UCI Chancellor Wilkening to Quit Job, Profession

UC Irvine Chancellor Laurel L. Wilkening, who oversaw a campus lauded for its twin Nobel prizes two years ago but tarnished by a fertility clinic crisis that became a national scandal, announced Wednesday that she will leave her post--and higher education--by next summer.

Wilkening, 52, said she plans to leave the UC system’s fastest-growing campus by June 30 to pursue projects that will bring her closer to personal passions such as researching population growth, the global environment and women’s issues.

“I have been very fortunate to have had a very exciting career in higher education,” said Wilkening, a planetary scientist who, before arriving at UCI in 1993, had been a teacher and administrator at the universities of Washington and Arizona.

“I think public higher education is what made this country great,” she said. “But I’ve done it. I have time and an opportunity to move on.”

That move marks the fourth departure of a UC chancellor in the past 18 months. New leaders have been appointed at Berkeley and UCLA, and a search continues for one at UC San Francisco.

Wilkening’s announcement caught many by surprise, especially because it came after a number of recent positive developments on the UCI campus, Orange County’s third-largest employer, which the university says contributes $1.1 billion annually to the local economy.

The chancellor also has spurned advances from other universities, including one from Arizona just a few months ago.

Wilkening told her staff of her decision Tuesday after returning from a two-week vacation to Arizona, where she has a home and plans to live after leaving her post.

“If I’m going to make a career change, I have to do it at some point,” she said in an interview Wednesday. “Time is passing, and I’m getting older. But I also feel that UCI is in very good shape. We’re well positioned for the future.”

UCI’s third chancellor, Wilkening steps down after four years during which the campus embarked on an expansion unprecedented in its 32-year history to cope with explosive growth of the student population and research endeavors. The expansion, coupled with the campus’ rising national reputation--it has received rankings in the top 50 or better from most academic and popular journals--marked the highlights of her tenure.

Two others came in 1995, when Nobel prizes were awarded to faculty members F. Sherwood Rowland for chemistry and Frederick Reines for physics.

But Wilkening also presided over the campus during its darkest times, including a budget crisis that precipitated cuts in programs shortly after she arrived and a scandal at a now-defunct university-run fertility clinic that drew national opprobrium.

University doctors Ricardo H. Asch, Jose P. Balmaceda and Sergio C. Stone were accused of harvesting eggs from patients and implanting them in other women or sending them to research laboratories. The university has resolved 43 civil cases, including 41 last month, by paying settlements totaling $14 million. The federal government also has charged the doctors, two of whom have left the country, with mail and wire fraud in connection with the case.

Wilkening and UC officials said her departure was not linked to the cases, with some high-ranking officials maintaining that they tried to persuade Wilkening to remain at the campus of 18,000 students and 2,300 faculty members.

In hindsight, Wilkening said of the scandal, “I wish I had grasped the magnitude of the problem [earlier] than I did.” But “I am pleased the cases are being settled. In terms of my timing, I think of it more as coincidence. [The settlements] were a big step to bring the episode to closure. But that wasn’t a defining thing in my decision.”

UC President Richard C. Atkinson, who two years ago at a regents meeting offered high praise of Wilkening’s handling of the fertility scandal, said, “It’s a very difficult day for us. She has done a superb job under incredibly difficult conditions, and it will be a tremendous loss to the university.”

The president and Board of Regents will set up a committee to search nationwide for a successor, whom Atkinson predicted would be named by March.

“I have done everything humanly possible to try to encourage her to stay on,” he said. “I have the highest regard for her personally. It is really a personal loss to me to see her make this decision.”

University Regent Roy T. Brophy learned of Wilkening’s decision in a telephone conversation with her Tuesday.

“I honestly was devastated,” he said, adding that the scandal made her job “very troublesome. It wasn’t of her doing, but it has been her job to untangle the ball of yarn that was given to her. I think she is just an incredible person, and I don’t say this lightly.”

Arnold Binder, president of the UCI Academic Senate, said he enjoyed a close working relationship with Wilkening.

“She’s been good for the campus in terms of accomplishments and international distinctions,” Binder said. Since the fertility scandal, “morale on campus has improved markedly.”

Aram Chaparyan, president of the undergraduate student government association, agreed with many others in describing Wilkening as reserved, even shy. But he said she had grown into the job.

“I’m really surprised,” he said. “I finally thought the chancellor had found her place here, and now she’s leaving.”

A few said they will be happy to see her go. They include people who have criticized her for a slow response to the fertility crisis.

“I believe she has demonstrated immense ineptness in her job as chancellor,” said Debra Krahel, a former UCI Medical Center administrator who was one of the whistle-blowers in the case. “And . . . if she’s resigning, the university will be better off for it.”

Wilkening’s administration also has drawn some opposition for baldly declaring that the rural flavor of the campus, carved from 1,500 acres of ranchland donated by the Irvine Co., is incompatible with long-range expansion plans that include new academic and research buildings, as well as dormitories and a student recreation center over the next several years.

The university has notified groups who tend horses and other animals in a pasture on the edge of campus that they must abandon the site to make way for the recreation center. And the Farm School, an alternative elementary facility next to the pasture, has not been included in long-range plans.

Though Wilkening recalls with delight her interaction with students--she taught a freshman seminar last semester--some griped about continued problems with parking and overcrowded or unavailable classes.

“It just seems like she’s a figurehead,” said Trina Diaz, 20, a junior from Los Angeles. “She had the title, but she didn’t do a whole lot for us students.”

Supporters said the rising stature of the university ultimately will define her legacy. In the latest accolade, U.S. News and World Report magazine’s Sept. 1 issue ranked UCI No. 9 among public institutions and No. 41 among all universities in the nation.

Wilkening said she also cherished working with the diverse student body and lamented the regents’ decision to do away with affirmative action in hiring and admissions practices. She did not link that to her resignation, though.

“The abolishment of affirmative action now puts the spotlight on equal opportunity,” Wilkening said. “What we know is that in fact we do not have equality of opportunity in K-12 schools, that students are not equally prepared. We will try our best, but we cannot compensate for unequal treatment in K-12.”

Wilkening said she has not yet decided exactly how to pursue her other interests. She said that she will move to Arizona, but that it will be some months before she makes concrete plans. She suggested that her next step would follow up on her concept of Earth as a spaceship in need of better maintenance and repair.

“I am a planetary scientist,” she said. “When you’re out there, like Mir, you need air to breathe, water to drink . . . a physical structure, and you need to get rid of the garbage.”

As for her legacy, she said she hopes to remembered for the campus expansion, new academic programs in biomedical engineering and community health, and boosting private fund-raising to $30 million this year, the second-highest level yet. But she would not take credit for all that is going well.

“I was lucky to be at UCI when it emerged as one of the elite public universities in the country, and mostly that was fortuitous,” she said. “I was here when our first two Nobel prizes were awarded. I had as a goal that we would be established in the top 50 of research universities, and we’re there. But that is basically the result of the faculty over the years. I can’t really take credit for it.”

Times staff writers David Reyes and Janet Wilson contributed to this report.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Chancellor Gives Notice

UC Irvine Chancellor Laurel L. Wilkening will leave the university by June to pursue personal interests: research on world population growth, the environment and women’s issues.

On Wilkening’s Watch

Major events during Wilkening’s term as chancellor:

1994: UCI Medical Center fertility clinic scandal breaks

1995: Nobel chemistry and physics prizes awarded to UCI faculty members

1996: Record freshman class enrollment

1997: $50 million paid to settle fertility lawsuits. Campus undergoes largest building boom since its opening

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“If I’m going to make a career change, I have to do it at some point. . . . I also feel UCI is in very good shape. We’re well positioned for the future.”

--Laurel L. Wilkening

Reaction on Campus: What students, faculty had to say about Wilkening’s announcement. A20