Wanted: A Water-Walking UC Irvine Chancellor

As UC Irvine begins its search for a new chancellor, Jack Peltason figures he knows who would fill the bill.

“An outstanding person who gets along with students, speaks well and is a great scholar of unquestioned integrity,” said Peltason, former president of the UC system and former UC Irvine chancellor. “Then they’d discover God is not available and start looking for real human beings.”

The search comes at a crucial time. Under current Chancellor Ralph J. Cicerone, the university has mapped an ambitious campaign to elevate its already esteemed academic standing. Cicerone has since been tapped to head the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, and he leaves in June.

His successor will not only be among California’s most prominent figures in higher education, but will function as CEO of Orange County’s second-largest employer, with a budget of $1.4 billion, including a hospital.

He or she will have to be savvy enough to deal with politicians in Sacramento and Washington, smooth enough to serve comfortably as the university’s public face, wise enough to curry the support of a faculty that has the power to create new academic degrees, departments and programs and, perhaps most important, assertive enough to approach wealthy supporters for million-dollar donations.

“These are complex universities that have multiple sets of missions, and as chancellor you have to have clarity and an understanding of all these missions,” said Steven Koblik, former president of Reed College in Portland, Ore., and now president of the Huntington Library.

Cicerone said that in the five years he has been chancellor, the role of top-ranked universities in research has increased as funds have been cut in the government and private sectors.

“The university’s mission has grown to include taking over research roles that the U.S. government and [private] business use to do -- longer-term research that they’re not doing anymore,” he said. “We’re being asked to do more research while, at the same time, expand our undergraduate enrollment with a shrinking resource base.”

All the while, Cicerone said, a chancellor is beholden to multiple masters.

“I meet with students, who think they own the campus. I meet with their parents, and they think they own the campus,” he said. “Legislators think they own the campus. I meet with regents, and they are pretty sure they own the campus. And I meet with faculty members, and they’re damned sure they own the campus.”

Given that, recruiters “need to look for [a candidate] who understands the high stakes and the interests of all these different groups,” Cicerone said. “And that includes prominent citizens who say, ‘We’ve got a UC campus here, and we want to make it really great.’ ”

The average tenure of a university president is less than seven years. Those who have occupied the chair say the job is a brutal one.

“Since I retired a year ago, everyone says I look 20 years younger,” said Richard Atkinson, former UC president and chancellor of UC San Diego. “It’s from being out from that constant grind.”

If history within the 10-campus system is any indicator, UC Irvine’s new chancellor most likely will come from outside the University of California.

Cicerone was an exception, having served as the dean of physical sciences at UC Irvine before ascending in 1998 as UC Irvine’s fourth chancellor.

The candidate also will likely come from a science or engineering background -- a person who has managed laboratories, dealt with intellectual property issues and worked with federal agencies that fund most university research. Cicerone, for instance, pioneered research on global warming.

The UC system has plenty of recent experience in choosing chancellors. UC Irvine’s new chief will be the fifth appointed in three years, joining France Cordova at UC Riverside, Marye Anne Fox at UC San Diego, Robert Birgeneau at UC Berkeley and Denice D. Denton at UC Santa Cruz.

UC Irvine, which U.S. News & World Report ranked as the nation’s 12th-best public university, should have little trouble attracting candidates.

“It’s obviously viewed as among the best of the research universities; it’s in Southern California, in a great system,” said David Ward, president of the American Council on Education, which represents the nation’s major universities.

The cost of real estate won’t be a recruiting stumbling block. The chancellor lives in a house the university owns next to a nature preserve.

The salary would be expected to be near Cicerone’s $287,700; the post also comes with a car.

Candidates will be interviewed by a 17-member advisory committee of professors, students, regents, staff, alumni and financial supporters.

UC President Robert Dynes, a member of the committee, will forward his choice to the Board of Regents for approval by April.

The new UC Irvine head will be the university’s point person in its ambitious plans to rise to the ranks of the nation’s elite by growing into the next UC Berkeley or UCLA.

A draft plan calls for enrollment to jump from 24,000 students to 32,000 by 2014 -- increasing the proportion of graduate students from 19% to 24% to put it more in line with other major research universities.

The plan also calls for hiring 400 professors, including 100 endowed chairs, and to create research centers and institutes on subjects from stem cells to international studies.

Another key to raising the university’s reputation is increasing the number of professional programs and adding students to the medical and business schools.

First on UC Irvine’s wish list is a long-sought law school for which UC Irvine is raising money -- even before the regents have given approval.

There is talk also of starting new schools in public health, pharmaceutical sciences and architectural design.

Among the challenges facing the new chancellor will be to persuade the UC president and regents to approve any new school, especially when the state is running a huge deficit.

He will need to tap private benefactors as well.

“Twenty-five years ago, the University of California did very little fundraising,” Atkinson said.

“Now we couldn’t exist without it. We’re involved in private fundraising as much as Stanford or USC, so the chancellor has a tremendous task of dealing not only with student and academic issues, but reaching out to the broader public for private giving.”

In a 2001 survey, the American Council on Education found that presidents of public institutions like UC Irvine said fundraising took up more time than any other activity.

And the demands on UC Irvine’s new chancellor may be even greater, given projections that the university will have to raise about $100 million annually -- 50% more than last year -- to fund its initiatives.

“With a chancellor who is dynamic and visionary and really connecting with the Orange County community in a very vibrant way, a very relevant way, we’re hoping our new chancellor could propel us over $100 million,” said Tom Mitchell, UC Irvine’s vice chancellor of university advancement.

Cicerone echoed the need for a fundraising chancellor. “The state of California will continue to support the University of California, but for real excellence,” he said, “we’ll need private support -- even more than we’ve had in the past.”