Cal State San Marcos Appoints Ohio Dean as Second in Command

Richard Millman is trading in a budget-stressed commuter university in Dayton, Ohio, for another one, in sunny San Marcos.

But he says it’s more than the change in climate that appeals to him.

The 46-year-old mathematician will take over as second in command at the fledgling Cal State San Marcos in mid-July, and he said the challenges of a start-up campus and the opportunity to guide the academic development of a university in its infant stages were too appealing to turn down.

Never mind the comparatively astronomical cost of living in California, the state’s budget crunch that threatens to throttle the Cal State University system and Cal State San Marcos’ difficulties in constructing a campus--all of which have led more than one professor to consider leaving the institution, which has yet to complete its first academic year.

“This is the best job that was available this year of all the jobs in higher education in the country,” said Millman, who has served as dean of the Colleges of Sciences and Mathematics at Wright State University in Dayton since 1986.

Like most of the staff that have signed on with Cal State San Marcos, Millman cited the opportunity to build a campus, its curriculum and faculty from the ground up as its prime attraction.

“I’m not coming to San Marcos in order to leave Dayton,” said Millman, who will assume the post of academic vice president.

What he is leaving behind is 17,000 students at a university in the midst of a hiring freeze that faces a 5% budget cut. Until recently, Wright State also had a purchasing freeze.

What he is coming to is a state university system that is trying to bear its share of the $13-billion state budget deficit, a figure comparable to Ohio’s entire general fund budget.

The budget crunch and last fall’s failure of a bond issue, which contained millions of dollars for planning and design of Cal State San Marcos, will delay campus construction and might postpone admitting freshman. Hiring is lower than hoped for because of budget cuts, and the university will begin turning away qualified students in its second year of existence.

“That shouldn’t dampen our enthusiasm because we can still do wonderful and innovative things and be a little bit leaner,” Millman said.

“I know it can be frustrating, but we have to continually remind ourselves that we will be adding and building . . . maybe not as many projects as we anticipated, but the excitement is still there.”

Keeping that enthusiasm alive will be one of Millman’s primary tasks, said Carolyn Mahoney, a mathematics professor who headed the search committee that selected Millman.

“Everyone who comes here is very impressed with how hard people work and how committed they are. . . (and) in the face of severe budgetary constraints, that has to continue,” Mahoney said.

The choice of Millman was opposed by some students who felt the search committee did not try hard enough to recruit ethnic minority or female candidates.

With the addition of Millman, the top three administrators are white males, and there are no women among the deans and the top administrators at a university where women students outnumber men three to one. The highest-ranking female is director of library services, a field traditionally involving women.

Mahoney said that of the 124 candidates, fewer than 10% were female, and one of the eight semifinalists was a woman. None of the five finalists was a woman, although one was a black, Mahoney said.

“It was unfortunate that we didn’t have very many women apply, and while they were strong candidates, the stronger ones were male. . . . I don’t think there was anything we could’ve done in terms of recruiting to attract more female candidates,” Mahoney said.

The 10-member selection committee representing students, staff and faculty included four women, three Latinos and one black, Mahoney said.

Millman has a reputation as a peacemaker with good interpersonal skills among the faculty at Wright State, said Marc Low, an associate dean at the Ohio school.

“We are disappointed that we are losing Dr. Millman. He was here five years and was very good for us, and I think he will be very good for San Marcos, also,” Low said.

Millman had recently undergone a five-year evaluation at the university and it was “quite positive,” Low said.

Millman, who received his Ph.D. in mathematics from Cornell University and his bachelor’s from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has also published three books and more than 35 journal articles on mathematics. His annual salary will be $106,000.

When Millman moves to the area, he will be joined by his wife, Sherry, who has been involved in civic affairs in Dayton. They have four grown children.