Linda Katehi plans to get a running start as UC Davis’ new chancellor. Make that a flying start.

This Sunday (Aug. 16), the eve of her first official day as Larry Vanderhoef’s successor, Katehi is scheduled to meet with the School of Law’s alumni board and attend a barbecue for first-year law students.

Then she is booked on a red-eye flight from San Francisco to Washington, D.C., to attend an Aug. 17 event hosted by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who has invited more than two dozen people from the United States and abroad for a discussion on higher education in a global and developing world.

While in Washington, Katehi said, she will meet with Department of Energy officials to advocate for their consideration of UC Davis as the site of the DOE's proposed Energy Innovation Hub for energy-efficient building systems.

The department's 2010-11 budget asks for $280 million to launch eight Energy Innovation Hubs; each would be multidisciplinary and each would focus on a particular challenge. The work of each hub would span from basic research
to engineering development to commercialization and hand-off to industry.

Other academic leaders who have accepted the invitation to Secretary Clinton’s education discussion include the presidents of Yale, Cornell and New York universities, the chairman of the National Knowledge Commission of India and the associate vice chancellor for institutional advancement at Africa University in Zimbabwe.

Nina V. Fedoroff, science and technology adviser to the secretary of state, said Katehi will be in on the ground floor of Clinton’s emerging initiative for higher education.

Fedoroff, a Penn State plant scientist, said higher education “has kind of fallen off the development table over the last couple of decades,” and Fedoroff would like to see that reversed.

She said “connections with university researchers” can aid Third World development, for example, in the area of food security—one of Secretary Clinton’s flagship issues.

Katehi’s return to campus

The new chancellor is due back on campus on Aug. 18 to resume a schedule that includes meetings with faculty, staff and student leaders; the Council of Deans and Vice Chancellors; and, of course, a budget briefing.

Her first week also includes visits with state legislators at the Capitol, and meetings with The California Aggie and Davis Enterprise. She is expected to close out the week at the Aggie Football Women’s Huddle.

In an Aug. 14 statement, Katehi said she and her husband, Spyros Tseregounis, "are thrilled to be joining the UC Davis family and the wonderful Davis community. I am eager to get to work on the university’s behalf, listening and learning and working closely with UC Davis community members to identify new opportunities to move the university forward.

"There will be challenges, to be sure, but I’m invigorated and optimistic that, together, we can create a compelling future for UC Davis.”

Katehi confronts the immediate prospect of overseeing further cuts in academic and administrative budgets for 2009-10—the result of the state’s fiscal crisis and the resulting decrease in funding to the UC system.

UC Davis’ fiscal year shortfall totaled an estimated $114 million before a first round of campus cuts, and before the Board of Regents raised student fees and ordered employee furloughs.

All those actions cut the shortfall to $80.5 million. Which means UC Davis still has $33.5 million to go.

As a result, one of Katehi’s first appointments is with Enrique Lavernia, provost and executive vice chancellor; John Meyer, vice chancellor, Office of Resource Management and Planning; and Kelly Ratliff, associate vice chancellor for budget planning.

Besides balancing the budget, campus officials also must decide on a furlough implementation plan. The Board of Regents specified how many workdays each employee will lose over a one-year period, from Sept. 1 through Aug. 31, 2010, but gave discretion to each campus to decide how to assign those days.

UC Davis is considering one option under which the campus would be closed on specified days—in other words, these would be declared as furlough days for as many employees as possible. Faculty and nonrepresented staff would be included, whereas participation by represented staff would be dependent on the collective bargaining process.

The systemwide furlough plan specifies 11 to 26 days without pay for most employees. This translates into salary reductions of 4 percent to 10 percent. The more money you make, the more furlough days you must take.

The regents exempted most student employees, such as graduate students, as well as personnel whose funding comes entirely from contracts and grants. As for employees who receive partial funding from contracts and grants, the regents directed the Office of the President to evaluate whether these employees should be assigned partial furloughs, in proportion to the percentage of time that is funded from those outside sources.

The regents also exempted medical center employees from furloughs; nevertheless, at the UC Davis Medical Center, employees have been advised that they will be expected to contribute to salary-savings objectives by assuming larger workloads as the center eliminates vacant positions, delays hiring, reduces overtime and implements other salary-savings measures.

The Illinois ‘clout’ controversy

Katehi comes to UC Davis from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, where she served as provost for the last two years.

On May 29, three weeks after her appointment as UC Davis chancellor, the Urbana-Champaign campus became enmeshed in scandal when the Chicago Tribune launched a series of articles titled “Clout Goes to College,” about a list of some 800 applicants whom university trustees and others with connections hoped to see admitted, regardless of the applicants’ qualifications.

Katehi, who as provost was in charge of admissions, insisted that she “never attempted to alter, influence or interfere with the admissions decision of any applicant to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign,” and that the so-called Category I admissions process was handled at a higher level in the institution.

University of Illinois President B. Joseph White and Urbana-Champaign Chancellor Richard Herman backed her up, and UC President Mark G. Yudof also stood by her.

And, in fact, when an Illinois state commission’s investigative report came out Aug. 6, Katehi’s name appeared nowhere in it. Instead, the commission condemned White, Herman, two deans and the university trustees for “failures of leadership.”

The commission said the U of I was not atypical among U.S. universities in lacking “a policy that specifically prohibited undue influence in admissions.”

Notable exceptions, according to the commission, include the UC system—and Katehi referenced the UC policy in her response to the Illinois report.

“I was particularly pleased to see its reference to the University of California as one of the few universities that have in place a clear policy prohibiting undue influence in admissions,” she said in an Aug. 7 statement from Greece, where she was vacationing prior to her move into Mrak Hall.

“As chancellor at UC Davis, I look forward to supporting the dedicated Student Affairs staff in their efforts to enroll students of accomplishment and promise in ways consistent with the values and policies of the University of California. I share those values, and I respect those policies.

“My hope is that the commission’s work will not only spur meaningful reforms at the University of Illinois but, in the process, may encourage a broader dialogue among universities about best practices for enhancing the fairness and openness of admissions decisions.”