28—
"What Does the Chancellor Do?"

"What is the chancellor?"
"Well, the chancellor is the chief administrative officer of the campus.
"I know that, but what does the chancellor do?"

The chancellor has many roles—symbol of the campus, campus representative in many settings, campus host, mediator and arbiter of disputes, target for protest, douser of "fires," and always mentor.

Importantly, given his or her limited authority and resources, the chancellor should constantly look for, probe for, create, and exploit "windows of opportunity" to improve the varied aspects of the university. He or she must provide the initiative for those times when faculty willingness and foresight, staff needs, student tensions, resource accessibility, and personnel availability combine to make possible a major strengthening or broadening of the academic enterprise—a new department or emphasis, a new and important research program, a plan for staff training and advancement, a student recreation center or a campuswide student government. Such times seldom occur spontaneously but must be catalyzed and nurtured amid the daily routine and (often) tumult.

It took me a little while to realize that to be the chancellor at Santa Cruz was to occupy a distinctive, if somewhat lonely, niche in the UC system. UC routinely pays lip service to the desirability of improved

undergraduate education, but its heart is in graduate and professional education and research, and its pattern of resource allocation reflects this priority. As a campus that sought seriously to emphasize a high-quality undergraduate education (together with graduate education and research), Santa Cruz was hobbled by the UC ideology.

UC receives from the state a budget primarily related to the numbers of undergraduate, graduate, and professional students on a per student basis. The state customarily agrees to fund all qualified undergraduate students and a negotiated number of graduate and professional students. But UC does not distribute its funds to the campuses on a per student basis. Rather, it uses a "weighted student" formula in which lower division students (freshmen and sophomores) count 1.0x, upper division students (juniors and seniors) count 1.5x, beginning graduate students count 2.5x, and advanced graduate students count 3.5x. (Professional students have other weightings.) Manifestly, such a formula for resource allocation favors those campuses with large graduate student enrollments and drives all campuses toward similar emphasis on graduate programs in order to be able to compete more successfully for the limited resources.

I argued year after year against this allocation pattern, with complete lack of success. The bland argument was made that "it costs more" to educate graduate students than undergraduates. I argued in vain that this distinction depends entirely on the manner of instruction—that one can usefully spend just as much on the education of each undergraduate as UC spends on each graduate student, and that, indeed, many first-rate private institutions do so. The situation was made even more invidious by the circumstance that Santa Cruz was not allowed to improve its graduate/undergraduate ratio so as to compete more successfully with the large UC campuses. In these years, the state would not agree to increase the funded number of graduate students and the larger campuses were not about to share their allotments, acquired in earlier times, with the newer campuses.

This situation resulted in the irony that as campuses such as Santa Cruz and Santa Barbara increased their undergraduate enrollments, the resources and faculty positions that UC acquired from the increased state budget went, under the formula, in considerable part to the large campuses that had not grown at all. When UC changes its allocation formula, I will believe its rhetoric about the importance of undergraduate education.

Over the years, I sought to advance the interests and distinctive ideals

of Santa Cruz within the UC system while at the same time seeking to reconcile Santa Cruz to the UC standards of quality. Within the collegial ambience of the university, significant curricular change is almost impossible except by growth. During my first five years, with ever-tightened budgets, change could only come by taking resources and faculty positions from one program to transfer to another at a time when all were constrained.

Because it had been assumed the campus would grow without pause for decades, by 1977 twenty-three boards of study had been established, all stretched very thinly to cover their disciplines. The board of religious studies was in grievous straits because of inadequate initial staffing and subsequent resignations. An external review of the program recommended either a doubling of the faculty or its termination. As the former was infeasible and the program was not a central or core discipline, I decided to "disestablish" it.

Once established, a program within UC can only be disestablished by an elaborate procedure, over a two-year period, involving numerous committees and hearings to provide opportunities for campus and other comment. Ostensibly, this procedure allows for broad input to enable the administration to decide whether it really should terminate the program. During this lengthy period, the administration is of course subject to constant pressure from those students, faculty, alumni, and colleagues at other campuses who resist the action. The prolonged process thus becomes a facade, for no administration would subject itself to such pressure and condemnation unless it had already made its decision.

During my second five years, budgets were easier, the campus was growing, change was more feasible. Working with the faculty, I sought to broaden the academic base of the campus and, with an eye to the future, select its directions of emphasis. Faculties, absorbed in their own intellectual interests, tend to reproduce themselves when thinking of new faculty. To dislodge such tendencies, I initiated a program of external reviews at five-year intervals of each board of studies. Such reviews require the board to reflect on and define its current program, and they bring an objective and informed external perspective to bear on the assumptions underlying the current programs.

With their advice, with augmented resources, and with leadership from farsighted faculty, we were able, as has been mentioned, to develop several outstanding programs. A special committee composed of engineers from both university and industry helped us to recruit Patrick Mantey, a leading researcher from IBM, to establish our program in

computer engineering, our first step toward a revived school of engineering. With the committee's aid, Mantey in turn brought in an excellent faculty and established valuable ties with Silicon Valley.

Another achievement was the establishment of Phi Beta Kappa on campus. Shortly before I arrived at Santa Cruz, the campus had been turned down in its request to establish a chapter of Phi Beta Kappa because of administrative turmoil and uncertainty as to its future academic directions. This was a further blow to campus morale and imposed a "penalty" on our best students, who could not be awarded this distinction. Therefore, following our efforts to improve academic quality and having reversed the decreasing enrollment trend, we reapplied in 1984. This time, after the usual period for investigation, the establishment of a chapter at Santa Cruz was approved.

The social obligations of a chancellor are formidable. Karen and I hosted some 140 to 150 events at University House each year, mostly between September and June. Events included lunches, dinners, receptions, award ceremonies, support group meetings, and so on. At another university, many of these events might have been held at the Faculty Club, but as a young campus, Santa Cruz lacked such amenities. So the University House (the chancellor's residence) became the only appropriate locale for events of campuswide interest. Because of its ambience and facilities, many community organizations would have liked to use University House for their activities. The potential list was overwhelming and to keep it manageable we sharply restricted such use to organizations with direct university ties.

One of the fringe benefits of being a chancellor is that the university attracts or invites distinguished speakers and over the years it was our privilege to entertain them. The Dalai Lama of Tibet spoke on campus to a throng of over five thousand. We spent a fascinating afternoon with him. As the titular head of a theocracy, he is a remarkable combination of religious leader and shrewd politician. He also had a deep and abundant sense of humor.

He told us of his selection to be the fourteenth Dalai Lama. Each Dalai Lama is believed to be the reincarnation of the former. Two or three years after the death of a Dalai Lama, a "search party" is sent about the nation to find, among the children of appropriate age, the reincarnation. He is identified by his ability to recognize, specifically, favored possessions of the former Dalai Lama, a comb, a book, shoes, and so on. This Dalai Lama was located in a remote corner of Tibet. He was then, at age of about 2 1/2, brought in an ox-cart on a three-

month journey to Lhasa. There he was educated in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition and in the ways of governance. After passing tests, he was ordained as a priest and inaugurated as the Dalai Lama. Of course, early in his reign, the Chinese government overran Tibet and forced him into exile. He still desires and hopes to return to Lhasa.

A very different visit was that of two Santa Cruz alumni who have become astronauts, Kathleen Sullivan and Steve Hawley. Both were remarkably poised, outgoing, and articulate about their experiences, creating a great sense of pride both in NASA and in Santa Cruz as the "birthplace" of their careers.

Carl Sagan was another who attracted an immense crowd. Far more affable and unpretentious than he appears on TV, he made a strong appeal concerning the need to "preserve the planet."

Gore Vidal was in fine form, witty and acerbic. At the time of his visit in 1982, he was contemplating a run for the U.S. Senate, which would have put him in opposition to Governor Jerry Brown. He told us that Brown had offered him a position on the UC board of regents if he would not run for the Senate. He declined the offer but in the end did not run anyway. His presence would have surely enlivened regents' meetings.

Harold Wilson, the former prime minister of Great Britain, told many amusing anecdotes. He pleased audiences with a remarkable imitation of Winston Churchill. And Tom Wolfe, dapper in his trademark white suit, engaged a large audience with a witty, frequently barbed lecture on the decline of American letters.

"Name recognition" was the key to student audience attraction for these visiting luminaries. Extremely able and distinguished speakers such as Simon Ramo and Elizabeth Holtzman drew embarrassingly small audiences.

The chancellor confers the degrees on graduating students at commencement. At Santa Cruz, each of the eight colleges has its own commencement and a ninth is held for graduate degrees. Basically, these are joyous affairs to mark the successful completion of a demanding formal education. But at Santa Cruz they were often corroded by the diatribes of student speakers reaching for an acme of rebellious rhetoric in their last fling. As several of the graduations were simultaneous, I could not attend all nine. Usually, I officiated at four college commencements and the graduate student ceremony; responsibility for the other colleges was then delegated most often to the academic vice-chancellor.

The smaller-scale collegiate ceremonies permitted more individual

recognition and informality, albeit sometimes at a cost to the dignity of the proceedings. In the late 1970s, attitudes of the 1960s persisted at Santa Cruz. Few students wore cap and gown, and bare feet and bizarre costumes were not infrequent. Student speakers invariably trashed the academic administration and the venal larger society into which they were about to enter, often to the dismay of the assembled parents. With time attitudes became more conventional and by the mid-1980s most students wore cap and gown and the student rhetoric was more temperate even if of similar thrust.

I repeatedly proposed a collective graduation ceremony for all of the colleges and with a major speaker as a "grand occasion." This could have been followed by separate programs at each college that would provide opportunity for individual recognition. The colleges, jealous of their autonomy, consistently rejected this proposal.

The graduate ceremony was much more restrained and dignified. A senior faculty, member would provide a usually brief address. The small scale permitted reading of the thesis title as each candidate was hooded, individually, by his major professor. Each degree conferral was a personal and often touching moment.

Some of the rewards of being a chancellor come long afterward. The growth in student enrollment beginning in 1984 finally brought construction funds to the campus, but given the protracted authorization, planning, procurement, and construction schedules for public buildings, none were completed before I left. The first major new building to be completed was a large new laboratory for biology and chemistry. The regents were kind enough to waive their rules and to name the laboratory building for me. At the dedication, I indicated that I was indeed honored to have this enduring monument named for me, especially while I was still alive—unlike James Lick, I did not have to be buried under the structure. James Lick donated the funds for the construction of the Lick Observatory. Unfortunately, he died before it was completed and is buried in a crypt beneath the base of the original refracting telescope at the observatory. "I am glad that I did not have to be interred under an ultracentrifuge. Talk about turning in your grave!"

So much of my effort was devoted to raising the quality of the scholarship at Santa Cruz. I was therefore simply delighted when in the spring of 1991 the Institute for Scientific Information published an analysis of the "citation impact" of scientific papers, published in the previous three years, from academic institutions. (The "scientific im-

pact" measures the extent to which others refer to these papers.) In the physical sciences, the papers from UC Santa Cruz ranked first among all universities in the nation; in the biological sciences, twelfth While the specific significance of these rankings can be argued, they surely place the quality of scientific research at Santa Cruz among the best in the nation.