The University of California Board of Regents confirmed Marye
Anne Fox as the new chancellor of UC San Diego on Monday, and voted
to increase her salary by $69,300.
The regents voted unanimously to appoint Fox ““ the current
chancellor of North Carolina State University ““ and 11-2 to
approve her salary.
The salary is 24.7 percent more than UC President Robert Dynes
earned as the previous chancellor of UCSD.
In addition to a salary of $350,000, Fox will receive a
relocation allowance of $87,500.
It is also likely that Fox’s husband, who is also a
chemist, will receive a tenured position at UCSD. Dynes said that
appointment would have to go through regular channels for approval,
but the process is beginning.
Fox, who will take office in August, was chosen from a pool of
over 300 candidates from around the country.
Before serving as chancellor of NCSU at Raleigh, she was vice
president of research at the University of Texas, Austin.
She is also a member of President Bush’s Council of
Advisors on Science and Technology, and she holds honorary degrees
from universities in France, Northern Ireland and Spain.
Fox’s work as an administrator and an advocate for NCSU
has won her the respect of many ““ even from members of the
NCSU faculty senate who voted to censure her for firing two vice
provosts last year.
Dennis Daley, chairman of the NCSU faculty senate said she is
“great at the outside game ““ at representing our school
to the Legislature.”
“For a school that has often been in the shadow of Chapel
Hill, that is quite an accomplishment,” he added.
The regents are in full agreement about Fox’s
qualifications.
“The part that is really hard on me is that she is going
to show me up,” Dynes said jokingly as he announced Fox as
his successor.
But Student Regent Matt Murray and Regent Velma Montoya are
reticent about Fox’s generous salary package in the context
of the current budget crisis.
Murray and Montoya were the only regents to vote against the
salary package.
“I feel the regents have insufficient information on
salary comparisons for chancellors to raise salaries,”
Montoya said.
She added that she is not convinced the salary increases are
necessary and that the UC has never lost a chancellor at the
current salary rates.
“There is strong pressure from the market for top
administrators around the country … and there is pressure within
(the university) which is generated by a fear that if we
don’t give those salaries, we won’t get those
administrators,” Murray said.
This pressure is reflected in an agenda item for the special
regents meeting Monday.
The item says Fox’s salary would be less than the average
salaries of chancellors at private universities and those of the
institutions with which the UC compares itself
““Â $523,000 and $424,000, respectively ““ but would
exceed average salaries of chancellors at the UC and other public
institutions. UC chancellors average $290,500, and those at other
public universities average $296,400.
Fox’s high salary is causing some regents to worry that a
trend of paying administrators more is developing even as the UC is
struggling to stay afloat under the weight of budget cuts.
Fox will have a generous pay package when she takes the helm of
UCSD, but professors at the university will have to continue making
due with below-average salaries.
Margie Pryatel, budget officer for UCSD, said the campus has
taken $23.8 million in cuts in the last two years, and staff are
being asked to do more while doing without pay increases. Pryatel
said budget cuts have also hurt research and outreach at UCSD.
“Especially in these times of budget crisis, with fee
increases and cuts in outreach, there need to be people at the
regent’s table who push back at the pressure from the market
to make sure that the compromises that we make don’t go too
far,” Murray said.