Cicerone and the Science of Leadership

Ralph J. Cicerone, the first person in his family to attend college and who once considered leaving academics to be a baseball broadcaster, became UC Irvine’s fourth chancellor Thursday, vowing to lift the school to greater heights.

As word spread that UC Regents had unanimously tapped the popular scientist, professors on campus and elsewhere expressed high hopes that Cicerone’s reputation as a top-notch scholar would lure to UCI both up-and-coming researchers and those who already have made their marks.

“We’re not a flagship campus of the University of California,” Cicerone said. “That’s what we aspire to be.”

A high school and college athlete who played football, baseball, basketball and golf, Cicerone has displayed the same versatility and achievement in his professional life, skipping from engineering to chemistry to physics to geosciences. Along the way, he has conducted groundbreaking research ranging from studying the ozone layer to analyzing rice plants, before he moved into university administration in 1994.

“Ralph Cicerone is a scientist of great distinction who has been active on issues of science policy at the national and international levels,” said UC President Richard C. Atkinson. “Dr. Cicerone is committed to build the quality of the UCI campus.

“He is a seasoned, effective manager and an accomplished fund-raiser,” Atkinson said. “As a recognized leader on the Irvine campus, he is well positioned to lead the campus as it enters the next century.”

For the past four years, Cicerone, 54, has been the dean of UCI’s School of Physical Sciences, where he has been in charge of 100 faculty members from four departments. His appointment was met with nearly unreserved enthusiasm on all corners of the campus.

“He’s going to be a professor’s type of chancellor,” said Stanley Tyler, a research associate in the Earth system science department. “He understands what it takes to do research, and he’s going to make that a goal here. He wasn’t someone who quit his research career early on to do administration. He’s done 20 to 30 years of hard-core research before jumping into this position.”

“He’s been an excellent dean,” said Arnold Binder, chairman of the Academic Senate and a professor emeritus of criminology. “He is first rate in terms of his stature as dean and in terms of his scholarship.”

Researchers at other institutions predicted that Cicerone will be a magnet that will attract some of the most talented students and faculty to UCI.

“He’s viewed as one of the top atmospheric chemists not only in this country but the world,” said Richard Anthes, president of the university consortium that operates the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo. “People have a lot of respect for him. People will want to come and work in an environment where he leads.”

Cicerone said that although he has been a professor at the university since 1989, he plans no quick changes.

“I have to do a lot of listening,” he said. “I have to be careful not to make snap judgments. There are so many smart people here. If I don’t listen, I’m doing so at my own peril.”

For example, Cicerone wrote a report about five years ago recommending the education department be shut down as a way to trim the university’s budget, but he no longer believes that, saying the department has improved.

As he discussed his approach to his newest challenge, on his table rested a congratulatory bouquet of ginger, orchids and sunflowers sent by Laurel L. Wilkening, whom he will succeed July 1. Cicerone will be paid $202,500 annually.

Wilkening, who was provost at the University of Washington, is stepping down after five years to pursue projects outside higher education.She credited her successor with making outstanding hires at the School of Physical Sciences.

“He’s quite a visionary and a very broad thinker,” she said.

Cicerone will be taking over a campus with nearly 18,000 students, 1,200 faculty members and a staff of 6,000 that includes a medical school and medical center. It is a campus whose reputation was severely damaged by the scandal in which three doctors at a university-run fertility clinic were accused of taking eggs from some women and planting them in others. Two doctors left the country and a third was convicted of fraudulently billing insurance companies.

It was also hurt by four years of declining budgets as the state cut back because of the recession.

But the campus’ reputation began to improve after two professors won Nobel Prizes in 1995. “The value of a UCI degree went up big time in late ‘95,” Cicerone said. Sitting on the floor of his office were framed posters celebrating the Nobel winners that he was getting ready to put on his wall. “I’ll leave them for the new dean,” he said.

One of the Nobel winners was Cicerone’s friend, F. Sherwood Rowland, and the new chancellor was listed on the award as one of nine researchers who had contributed to the research. Cicerone traveled to Stockholm with Rowland when he received the Nobel.

“It is important for the university to have a dynamic chancellor who is intelligent and capable of making tough decisions when necessary and interested in all aspects of the university, and that is one of the characteristics of Ralph,” Rowland said.

Cicerone, who grew up poor in western Pennsylvania, received his bachelor’s degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and his master’s degree and doctorate from the University of Illinois.

“I certainly was moved by his description of growing up in rural Pennsylvania broke and going to MIT and being a weak student [at first],” said Patricia Kitcher, a member of the search committee and chairwoman of the philosophy department at UC San Diego. “I think he’ll have tremendous empathy with students.”

Cicerone made his name as one of the first scientists to show that chlorofluorocarbons used in spray cans were depleting the ozone layer. He recalled testifying on his 31st birthday in 1975 before the New York Senate. One industry spokesman after another had preceded him, saying it was impossible to remove CFC’s and still manufacture quality products.

When it came his turn, Cicerone pulled out a letter one company had written to a group of Michigan schoolchildren, saying that although the firm disagreed with the science, to be safe, it was removing the chemicals from its products. “I pulled out the letter and said, ‘This is my testimony,’ ” he recalled.

Cicerone’s wife, Carol, teaches cognitive sciences at UCI. Their daughter is a civil engineer in New York.

Colleagues tell of Cicerone’s mischievous sense of humor, his charm and his love of sports. He had a special fondness for athletic teams at the University of Michigan, where he taught, and is a fan of the San Diego Padres baseball team and All-Star outfielder Tony Gwynn. Rowland’s son, who lives in San Diego, sends the new chancellor a Padres schedule every year. Last year he sent 100, so Cicerone could give them away.

While Cicerone has always been a researcher, he once considered leaving the field for baseball. The Padres had an opening for a broadcast analyst. The team’s first choice turned down the job and recommended Cicerone. But when he was offered a position at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., making the same amount of money, he withdrew his name.

“I believe I could have been offered the job,” he said. “It was tempting.”

Times staff writer Tini Tran contributed to this story.