Chancellor Block's Inaugural Address

If you have seventeen minutes, it's worth taking a look. After all, as cheesy as it sounds, we do own UCLA. Here's the new CEO.

Daily Bruin columnist, and friend of Bruin Dems, Matias Ramos has some interesting commentary on Block's inauguration. He challenges Block to take on Sacramento in defense of UCLA students.

Our school does have a lot to offer a chancellor. The salary is good, the weather nice, the chancellor residence spiffy – and chances are you will get a building named after you, just like past chancellors and provosts Franklin Murphy, Vern Knudsen, Clarence Dykstra, Earle Hedrick and Earnest Moore have.

But aside from being automatic public figures, chancellors can also be public advocates in the political realm. UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert Birgeneau set an example when he authored an opinion piece in support of the California DREAM Act last year.

The fact that he was willing to defy the opinion of Gov. Schwarzenegger meant that the welfare of the students was his priority, beyond any type of political commitments. With ongoing concerns about the enrollment of historically underrepresented students, fee hikes and campus safety, Block will have plenty of opportunities to make a student issue his own.