Dynes’ message to the UC Community

Hi. As many of you probably know by now, I informed the Regents today that I intend to step down as president of the University of California by the end of this academic year in June of 2008, which is about five years for this term. It’s about all I anticipated spending as president, or at least I would have thought about it after five years.

As I was thinking about what I would say to you and why I am stepping down, the standard line when I look at other executives – the standard line is, “I’m stepping down because I want to spend more time with my family.” In this case, it’s absolutely true. As many of you know, I was married only five months ago and my wife, Ann, who is at UC San Diego, lives in La Jolla. And of course I’ve been commuting back and forth and I’m getting tired of that commute and I want to spend more time with her and hopefully, she wants to spend more time with me!

And so, that’s part of the reason why I’m stepping down. The other is that five years is enough in this difficult job and that change – a change of view, a change of venue, both for me and for a new president – is probably appropriate as we go forward.

Like many presidents out of universities, I came out of the faculty and I have this great love of the university and of the faculty. I anticipate that I will move back to the faculty and teach; teach and conduct research as a physicist, or as a person who has been through the kinds of things that I have been through in the past 20 years in science, technology and administration. So, I look forward to that.

In the meantime, and for the next nine to ten months, I will continue to work on the things that I think are important for the university. One university, ten campuses, the ‘Power of 10’ is a very important concept and I will continue to push on that, I will continue to push on expanding the diversity throughout the university and an agenda that I think is very important – the research, development and delivery of both the people and the product and the intellectual property that belongs to the state of California. It doesn’t belong to us, it belongs to the state of California. So, I will continue to do that, I will continue to travel throughout the state, visit campuses, visit industry, visit Sacramento and continue to be an advocate for the university.

During that period, I have appointed Rory Hume as the chief operating officer, so that he will be responsible for the day-to-day operations; and I know that he will do a marvelous job and together, Rory and I and the other executive vice-presidents, will be working very close together so that I leave this university in very, very strong hands and help recruit the next president that will carry us forward. I, of course, have a personal interest in finding the best president possible because I’ll be a faculty member by then.

For all of you who have helped us through the really difficult times in the past several years and made this university stronger today than it was five years ago, I thank you all – the faculty, the staff, the students – you’re all terrific. And together we can continue to make this the best university in the world.