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Chronicles Newsletter of the UCSD Emeriti Association Chronicles Newsletter of the UCSD Emeriti Association September 2012 Volume XII, No. 1 UC’s Atkinson Ye Ars: staying AfloAt And Altering CoUrse By Sanford Lakoff portant changes of direction for the sys- Dickson Professor Emeritus of Political tem and for higher education generally. Science She examines his contributions under Patricia A. Pelfrey, Entrepreneurial Pres- five headings: ident: Richard Atkinson and the University of 1. Assuring opportunity and di- California, 1995-2003 (Berkeley: Univer- versity in admissions. After preferential sity of California Press, 2012, pp. 231). treatment of applicants was banned, first by the Regents’ Resolutions SP-1 and SP-2 Clark Kerr, UC President from in 1995 and then by the passage of state 1958 to 1967, once joked that college Proposition 209, Atkinson won approval presidents were expected to provide three for two measures that softened the impact essential services: sex for the undergradu- of the controversial ban: “comprehensive ates, football for the alumni, and parking administrative version of chaos theory” — review,” allowing consideration of fac- for the faculty. As he also knew from hard and got back to La Jolla, his palms free tors other than high school GPA, such experience, managing a state-sponsored, of visible stigmata and his reputation not as demonstrated success in overcoming multi-campus research university like ours only intact but enhanced. disadvantage, and “Eligibility in the Lo- means extracting money from the state’s That in itself was no mean feat. But cal Context,” which takes into account general fund (a sum now shrunk to only in this very readable, thoughtful, and whether an applicant has attended under- 11% of the total UC budget) and helping richly informative account, Pelfrey uses performing schools. These steps quieted each affiliate acquire additional support an insider’s perspective gained by working the controversy and raised numbers of from wealthy donors, foundations, corpo- in the Office of the President over three minority admissions almost back to what rate partners, and federal agencies. And decades to show how Atkinson not only they had been. while he is at this Sysiphean task, he also helped the University survive the first 2. Keeping the Los Alamos and has to protect the whole enterprise from wave of the state’s ongoing budget crisis, Livermore Labs under UC manage- the onslaughts of a host of interested but brought about or sustained several im- ment. In response to security lapses at parties and constituencies, including the Los Alamos and reports of lax business governor, the legislature, federal agen- practices, he instituted a major reform cies, activist Regents, students and their of the University’s oversight mechanism. Inside families irate over tuition increases, and With the help of an investigation led by ideologically-committed agitators to the former UCSD administrator Bruce Dar- Remembering Bill Nierenberg . 5 left and right. When all else fails, he is ex- ling, he succeeded in tightening control well enough to enable the University to pected to spread his arms stoically while Correction . .7 being nailed to the cross for our alleged win approval (under his successor, Presi- sins (in Kerr’s case by Ronald Reagan act- Anecdotage. 7-8 dent Robert Dynes) to retain manage- ing as Pilate). Dick Atkinson somehow ment of both facilities. He saw this as a fended off all the political furies over an Mark Your Calendar. 8 service to the nation — one that gives the eight-year term — a tenure Patricia A. labs’ researchers more creative freedom Pelfrey nicely describes as a test of “some Continued on p.2 ➝ UCSD Emeriti Association Page 2 September 2012 v Chronicles than they might have under government war as the “Route 128 effect” and was per- work. Like academic freedom, shared gov- or industrial control and also benefits UC fected at Stanford, thanks largely to the ernance has always been an ambiguous scientists and students. initiatives of Provost Frederick Terman, concept, as became especially obvious in 3. Strengthening Campus Autono- the engineer who became the “father of the controversies over the loyalty oath and my. Atkinson continued the project be- Silicon Valley,” beginning with two of his the free speech movement and protests of gun by Kerr and pursued under President students, William Hewlett and David the 1960s. In this instance, Regent Ward Jack Peltason (1992-95) of dismantling Packard, and continuing through Google Connerly, with the support of Governor the “highly centralized organizational and lately Instagram. Atkinson worked at Pete Wilson, spearheaded the campaign edifice” created under President Robert Stanford under Terman and later served to stop the University from using racial Gordon Sproul (1930-58). He saw the as director of the National Science Foun- and ethnic preferences in admissions system as “a collection of ten research uni- dation — the very institution that was cre- — which in practice amounted to admit- versities — a single but not a monolithic ated to implement Bush’s vision by sup- ting less qualified students solely because institution,” much to the relief of the porting basic research at universities. they were in one of the recognized minor- nine chancellors and faculties. As of 2010, Bush, Terman, and Atkinson have ity categories. After Conerly’s counter- UCOP’s budget was cut by $85 million all recognized that the modern research campaign succeeded with the passage of ($30 million of which was transferred to university must become the key active Prop. 209, faculty and student groups the campuses) and its workforce by 28%. agent in the pursuit and dissemination of demanded the ban be reversed. Since the As Pelfrey comments, “In ceding to the new knowledge. And just as important, it 1970s, radical members of the legislature chancellors an unprecedented degree of must promote links between the expand- had been calling on the University to budgetary authority, Atkinson imposed ing frontiers of knowledge and users — by achieve a student body that mirrored the strong limits on this presidential preroga- mating physics and mathematics with state’s diversity. When Atkinson became tive.” At the same time, he used his au- applied engineering (electrical, mechani- president, the Latino caucus — now the thority to encourage progress on the new cal, structural, computational, telecom- largest in both houses — was demanding Merced campus and to spur creation of munication, and environmental); biology that UC enroll an undergraduate student intercampus ventures like the California and chemistry with medicine, agricultural body (as Pelfrey puts it) “that approximat- Institute for Telecommunications and In- science, biotechnology, synthetic materi- ed the ethnic and racial composition of formation Technology (CALIT2) linking als engineering, energy production, and the state’s public high schools.” The Re- UCSD and UCI. environmental preservation; oceanogra- gents in 1988 went part of the way toward 4. Reforming the SAT. Boldly and phy with climate science and much else; meeting these demands by ordering that single-handedly, he challenged reliance philosophy, linguistics, and cognitive sci- each campus enroll a student body that on the SAT I test and brought about a ma- ence with neuroscience and its applica- not only demonstrates “high academic jor reform in the SAT. He did so by calling tions; the social sciences and legal studies achievement” and “exceptional personal for studies that showed the SAT I was a with constitutional, business, and social talent” but also “encompasses the broad poor predictor of first year performance. reform; the arts and humanities with new diversity of cultural, racial, geographic, He successfully argued for reliance instead (“post-modernist”) forms of creativity in and socioeconomic backgrounds charac- on SAT II, which measured what students fiction, criticism, theater, graphic arts, teristic of California.” had learned, and got the Educational and music. In other words, the university Atkinson took on this issue not just Testing Service to get rid of analogies on must now be the central instrument in out of a desire to try to placate the pro- SAT I and add a writing requirement. the transition to a post-industrial society testors or ward off threatened legislative 5. Pointing the system toward a new more dependent than ever before on the sanctions. He agreed as a matter of prin- model, which Pelfrey calls the “entrepre- rapid acquisition and application of scien- ciple with the protestors and legislators, neurial university.” The seed of this new tific findings. out of a belief that “if race [understood model was planted by Vannevar Bush in Each of these accomplishments to include ethnicity] cannot be factored 1945, in Science, The Endless Frontier, where warrants examination, but in this com- into admissions decisions at all, the eth- he argued, with the recent example of the mentary I will limit the focus to the first nic diversity of an elite public institution mobilization of science for war in mind, because it is controversial and the last be- such as the University of California may that the closing of America’s geographi- cause it is increasingly urgent. well fall behind that of the state it serves.” cal frontier need not produce economic Accordingly, he and the Academic Senate “Affirmative Action” stagnation, as one school of economists persuaded the Regents to approve a new feared. Science would become an “endless The issue of affirmative action or path to admission, modifying the Master frontier” as the production of new knowl- preferential treatment, as Pelfrey points Plan target of the top 12.5% of the state’s edge in university and industrial labs be- out, raised the question of how “shared high school graduates so as to extend eli- came an ever-renewing cornucopia. The governance” among the Regents, the fac- gibility to students ranked in the upper model took shape around MIT after the ulty, and the administration, ought to 4% of each high school class — a way of UCSD Emeriti Association Chronicles v September 2012 Page 3 opening access to students from relatively in disciplinary departments).
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