Pledging to improve the quality of the undergraduate student experience and foster new collaborations with the private sector, Marye Anne Fox was formally inaugurated as UCSD’s seventh chancellor in a ceremonial procession at RIMAC Arena on March 3.
Changing of the guard:
The ceremony began with a 70-member procession that included inaugural speakers, members of the UC Board of Regents, national laboratory directors, chancellors from other UC campuses and other academic leaders. The procession was followed by welcoming remarks for the new chancellor from student, staff and community representatives.
“I first met Dr. Fox about a year ago [and] today I am just as impressed with her abilities as I was back then,” A.S. President Jenn Pae said. “From the beginning, I knew that she would be a wonderful asset to our community. She is dedicated and caring, and most importantly, a good listener.”
Graduate Student Association President Kris Kohler also extended a welcome to Fox, while challenging the chancellor to lead the university to help create a better world.
“Why shouldn’t the UC, one of the finest public universities in the world, lead a movement of truly free discussion and debate, crossing borders of ethnicity, race, gender, class, sexuality and nationality?” Kohler said. “In short, why can’t we be the first generation of Americans to put people above profits?”
In welcoming the audience, UC Board of Regents Chairman Gerald L. Parsky emphasized the significance of the chancellor’s inauguration.
“The investiture of a new chancellor is a landmark event in the life of a campus and in the life of the people that the university serves,” Parsky said. “The regents look to the chancellor to inspire, energize and lead the campus, so that the university may fully realize its promise for California’s future.”
UC President and former UCSD Chancellor Robert C. Dynes presided over the official ceremony.
“We have much to be proud of at UC San Diego,” Dynes said. “And we are adding immeasurably to the rich history of this campus with the inauguration today of Chancellor Marye Anne Fox. … I have just a bit of a personal stake in what happens at this campus, and I am confident that with the leadership of Marye Anne Fox, it is in very good hands.”
After an address from UC Irvine Chancellor Ralph J. Cicerone — the new president of the National Academy of Sciences — Fox came forward with her own remarks on the origins of UCSD, its role as a public university and her vision for the future.
“Generally, I hope to lead the campus in continuing to identify and recruit smart people to our faculty and staff, to provide a structure that supports them in doing important things, and to get out of their way,” Fox said.
The event ended with an all-campus buffet lunch on RIMAC Field.
The inauguration event cost a total of $79,100 paid for by the regents and the UC Office of the President, more than double the $32,000 spent on Dynes’ inauguration in 1996, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported.
A well-known chemist and academic leader, Fox was named UCSD’s chancellor in April 2004. Before coming to the university, she served as chancellor of North Carolina State University until 1998.
