Search Advisory Committee and representatives from the UC Office of the President.
James Rawlings, a faculty member in the Chemical Engineering Department for the past six years, said housing is a top priority.
"I think a lot of what is going to limit us going forward, in terms of recruiting faculty, hiring outstanding staff, and even hiring the graduate students, is our shortage of housing," Rawlings said during the virtual town hall for faculty members.
He went on to say that more housing needs to be added quickly and that the new chancellor should prioritize budget transparency.
Omar Saleh, chair of the Materials Department, echoed the need for budget transparency and said that the next chancellor needs to be someone good at fundraising.
"If we have someone that is good at fundraising, we will be able to do things like build undergraduate housing, possibly help build staff housing," Saleh said. "The physical plant of many of our laboratories on the engineering side of campus is deteriorating. There's many new buildings that we've been waiting for for some time to carry out for an experimental space. All of these things are troublesome, and we need someone that has some experience with that."
Jennifer Holt, chair of the film and media studies department, expressed concern that there wasn't a representative from the Humanities and Fine Arts Division on the chancellor search committee.
Holt noted that the division is the largest in the College of Letters and Science and comprises 68% of UCSB faculty.
Pamela Wu, senior director of executive search and recruitment for the UC Office of the President, said that President Michael Drake took those concerns seriously but did not say if they would be adding a humanities representative to the search committee.
Currently there are faculty members from the theoretical physics department, Chicana and Chicano Studies, and chemical engineering. The search committee also includes UC regents, staff, alumni, and both graduate and undergraduate student representatives.
Dan Siddiqui, first senate president pro-tempore of the ASUCSB Senate, is the undergraduate representative on the search committee.
"It's an honor, it's one of the most exciting things I've done," Siddiqui said. "Just having the ability to represent over 20,000 people directly to decision makers and advocate for marginalized communities, for my communities, for students who are struggling, is an absolute honor and I'm truly humbled by it."
Siddiqui said students want a chancellor who will address the basic needs of students such as housing and food insecurity.
"The amount of students we're admitting are rising disproportionately in comparison to the amount of housing units we construct, and that's why we have a housing crisis," Siddiqui said.
He went on to say that the university knows it can save money by having students pay for tuition and not provide housing.
"Students want a chancellor who will put their foot down and solve the material issues, tackle over-enrollment, and find alternate streams of funding," Siddiqui said.
Siddiqui said the next chancellor should be someone who can bring in alternative forms of revenue and supplement the budget shortfall, and be transparent about how that revenue is spent.
"Someone who has the mindset and the intention of using that increased revenue on the things that we need, building more housing units, establishing more programs to address gaps and basic needs of food insecurity," Siddiqui said.
At the undergraduate and graduate student town hall on Wednesday, students echoed the need to have a chancellor who understands the school's housing crisis and listens to students' concerns about various campus issues.
Sarah Bacon, a graduate student at UCSB, said she wants the next chancellor to be approachable and available to students.
"I think that any leader in any role, and especially the chancellor of a university like ours, absolutely has to listen and have frequent encounters and engagements with that set of constituents, their students, and ensure that those needs are being represented and advocated in their own priorities," Bacon said.
Bacon also said she wants a leader who can help the university navigate through difficult times and budget shortfalls, as well as someone willing to explore starting a professional school such as a business, law or medical school.
The next chancellor is expected to be announced in the spring when the UC Regents, a governing board for the UC system, vote on who will take over for Chancellor Yang.
In the new year, the search committee will review candidate nominations, compile a list of candidates, interview candidates, and then recommend a list of semifinalists to President Drake, who will then make his recommendation to the UC Regents.
Members of the UCSB community can express what qualities they want to see in the next chancellor to the search committee by filling out this survey.