UCLA's Longtime Chancellor Gene Block Is Retiring. Here's Where He Succeeded And Fell Short

Before taking the top leadership post at UCLA, Gene Block made a name for himself as a neurobiologist with an expertise in biological clocks — how bodies regulate being awake and asleep during night and day.

On Thursday, however, Block was at the center of a different cycle: He said he will step down as chancellor of UCLA, effective July 2024.

“This decision was by no means an easy one,” Block wrote in an email to UCLA students and employees. “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.”

Block’s legacy

In a written statement, UCLA said Block helped the university increase enrollment, guarantee student housing, raise its national and regional profile, and nearly doubled university research funding.

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UCLA faculty and students agree with some of the praise, but also say Block fell short at times.

“I am especially pleased by the initiatives launched to address the need for increased faculty and student diversity and a more diverse [administration],” said Belinda Tucker, UCLA professor emerita of psychiatry and biobehavioral sciences who has researched Black family relationships.

During Block’s tenure many UCLA students and faculty engaged in the national conversations about race. Some faculty praised the chancellor for striking the right tone at times of conflict, such as the 2020 George Floyd protests. When LAPD used the school's Jackie Robinson stadium to process arrests of protesters, Block said the administration was "nothing short of outraged."

“His responses seemed to be from a place of honest concern and clear opinion and not just the wordsmithing from a corporate communications professional,” said UCLA psychology researcher Edward Dunbar.

“I think this sensitivity set an important tone for our students, to realize some persons in positions of power took the moral responsibility of their roles seriously,” Dunbar said.

Other faculty praised Block for elevating faculty from underrepresented communities to university leadership positions.

In 2019 UCLA installed professor Mishuana Goeman as the first Special Advisor to the Chancellor on Native American and Indigenous Affairs. The tribal relations position has led to cooperation with the area Gabrielino tribe. Last year Block promoted renowned UCLA Black scholar Darnell Hunt to the university’s top academic job.

Faculty constraints

Campus growth has led to a need for more instructors. In the last 10 years the number of faculty lecturers — part-time instructors who are not provided the benefits and security of tenured faculty — has risen 44% at UCLA, compared with 25% in the entire UC system.

A six-week strike by workers at UCLA and other campuses underlined that the university has fallen short of raising wages and working conditions for all employees.

“The biggest, gargantuan, and most massive thorn is that UCLA is a bureaucratic nightmare and the UAW strike only served to exacerbate that,” said UCLA public health researcher Jennifer Wagman. She praised Block, though, for increased campus funding to support faculty-led research on social justice, racism, and fighting discrimination and hatred.

Some of Wagman’s students took Block and UCLA leadership to task for falling short in supporting survivors of sexual violence. And about a decade into Block's tenure a UCLA gynecologist was arrested for sexual assault after women said the campus ignored complaints.

UCLA said Block plans to stay on campus to resume his neurobiology research.