It's hard to imagine a more stimulating job than serving as president of what I view and I think is the consensus view of the premier public university system in the world. So, I'm really looking forward to the challenges and it wasn't easy to leave Texas. I had a steady flow of breakfast tacos; things were looking good; they paid me well; I liked the people; Judy and I raised our children there. But when push came to shove, I just felt that this was the place to be because of the extraordinary quality of each of these universities and I wanted to be associated with it. I don't want to lay out blueprints today - that would be entirely presumptuous. But I do want to lay out a few values and say a little bit about the board's work. Of course, we need to maintain the academic excellence and we need to continue the board's work of re-examining the structure of the function and cost of the systemwide administration. And in my view, the re-examination actually needs to be done everyday, but periodically on a more intense basis. And I have a philosophy and I'm going to try to implement that philosophy and I think the boards is enthused about it and that is: the role of a system office is to facilitate the campuses and what they're trying to accomplish and to add value and if you can't add value, you ought to get out of the way. The job of a system is to ensure the whole is greater than the sum of the part. So, it's to facilitate collaboration, not to be one more hurdle to get over on your way to having a great law school or a great faculty already. My point, and one of the reasons I was attracted to this job, is that I think we're well along to those solutions by virtue of the steps that the administration has taken and the board of Regents have taken over the las year. I know there were some hiccups along the way - maybe even some gulps along the way, but I feel good about the fact that that process of re-imagining the University of California has already started, that I would not have to start from scratch, and that there are very thoughtful people who looked at these issues and had recommendations to make.

Yudof on the value of diversity

You can count me as pro-Affirmative Action. I think we need to respect the law of the land in California. There's a referendum, or a statute. We respect it - I'm a lawyer after all. I'm sort of an obsessive, rule-oriented person, but I would not have voted for the proposition because I think diversity is a very important issue. And by the way, it's not just important because it exposes students to diverse points of view in the classroom and all that, which is important, but I'm a big believer in social economic mobility and no permanent underclass. And I think Affirmative Action is not the only, but a useful tool to get there.

Yudof on the budget situation

We'll get through it. It may be tough, I'm not denying that. But in the long run, this is a very healthy university system with very high standards and yes, there could be some reversals in the short come. But in the long term, I think will go much better. And to some extent of course, this is happening all over the country.

Yudof on student access and affordability

"If I had my way, the closer tuition is to zero, the happier I am. I don't want anybody to be precluded from coming to the University of California because they have a financial problem and I want the Pell grants to be ample and I want to figure out a way to get these kids there; I want it to be diverse; I want those 'first-to-go-to-college-in-their-families' - I want them there. But if the state revenue keeps going down, it puts pressure on the tuition. And universities are motion pictures, they're not still frames. We will lose professors if we're not competitive on the salaries. If the campus buildings aren't maintained, they're not going to be safe and pleasant places to be in. The classes will be larger and the access to classes will be worse and the graduation worries will be worse. I'm very worried that in America we've seen a pattern and maybe it's demography, where higher education is treated too much as a private good and not enough as a public good. And one of the things I intend to do is to work as hard as I can to get the state contributions up, primarily because I'm concerned about the burdens on our students. By the way, I'm also concerned about the student loan situation and whether there will be ample private sector or federal loans. It would be a horrible situation to think that only middle-class and above families could afford the University of California. It would just be terrible.