Reaction Mixed to Gift for UCI Chancellor’s Residence

A Newport Beach couple’s $1-million gift to UC Irvine for the construction of a new chancellor’s residence has evoked mixed reaction from various groups on campus.

UCI officials and some students Thursday lauded George and Arlene Cheng for the donation announced this week, which will enable the university to begin designs on the long-awaited $2.5-million University House project, which will include a chancellor’s residence and entertainment center.

But with the campus facing severe budget cuts, employee pay cuts of 5%, and student fee increases, some people on campus said such gifts should be spent on education rather than construction.

“I think the problem with UC Irvine is that we’re spending all this money on building buildings instead of putting it into other resources,” said Daniel Tsang, a bibliographer at UCI’s Main Library.

Tsang said academic programs and other student services are in greater need of funding.

UCI spokeswoman Karen Newell Young said the Chengs wanted the money to go specifically for the University House project.

The entertainment center wing of the house will serve as a gathering place for major donors, dignitaries, faculty and the community. The Chengs saw this as a way to bring the community together, Young said.

The Newport Beach socialites also donated $750,000 to UCI in 1990 for the construction of the 756-seat Cheng Hall, part of the Irvine Barclay Theatre on campus. The Chengs are also major donors to the Orange County Performing Arts Center.

Matthew Kazmierczak, a member of the leadership council of the Associated Students of UCI, said some students may feel slighted that the money wasn’t used “to help students pay for the cost of education.” But since the donation came from private individuals, he said, “students won’t complain about it.”

Private donations make up about 4% of UCI’s budget, Young said.

Until the Chengs’ $1-million gift, the university had raised $515,000 from other private sources for what was originally envisioned as a $3-million to $5-million project. Another $750,000 was expected from the sale of the existing chancellor’s house in Newport Beach.

UCI is the only campus in the UC system without a chancellor’s residence on or near the campus, Young said. Former UCI Chancellor Jack W. Peltason, now president of the nine-campus UC system, lives in University Hills, a complex of university-owned housing on campus. Incoming Chancellor Laurel Wilkening will live in the Newport Beach home, about five miles from the campus. She arrives July 1.

Young said the project, which began three years ago, encountered delays when environmentalists protested the construction of University House on land where federally threatened gnatcatchers and other rare wildlife live on environmentally sensitive coastal sage habitat.

The previous site was north of California Avenue, next to a campus biological preserve. The new proposed site is south of California Avenue, Young said.

“It’s a far better site,” said Stephen G. Weller, UCI professor of evolutionary biology who opposed the first site. “It’s away from any of the coastal sage where the gnatcatchers nest. It’s altogether a much better arrangement.”

The new residence will be named the Soong Cheng House.