U.T. Chancellor Likely Heading to California

SAN FRANCISCO — Mark Yudof, chancellor of the University of Texas System, was recommended for the top job at the University of California System on Thursday and is expected to be formally appointed next week.

Richard Blum, chairman of the UC regents, said the recommendation by a search committee he led was unanimous. Yudof's appointment as president of the system at a meeting of the full Board of Regents next week seems all but certain.

Yudof met with top members of the board here during a two-hour, closed-door meeting Thursday but was not made available for comment. Officials declined to discuss the compensation package they offered him, although Blum said, "He's expensive."

As the UT System's chief administrative officer, Yudof is one of the highest paid university officials in the country, receiving $775,000 a year in total compensation. He lives in the system-owned chancellor's residence, Bauer House, in West Austin. He would replace Robert Dynes, who reportedly makes $421,000.

Charles Miller, an investor in Houston who was chairman of the UT regents when Yudof was named chancellor, said the impending appointment is Texas's loss and California's gain.

"I think California's lucky to have him," Miller said. "There's not another person in America with his capacity and ability to do what needs to be done out there. They need some rethinking there."

Indeed, Yudof would inherit plenty of problems as the UC System struggles with a massive budget crisis in the wake of a $16 billion state deficit.

Dynes was criticized by some regents and California legislators for his handling of executive compensation matters. Yudof's first challenges could include reorganizing the president's office.

This week, UC System officials introduced a plan to cut spending by the president's office 20 percent a year and to trim its staff by more than 400 workers. Systemwide cutbacks, higher student fees and other issues would also be on Yudof's plate.

Why would Yudof, at 63, want to take on such a challenge? Friends and associates describe him as a glass-is-half-full guy who still has plenty of energy in the tank. Plus, there is a certain prestige factor.

"The California system leadership job is, I would have to say, the premier higher education job," said Larry Faulkner, a former president of UT-Austin who worked closely with Yudof. "It's a very high-profile job that has a special standing in American higher education. I think there are attractions to it that relate to that. Mark, I'm sure, senses those."

One measure of the UC System's prestige is that six of its 10 campuses are top-tier academic research institutions. Its campus in San Francisco is a leading health science center. Although the UT System has outstanding medical institutions, including the campuses in Dallas and Houston, it has just one top-tier academic campus: UT-Austin.

Yudof wouldn't be the first UT official to be lured away from Austin by the UC System. Robert Berdahl left the presidency of UT-Austin in 1997 to lead UC-Berkeley.

If he takes the California job as expected, Yudof would be leaving a place where he has deep ties. He spent 26 years at UT-Austin, teaching in the law school and serving as law dean and also as executive vice president and provost before becoming president of the University of Minnesota in 1997. He returned to Austin as UT System chancellor in August 2002.

He is an authority on constitutional law, freedom of expression and education law, having earned bachelor's and law degrees at the University of Pennsylvania. His reputation as chancellor is so good, Blum said, that "we can't find anybody that has anything bad to say about him."

Under Yudof, the UT System has made impressive strides on many fronts, commissioning the first full-scale independent systemwide audit, hiring an ethics officer, assembling a small mountain of data each year on graduation rates and more as part of a stronger commitment to transparency and accountability, expanding oversight of the investment arm that manages the Permanent University Fund and other multibillion-dollar endowments, establishing a university-run elementary school in East Austin, committing $2.6 billion for science and technology programs, and calling attention through reports and legislative testimony to the fact that a quarter of Texans don't have health insurance.

One of Yudof's most stunning achievements came just months after he took the job, when he and Miller persuaded the state Legislature to cede tuition-setting power to boards of regents. That took a combination of moxie, diplomacy and intellect that has served Yudof well.

There have been disappointments, missteps and other problems as well. Yudof's offhand prediction in 2003 that UT-Dallas might become the state's next top-tier institution — joining UT-Austin, Texas A&M University and the private Rice University — produced a political firestorm that taught him a lesson in legislative relations.

Lawmakers representing UT-Arlington, a sister school in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, threatened to pull it out of the UT System. To make peace, UT regents had to adopt a resolution pledging to develop Arlington into a major research university with "energy and enthusiasm" equal to that directed at other campuses.

Also under Yudof's watch, the financial aid director at UT-Austin was dismissed last year when officials concluded that he had invested in a company and then placed its student loan subsidiary on a list of recommended lenders. The president of the University of Texas-Pan American had to reimburse the school last year for more than $7,000 in improvements to her home and for use of a campus vehicle after auditors found that spending rules were violated.

Yudof hasn't always gotten his way at the Legislature. He was unable to persuade lawmakers to modify a state law that allows students in the top 10 percent of their high school graduating class to enroll at the public university of their choice. UT-Austin is increasingly the school of choice, limiting the flagship's capacity to admit students with artistic, leadership or other qualities who don't rank in the top 10 percent.

Another disappointment came in 2005 when the UT System and Lockheed Martin Corp. lost their bid to operate Los Alamos National Laboratory, the federally owned nuclear weapons lab in New Mexico, to a team led by the University of California and Bechtel National Inc. That was a setback to the UT System's effort to expand its research profile, prestige and national service. But in his new job, Yudof will get to oversee the lab after all.