The UC Board of Regents unanimously confirmed Marye Anne Fox as UCSD’s new chancellor on April 12. Fox, a renowned chemist who currently serves as chancellor of North Carolina State University, will take office Aug. 16.
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Fox will become the seventh chancellor of UCSD. She is the first woman to be appointed permanent chancellor of UCSD.
“I follow in extraordinary footsteps, and I am humbled in accepting the enormous challenge of accelerating the momentum of UCSD,” Fox said at a press conference immediately following her appointment. “To those outside the university, it might sound brash to talk about what is, and has been, a phenomenal pace of progress. Those inside the university know I have no other choice. The words ‘maintain’ and ‘mediocre’ are not in the UCSD vocabulary.”
Fox was introduced by UC President Robert C. Dynes, UCSD’s former chancellor. With the help of a search advisory committee composed of students, staff and faculty, Dynes chose Fox to fill the position he left after being named the university’s president in October 2003.
“I hadn’t realized that this was going to be hard,” Dynes said. “Today I’m really announcing my successor, and the part that’s really hard on me is that I know she’s going to show me up.”
In the international search, over 300 candidates were contacted for the position, Dynes said. The selection committee then reviewed over 50 candidates in a months-long process.
This was not the first time Fox had been approached by the University of California.
“I have known Marye Anne Fox for many years, and while I was president I tried to recruit her to join the UC system,” former UC President Richard C. Atkinson said in a statement. “I failed, but am truly delighted that we have now succeeded.”
Fox, 56, has been at NCSU’s helm since 1998, previously serving as vice president for research at the University of Texas, Austin. Among many awards and positions, she is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences and currently serves on President George W. Bush’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. Born in Ohio, Fox earned her undergraduate degree from Notre Dame College and her doctorate from Dartmouth College, both in chemistry, and has received honorary degrees from universities in the United States and abroad.
“It is my view … that everything she has done to this day has led her to UCSD,” Dynes said.
While the decision to appoint Fox was unanimous, fixing her salary level was not. Two Regents opposed granting Fox a $350,000 annual salary — nearly 25 percent more than the salary earned by Dynes as chancellor — plus a relocation allowance of $87,500.
Student Regent Matt Murray, who voted against the salary hike, said he understood the university faced “enormous external pressure” to stay competitive and increase salaries of senior administrators, which currently lag behind those at comparable universities across the nation.
“I believe that in a terrible budget time like the one we are facing with student fee increases, enrollment cuts, no cost-of-living adjustment or salary increases for faculty and staff … there need to be voices pushing back against that pressure,” Murray said. “I don’t blame the people at UC for this problem; it is a larger national trend in academia, but I do think it is important to resist it as much as possible.”
Fox, following in Dynes’ footsteps, will set up an on-campus laboratory for her own research. This, she said, will likely be with the help of her husband, also a chemist, who has already started the application process for joining the UCSD faculty.
One tradition that Fox hinted she might not be able to uphold was Dynes’ regular runs around campus.
“I’m a real believer in fitness, although you wouldn’t believe it looking at me … but this is one of the places where I will not be in competition with my predecessor,” Fox said.
Fox outlined what she hoped she would do for UCSD in a speech to administrators and gathered press.
“My vision for UCSD is one of interdisciplinary, innovative and international excellence,” she said. “It requires a passionate commitment to the ideal of scholarly achievement as a public trust. It recognizes the global nature of intellectual frontiers in the sciences and engineering, as well as in the arts, humanities, social sciences and medicine.”
Fox also touched upon the accessibility and diversity of UCSD.
“In the face of current budget challenges and proposed enrollment cuts, we must redouble our efforts to ensure that these students are drawn from all parts of the state and all segments of society,” she said. “The circle of opportunity must be as wide as it is diverse, but entrance to it must be objective and transparent and must include the entire range of these diverse skill sets brought by the amazing students who seek to attend this university.”
Fox said that UCSD has “not come even close” to fully integrating alumni into the role of the university, and that she would work to do so.
She also stressed closer collaboration with business and industrial partners, “with safeguards in place to protect against conflict of interest.” Fox advocated the blurring of boundaries between the university and the local community with the help of private sector partners to achieve projects like Preuss School or the Homeland Security Initiative.
After her speech, which was broadcasted throughout California by teleconference, Fox fielded questions from news media.
In response to questions about the role of research, Fox said that research was a “primary love” of hers as she continues to publish.
“I believe that the process of discovery is the most stimulating thing that any student or faculty member could possibly do,” she said. “So the possibility of incorporating research as a key part of an undergraduate education as well as a graduate education is going to be one thing that I look at very carefully.”
To the question of her outlook on athletics, Fox responded that while she believes that having opportunities for intercollegiate competitions is very important for students, “that doesn’t mean you have to be in Division I necessarily.”
Student representatives to the selection committee said they believe that Fox, who has won teaching and mentoring awards, will serve UCSD students well.
“I think Marye Anne Fox has a tremendous understanding of the students at a research university,” said Eric Frechette, Graduate Student Association president and a member of the search advisory committee. “She’s got a passion for research; she knows even down to the detail the programs that students care about … so she’ll be really perfect for UCSD.”
