President Drake answers employee questions at UC Town Hall

UC President Michael V. Drake held a systemwide UC Town Hall on Feb. 24.

In conversation with Priya Lakireddy, staff advisor, and Jo Mackness, staff advisor-designate to the UC Regents, Drake opened with his journey from UC student to UC San Francisco professor, to vice president for health affairs for the UC system to UC Irvine chancellor and finally, president of the UC system.

Drake discussed the values that guide him – respect, intellectual curiosity, integrity, commitment, empathy, appreciation and fun. “That's respect for yourself and respect for others,” he said, “intellectual curiosity, the interest in learning and teaching and discovering; integrity, making sure that you mean what you say and you say what you mean. I think that's really important to be committed, that's an important value to me, that your sleeves are rolled and you're leaning into the things that you're doing.”

As a physician, he said, “Empathy has always been an extraordinarily important value to me, to make sure to see it from the other person's point of view.”

For the university, appreciation for different life circumstances and points of view is important, he said.

He also encouraged fun. “The idea of the values is to do all of them at the same time,” Drake said. “To be all those things all the time, and to make sure you're having fun as you're doing it.”

Drake answered questions submitted by UC staff on budget, compensation equity, COVID-19, diversity, accountability, community safety, climate crisis, tuition and affirmative action.

On the pandemic, he noted with pride that UC employees have fewer hospitalizations, ICU admissions and fatalities due to COVID-19 than the average U.S. community.

In response to a question about remote work, he noted policies are designed to be flexible and supportive of colleagues. “There are differences in the way this is applied given the different circumstances that people live and work in across our system, and that's true and appropriate. We have agricultural and natural resources where you could be working on a farm, you could be working in a lab.” 

A recording of the town hall is on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/live/YJjawZG36YY?feature=share.

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