Gardner, in Farewell to UC, Warns of Cuts and Takes a Swipe at Critics

UC President David P. Gardner on Friday formally bade farewell to the nine-campus system, calling it “one of the world’s great intellectual treasure houses,” but warning that UC faces tough financial problems, enrollment limits and higher student fees in the near future.

Gardner, who is retiring Oct. 1 after nine years as president, sought to minimize recent controversies over his large severance package and alleged spending abuses by UC executives. Instead, in remarks to his last UC Board of Regents meeting and at a subsequent press conference, he stressed the importance of preserving UC’s quality in a bad budget climate.

“I do not feel gloomy at all about the future of the University of California as the world’s leading public university,” Gardner, 59, said. “I am gloomy, however, about its ability over time to perform its historic role of assuring access to young people of talent irrespective of their ethnicity or socioeconomic status.”

In the only good budget news, Gardner and other UC officials announced Friday that there would be no midyear surcharge on top of this year’s 24% increase in student fees. But citing the 10.5%, or $255 million, drop from last year in state funding for UC, they predicted that annual fees for in-state students, which now average $3,036 without room and board, would probably jump more than 12% next year. Sharper increases were projected for graduate and professional schools, such as law and medicine.

Expecting no relief in next year’s budget, UC administrators said admissions standards will be tightened and some programs cut, resulting in more than 16,000 students being denied entrance to UC over the next three to five years. They also warned that they might ban sophomore-year transfers by community college students and limit transfers from other four-year schools. Overall enrollment is expected to stay near the current 166,000 even though demand will grow.

With early retirement programs, attrition and some layoffs, UC plans to eliminate 4,000 of its 133,300 faculty and staff jobs over the next few years while seeking to avoid firings of tenured faculty. Even with such payroll reductions, UC will need to borrow up to $70 million for next year’s operations, the first time in recent memory that the system will have sought loans for something other than construction, officials said.

Likewise, plans for a 10th campus, in the San Joaquin Valley, are in jeopardy, with a decision to be made at an Oct. 15 meeting in Los Angeles.

Decisions on other future cutbacks will not be made final until the spring, giving incoming UC President Jack W. Peltason some breathing room. Peltason, chancellor of UC Irvine since 1984, will be inaugurated as the 16th president in UC’s 125-year history on Oct. 16 at UCLA’s Royce Hall.

Gardner announced his retirement plans last November, saying he was unable to continue in the job without his wife, Libby, who had died recently. His decision was met with widespread sympathy and with admiration for his stewardship of the prestigious university.

Soon afterward, however, Gardner was mired in controversies. The regents last March secretly took steps to raise his annual pension from $104,000 to $120,000 and awarded him $857,000 in pension vesting and deferred pay he otherwise would have forfeited. Newspaper editorials questioned his UC-paid housing arrangements. Last month, a state auditor general criticized some spending habits of UC executives.

At his press conference Friday, Gardner once again faced questions about those furors and, at first, kept his usual courtly and cerebral manner.

“I would say as I reflect on my nine years, on balance, it’s been a great run, some parts better than others,” he said. “I think I require some distance to get the proper perspective on the last four months.”

But then Gardner showed a rare moment of public anger. He contended that reporters and some legislators pursued “marginal questions, certainly more politically attractive, more appealing to the casual reader, more susceptible to sensationalism . . . but not bearing upon the fundamental issues that should be of interest and concern to the people of California,” such as the state budget’s impact on higher education.

Gardner, who receives about $308,000 a year in salary and deferred compensation plus housing allowances and other benefits, turned back questions about speculation that he would donate a large amount of money to UC. Even to discuss such a gift now would be misunderstood or misinterpreted, he said. On Jan. 1, Gardner is to become president of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, a philanthropic organization in Menlo Park, Calif. He has declined to reveal his Hewlett salary.

At Friday’s meeting, the regents passed a resolution thanking Gardner for his service and detailing the growth in enrollment from 141,000 to 166,000, the greater ethnic diversity on campuses, the construction boom and new academic programs during his presidency. Gardner “staunchly fought to preserve the university’s excellence above all else,” said board Chairwoman Meredith Khachigian.

In his speech, Gardner declared that UC is “the state’s crowning jewel, the principal point of access for people of talent and ambition, the quiet force from which much of California’s power and strength derive, one of the world’s great intellectual treasure houses . . . in short, one of the greatest centers of learning the world has ever known.” The regents and audience gave him a standing ovation.

Next month, Gardner and former Harvard University President Derek Bok are to visit Hungary to help write the parts of a new Hungarian constitution that deal with higher education. Gardner said he also will consult on the establishment of a new university in Hong Kong.

Gardner earned a bachelor’s degree at Brigham Young University. He received a master’s degree in political science and a doctorate in education at UC Berkeley. He became a UC professor and administrator, rising to become a system vice president. He interrupted his UC career for 10 years as president of the University of Utah and returned to UC as system president.