Some Insiders Surprised : UCI Executive Post Goes to Microbiologist

Paul Sypherd, former chairman of the department of microbiology at the UC Irvine College of Medicine, was named executive vice chancellor for research and dean of graduate studies of the university Friday.

The appointment, which is subject to approval by the UC Board of Regents, was announced by Chancellor Jack W. Peltason and is to take effect May 19. Sypherd, 52, was the choice of a search committee that considered candidates at UCI and at other UC campuses. Sypherd will replace William Parker, who has held the post on an interim basis since the resignation last year of former vice chancellor Lewis Nosanow.

“Dr. Sypherd is highly regarded as a scientist, administrator and teacher,” Peltason said Friday. “His experiences in building strong programs for research and graduate study in his own department are what distinguishes his ability to succeed in the demanding and competitive arena of research funding and policy.”

Sypherd’s selection, however, came as a surprise to many campus insiders, who had believed Parker was a sure bet for the permanent post. It was the third time in a year that Parker has lost out in competition for a top administrative position in the UC system. He was also an unsuccessful candidate for the second-in-command positions of executive vice chancellor at UCI and at UC Riverside last year.

Parker’s being passed over does not mean that he has fallen out of favor with Peltason or the regents, according to informed sources at UCI. Parker, who was out of town Friday and could not be reached for comment, will return to his position as associate executive vice chancellor at UCI.

“I thought Bill Parker was the front-running candidate right from the beginning. I’m surprised,” said one high-ranking administration official who asked not to be named.

“I think it is just a bad stroke of luck that Parker didn’t pick up one of those three” jobs, the source said. “He has made major contributions to the campus and has good relationships with the chancellor and throughout the administration.

“Appointments of this type are really put into the hands of a search committee, and it’s highly competitive.”

UCI Executive Vice Chancellor Chang-Lin Tien had praise for both Sypherd and Parker.

“We are very fortunate to be able to enlist Dr. Sypherd’s service,” Tien said. “He is a highly acclaimed scholar with a fantastic record of teaching and administrative service. We want to make UCI a world-class research university, and this position is central to that drive.”

Tien said Parker “is extremely valuable. He has tremendous institutional knowledge and expertise, and I am looking forward to working with him for a long time.”

Sypherd will be paid $116,000 a year. He be responsible for attracting research grants and donations, setting research policy and allocating research funds and graduate fellowships. UCI receives more than $60 million annually in outside research support.

“We are now an accomplished university, and considering we are only 25 years old that is remarkable,” Sypherd said Friday. “The challenge now is to reach a higher plane.”

To achieve that aim, Sypherd said, UCI must expand research in broad interdisciplinary projects that bring together, for example, the expertise of geneticists and behavioral scientists or of biologists, social scientists and mathematicians.

“It has not escaped my notice that much of the big funding from the federal government is in these areas,” he said.

Graduate Students

Sypherd also must find a way to lure more graduate students--and funds to support those students--in order to meet the regents’ mandate to increase graduate student enrollment from 11% to 20% of the total by 2005.

“I have been deeply involved in graduate education for 25 years,” he said. “There is a commitment on this campus to increase the ratio of graduate enrollment even as the student body grows. We will need a doubling or trebling of our efforts, and a real partnership between faculty and administration and the philanthropic and corporate community.”

Sypherd joined the UCI faculty in 1970 and was named chairman of the department of microbiology and molecular genetics 4 years later. During his 13-year tenure as chairman, the department gained national recognition for its research and graduate training programs.

Recognition for Efforts

A prominent member of the microbiology field, he is best known for his research on nucleic acids in bacteria and his pioneering molecular studies of fungi. He is now head of a research project examining the properties of a microorganism associated with acquired immune deficiency syndrome.

Sypherd serves on an advisory committee for the U.S. Public Health Service and is director of a UCI program that prepares medical students for research careers. He is a former editor of two of the most prestigious journals in his field, Molecular Biology and the Journal of Bacteriology.

He has a Ph.D. in microbiology from Yale University, a master’s degree from the University of Arizona and a bachelor’s degree from Arizona State University. Before coming to UCI, he was a member of the faculty of the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana.