UC Davis is offering its best wishes to Larry Vanderhoef as he steps down from the chancellor’s post after 15 years of service.

One way to honor him is with a gift to the newly established Larry N. Vanderhoef Scholarship Fund for Students and Staff, or to the Annual Fund. Another way to express yourself is in person at an open house.

And everyone is invited, as well, to a concert May 30 by Broadway superstar Patti LuPone. For students who might be short of cash, the Mondavi Center is offering a special deal: “Pay what you can,” at least $1 for handling. (More about Patti LuPone, plus all the concert details.)

“This performance is a tribute to the chancellor,” said Camille Spaccavento, the Mondavi Center’s director of marketing. “And we wanted to make sure all interested students had a chance to attend.”

The open house on June 5 is as much in recognition of Vanderhoef and his wife, Rosalie, as it is an opportunity for them to recognize the campus community. The event will take place at the chancellor’s official residence, site of hundreds of university events during Vanderhoef’s tenure as chancellor.

One of the first such events was an open house on May 11, 1998, just four months after the Vanderhoefs moved in to what was then a brand-new home.

“He wanted to welcome the campus community into the residence, and he wants to do the same as he and Rosalie are departing,” Associate Chancellor Maril Stratton said.

Vanderhoef became chancellor in 1994, but, at the time of his appointment, no one was living at 16 College Park, across the street from the campus’s northern border.

The house was in bad shape. It dated from 1937, when Dean Knowles Ryerson built it as his personal home. The university would eventually purchase the home — and tear it down in 1996.

The new construction carefully preserved a heritage Himalayan spruce among several sycamores in the front yard, and a particularly statuesque Chinese wingnut and two Modesto ashes in the back. In fact, the home surrounds those backyard trees — which highlight a courtyard where so many social affairs are held.

Indoors and outdoors, the Chancellor’s Residence is the venue for some 50 events a year, for more than 2,700 guests. Many of these affairs are for high-ranking visitors. But many other affairs at the Chancellor’s Residence are for UC Davis faculty, staff, students and alumni — for awards and other recognition, for saying thank you and a job well done, for saluting diversity.

“Chancellor Vanderhoef has really enjoyed welcoming the campus community into this home,” Stratton said. “That’s what the residence was built for.”

Come July 1, Vanderhoef and his wife will be back in the north Davis home they bought in 1984. Larry Vanderhoef joined UC Davis that year as executive vice chancellor and subsequently became provost and executive vice chancellor, until his appointment as UC Davis’ fifth chancellor in 1994.

The Vanderhoefs rented out their personal home until recently, and, with no more tenants, the chancellor and his wife have been updating the house in preparation for moving back in.

Vanderhoef is leaving the chancellor’s post, but not the campus. He will hold the title chancellor emeritus while serving as a professor in the Department of Plant Biology.

New scholarship fund

The Larry N. Vanderhoef Scholarship Fund will offer awards in two areas that are near and dear to the chancellor’s heart:

Support for students to study abroad — Vanderhoef has long been an advocate for global connections, knowing that students — by learning about and engaging with other cultures — can gain a new perspective on our complex but shrinking world.

“They often tell me the experience changed their lives,” Vanderhoef told UC Davis Magazine for the spring edition. “I’d like every one of our students to have the same opportunity.”

Support for staff’s continuing education — “UC Davis staff members truly view the university as ‘family,’ and want to spend their careers here,” Vanderhoef said. “The scholarship fund will help them do so by giving them the opportunity to further develop their talents and strengthen their credentials.”

Tribute organizers are promoting the Annual Fund as another avenue for gifts.

“A gift in (Chancellor Vanderhoef’s honor) to the Annual Fund will help UC Davis keep the extraordinary momentum that Larry has generated,” said Bob Murphy ’63, chair of the Chancellor’s Club, for people who give $1,000 or more.

Gifts to the Annual Fund are unrestricted, so these gifts can be directed to meet any need on campus, such as the Chancellor’s Fellow awards for outstanding young faculty, scholarships for top high school graduates, and new computer labs where students can conduct research and complete papers.

Pam Fair ’80, chair of the UC Davis Foundation, said: “Chancellor Vanderhoef’s leadership and vision are tremendous. On his watch, UC Davis has progressed to a place among the very top universities in the nation.”

She said the new Larry N. Vanderhoef Scholarship Fund and the Annual Fund are fitting ways to honor the chancellor’s legacy.

“The scholarship fund represents his strong commitment to broadening the horizons of undergraduates and ensuring further education opportunities for staff.

“And unrestricted support for UC Davis recognizes the value that the Annual Fund and the Chancellor’s Club have had for Chancellor Vanderhoef and the university during his tenure.”

BEST WISHES TO THE CHANCELLOR

Online donations: giving.ucdavis.edu/chancellor

To give by check, make it payable to the “UC Davis Foundation,” and send it to:

Assistant Vice Provost Robert Kerr
University Outreach and International Programs
UC Davis, 1 Shields Ave., Davis, CA 95616

Be sure to note whether you are supporting the “Larry N. Vanderhoef Scholarship Fund for Students and Staff” and-or the “UC Davis Annual Fund in honor of Chancellor Vanderhoef.”

More information is available from: Assistant Vice Provost Kerr, (530) 754-8941
rakerr@ucdavis.edu.