Wilkening Names 1st UCI Latino Vice Chancellor

Manuel Gomez, a UC Irvine administrator, published poet and former student counselor, will become the university’s first Latino vice chancellor, officials announced Friday.

Gomez, 48, was appointed vice chancellor of student services for two years. A confirmation vote by the Board of Regents is set for March 17.

Chancellor Laurel L. Wilkening appointed Gomez for an interim term because filling the post permanently would have required a lengthy search process, she said. Current vice chancellor Horace Mitchell will step down on April 1 to take a post at UC Berkeley.

Gomez’s appointment coincides with a call from Wilkening to examine departments that deal with student services, from financial aid to housing.

“We have too much fragmentation in our administration,” Wilkening said in an interview. “The students said it doesn’t work as it should.”

UC campuses also face continued pressure to shrink their budgets. A task force that examined UCI’s structure last year recommended that the university consider streamlining student services.

A team of UCI employees and students will send out surveys to students to find out which services they value and get suggestions for improvement.

“If people identify something as non-usable, we’ll get rid of it,” Wilkening said.

Administrators said no immediate staff cuts are expected, but Executive Vice Chancellor Sidney Golub said that if two people in different departments are found to be doing similar jobs, their jobs will be merged.

“It’s got to be more cost-effective,” Golub said.

Gomez, who currently is associate vice chancellor for academic affairs, said he welcomes the challenge of heading a consolidated organization.

“As we enter the last five years of the 20th Century, we are entering an uncertain time. We must direct our resources where they’ll most certainly foster our growth,” he said

He said he is anticipating a pilot project in 1996 that will allow students to apply to UCI electronically through the Internet, and expects “1990s students” to use new educational technology.

Gomez joined UCI in 1972 as associate director of the Office of Relations with Schools and Colleges and Educational Opportunity Program. He serves as executive director of the California Alliance for Minority Participation in the Sciences.

Gomez, who writes poems in Spanish and English, also has published two anthologies of poetry.

He received his bachelor’s degree in history from Cal State Hayward and master’s degree in social ecology from UCI, and is pursuing a doctorate in educational policy and research at USC.

Gomez lives in Irvine with his wife, Genet Chavez-Gomez, and their two children, Maya and Tomas.