Entrepreneurial President: Richard Atkinson and the University of California, 1995-2003 - eScholarship (original) (raw)
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The Journal of Higher Education, 2007
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Internal or external: Community college presidential backgrounds and management of the presidency
ProQuest LLC eBooks, 2013
These attention-grabbing headlines are representative of many similar statements that have graced the front pages and headlines of higher education news sources in the last five years. Such stories suggest that community colleges are increasing their emphasis on fundraising while facing a leadership crisis caused by droves of presidential retirements. As a result, fundraisers have become, or are becoming, more viable presidential candidates for the community college presidency. News stories also note that pending presidential retirements and pipeline concerns apply to other institutional types within the higher education sector (Ekman, 2010; Hammond, 2013; Jaschik, 2006). What makes the presidency of community colleges particularly of interest, however, is that the two-year sector is the primary higher education sector projected to experience continued growth and demand (Brown, 2012; Mullin & Phillippe, 2013). Factors driving these projections include the required training for a mass retooling of the workforce, an
An Interview with the UA's Executive Vice President and Provost
to become dean of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS). At Texas A&M, where he had been previously, Sander was head of the Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics and director of the Institute of Biosciences and Technology. He received his B.S. in animal science from the University of Minnesota and his Ph.D. in biochemistry in 1965 from Cornell University. Sander then went to Brandeis University as a postdoctoral fellow before being hired by the University of Florida as an assistant professor in the Department of Biochemistry, College of Medicine. Dr. Sander has not slowed down throughout his career, particularly lately. In spite of his full plate of duties as vice provost for CALS, in 2006 he took on additional responsibilities as vice president for Outreach. This includes the University of Arizona South and continuing education and academic outreach programs, along with a dual reporting relationship with Arizona Cooperative Extension. In 2007, he became executive vice president and provost on an interim basis, and as such, he is the chief academic officer of the University. After a permanent provost has been selected, Dr. Sander will return to his "normal" duties as vice president for University Outreach and dean of CALS. CALS consists of ten academic departments and two schools, with research stations and Extension offices throughout Arizona. The latest faculty productivity ranking places CALS as number one in the nation in the category of agricultural sciences. Agronomy and Crop Sciences topped the list at number one among U.S. research universities, including institutions such as Cornell, University of California-Davis, University of Illinois, and Purdue. Dr. Sander has played a key role in this ranking through hiring/retention deliberations and resource allocation decisions for at least two-thirds of the faculty that currently work within CALS. Dr. Sander is married to Louise Canfield Sander with whom he enjoys two children and four grandchildren. Although Dr. Sander carries one of the busiest schedules on campus, he took the time to fill me in on several questions regarding "the rest of the story" on Dr. Eugene G. Sander. Arizona Review. Since genetics, environment, and management are three key components of production agriculture, how did these elements influence your career? Does your lineage contain many educators, administrators, military officers, or other leadership positions? Sander. I had parents who were hard working, intelligent, and well educated. They believed in education and insisted that my sister and I do well at everything we started. My father was a county extension agent and my mother was a school teacher, and they managed our family and insisted that everyone get |
2018
This essay discusses the contentious events leading to the decision by the University of California's Board of Regents to end affirmative action in admissions, hiring and contracting at the university in July 1995. This controversial decision provided momentum for California's passage of Proposition 209 the following year ending "racial preferences" for all of the state's public agencies. In virtually any other state, the debate over university admissions would have bled beyond the confines of a university's governing board. The board would have deferred to lawmakers and an even more complicated public discourse. The University of California's unusual status as a "public trust" under the state constitution, however, meant that authority over admissions was the sole responsibility of the board. This provided a unique forum to debate affirmative action for key actors, including Regent Ward Connerly and Governor Pete Wilson, to persuade fellow regents to focus and decide on a hotly debated social issue related to the dispersal of a highly sought public good-access to a selective public university. Two themes are explored. The first focuses on the debate within the university community and the vulnerability of existing affirmative action programs and policies-including a lack of unanimity among the faculty regarding the use of racial preferences. The second relates to the political tactics employed by Connerly and the saliency of his arguments, which were addressed to a larger public, and not to the academic community. Connerly attacked not only the idea of affirmative action but also the coherency of the university's existing admissions programs, the effectiveness of using race in admissions decisions, and the credibility of the university's administrative leaders who defended affirmative action.
Shared Governance at the University of California: An Historical Review
Center For Studies in Higher Education, 1998
Two major features in the historical development of the University of California distinguish it from other major public research universities. The first is the university's unusual status as a constitutionally designated public trust − a designation shared by only five other major public universities. The second is the University of California's tradition of shared-governance: the concept that faculty should share in the responsibility for guiding the operation and management of the university, while preserving the authority of the university's governing board, the Regents, to ultimately set policy. Both of these organizational features of California's land-grant university, combined with a massive investment by tax payers to expand enrollment and academic programs, has resulted in a university enterprise of international distinction and vital service to the people of California. As with so many other aspects of the university's operation, the concept of shared governance has evolved over time, often in reaction to significant internal and external challenges, and revolving around the development of the Academic Senate. Reflecting the dynamics of decision-making within a growing and multi-campus university, the root of the contemporary notion of shared governance has emerged not only from the formal delegation of authority to the Senate, but also from informal modes of involving faculty in the management of the nation's largest land-grant university. The following briefly outlines four periods in the evolution of shared governance in the University of California. The intent is to provide context to the contemporary debate among faculty, Regents, students and administrators, regarding the role of faculty in university governance and management. Establishing a State University In 1850, California's first state constitution provided the legislature with the ability to create a state university. It was not until 1868, however, that California passed a statute establishing the University of California − just in time to benefit from the largesse of federal land-grants under the federal Morrill Act. California's charter, like all American universities and colleges, provided for a lay board that would have authority over the activities of faculty and students. The American innovation of the lay board provided a public authority that removed sectarian influences, linked the operation of the university with the community it served, and provided a means to both reward and garner benefactors. But the device of the lay board also created an organizational structure that promised tension: with the rise of a professional class of academicians, there would be long and continuing debate over the proper domain of faculty.