UC President Atkinson Announces Retirement

University of California President Richard C. Atkinson, whose criticisms of the widely used SAT exam helped produce major reforms in the test and who steered the university through painful debates about affirmative action, announced Wednesday that he will step down from his post in October.

Citing what he described as UC’s needs and “my own,” Atkinson, 73, said he would stay on to help shepherd the nation’s most prestigious public university system through one more budget cycle -- certain to be a tough one with possible increases in student fees -- and retire next fall.

In addition to his leadership in the SAT reform effort, Atkinson was praised Wednesday for his efforts to make the university system more accessible to students from all backgrounds despite legal limits on affirmative action and for his commitment to building the system’s 10th campus, at Merced, where ground was broken last month.

At his departure, Atkinson will have headed the nearly 190,000-student system for eight years. That period, he noted, is longer than all but four of his 16 predecessors.

“These have been extremely rewarding years -- challenging, stimulating and deeply interesting years -- but the time has come to bring them to a close,” Atkinson told the university’s Board of Regents. It also was time, he said, “for my grandchildren to see more of their grandfather.”

The regents, most of whom said they had not known the announcement was coming but were not surprised, responded with a standing ovation.

Atkinson “has done a magnificent job for this university,” said John J. Moores, the San Diego Padres owner who is chairman of the regents. He called the announcement “a moment of considerable sadness.”

Atkinson’s decision sets in motion what is likely to be a nationwide search for a successor. Moores will appoint a committee that, according to policy, will include Gov. Gray Davis, an alumni regent, a student regent and several other members of the board.

Among the candidates, according to regents and other officials, are likely to be several of the system’s chancellors, including San Diego’s Robert Dynes, UCLA’s Albert Carnesale and Santa Barbara’s Henry Yang.

Several said that UC experience would be an advantage, but others said that at this point, there was no obvious successor and that non-UC administrators are sure to be considered.

Before that, however, Atkinson will face severe budget constraints, even as UC struggles to cope with the largest enrollment increases in its history. The university, together with its hospitals, this year had a $13-billion operating budget and about 170,000 employees.

Now it may for the first time in eight years consider raising fees. Today, regents are scheduled to discuss a preliminary 2003-04 budget that includes a potential 6.5% fee increase for California residents. Officials said they hoped the increase could be avoided. Average undergraduate fees for California residents are $4,408 a year, including health fees but not room and board.

Educators around the state and country said Atkinson, a cognitive psychologist, would be remembered for his ultimately successful initiative to remake the SAT, the nation’s most widely used college entrance exam.

In June, the College Board, which owns the test, voted to develop a new SAT, in the process incorporating many of Atkinson’s ideas, including a writing exam. His goal was to make it more of a measure of what students learn in high school instead of being an aptitude test, which Atkinson considered unfair.

“He rang the wake-up bell on admissions for colleges across the country,” said UC San Diego Chancellor Dynes. “It’s impossible to overestimate the influence he had.”

Gaston Caperton, president of the College Board, said Atkinson deserves respect despite their past differences about the SAT. “He certainly always was straightforward and thoughtful in his criticism in his search for an answer. His challenge has created not only a better test for California but, more importantly, a better admissions test for the whole country.”

The UC president had planned to announce his retirement last year but agreed to stay on at that point at the urging of Gov. Davis.

In a statement Wednesday, Davis said Atkinson would rank among the university’s outstanding presidents, and the governor praised him for increasing UC enrollment by 30,000 students during his tenure and expanding access to it “for an entire generation of diverse and talented California students.”

Atkinson, who was then chancellor at the UC San Diego campus, was named UC president in August 1995, one month after the regents had voted to ban the consideration of race or gender in admissions and hiring and at a time of considerable tumult for the university. The affirmative action ban was fiercely opposed by student and faculty groups, civil rights activists, and Atkinson and chancellors of the other eight campuses.

Soon after, he had one of the most painful experiences of his presidency, being publicly dressed down by then-Gov. Pete Wilson and conservative UC regents when he tried to delay the ban. Atkinson had failed to clear the idea with the governor before word leaked out. He had to back off. But last year, under Davis, Atkinson worked on a symbolic motion that put the university on record against the ban even if state law required its enforcement.

In the years since, Atkinson has won favorable responses, even from critics, for his low-key, consensus-building approach to university governance, consulting each of the university’s often prickly constituencies, from its faculty to the Legislature.

Ward Connerly, the board’s most outspoken conservative and frequent Atkinson critic, said that he and the UC president had “disagreed on any number of issues over the years.”

“But as a man, I have profound respect for him,” said Connerly, who led the fight to ban affirmative action at UC, then statewide with Proposition 209. “He has steered this university through some difficult times.”

In recent years, Atkinson has presided over a series of changes to admissions policies.They include a program to grant admission to the top 4% of graduates from each of the state’s high schools, and another known as “comprehensive admissions,” under which personal factors are considered alongside academic achievement.

Assemblywoman Elaine White Alquist (D-Santa Clara), who worked closely with Atkinson as chairwoman of the Assembly’s committee on higher education, said Atkinson’s experience as a psychologist helped him understand the importance of all facets of a student’s performance and life.

“When he stood up and said we need to open up the admissions process and look at the total student -- not just their test score -- I think the world and the UC system listened to him,” she said.

Atkinson said Wednesday that in retirement, he will return to San Diego, where he hopes to spend more time with his wife, Rita, and his two young grandchildren and to get “at least eight hours of sleep a night.”

After spending decades in high-profile public leadership roles he is looking forward to some rest. “I’m due,” he said.