Search for UC Merced chancellor begins

Monday, November 23, 1998

Search for UC Merced chancellor begins

REGENTS: Raising funds would help experimental campus to open by
2005

By Edina Lekovic

Daily Bruin Senior Staff

UC President Richard Atkinson announced plans Friday to begin
searching for a chancellor for UC Merced, the system’s planned
tenth campus.

Scheduled for completion in 2005, the San Joaquin Valley campus
will initially hold 1,000 students, with another 1,000 to be added
each year until it reaches its desired capacity of 20,000 to
25,000.

"The new UC Merced campus is a vital part of our overall plan to
ensure that California’s young people will continue to find a place
at the University of California," Atkinson said.

With academic planning already under way, Merced’s chancellor
will be charged with recruiting faculty and staff as well as
continuing physical and academic plans.

"The selection of the campus’s first chancellor is very
important since that person will oversee the selection of the
founding faculty of the campus, and that faculty will set a pattern
of excellence for years to come," he added.

The new campus will be an experimental university, containing
three general areas of study rather than the traditional structure
of specific majors. The three areas will be Social Science and
Public Policy; Science and Technology; and Arts and Culture.

This structure has caused concern from UCLA’s Academic Senate,
which predicts graduates will be at a disadvantage without a
specific area of study.

"It will be a broad-based undergraduate program. There will be
no particular majors, (and) this has caused a lot of problems for
us," said Chand Viswanathan, last year’s chair of the academic
senate. "If you want to experiment, a new campus is not the place
to do it."

However, board chairman John Davies emphasized that the new
chancellor will help the academic structure evolve as the campus
grows.

"It’s important to have the new chancellor in place to guide the
early academic and physical planning of UC Merced, as well as to
begin the recruitment of the founding faculty," Davies said. He
also emphasized that the structure of the campus has not yet been
finalized.

"We will want to select a person of national stature to help UC
Merced realize its position as a full partner with our existing
nine campuses," Davies continued.

The Office of the President, which will begin advertising
nationwide for the chancellorship next month, expects the search to
be complete by March 1999. If all goes as planned, the new
chancellor will be named by July 1, 1999.

The board also approved a recommendation to seek additional
funding to ensure that development of the Merced campus will remain
on schedule.

In order to accommodate future enrollment growth, expected to
increase 3 to 4 percent annually, it is important for Merced to
open in 2005.

The board is counting on the UC’s prominence as the nation’s top
fund-raiser to guarantee that Merced will be ready in time. The UC
raised $754.5 million last year alone. The UC Regents will try to
use this track record to secure additional funding needed for the
tenth campus.

Proposition 1A, passed earlier this month, will provide $55
million for Merced alone. Since those funds will not be available
until 2000, however, the board is currently focusing on short-term
fund raising.

To this end, the board raised its support for UC Merced planning
and development to $9.9 million, by increasing the allotment by $5
million in the 1998-99 budget.

The California Legislature has also made a one-time
appropriation of $1.5 million to support development of a network
of distributed learning centers throughout the San Joaquin Valley,
which will serve largely as extension educational facilities
similar to UCLA’s extension program.

The Merced site was selected because Central Valley residents
currently do not have a UC campus within close distance, according
to UC spokesman Mark Aydelotte. Also, the site was attractive
because of its proximity to wilderness areas.

"The campus is in San Joaquin Valley with access to the Sierra
Nevada," Aydelotte said. "It will be near Yosemite and the most
important wilderness areas in the state, (which) will be the
subject of research."

The new campus will sit on 2,000 acres near the foothills of the
Sierra Nevada. In addition, the area surrounding the campus is
reserved for an 8,300-acre university community development
featuring residential, office and retail areas.

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