The University of California Board of Regents’ presidential selection committee recommended Mark Yudof, current chancellor of the University of Texas, for appointment as the next UC president during their meeting Thursday.
If approved, Yudof will replace current President Robert Dynes, who is slated to resign his post of almost five years this June after two years of controversy regarding his management of UC funds.
“I am delighted to say the search committee unanimously and enthusiastically endorsed his candidacy,” said Richard Blum, chairman of the UC Board of Regents, adding that the regents will meet by teleconference next week to officially vote on Yudof’s appointment.
Yudof, 63, has served as chancellor of the University of Texas since 2002, which, with nine campuses, 185,000 students and an annual operating budget of $10.7 billion, is one of the largest universities in the country.
Prior to serving as chancellor of UT, Yudof ran the University of Minnesota for five years and was a faculty member and administrator at UT Austin for 26 years, serving as dean of the school of law, executive vice president and provost.
“Mark Yudof is a superb choice for one of the nation’s most important leadership positions in higher education. California’s university system could not have chosen a more experienced, successful, creative and qualified leader,” said Robert Bruininks, president of the University of Minnesota.
Yudof’s appointment could be a problem unless he is willing to take a serious pay cut, given California’s looming budget cuts.
Dynes currently commands $421,000 a year as president, but Yudof’s total take-home pay last year at Texas was $742,209, according to a survey by the Chronicle of Higher Education.
“He’s expensive, but he’s worth it,” Blum said.
Details of Yudof’s financial package won’t be released until the regents meet next week, but Blum said he isn’t worried, citing the hiring of the Monitor Group for $7 million to assist the restructuring of the UC Office of the President as evidence of UC’s ability to make sound financial decisions.
“I said it would pay back many times over, and I think you heard yesterday that they’ve already identified $26 million in savings and $40 million in projected savings by integrating the office of the president with the campuses in a more intelligent way,” Blum said.
But student support for more than $300,000 in increased pay for a new president is unlikely. Student demonstrators chained themselves by their necks to the doors of the conference center in an attempt to obstruct Wednesday’s meeting in protest of rising student fees as well as UC’s affiliation with nuclear weapons labs and the lack of student say in regent appointments.
Despite the protests and disruptions to their meeting by heckling students, the regents presented updates on efforts to cut costs within UCOP, which, while substantial, still do not eliminate the specter of possible student fee hikes.
The proposed reductions for 2008-2009 would eliminate 404 full-time-equivalent positions at the Office of the President and create a savings of almost $57 million by cutting spending in UC programming.
The amended budget is expected to be finalized and completed by March, said Provost and Executive Vice President Wyatt Hume.
The regents also postponed any decisions to raise student fees until their next board meeting in March, and Lt. Gov. John Garamendi also postponed his resolution to cap student fees at 2008-2009 levels until then, though he said he would not forsake his commitment to freezing fees.
“This is not something I’m going to drop,” Garamendi said.
But Hume said the regents must consider the possibility of raising student fees in the near future in order to avoid loss of financial support to critical student programs, such as mental health services.
“The chancellors were unanimous that fees shouldn’t be increased by more than 10 percent for students above the threshold for financial aid eligibility,” he added.
Hume also recommended collaboration with California State University and the Community Colleges of California to jointly advocate for greater state support of higher education.
The UC Students Association opposes fee increases, however if the regents were unable to adequately fund student mental health services or maintain the quality of a UC education they would support a small increase to registration fees only.
“The 1960 Master Plan for Higher Education was supposed to provide tuition-free education to all residents of the state. That promise has been broken and abused, and students have been carrying the budget every year through increased student fees,” said Louise Hendrickson, president of UCSA.