This week the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) took a gain at Harvard's expense. We are of course referring to University Provost Albert Carnesale's decision to accept the California university's chancellorship and resign as Provost.

Carnesale has been at Harvard for 23 years and has served the University in multiple capacities including Dean of the Kennedy School, Provost and acting President--at one time, all three simultaneously. He has played a major role in the administration's effort to bring distant parts of the University together, including working with President Neil L. Rudenstine to create five inter-faculty initiatives. In addition, Carnesale has kept the central administration's budget down, keeping its growth rate lower than the rate of inflation in the economy.

While this has earned Carnesale the reputation of a budget hawk, he has been instrumental in the University's fundraising endeavors and the efficient reorganization of such University offices as the Office of Information Technology. Carnesale is known to be a no-nonsense administrator and commanding figure who, according to R. Bruce Donoff, dean of the School of Dental Medicine, becomes involved with the issues he needs to deal with.

After thwarting and finally negotiating with the Harvard Union of Clerical and Technical Workers for most of this academic year, Carnesale will have his hands full with another union at UCLA--the Student Association of Graduate Employees, a union that represents teaching assistants, readers, tutors and research assistants. In addition, he will be faced with budget cuts being made by the state of California and his self-proclaimed task of bringing UCLA up to the standard of the "best universities in the world."

Carnesale will certainly be bringing enough experience and know-how to Los Angeles to deal with the problems facing the comparatively enormous UCLA (35,000 undergrads as compared with Harvard's 6,400). And though we are sorry to lose his leadership here, we wish him the best of luck in Los Angeles County.