Humanities staff veteran shares secrets to success for building a UCLA career

Sean Brenner | August 21, 2024

When the fall quarter gets underway, Laura Clennon will begin her 19th year as a UCLA staff member.

In those nearly two decades, through a variety of job titles and departments — all in the Humanities Division — she has picked up a briefcase full of advice from mentors and colleagues, and job skills she never figured she’d acquire.

Drawing from her experience, here are five tips for forging a successful career as a UCLA staff member.

Value variety. In Clennon’s first campus job, she assisted four department and section chairs — all at the same time — essentially a crash course in how to work with diverse personalities. The variations even extended to her bosses’ communication styles: “There was one chair who was always emailing me from his BlackBerry, and another who came over to my office three or four times a day,” she said.

Beyond that, Clennon took advantage of the chance to get her feet wet on a variety of job skills. “I got an introduction to UCLA’s financial system, and procurement; I worked on faculty searches and learned about academic personnel,” she said. All of those experiences would provide a foundation for her success in her following positions.

Mentors matter. For her next act, Clennon moved to the Dodd Humanities Group, where she took a position as fund manager, despite not having a formal background in accounting. “There, I was super lucky to have a really good manager, Carlene Brown, who was probably the best boss I’ve had in terms of developing people.”

For example, Brown empowered Clennon to determine the best way to build the Dodd group’s fund management infrastructure. “She let me create systems and processes in the way I wanted to, and really gave me a lot of freedom — but she was also great at providing guidance and coaching.”

Embrace big challenges. Clennon became manager of the philosophy department in 2015. Three years later, the department was the primary beneficiary of a $25 million gift from Jordan and Christine Kaplan and Jordan’s business partner, Ken Panzer.

Deciding how to spend an eight-figure sum might sound like a fun problem to have. But the challenge was a significant one: Clennon knew that decisions about allocating the huge gift would affect generations of UCLA scholars.

“I got to work with our department chair, Seana Shiffrin [distinguished professor of philosophy and the Pete Kameron Professor of Law and Social Justice], and the philosophy faculty in planning how to use the money in a way that would be sustainable over the long haul,” Clennon said. “And we needed to show the donors our vision for how to use the money. So that was a challenge, because it was more money than I had ever dealt with before, but it was really exciting and interesting.”

Don’t be shy: Apply. Clennon said she got helpful advice from trusted colleagues before applying for both of her most recent jobs.

When the English department had a vacancy for department manager in 2019, Clennon was intrigued by the possibility of managing a larger organization, but she wavered about submitting her resume. She credits Reem Hanna-Harwell, assistant dean of UCLA Humanities, for encouraging her to give it a shot. “She told me ‘Applying isn’t a commitment to anything. Just see how it goes!,’” Clennon said. She got the job.

After four years in that role, she received similarly encouraging guidance from Barbara Van Nostrand, executive director of academic programs and student affairs for the Humanities Division. The Center for 17th- and 18th-Century Studies was seeking a chief administrative officer and assistant director; Clennon thought it might be a stretch because she hadn’t previously worked in a research center. But she also recalled how much she enjoyed supporting faculty research projects in her earlier jobs.

Again, Clennon got the job. Nearly a year into that position, she’s still glad she did. “It has been really interesting. The challenges are different, but I’ve really been enjoying it.”

But also: Stick around a bit. Clennon also encourages colleagues not to be too eager to hop from job to job. “I do think there’s value in taking the time to become an expert in your job, and at UCLA, it can take a year just to learn new systems and master the position,” she said. “So it’s worth sticking around to get the most that you can out of each job, and to learn from your supervisor and peers.”

And she said it’s not an accident that all five of her campus jobs have been in the Humanities Division. Clennon said she has found UCLA overall, and Humanities in particular, has provided a supportive culture and good work-life balance. “One of the reasons I’ve stayed is that Humanities is just a good place to work.”

Laura Clennon’s UCLA career timeline

• 2006–11: Assistant to chairs of French/Francophone studies, Italian, Germanic studies and Scandinavian
• 2011–15: Fund manager, Dodd Humanities Group (art history, classics, Indo-European studies)
• 2015–19: Manager, philosophy department
• 2019–23: Manager, English department and Writing Programs
• 2023–present: Assistant director and chief administrative officer, Center for 17th- and 18th-Century Studies