LOS ANGELES—Dr. Julio Frenk, a global health expert and current president of the University of Miami, was named June 12 the next chancellor of UCLA, making him the first Latino to lead the Westwood university in its history.
Dr. Frenk will take over the job on Jan. 1, 2025, succeeding Gene Block, who is stepping down on July 31. UCLA Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost Darnell Hunt will serve as interim chancellor until Dr. Frenk arrives.
“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,” Dr. Frenk said in a 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.”
Dr. Frenk will take over a campus that has been roiled in recent weeks by pro-Palestinian protests. Mr. Block has come under fire both on campus and from as far away as Washington, D.C., over the university’s response to a pro-Palestinian encampment and other protests sparked by the Israel-Hamas war that have occurred in the past few months.
Dr. Frenk—whose father and grandfather were Jews who fled Germany in the 1930s to Mexico to escape growing antisemitism—acknowledged the issues facing the university, and institutes of higher education nationwide.
“I consider myself a boundary spanner and a bridge builder,” Dr. Frenk said. “And I know that the strength of institutions of higher learning—socially, academically and intellectually—comes from their diversity and from a willingness to cross boundaries. ...
“I do think that we’re at a critical moment in higher education. There has been an erosion of trust in institutions in general, including higher education institutions. The biggest challenge for us is to reaffirm our value to society—we have to constantly earn that trust. But the opportunity is huge.”
The University of California Board of Regents approved Dr. Frenk’s selection during a special meeting Wednesday at UCLA. UC President Dr. Michael Drake hailed the choice.
“Dr. Frenk has demonstrated a powerful commitment to the health and well-being of people, institutions, and systems around the world,” Drake said. “His leadership will build on the growth and strength the campus has achieved under Chancellor Block and accelerate UCLA’s brilliant trajectory in service to Los Angeles, the nation, and the world.”
Mr. Block also praised the choice of his successor.
“Dr. Frenk is an excellent choice to take up UCLA’s chancellorship,” Mr. 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.”
Dr. Frenk, 70, will earn a base salary of $978,904.
Dr. Frenk served as Mexico’s Federal Secretary of Health from 2000 to 2006 and was credited with overhauling the nation’s health system and expanding care to millions of uninsured people. He also founded the National Institute of Public Health in Mexico. He also previously held an executive position with the World Health Organization and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. From 2009-2015, Dr. Frenk served as the dean of faculty at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
He took over as University of Miami president in January 2016.
After stepping down, Mr. Block will remain a member of the UCLA faculty. He intends to return to the lab and continue his research as a member of the Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences within the David Geffen School of Medicine and in the Department of Integrative Biology and Physiology within the UCLA College.
“As I near the end of my time as UCLA’s chancellor—a role that remains the greatest honor of my professional life—I am filled with many emotions, but above all an overwhelming gratitude for every person who has made the UCLA community so special,” Mr. Block wrote in a message to the campus community last week “So in closing, I want to simply offer you my thanks. Thank you for your dedication, creativity, resolve and commitment to excellence. Thank you for the compassion, respect and support you have shown one another. Thank you for carrying out our university’s important mission, and thank you for representing the very best of public higher education.
“At UCLA, even in dark times there is still so, so much light,” he wrote.
Mr. Block noted in his message that the war in Gaza has “sown division and strife here on campus,” even leading to instances of “outright violence.”
“The war’s impact on our campus reached a crescendo in the last six weeks, and this period now looms large in UCLA’s collective consciousness,” according to Mr. Block. “I do not wish to downplay the anxiety people continue to feel, or the significant healing that we will need to do. I do believe, though, that it is important to remember that our university, our community and this academic year are not defined solely by our current, difficult chapter.”
That strife has continued to percolate on the UCLA campus, with another day of pro-Palestinian protest on Monday culminating in another large-scale police response and more than two dozen arrests.
Dr. Frenk will inherit a campus filled with unrest. A massive encampment that grew in the center of campus in mid-April was allegedly attacked by a still-unidentified group of counter-protesters, sparking hours of violence. The next night, hundreds of police dismantled the encampment, making 209 arrests.
That action has been followed by accusations of unfair labor practices by unionized employees, demands for amnesty for those arrested, a congressional inquiry into the campus’ response to antisemitism, lawsuits accusing the university of failing to protect Jewish students and accusations by protesters of excessive force by campus police and interference with free-speech rights.
The university’s commencement ceremonies begin Friday, with departmental ceremonies planned throughout the weekend. It was unclear if those events will be disrupted by additional protests, as pro-Palestinian activists continue to demand that the university divest from all businesses tied to Israel.
“The final few days of spring are a period of excitement and anticipation as we prepare to send off a new class of UCLA graduates,” Mr. Block wrote in his message last week. “Reaching this milestone is a significant accomplishment at any time, but it is especially meaningful for many of this year’s undergraduates, whose senior year of high school was disrupted by the pandemic and who were not able to participate in their schools’ typical graduation ceremonies.”
When Mr. Block announced his plans last year to step down as chancellor, UCLA highlighted Mr. Block’s key achievements during his tenure, including UCLA ranking as the No. 1 public university for six years running—up from No. 4 when he joined the university.
Mr. Block increased student enrollment by 24 percent, while the university became the first and only UC school to guarantee housing for undergrad students and built 15 residential buildings, according to UCLA.
Mr. Block also successfully steered the university through the pandemic.
He has praised the university’s research skills that delivered five Nobel Prizes in 10 years, and nearly doubled external annual research funding, according to UCLA.
Last year, the university launched UCLA South Bay on 35.5 acres on the Palos Verdes Peninsula, and UCLA Downtown, a high-rise building in downtown Los Angeles.
