UC Regents Approve Napolitano as UC President
At the University of California Regents meeting on Thursday, July 18 at UCSF Mission Bay, recent Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano was elected President of the ten campus University. Student regent Cinthia Flores cast the only vote against Napolitano. Flores told the Daily Californian, “Napolitano will make an excellent manager and administrator. However, I think she may need time to familiarize herself with the University system and the unique responsibilities of the University of California President.” Several reporters described the meeting as raucous, with students lining up to oppose the candidate, protestors yelling, “Shame! Shame!” and six arrests, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
Her annual base salary will be $570,000 which is less than the $591,084 base salary of outgoing President Mark Yudof. (Yudof’s annual compensation package was $925,000, including car and housing allowances, retirement contributions and other benefits, making him one of the nation’s most highly paid college Presidents.) In addition to her base salary, Napolitano will receive $28,500 annually in special senior management benefits, retirement contributions and other benefits as well as expense allowances. She will also receive $142,500 for relocation expenses. Altogether, a nice improvement over her $199,700 salary as homeland security secretary.
The current president told the New York Times that fundraising is not done by the office of the president. Nevertheless, the new president faces a funding shortfall predicted to be $2.9 billion by 2016. In the past two decades the state contribution to the per student cost of UC has declined 65%. For 2013-14 the state will appropriate $2.64 billion toward the UC $24.3 billion budget. Nevertheless, it has continued to burden the university with unfunded mandates. Although the State of California provides only 11% of the UC budget, in a relic of past centuries when it provided virtually the entire support, state government controls all major governing decisions for the university. (In addition to selecting the UC President, the Board of Regents sets tuition, enrollment levels, salaries, etc.) Of the 26 Regents, 18 are appointed by the Governor, the one student regent is appointed by the Board of Regents, the remaining regents are ex-officio–the Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Speaker of the State Assembly, State Superintendent of Public Instruction, UC Alumni Association President, UC Alumni Association Vice President and the UC President.
Student tuition contributes 13% toward the UC budget, but there is only one student regent. The majority of UC support comes from faculty inventions and technology transfers that are the property of the University as a result of employment and the multitude of faculty-generated proposals that win grants, contracts and chair endowments from private foundations, individuals, the U.S. federal government, foreign governments, private industry, multi-government entities such as the European Union, United Nations and Commonwealth of Independent States, etc. The faculty has no representation on the governing Board of Regents.
