UC Davis administrators are considering creating a new senior leadership position to help the campus meet the challenges of a growing and diverse population and improve relations between faculty, staff and students.

The position, with a proposed title of associate executive vice chancellor for campus community relations, would be a focal point for discussion about the changing campus climate, said Jerry Hallee, assistant executive vice chancellor. The new associate executive vice chancellor would report directly to the chancellor and provost and serve as an adviser on campus community-relations issues.

The person in the job would be charged with overseeing initiatives aimed at creating and maintaining "a campus climate that is welcoming, comfortable and supportive for all campus community members," according to "A Proposal for a Campus Community Relations Senior Leadership Position" that top administrators are reviewing.

Among the job’s proposed responsibilities is diversity training, currently overseen by the vice provost for academic personnel.

The position is a melding of ideas originally proposed in the five-year admin-

istrative unit review and later refined by the Council of Deans and Vice Chancellors. A final decision on the proposed position will be made next month.

"We need to think more broadly about community and campus climate," said Hallee. "With the growth we anticipate and the diversity that we would expect to go along with that growth, the feeling was that we really need for someone to be thinking full time about the campus climate and the community."

Carol Miller, senior administrative analyst and chair of the Affirmative Action Unit Coordinators, said the new position would "help keep diversity in the conversation and help senior managers look at the broader aspects of what goes on in the institution.

"It’s really at the forefront," she said. "It’s a work in progress, something very new and on the cutting edge for us."

In suggesting the creation of the new associate executive vice chancellor position, the "Proposal for a Campus Community Relations Senior Leadership Position" cites a number of "quality-of-life" issues that it says will need to be addressed:

• "an economic circumstance that compels many of our employees and students to live in communities other than Davis";

• "increasingly difficult access to affordable, quality child care";

• "the need to recapture the working relationships and civility among staff, faculty, administrators and students."

"We would expect the individual to help the campus chart a course that will ensure attention to those components of our social environment that affect community, diversity and inclusiveness," the proposal states. "To do so will require the collaboration of the campus leadership; the cooperation of campus units that now focus on recruitment, development and retention of staff and faculty; services that mediate differences between individuals and groups and programming units with a focus upon community and diversity, etc."

The suggested assignments for the new associate executive vice chancellor include:

• identifying strategies to improve relations among faculty, staff, administrators and students;

• assessing how various campus groups work together "to promote community and diversity";

• developing and implementing a strategic plan, embodying UC Davis’ "Principles of Community," that will "serve as our blueprint for the first decades of the 21st century";

• participating in such campus initiatives as planning for housing, transportation, staff/faculty support services, employee benefits and human resources programs;

• and working with city and county leaders on community and diversity issues.

But because the "specific responsibilities are much more difficult to describe than for most senior-level positions," the proposal notes–and both Hallee and Miller strongly agree–that the key to the new job will be selecting the right person.

"It will be a difficult position and will take a very strong leader to make it work," Miller said. "It will take someone who can work with the other equally strong leaders on campus."

Miller said that direct access to the chancellor and the provost would give the person chosen for the job the credibility he or she needs to bring people from around the campus together.

"We have a lot of really good, committed people here," she said, "but the addition of this position will serve as a coordinating office, a direct conduit to the highest levels of administration. It’s an opportunity to bring together a lot of the good work that is now going on and to bring in new things, too."

Hallee said whoever assumes the job will need to be a skilled communicator because he or she will be speaking not only to campus members but to surrounding communities as well.

"I think everyone does understand that for the position to be effective that person will have to play a role in the local community, in Davis and in Yolo County," he said. "They will be establishing relationships with people in government and with community organizations and be an advocate for the campus.

"That person is going to make this position–they’re going to have a great deal to say about how this position functions on campus. We are a very large campus and we’re getting larger. We need to be thinking about how to improve the climate overall–what can the campus do to make certain we’re doing everything we can to be a welcoming place."