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Yudof’s term began in 2008 at the start of the recession and was spent in the shadow of massive budget cuts. Over the five years of his presidency, the University lost around $900 million from state cuts. Controversy over other issues – such as pension reform and police brutality – warranted major policy changes.
Yudof will step down from his role of president on Sept. 31, to be replaced by U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano. In an interview with the Daily Bruin in August, Yudof said he thinks one of his major accomplishments as president was maintaining the University’s reputation and quality amid the financial crisis it faced.
“At the end of the day, we went through the worst economic downturn in 75 years,” Yudof said in the interview. “And there was a lot of angst, but the faculty did not leave in droves. UCLA had almost 100,000 applicants last year and in … leading indexes of ranking leading universities in the world, we’ve gone up, not down.”
But faculty members, students and staff express mixed reactions to Yudof’s legacy.
One outspoken opponent of the president, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 3299 union, stated many times that executive compensation among UC officials rose too high under Yudof’s leadership.
Others took issue with tuition increases during his term. Many students, including some at UCLA, expressed their discontent with fee hikes through campus protests and campouts during the height of the Occupy Wall Street movement.
The Board of Regents almost doubled student tuition during Yudof’s tenure. Yudof said he viewed the increases as unavoidable and necessary.
“A grand narrative is created, and the grand narrative was ‘Mark Yudof enjoys inflicting pain on the students, enjoys raising tuition’ and that’s not true,” Yudof said. “I’m always balancing the access and the cost with the historic mission of the University. … But the grand narrative sort of ignored that.”
Raising student tuition was not an easy decision to make, said Russell Gould, a regent who served as chairman of the board from 2009 to 2011.
“But we had to face the reality of these cuts,” Gould said.
Gould added that Yudof made an effort to boost financial aid in order to offset the tuition hikes for students who could not afford the rising rates.
During his term, Yudof helped create several initiatives, including the Working Smarter Initiative, which is expected to save the UC about $500 million over five years through streamlining administrative operations, and the Blue and Gold Opportunity Plan, which provides financial aid packages to low-income students who are California residents.
The Working Smarter Initiative, launched in 2010, has since saved $460.9 million and is expected to surpass the $500 million goal by 2015, according to a press release from the Office of the President.
Yudof said much of his time at the UC was focused on making up for lost money.
“It was not an era to begin new initiatives,” Yudof said. “We had trouble enough maintaining what we already had, so in part that becomes the measure of success.”
Gould said he thinks Yudof had a strong relationship with the board in trying to achieve that success over the course of his term.
“He’s calm, he’s candid, he listens and really, he’s a problem solver,” Gould said. “While there were times regents asked serious questions about (his ideas), he was well prepared.”
Bill Jacob, current chair of the Academic Senate who has served on its various boards for seven years, said there were many times when the faculty and Yudof disagreed, but the president always stayed on speaking terms with the senate.
“Usually when he has his mind made up, he has his mind made up. That characterizes him,” Jacob said. “(But) we’ve had our successes with him.”
Raquel Morales, a student at UC San Diego who was president of the University of California Student Association last year, said she felt Yudof made himself available to her as a student leader.
“From my understanding, in comparison (to past presidents) he kept open communications with us and pretty much met whenever we asked for a meeting,” Morales said. “I feel like he was reasonable to talk to.”
Jacob and Morales both said they would have liked to see more forums for students and faculty to connect with the president.
Morales said that they did, however, disagree often on the issue of campus climate, which caused tension when students expressed dissatisfaction during Yudof’s term.
Campus climate issues that created tension between UCSA and the president included police brutality following the 2011 pepper spray incident at UC Davis and UCSA’s stance against House Resolution 35, which called for the University to prohibit activity on its campuses that could be interpreted as anti-Semitic.
“There’s a huge disconnect between the president of the University and the student body, that goes for regents and the Office of the President as well,” Morales said. “That’s where you see a lot of the problems when you have to work with them as student leaders.”
Student or union protesters often temporarily shut down regents meetings during Yudof’s term, and many used their public comment portion of the meetings to express dissatisfaction about the president.
“I think the relationship would’ve been stronger if he had spent more time visiting campuses … meeting with students and faculty,” Jacob said. “People would’ve warmed up to him more. … From a campus perspective, the view is very different of him than up (in Oakland).”
As Yudof prepares to step down, state leaders and experts are pointing toward growing state reinvestment in higher education. Though Proposition 30, which was passed by California voters in November, is one step toward more state funding, Yudof said he thinks it will take the UC at least a decade to get back to 2007-08 levels of state funding, but with a greater number of students now to cover .
The other issues he thinks will be the biggest for Napolitano and the University to face include moving forward with online education, recruiting leadership like chancellors and keeping tuition stable.
Yudof said he will make himself available to Napolitano to seek advice, and has talked with her a couple of times already, but plans to step back from UC leadership.
He said he has bought a house in the East Bay area, and plans to teach law at UC Berkeley.
“I’ve been head of a higher education system for 16 years … I think that’s enough,” Yudof said. “It’s time for other people to lead.”