The University of California will have a new president next
October, and though the selection process is still in its very
early stages, some who will have a voice in the decision have
already commented on what the UC should look for in a new
leader.
A special committee is to be selected by John Moores, chair of
the UC Board of Regents, the university’s governing body.
This committee will ultimately choose the next president though it
will be advised by groups representing faculty, students, staff and
alumni, and each UC campus must be represented on each advisory
committee.
Student leaders who will serve on the selection and advisory
committees have said the new president should have a strong
commitment to access. Other university figures have given differing
views on whether candidates will come from within or outside the
UC, and if academic or administrative experience is more
important.
The student regent, Dexter Ligot-Gordon, and the chairman of the
University of California Students Association both praised outgoing
President Richard Atkinson’s efforts on access, and said his
successor should maintain the same goals.
Atkinson’s successor should pursue diversity alongside
access, Ligot-Gordon said.
“We have an institutional commitment to diversity,”
he said.
Klass, who as UCSA chair will select the student advisory
committee, echoed Ligot-Gordon’s comments, saying the next UC
president should favor affirmative action, even though the state
constitution prevents the university from using race in
admissions.
“If (affirmative action) is not there in policy, it should
be there in principle,” Klass said.
President Atkinson and his predecessor, Jack Peltason, both
supported affirmative action. In 1995, at the end of
Peltason’s tenure, the regents voted to pass SP-1 and SP-2
despite his views, which ended the use of race and gender as
criteria in UC admissions, hiring, and contracting.
In May 2001, the regents unanimously voted to rescind the
measures, though their action was largely symbolic as Proposition
209, passed in 1996, amended the state constitution to ban state
agencies from using racial and gender considerations.
The next university president may not already be a UC official.
At the UC regents meeting in San Francisco last week, system-wide
Academic Senate Chair Gayle Binion, who will sit on the academic
advisory committee, said the search for Atkinson’s successor
would be national, and could even be international in scope.
Atkinson and Peltason both held UC offices before becoming
president: Atkinson was chancellor at UC San Diego and Peltason
held that post at UC Irvine. The last UC president to leave a UC
position immediately before taking the job was Peltason’s
predecessor, David Gardner, who was president at the University of
Utah before joining the UC.
Gardner’s selection is an exception; usually UC presidents
are drawn from the ranks of UC chancellors and system-wide
administrators.
Following Atkinson’s announcement of his plans to retire
at the regents meeting in San Francisco last week, Regent Ward
Connerly said there were already several qualified candidates
inside the UC system.
He added that Atkinson’s successor’s administrative
qualifications will be more important than academic
accomplishments.
“The next president is going to be have to be a very
strong leader. It doesn’t have to be an academic,” he
said.
Binion disagreed that leadership skills alone can make a
successful university president.
“I think the senate feels very strongly that a history of
superb scholarship is important,” she said.
UC Santa Barbara Chancellor Henry Yang stated the regents would
do well to look to Atkinson himself as a model for his own
successor.
Atkinson is respected as a scholar and has done well managing
the UC and looking after students, said Yang in a faxed
statement.
In addition to having administrative and scholastic skills, the
next president should also be a good fundraiser, Binion said.
“We want everything,” she said.