The Pursuit of Knowledge: Speeches and Papers of Richard C. Atkinson

A Brief History of the Atkinson Presidency

1 A Brief History of the Atkinson Presidency 1995–2003 The issues that dominated the administration of Richard C. Atkinson grew out of the forces shaping California: the state’s emergence as the world’s leading knowledge-based economy and the rapidly expanding size and diversity of its population, which brought the largest student generation since the 1960s to the University’s door. Atkinson’s administrative and intellectual leadership of the University reflected a deliberate effort to de- fine U.C.’s role in this changing California. Atkinson led the University into the post-affirmative-action era and American education into a new chapter in the history of standardized testing as the seventeenth president of the nation’s leading multicampus system. His eight-year tenure was marked by innovative approaches to admissions and outreach, research initiatives to accelerate the University’s contributions to the state’s economy, and a challenge to the country’s most widely used admissions examination—the SAT I—that paved the way to major change in how millions of young Americans are tested for college admission. The Atkinson years will be remembered as a time of great growth and prosperity, a period during which U.C.’s statefunded budget rose to historic highs and federal research funding and private giving regularly set new records. The University named the founding chancellor for U.C. Merced, its first new campus in forty years. It established several new professional schools and initiated growth in its graduate programs with a plan for the addition of eleven thousand graduate students by 2010. Nine University chancellors were appointed during Atkinson ’s presidency. The University of California also expanded its national presence with a new center in Washington, D.C., and its international reach with centers in London and Mexico City. The establishment of the California Digital Library, a pioneering effort to make the University’s vast collections more accessible to scholars and the public and to encourage new forms of scholarly communication, reflected the University’s leadership in the evolving world of digital telecommunications. Atkinson’s principal priority was maintaining the distinction of U.C.’s seven-thousand-member faculty. The academic excellence of the University and its faculty was recognized in several nationalstudiesofacademicprogramquality,oneofwhichnoted “the extraordinary research performance of the entire University of California system” among American universities, public and private.1 The membership of six out of nine U.C. general campuses in the prestigious Association of American Universities exceeds that of any other multicampus system. Eleven U.C. 2 / Brief History of Atkinson Presidency Brief History of Atkinson Presidency / 3 faculty members were awarded Nobel Prizes during Atkinson’s tenure, more than under any other U.C. president. As chancellor of U.C. San Diego from 1980 to 1995, during which time the young campus rose to rank tenth among American research universities, Atkinson combined driving energy and a gift for persuasion with an unswerving pursuit of his goals. As president of the U.C. System, he attacked the University’s problems and opportunities with the same persistent vigor. Atkinson faced his share of crises and controversies, among them an early and public disagreement with some members of the Board of Regents over the implementation date of SP-1, the ban on using race and ethnicity as factors in U.C. admission . UCSF Stanford Healthcare, the merger of the clinical enterprises of U.C. San Francisco and Stanford University, was a historic but ultimately unsuccessful attempt to address the competitive pressures of the health-care marketplace. California’s sudden transition from prosperity to recession toward the end of Atkinson’s tenure confronted the University with painful choices. And U.C.’s administration of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) laboratory at Los Alamos, New Mexico, came under fire in 2000, resulting in a decision by DOE to put the laboratory’s management contract up for competitive bidding in 2005. In the end, however, U.C.’s bid for renewal of its contract with DOE was successful. SP-1 AND U.C. OUTREACH Atkinson’s earliest and greatest challenge was in the contentious arena of U.C. admissions. He was named president in August 1995. A month earlier, the Board of Regents had approved SP-1, which put U.C. in the national spotlight. The ban on racial preferences was extended to all public entities in California sixteen months later with the passage of...