In the face of public and media criticism, UCSD Chancellor Marye Anne Fox contends that her seats on multiple corporate and nonprofit boards do not interfere with her job as head of the university.

Fox said that while she does sit on more boards than many of her colleagues, her various board work brings major benefits to the university.

“It’s crucial for a chancellor to make connections,” Fox said. “We have to make bridges to the community, and that’s what boards allow me to do.”

According to data obtained through the California Public Records Act, published in a recent report by the San Diego Union-Tribune, Fox used 21 vacation days last year to attend to her various board duties — more than the 18 days she accrues annually as chancellor, a fact that Fox denied.

“The numbers are wrong,” she said. “I’ve never exceeded my vacation time here.”

The Union-Tribune also reported that Fox had spent more than 180 hours attending board meetings last year alone, and many of those meetings were on the East Coast.

Fox, an organic chemist, sits on the corporate boards of medical device developer Boston Scientific, clinical research company Pharmaceutical Product Development, chemical manufacturer W.R. Grace and software company Red Hat. She earns stock or cash for her corporate services, she said, and she indicated that she had those jobs long before she became UCSD chancellor.

Fox’s board duties extend to the nonprofit sector as well. Her services include government boards and private foundations, which offer no compensation, she said.

She added that by virtue of being chancellor, she is a member of several local boards, including the La Jolla Playhouse, San Diego Science and Technology Council and the Children’s Hospital.

Though Fox acknowledged that board meetings do take up some of her time, she stressed that her dedication lies with UCSD’s interests and that when board duties and university business coincide, UCSD comes first.

Fox said she spends 60 to 70 hours a week on work dedicated to the university, and she skipped a board meeting last month to attend the UC Board of Regents meeting at UCSD.

“I attend to my board duties with vacation time only, and I always assign priority to university business,” Fox said.

Fox also said that her board duties help enhance her performance as chancellor because of the connections she makes. She gave the example of a “$5 million donor” to the university that she met through one of her boards. She meets many other people with interest in UCSD on her trips, which are financed by the companies, allowing her to make university contacts without using university time or money.

In a letter Fox sent to UCSD faculty, which has been obtained by the Guardian, she indicated that she believes her board duties have improved her overall leadership capabilities.

“My board service … [has] given me unique perspectives about the challenges of the business world and the issues that will face the future employers of our students,” Fox stated in the letter. “And, it’s experience that I have gained over the many years that I have worked with these organizations, giving me expertise that I have found invaluable.”

Fox also defended the $248,000 sabbatical stipend she received when she was hired as UCSD’s chancellor.

Jean-Bernard Minster, a geophysics professor at Scripps Institution of Oceanography and the chairman of UCSD’s Academic Senate, said last month that he has no problem with Fox’s salary and that she has gained the “respect and trust of the majority of people he talks to.”

“She earned that sabbatical,” Minster said. “She deserves to be compensated.”

Fox said she accrued the sabbatical during her time as chancellor of North Carolina State University, and UC President Robert C. Dynes offered her the sabbatical stipend as part of her hiring package because she would lose the money by leaving North Carolina.

“[Dynes] offered to ‘make me whole,’” she said. “He offered me a cash equivalent for my sabbatical so UCSD would have no lapse in leadership.”

Fox indicated that if she had not been offered the stipend as part of her hiring bonus, she would have had to think very seriously about accepting the position as UCSD chancellor.

“I would have had to speculate with my own mind,” she said. “But the reality is that I was offered the money.”

But Maria Figueroa, the UCSD representative of the Coalition of University Employees, suggested that such large compensation packages are unfair.

“There are clerical employees who work one or two extra jobs to make ends meet,” Figueroa stated in an e-mail. “Health care premiums and parking rates have increased. It’s obscene that the chancellor should be paid so much when students and staff struggle to get by.”

Fox, however, said that she had spent six years learning to be a chancellor at North Carolina State and that the compensation package was a factor in her decision to come to UCSD, which she said was in dire need of leadership.

According to Fox, her dedication to UCSD has been demonstrated through her accomplishments, which include raising nearly $250 million for the campus. Under her command, UCSD has gained new minors, the Cal-(IT)2 building has become operational and a housing project for transfer students was approved. She also has worked to establish exchange programs with universities in Baja California and China.

“I’m very proud of the record the administration and I have produced,” Fox said. “I can’t say there is another person who could’ve done the same things.”

Readers can contact Matthew McArdle at [email protected].