February 2, 2004

UC President Dynes brings 'inaugural tour' to UCSC

UC President Robert C. Dynes got off to a fast start during his first visit to the campus on January 27, as members of the campus community joined him on a morning jog through the redwoods before a day of meetings with faculty, staff, and students.

UC President Dynes meets with students on his first visit to campus. Photo: Jim Burns

Dynes meets some of UCSC's animal residents (top photo) as he takes a look around Long Marine Laboratory with Chancellor Greenwood, left, and UCSC biologist Terrie Williams (above). Before coming to campus, Dynes and Chancellor Greenwood met with government and industry leaders at NASA Ames, including, from left after Dynes, John Young, former CEO of Hewlett-Packard, and Scott Hubbard, director of the research center at Moffett Field (below). Dynes also met with UCSC's Staff Advisory Board (bottom photo). Photos: Elizabeth Irwin

The visit was part of the “inaugural tour” of UC campuses Dynes is conducting in lieu of a formal swearing-in ceremony.

Dynes actually began his meeting with Chancellor Greenwood and other UCSC officials a day earlier at NASA Ames Research Center.

There, he was briefed on the University Affiliated Research Center (UARC) program, and learned of UCSC activities in a variety of areas, including genome research, teacher preparation, and scholarship in the humanities.

At a breakfast with UCSC student leaders that followed his early-morning jog, Dynes fielded questions on proposed fee increases, proposed cuts to K–12 outreach programs, and graduate student fees that would skyrocket under the governor’s 2004–05 budget proposal.

Dynes said he thought the governor's proposal was attempting to put "some sanity" into what has been the escalation of undergraduate fees in recent years.

But UC's president was clearly troubled by the steep rise the governor was proposing for graduate students. "I met with him last week face-to-face and told him this part of his budget plan was not good," Dynes told student leaders, adding that compromising the university's ability to attract top graduate students would impact the university's teaching, research, and public service mission for a generation.

Dynes also expressed support for UC's outreach programs, but said it was too soon to determine their fate as most of the details in the state budget will be "in play" for the next six months. "It would do you no harm to express your views to your representatives" in Sacramento, he told students.

Dynes’s day at UCSC also included a visit to Science Hill for research presentations, lunch with Academic Senate leaders and other faculty, a meeting with the Staff Advisory Board, a trip to Long Marine Laboratory for presentations on ocean science research, and a reception and dinner with campus and community members and UCSC Foundation trustees.

"Santa Cruz is a unique and very special campus,” Dynes told faculty members. "It is noted worldwide for its leadership--Santa Cruz is the place to go for several important fields. I'm very impressed with the strengths in research and the quality of academic programs, and I'd like to see increased rates of graduate students in the future. Comparable universities typically have a higher percentage of graduate students than UCSC currently enrolls.”

One of the students Dynes met, sophomore Kanani Arakaki, found the president to be honest and open. “For the president of the university, he is a very down-to-earth person,” she observed. “I had heard many good things about him from people at UC San Diego [where Dynes was chancellor]. I was impressed.”

Santa Cruz community members joined the campus in welcoming President Dynes during a late-afternoon reception held at the Seymour Marine Discovery Center. Chancellor Greenwood introduced Dynes to a crowd of about 75 guests in the La Feliz Room, describing him as a distinguished physicist and enlightened chancellor who had accepted the UC presidency at a challenging and difficult time for the state and the UC system.

"I took this job not to cut the system back, but to build the system up," said Dynes, noting that he was paraphrasing part of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's State of the State address. "And first, we have to get the house back in order. I believe in my heart that as UC goes, so goes the state of California."

"The university has provided many benefits to California, affecting everything from the food we eat and the health care we enjoy to the contributions and innovations that result from world-class research,” Dynes said. “And individual campuses provide enormous benefit to their local communities. I want to compliment M.R.C. Greenwood. She's done a fabulous job in working with the local community to build trust and collaborations."

Describing his visit to UCSC, Dynes said. "I've had a ball. This is a busman's holiday, talking with students and faculty and visiting your campus and the city of Santa Cruz. It's a lot more fun than sitting in an office in Oakland addressing budget issues!"

Jim Burns, Louise Donahue, Ann Gibb and Elizabeth Irwin contributed to this report.

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