Tien Promotion Prompts Happiness, Unease at UCI

The news of Chang-Lin Tien’s appointment as chancellor of UC Berkeley evoked three reactions on the UC Irvine campus Thursday--happiness, disappointment and anxiety.

Administrators, faculty and students alike were happy for Tien, the campus’s popular executive vice chancellor. But at the same time, they were disappointed by the loss of a prominent and well-respected educator.

There was also concern.

Tien, the school’s second-ranking administrator since July 1, 1988, had been considered in many circles as among the top choices to replace Chancellor Jack W. Peltason. Now the campus community fears the school could face an upheaval as administrators struggle to replace Tien, who was responsible for the university’s day-to-day operations.

“The safest thing to say at this point is there’s bound to be disruption--we can’t avoid it,” said John Liu, co-chairman of UC Irvine’s Asian Faculty Staff Assn.

Liu and others at UC Irvine expressed concern that innovative programs implemented by Tien will be put on the back burner while the search goes on, and perhaps eliminated when a new executive vice chancellor is selected.

“It’s really speculative right now,” Liu said. “It really depends on who the next executive vice chancellor is, whether or not the programs (Tien) implemented will continue.”

In a written statement, Peltason said UCI “will ensure that the projects initiated by (Tien’s) office . . . will continue uninterrupted.” He also said that a search committee, led by Dr. William Lillyman, Tien’s immediate predecessor as executive vice chancellor, will immediately begin seeking a replacement.

There was also concern on campus that the university would be thrown into further chaos by the departure of Peltason, who will reach tha mandatory retirement age of 65 in 1991. But UC President David Gardner announced Thursday that Peltason will be retained beyond his retirement date. That announcement didn’t go over well with student activists.

“The one effect of this change is Peltason will be in office longer,” said Randy Kerr, co-chairman of the Campus Coalition for Human Rights. “It’s frightening. It’s a very frightening prospect.”

Student leaders have been battling Peltason recently over the university housing policy and other issues. Peltason said last week that university policy never allowed gay and lesbian students or other “non-traditional families” in campus housing, leading to heated protests and the construction of a cardboard shantytown outside the administration building.

Throughout the student protest, Kerr said, Tien was one of the few sympathetic ears in the administration.

“There was always the hope that with Tien here, Peltason would be gone in a year or so,” Kerr said. “He (Tien) was the only person in a top position of leadership who was truly concerned about student needs. It’s a terrible loss.”

Tien’s departure was also mourned by proponents of affirmative action. All of the faculty, students, administrators and staff interviewed Thursday agreed that Tien was most influential in stepping up affirmative action programs at UC Irvine, and many said they feared the advances proposed and implemented by Tien would fall victim to a less responsive administrator.

“I hope his departure will not set back any actions to improve affirmative action on this campus,” said Daniel Tsang, a social sciences bibliographer who, along with several other employees, filed a grievance last year over alleged discriminatory practices in the school’s library. Tien, he said, was largely responsible for the resolution of the dispute.

“He has changed a lot of things on campus,” Tsang added. “I talked to some people in the administration this morning, people who are high up--they’re concerned that there will be less attention now and less commitment to affirmative action now that he’s out of the way.”

Mary-Louis Kean, associate vice chancellor for academic affairs, agreed that Tien was “a strong and vocal advocate of affirmative action on the campus,” and that he was instrumental in promoting more ethnic diversity in the faculty. But she denied that UC Irvine’s commitment to affirmative action would decrease with Tien’s departure.

“For affirmative action recruitment (of faculty members), I don’t expect the campus to change,” Kean said. “Over half the recruits last year were either women or minorities. I think that pattern will continue--there will be fluctuations, but overall, that won’t change.”