He’s got the whole system in his hands

Thursday, February 5, 1998

He’s got the whole system in his hands

UNIVERSITY: President brings together several facets that make
UC organization work

By Richard C. Atkinson

The 1868 Organic Act proclaimed that the University of
California would be led by a "President of the several Faculties…
(who would also be) the executive head of the institutions in all
its departments." Despite this sweeping description of the
president’s powers, the office carried academic but little
administrative authority in the early days of the university. In
1890, for example, it took a special amendment to The Regents’
Bylaws to give the president authority to employ, dismiss and
regulate the duties of the janitors. As late as 1901 the regents
were still giving individual consideration to each request for
replacement of a lost diploma. It was not until the administration
of Benjamin Ide Wheeler (1899-1920) that the president truly
became, in fact as well as in theory, the chief executive officer
of the university.

By the late 1950s, however, it was clear that the university had
outgrown the ability of any one person to administer. The enormous
baby boom generation was coming of college age and the university
was planning the expansion of its existing campuses and the
creation of three new ones at La Jolla, Irvine and Santa Cruz.
Recognizing that these new circumstances required new ways of
organizing the university, the regents and the president embarked
on a course of decentralizing authority and responsibility to the
individual campuses and chancellors. The far-reaching changes they
instituted created the University of California as we now see it
today: a federated system of nine research universities, each
seeking excellence in its own way but united in its pursuit of the
common goals of educating students, discovering and creating
knowledge, and serving the people of California. As a result, the
University of California is more than the sum of its individual
campuses. It is a vast educational enterprise created and sustained
by California’s citizens.

Today the university is an $11 billion organization that
stretches the length and the breadth of California, encompassing
nine campuses – each with its own chancellor – 166,000
undergraduate and graduate students, nearly 150,000 employees. The
president is responsible for the overall policy direction of the
university and shares authority for its operation with the faculty,
to whom the regents have delegated primary responsibility for
educational policy, and with the chancellors, each of whom reports
to the president but has broad responsibility for the day-to-day
management of his or her campus.

The president has many duties within this multicampus system;
the Standing Orders of the Regents list 40 separate
responsibilities. But in my judgment the most important boil down
to the following:

*The president is responsible for recommending to the regents on
the appointment of chancellors and for the five-year reviews of
their performance. Probably no other presidential responsibility
has as dramatic and lasting an influence on the character, quality
and success of the University of California.

*The president is responsible for recommending new policy
directions to the regents. Many issues and decisions facing the
university involve only one campus and are entirely within the
purview of the chancellor and the campus community. Many other
issues cut across campuses and demand a universitywide perspective
and action, and it is on these issues that the president is
expected to lead. This cannot be done successfully without
widespread consultation among regents, faculty, staff, students and
anyone else who has something to contribute and a stake in the
outcome. Recent examples are the establishment of a 10th UC campus
and the decision to offer domestic partner health benefits.

*The president is responsible for preparing and managing the
budget of the university and for assuring the regents, the
governor, the legislature and the public that the university is
exercising good stewardship of the public funds entrusted to its
care. And not only public funds – in a larger sense, the university
must also demonstrate that it is worthy of the loyalty, support and
confidence the people of California have given it over many
years.

*Similarly, the president is responsible for ensuring the
quality of the university’s academic programs systemwide, for
helping to shape decisions about which academic fields to emphasize
at which campuses, for seeing that all campuses comply with the
universitywide policy and regulations, and for overseeing the
creation of new campuses. When things go right, this monitoring and
oversight role is virtually invisible to the world outside the
university’s doors. When they go wrong, the president is front and
center in the public spotlight. Despite the UC’s decentralized
character and the broad campus authority delegated to the
chancellors, the president bears ultimate responsibility for the
university – and is regularly and forcefully reminded of the fact
by unhappy officials, irate citizens, and, on occasion,
dissatisfied students.

*Although the president is not the only person who represents
the UC, he or she is the only person who can speak on behalf of the
entire university. Each chancellor speaks for his or her campus;
the faculty on behalf of the academic interests of the university;
students and staff on behalf of their constituencies; the regents
on broad questions of policy. The president is the bridge to each
and all of these. This is a humbling, sobering and occasionally
alarming thought for the occupant of the president’s office. And it
suggests a critical dimension of the president’s role that no
delegation of authority or job description can capture. The
president must see that the various members of the university’s
huge extended family are talking to each other, working with each
other, and headed in roughly the same direction. This is neither
easy nor always achievable. especially in times of controversy and
conflict. But it is essential.

As the 17th president of this great university, I am following
in the footsteps of an impressive company of academic leaders:
Henry Durant, Daniel Coit Gilman, Benjamin Ide Wheeler, Robert
Gordon Sproul, and Clark Kerr, to mention a few. The presidency has
changed as the university has grown and prospered. It remains,
however, the pivotal influence for managing and supporting one of
the most distinguished and productive university systems in the
world.