A week after being selected as the new leader for the largest
public research university system in the world, it’s back to
business as usual for Robert Dynes.
On June 11, the University of California Board of Regents
selected Dynes, the current chancellor of UC San Diego, to succeed
current UC President Richard Atkinson. Dynes will formally take
office in October.
Until then, Dynes has fully resumed his duties as chancellor of
UCSD. He attended commencement ceremonies for graduating students
and participated in a national conference for university
chancellors, said Winifred Cox, a press aide for Dynes.
Besides his regular duties, Dynes must find an interim
chancellor to serve in his place starting in October. He will also
lay the groundwork for a nationwide search for a new permanent
chancellor of UC San Diego, Dynes said in a press conference after
his selection.
Michael Reese, a press aide for the UC Office of the President,
said Dynes and Atkinson are in the process of creating a series of
steps that will streamline Dynes’ ascension to president and
Atkinson’s withdrawal into retirement.
As the first step toward becoming president, Dynes hopes to
start meeting with the regents one-on-one to address any concerns
they might have, Reese added.
This fits well with Dynes’ policy of availability and
“free and open communication on both sides.”
“One-way communication doesn’t work for me,”
he said.
But Reese stressed the fact that until Oct. 1, Atkinson and
Dynes will still have their current responsibilities.
“We still have a UC president and Dynes still has a campus
to run,” he said.
Dynes, who will be the 18th UC president, was selected from a
pool of more than 300 applicants after a six-month nationwide
search that began when Atkinson announced his intention to retire
in November, saying he wanted to spend more time with his
family.
Atkinson’s retirement will put an end to an eight-year
tenure that saw the repeal of SP-1 and 2, UC policies that
prohibited the consideration of race and gender in UC admissions
and hiring, and the revamping of the UC’s admissions
policies.
A nine-member regental selection committee headed by Regent John
Davies made the selection after hearing recommendations from staff,
faculty and student committees.
Dynes will take office at a time of considerable change in the
UC, with the university facing a 6 percent budget cut from the
state and an 18 percent growth in enrollment.
Calling these dual challenges “a confluence of
pressures,” Dynes has not yet said how he will deal with
them, but said he is committed to meeting them head-on without
sacrificing any of the UC’s core principles, which he defined
as “education, research and public service.”
He also stressed changes he will make in the university’s
research programs, changes that have become necessitated by current
events, he said.
“The era of (research and development) ended on Sept. 11,
2001. We are now in an era of R, D & D ““ research,
development, and delivery,” he said in a statement.
The UC must work harder to effectively hand off products and
research to those who can use them, such as farmers, social
workers, first-responders to a crisis, or teachers, Dynes
added.
Dynes affirmed his commitment to outreach as well, saying that
he believes in “a vigorous partnership between UC,
(California State University), community colleges, and
K-12.”
Dynes, an immigrant from Ontario, Canada, and a first-generation
college student, is a renowned professor of physics and became
chancellor of UCSD in 1996. He also spent 22 years as a physicist
with AT&T Bell Laboratories.