Posted on 05/16/2006 7:29:04 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
Robert C. Dynes, the president of the University of California, holds one of the most influential and visible positions in American higher education – and he faces the possibility of losing it.
For months, Dynes, a physicist and former chancellor at UC San Diego, has struggled to emerge from a controversy over undisclosed pay and perks for UC executives and faculty.
To some, Dynes is a victim, someone who inherited a culture that defied university rules and has simply followed the practices of his predecessor.
To others, Dynes is an ineffective administrator who, despite assurances, cannot be trusted to make UC compensation practices more open.
Tomorrow, Dynes will make his own case and face his jury, the UC regents.
At a highly anticipated regents board meeting, Dynes will respond to three reports and audits, each critical of the university for ignoring or violating its compensation policies on dozens of occasions.
Three state senators, citing a loss of confidence in Dynes, have called for him to be fired or asked to resign. Sens. Gloria Romero, D-Los Angeles; Abel Maldonado, R-Santa Maria; and Jeff Denham, R-Merced, are not alone in their outrage over the number of questionable payouts to UC executives and the failure to disclose them to regents or the public.
Newspaper editorials up and down the state have called for Dynes' removal in the past month.
Supporters, including several faculty members at UCSD, say Dynes' errors aren't grounds for removal.
“The problems were in place before he got there,” said Charles Curtis, a UCSD faculty education policy committee chair. “He has to make systematic and systemic changes and I think he's capable of that.”
Supporters and critics alike will be watching him closely, and several, including Regent John Moores, say they will not be satisfied by excuses about UC's secretive culture or poor business processes.
“None of those wash,” Moores said. “Bob is a fine man and a brilliant guy, but there's no good excuse for UC to not routinely disclose compensation.”
UC Regents Chairman Gerry Parsky in recent months has tried to help the university defuse criticism and create mechanisms with which the regents can better control pay practices.
Among the options regents will consider is creating executive positions to take on more administrative duties, and a compliance office, to help regents ensure that compensation policies are followed.
But Parsky has not indicated whether he believes a change in leadership is needed, and said that every option remains on the table tomorrow when regents meet in closed session.
“Anyone who comes in new to a job has to evaluate past practices,” Parsky said. “President Dynes is responsible for the things that happen on his watch.”
The question in many minds is whether Dynes, who stepped in as UC president in October 2003, has lost so much trust that he can no longer perform his job.
The board of regents has the authority to hire and fire the president, and many of its members – including Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez – said they want to hear Dynes' remarks tomorrow before judging him.
But even some of his supporters see weaknesses in his defense: That Dynes has not benefited personally from the policy violations, and that some of the criticized pay practices reach back to his predecessor, Richard Atkinson.
Dynes blames himself for spending too much time tending to the university's long-term vision and losing touch with its day-to-day administrative responsibilities. He has also said he received bad advice.
Dynes declined to be interviewed for this story.
While several UC presidents have overcome, or at least survived, crises, what sets this scandal apart is its breadth.
The last pay scandal at UC, in the early 1990s, was triggered by an undisclosed retirement package for then-UC President David Gardner, while this one reaches from the president's office down to faculty members.
Audits by the state auditor and a national accounting firm detailed numerous instances where UC administrators violated or made exceptions to compensation policies.
“What really tends to hurt are problems that undermine the notion that the university can manage its own affairs effectively,” said Patrick Callan, president of the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education. The situation is aggravated by the fact that each audit has uncovered more problems, Callan said.
It also leads to inevitable questions about how the university is conducting the rest of its business.
Last week, Rep. Carol Liu, D-South Pasadena, called for an audit of UC's Office of the President, where administrative staff number 513 and get paid about $45.4 million a year.
Dynes has been dealing with the compensation problems without two of the senior administrators he relied upon most: His former provost resigned under the cloud of a conflict-of-interest investigation in November; his senior vice president of business and finance resigned in March to work at a private university.
“Once things start to unravel, it is tough,” said David Ward, president of the American Council on Education. “It's distracting and emotionally very draining.”
One of the biggest challenges to putting this behind Dynes has been the continuous stream of bad news – some by his own doing.
Dynes approved an $832,500 subsidized mortgage loan for one of his top aides just days after a state Senate legislative hearing in which he vowed not to grant further exceptions to compensation policy for senior executives without regent oversight.
Though Dynes defended the decision, saying the aide is not a senior executive, some regents were disappointed that he didn't consult the board about the exception to policy.
Whatever happens this week, many believe the controversy could define Dynes' legacy.
Not only does the university face the challenge of implementing several recommendations to make its practices more open, but many both inside and outside the university say they will be watching to make sure the new processes stick.
Then they should start with Parsky and boot him out too!
*BUMP to that !*
This is one of those examples of how really stupid well-educated people can be.
"Physicist, Dynes, forced out"
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