UC Santa Cruz chancellor jumps to her death in S.F.

[1932]

(06-24) 19:50 PDT -- UC Santa Cruz Chancellor Denice Denton, apparently despondent over work and personal issues, died Saturday after she jumped from the roof of a 42-story San Francisco apartment building, police said. Denton's partner, Gretchen Kalonji, has an apartment in the building, property records show.

Denton, a well-regarded engineer, had been named this spring in a series of articles examining UC management compensation. She had been criticized for an expensive university-funded renovation on her campus home, and for obtaining a UC administrative job for Kalonji.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/06/24/MNGM1JK1MI15.DTL


The S.F. Chronicle has been on a jihad against the UC system recently. The UC pay scale is very low at the high levels. The state wants the best management and top-tier professors in the world, but the state doesn't want to pay the salaries that would attract the best people, so the UC system has to give these people packages that compensate in other ways for low salaries (in a state in which it is very expensive to live). In this case, they gave this woman's girlfriend a good job and fixed up a house that was state property (ie, after Denton left, the state would still own the house and benefit from the improvements). And the SF Chronicle put her through hell because of it. Now she has committed suicide and academia has lost someone who might have made some mistakes but who was very committed to helping women and the underprivileged.

[anotherdrew]

1. god forbid one person get a job for their friend, AS IF this weren't SOP

my god, what a shame, let her contibution be carried on in so many ways.

[saigon68]

63. DENICE DENTON

GRETCHEN KALONJI

Kyocera Professor of Materials Science

University of Washington
Seattle, WA 98195-2120, USA

[Bobby Jones]

72. As a former UW-Madison student of Dr. Denton's, I find myself

terribly saddened to learn of her death. I was in her semiconductors and microdevices class in 1986. I can tell you that Dr. Denton was truly gifted and knowledgeable, so much so that it often felt like she was saying "This is so simple, why don't you all get it?" I can still hear her slight Texas drawl -- and she wore it well.

As years went by, I followed Dr. Denton's career, having lived in the Seattle area during the years she was engineering school dean at the University of Washington. Last year, she made national news when she became the UCSC chancellor, and again when she and others walked out during a speech by Lawrence Summers at Harvard. I wrote her an e-mail congratulating her on becoming chancellor at UCSC and telling her a little about my life, not that she should remember me for any reason. (I was NOT one of her most remarkable students...) I recall finishing my note with the wish for God's blessings on her career, good luck, etc., etc. I received an e-mail back a few days later thanking me for the kind words.

Even though I did not get to know Dr. Denton that well, I find myself profoundly heartbroken to hear of her death in this manner. As I've read the news stories and come to understand more about events in her professional and personal lives, I can see that she made some mistakes along the way. Who hasn't? It appears the "backlash" to her mistakes was overwhelming, besides whatever other problems (medical, personal, etc.) she was facing.

Is it just me, or is there more than an overabundance of hatred in our world these days? Why is it so easy to preach "tolerance", while at the same time it's even easier to tear other people down? Why are people often so hateful?

Hmmm... Let's look at this logically, now, Mr. Spock... The logical antidote to hate would be... you guessed it: LOVE! I'm not talking about that sappy warm feeling you get in your crotch when you see that girl in basketweaving class. I'm talking about taking on the hard work of seeing someone for who they really are and still putting that person above you on your priority list.

So back to the question: Why no love? Why all the hate? I understand the answer is that we only love because he loved us first.

Excuse me? What was that? Who what? Are you talking about, of all things, GOD? (Shhhhhh... the Constitution doesn't allow that...) Guess what? I don't care what's allowed or not. Wanna know why? Somebody that I respected and cared about (I don't know why) apparently lost all hope in her career, her life, herself, and in those closest to her. More than that, she lost hope in GOD, if she ever had any to begin with. But GOD is the one true source of love; like a magnet, GOD's love affects everyone who contacts it.

Here's the real reason I'm so sad about this: God says that ALL OF US, not just Dr. Denton, have screwed up big time somewhere along the way. That means those who have pointed the finger at her, and it means me sitting here pointing my finger at those pointers. Why hasn't God just chucked the whole thing in the trash? I know I would have!

Wait! There's that LOVE thing again, prioritizing someone else above your own interests... I know how we all hate it, but I also know we all know it: "GOD loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will have eternal life. God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through him. There is no judgment against anyone who believes in him... God's light came into the world but people loved the darkness more than the light, for their actions were evil."

I'm sorry if this offends anyone. Thank God this is America where we have not yet passed a law (such as Muslim Sharia law) guaranteeing the right to not be offended.

But back to the point: Assuming the words above are true, then the source of my sorrow lies in these two questions: 1) What happened to Dr. Denton, ultimately? And 2) What will my response be when God asks me someday why I didn't show Dr. Denton true love?

How can I answer these? When will I stop being so sad about someone I barely knew? Does anyone else feel this way?

[TomInTib]

2. I do not know if you are employed or not. But, if you are...

would your employer back a $600,000 remodel to your abode with no questions asked?

This is a tragic story, but Ms Denton had been gaming the system, no question.

The problem is not with SF Chron, but the State. The Chron didn't establish the pay scales.

No one pushed Denice Denton, she packed her own parachute and she jumped.

[Name removed]

3. Deleted message

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[Name removed]

5. Deleted message

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[TomInTib]

7. Ah well halve ewe no....

I am no cretin.

I was once the most young member of the International Mensa Society.

And that's a fact.

[Name removed]

18. Deleted message

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[TomInTib]

33. Could you kindly wire me $700,000?

Then I could fix up my humble abode ($600K will get one a pretty nice kitchen here in Tiburon) and I would have enough left over for a grammar tutor.
I hear there is a certain Ms. Kalonji who is looking for a job.

[gardenista]

48. Tom, the venom you direct to the grieving partner

of someone who has committed suicide is inappropriate, IMHO.

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

49. Excuse me, but she just lost her partner, could you refrain from being

hateful towards a grieving woman for at least a couple days?

[Name removed]

59. Deleted message

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[saigon68]

64. Au Revoir Enjoy your stay on this thread

It will be blessedly short

[TomInTib]

8. Pardon me, but there is a comma between 'you' and 'too'

And I do not hang out at any bars.

"You're a cretin" would be much more effective as, "You, sir, are a cretin".

Compare the two statements.

Maybe you could send some money.

I will try to find a link.

Or maybe you can help.

[Name removed]

60. Deleted message

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[saigon68]

65. Au Revoir

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

4. Well it wasn't "her" abode exactly and the article makes clear

that not all improvements may have been at her request. Asking for something and getting it is not gaming the system, including getting her partner a position. UC could have declined. I think it's funny that when a woman negotiates the best possible employment contract for herself there is a huge hoopla but when a man does it there is barely a peep. As for getting her partner a position...it doesn't appear though she negotiated for a position for which the woman was underqualified.

[TomInTib]

6. You must be kidding me...

Let's just say (hypothetically) they were Republicans...

We would all be howling at the moon... in harmony.

[jbnow]

9. What would their party have to do

with the response to this? I must have missed in the article that they even named the party, but what difference does that possibly make? No one's death would please or amuse me.

I saw no indication she was "gaming" the system. This was the system. She asked for a fence for her dog and wiring for a sound system and got it. We don't know what else they did or if she asked for it but how is that gaming? They could have done less or said no. You can say the school did too much but if there was a fault in that part it was not hers.
It wasn't even her house. She gained a more pleasant place but the value added was not hers. Free housing is a nice benefit of course, but not gaming either.

We don't know just why she killed herself. The stress noted in the article is surely not the whole of her choice. The article noting the people crying on the news indicates that those that knew her cared more than say you do. Which makes sense too. No reason for us to cry, we don't know her, the loss is not personal to us.

Your cavalier responses doesn't make you a cretin of intellect, but maybe a lack of compassion...a bit crueler than I'd expect to see here.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

10. How do you know they weren't?

I didn't see a political party named in the article. It's not a foregone conclusion that every gay couple are democrats. I know several gay republicans. While I think the UC system has problems right now and it isn't made easier by hefty compensation packages, the woman was a chancellor for christ's sakes.

Hell - I'll turn your argument around. Would we bat an eye if she were in private industry and got such a perk?

Furthermore, I don't look at one's political party to see if the compensation they are getting is meritorious. In fact, I think this issue underscores how little we value the teaching profession that it should be an issue. I really DO think that chancellors should receive compensation according to what they produce in our institutions of higher learning and from the gist of the article, she was productive and was probably worth AT LEAST as much as she was given.

[1932]

12. I don't know that she isn't a Republican. For all we know, she is.

What we do know is that she wasl an excellent academic and very accomplished and the UC system probably wouldn't have been able to get her without having made the offer that they did.

The difference between her and a CEO of a private corporation is that (1) the Chroncile wouldn't be attacking a private corporations, and (2) the spouses and partners of CEOs probably don't want to and don't need to work. But if she were in the private sector and offer like this was made and , nobody would blink an eye.

[Name removed]

61. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Hugin]

20. .

Well said NSMA.

It's a Martha Stewart type deal. Nobody even flinches when some business *man* is
payed $465 Million dollars (while simultaneously deep-sixing the pension fund) and
*THIS* controversy makes it into the headlines?

Although, I'm very sad for what was apparently a tremendous emotional tragedy for
the Chancellor. This story and how it's written seems to have some sort of an agenda.

[tblue37]

22. Let me explain something.

When a university wants to hire someone, it is pretty much SOP to find a position for that person's spouse (one, of course, that the spouse is qualified for). For example, the wife of the chancellor of our university is an instructor in the English department. My ex-husband is a professor at another university. His current wife was also given a position there to help persuade him to accept the position.

Folks, this is done all the time. It is simply how it is done. If you want top people in the field, you have to offer employment for the spouse, too. If you don't, some other school will, and you will lose the candidate.

BTW, if the spouse is not someone who would fit into a university position, then the university makes an effort to help the spouse find other suitable employment in the vicinity. But as academics often marry other academics, there is usually a way to fit the spouse into the university. And since really smart, talented academics often end up together, the university in question often gets two top-of-the line candidates.

[LostinVA]

30. You are completely correct

That recently happened where I work. A librarian got a job as the library director of a university library in another state. One of the stipulations of her taking the job was that her husband would be given a job as an instructor in the English Department. He was. The school also paid their closing costs on the house they bought there. THis is a STATE university. This is done in state and private colleges and universities ALL the time. This can also include a housing stipend, renovations, car leasing, gym membership, etc.... it's all according to how much they want that person. The paper rather unfairly targeted this woman, imo.... CA has a lot of schools, and I guarantee there are things as "bad" or even "worse" than this at other academic institutions.

[LuckyLib]

32. And this practice is not limited to higher administrative positions

such as chancellor,provost, etc. It happens every day in regular old college and university departments. 30 years ago it didn't happen because no one was concerned about the "little lady" of the family. Now institutions have figured out that partners (gay or straight) are part of the package and you will never attract top flight folks if you don't make the offer competitive. The SF Chron needs to be paying attention to creeping fascism in this country and quit sniffing the obvious.

[1932]

39. I don't know about other UC schools, but I know that UC-B doesn't have

spousal hires for faculty positions. Many public universities do, but at Berkeley, they don't do favors for trailing spouses looking for faculty jobs.

[fortyfeetunder]

31. Thank you for the explanation.

In the midst of this outrage, we've lost a brilliant, talented person.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

34. Well it didn't seem to be so prevalent when I was in college

but I think now the partners NEED to work. Again, it just shows how little value we place on the position that this should be an issue at all. The UC system used to be the best in the nation. It's been looted so people wouldn't have to pay a car tax after Enron upended our economy. People forget California had a hefty surplus prior to the energy crisis which was completely manufactured.
I do appreciate you posting that though.

[AngryAmish]

47. If it is SOP then it is corrupt

A governmental institution (private exempted) should give every person an even shot at a job. Creating a job for a spouse is the same as creating a job for an alderman's good-for-nothing son-in-law. It is corrupt.

[INDIA]

66. This is a diff problem

She actually CREATED this new position for her partner, and the position paid 192K a year. Much higher than a untenured professor. It was a sleazy move, any way you slice it. Wish she hadn't killed herself though.:-(

[Buzz Clik]

69. Very well stated!

"I think it's funny that when a woman negotiates the best possible employment contract for herself there is a huge hoopla but when a man does it there is barely a peep."

We are currently negotiating with a guy who wants a job for his spouse and his ex so that he can be near his kids. gawd. And another guy who wants a job for his girlfriend. The administration is taking both requests seriously.

[1932]

13. Yeah, I help out a friend in her shop in Tiburon one in a while.

So I know everything. Oh, and if that's not impressive, I was in mensa.

The improvements weren't to her private home. They were to a house in which she would never have an equitable interest. There's no indication that the job her partner received was not one that for which she wasn't qualified (and how else are you going to bring two-career couples to work in the UC system if the opportunity cost of one partner loosing his or her career becomes a factor in determining whether you can accept a package?).

The problem is with the Chronicle, if you ask me. Their ciriculation has dropped dramatically over the last couple years so they're trying to find a story that they can turn into a serial in order to sell papers. They're trying to become a tabloid, and I'm sure Republican political abuses and private sector abuses are off limits, so they're aiming for the public school system, and the bottom line with that is that you cannot have a world-class university system while paying 2/3rds to 1/2 the salaries these people could get at private univerisities and NOT try to make up for the difference with paid leave at the start and finish of the terms, and with good jobs for spouses, and with living arrangements that are at least as nice as the homes these people could be living in if they accepted a job at Harvard or Princeton or Stanford.

I hope the two reporters at the Chronicle who have been writing these stories aren't sleeping well tonight.

[yardwork]

57. I strongly disagree that she was "gaming the system"

If Chancellor Denton had been a man, nobody would have commented on her employment package. I see the attacks on her as the typical double standard bias toward women and lesbians. Her salary and benefits were actually low compared to those of comparable administrators at comparable schools. And don't even get me started on what CEOs make!

My heart goes out to her, her long-time partner, and the rest of her family and friends. I'm frankly shocked to read such insensitive posts about her life and death here.

[saigon68]

62. Actually didn't Wear the parachute

Imagine jumping without a parachute from a perfectly good 42 story building

[Buzz Clik]

68. With a dozen alternative ways of phrasing your comment

you chose to be callous. What's the point? I'd suggest that you put your Mensa potential to work and find a way to state your comments just a bit more diplomatically.

[Peace Patriot]

11. The SF Chronicle also 'swiftboated' Kevin Shelley with entirely bogus

corruption charges, after this elected Democratic Sec of State sued Diebold and de-certified the worst of the their election theft machines (DRE's-touchscreens), prior to the 2004 election. (The suit also included a demand to see Diebold's source code.) Schwarzenegger then appointed a Republican to the position, Bruce McPherson, who has now illegally RE-certified Diebold touchscreens (needed to 'select' himself, and Schwarz who will be running in his first real election this year). And here is what I mean by "swiftboating": one of the charges against Shelley was that he had "misused" federal election funds. That's how it was worded in SF Chron "news" articles--in this bleary-smeary way. The truth: He had withheld these funds from corrupt county election officials who had made deals with Diebold to purchase the most insecure, most insider-hackable Diebold voting machines (the touchscreens), which Shelley had de-certified. "Misuse" of federal election funds.

The "Help America Vote for Bush Act" of 2002 (aka, HAVA, but really, HAVBA) was designed by the biggest crooks in Congress, Tom Delay and Bob Ney, to entirely corrupt our election system from one end of the country to the other, with a $4 billion electronic voting boondoggle that would be used to bully and entice election officials into hasty purchase of untested, highly insecure and insider-hackable electronic voting systems, run on 'TRADE SECRET,' PROPRIETARY programming code, owned and controlled mainly by two Bushite corporations, Diebold and ES&S. When Shelley was elected Sec of State, this corrupt system was already in place in Calif (arranged by former Repub Sec of State Bill Jones, and his chief aide Alfie Charles, who now work for the third big election theft player, Sequoia). Shelley, being honest, became suspicious of this technology, and looked at it very closely. He, a) required that Calif's be provided with a paper ballot option; b) required that all Calif voting machines have a "voter verified paper ballot"; c) caught Diebold lying to him about the security of its touchscreens (paperless voting machines), sued them for their lies, de-certified the machines, and demanded to see their source code, prior to the 2004 elections; and d) withheld HAVBA money from the counties for purchase of these machines. He also banned "revolving door" employment in his office.

Bush junta/global corporate predator collaborators--the SF Chron, the Sacto Bee and others--then went after him for minor political campaign corruption that, it turned out, he was completely innocent of, and for "misuse" of HAVBA (Tom Delay/Bob Ney corruption) federal election funds (the $$$ intended to pad the pockets of Bush's buds at Diebold). The Bush appointed Election Assistance Commission threatened to tie him up with an endless investigation of NOTHING. Shelley had no money for his personal legal defense (--tells you something about Shelley). The cowardly state Dems abandoned him. His mother died in the middle of all this, and he resigned. (He was later completely exonerated by the AG.)

This ugly corporate predator campaign against the UC system--which has now resulted in a suicide--seems very much akin to the campaign against Shelley.

We really, really, really, really, really, REALLY need to STOP ACCEPTING narratives written by the corporate predator press, ESPECIALLY when it comes to charges like these against Democrats and other progressives. We have to develop 100% skepticism about such charges--and, as with the voting results of a NON-TRANSPARENT election system--we have to put the burden of proof on THEM, on the bad guys. We tend to have a kneejerk response that, if charges against Democrats/progressives, appear in the corporate news monopoly press, there must be something to it. But we have seen time and again that often there is NOTHING to it. Nothing! We've got to smarten up about this!

I don't know about you all, but I am sick to death of this Bush junta/black ops "swiftboating" system, and also of its echo chamber here at DU, whereby the Bush junta initiates often deceitful charges in the corporate predator press, then trolls hit DU with heaps of abuse on the target, and endless dwelling upon the charges without examination of motives or sources, day after day after day, ASSISTING the Bush junta campaign. I would be the last to say that Democrats are never dirty. Some of them are filthy. But those generally aren't the ones who get "swiftboated." It's more often the HONEST people who get smeared this way, or trapped with blackmail, or whatever dirty tactic is being used against them.

We really MUST learn to deal with this smeary-bleary method of ruining good Democrats and progressives. When they went after Shelley, the new Calif Dem leadership in the legislature (the old guard had recently retired) hid under their desks, or outright colluded with the corrupt county election officials who were out to get Shelley. I think I understand the FEAR that is at work among many Democratic office holders--fear that THEY might be next; also fear of the power of Diebold/ES&S and corrupt county election officials, who now have the power over who gets elected and who doesn't. All we can do is try to buck up their courage, and work relentlessly to break the Bush/Diebold/ES&S grip on power.

I'm greatly encouraged by the willingness of election reformer DEBRA BOWEN to throw her hat in the ring as the Dem candidate for Calif Sec of State, against McPherson. She won endorsement by 80% of the grass roots delegates at the state convention, and won the primary election hands down (against a clueless opponent who said things like "trust but verify." Trust Diebold? Right.) Bowen is an expert on electronics in government, and a veteran advocate of open government. The fascists, the corrupt county election officials, and the Bush junta black ops machine will be out of get her. The bad guys furthermore now have a firmer grip on the election system, with the Diebold touchscreens. Bowen will NOT take a stolen election lying down. We have to watch out for the "swiftboat" campaign against her. (The Sacto Bee has ALREADY started with statements like Bowen is "a bit paranoid on electronic voting.") Democrats and progressive leaders--and we who support them--had better develop STEEL SPINES and IMPERVIOUS ARMOR to the utterly vile tactics that are being used against us. We also need to develop a nose for the crap shoveled by the corporate predator press--rags like the SF Chron (truly a worthless publication), and their bigger brethren.

[EFerrari]

14. I hate to say this but it has occurred to me that Bowen won

"hands down" because her last name wasn't Garcia. Or as my mom put it, "every single Chicano I voted for lost".

Whatever, she was my choice. Her primary opponent was clueless.

We DO have to watch her back, and should make it an assignment in the Election Reform forum to do a media watch from now until then. :mad:

[Divernan]

15. Partner received $192,000 mgmt. job + $50,000/yr. housing allowance

Denton's annual salary was $282,000, plus free luxury housing in a chancellor's residence with a $600,000 upgrade. It is reasonable to assume the previous chancellor had been living in the residence without need of $600,000 worth of improvements. University chancellors are not living in squalor. Their residences are typically used to host university guests and VIP functions. And it is the norm for a chancellor's spouse/partner to share housing - not to have a separate luxury apt.
So I can understand why this recruitment package was the subject of criticism. Also note that Denton's mother attributed her depression to both her professional AND personal life.

(More from article)
"Denton, 46, died Saturday morning after jumping from the Paramount at Mission and Third streets, police said. The building is advertised as San Francisco's tallest luxury rental (units rent from $3,000 to $9,000 a month) apartment building. . . .Denton's mother, Carolyn Mabee, was in the apartment building at the time of her death, police said. She told authorities that her daughter was "very depressed" about her professional and personal life.

"Kalonji, who was hired as director of international strategy development in the UC Office of the President in Oakland as part of Denton's recruitment package, was returning this evening from Washington, D.C., where she had been on university business, UC spokesman Michael Reese said. Denton had been provided a 2,680-square-foot home on the UC Santa Cruz campus, the subject of a story in a Chronicle series this spring examining perks and pay in the UC system.

"Before she moved into her university-provided house on campus in 2005, she asked for dozens of improvements -- everything from a new fence for her dogs to new wiring, speakers, amplifier and CD player for a built-in sound system, according to university documents. In all, a $600,000 upgrade was made to the home, though it is not clear how many of the improvements were at Denton's request. Denton's annual salary was $282,000.


"In 2005, UC unions protested the hiring of Kalonji, a former University of Washington professor of materials science, into a $192,000 UC management position. UC also provided Kalonji, then Denton's partner of seven years, a housing assistance allowance of up to $50,000.

[1932]

16. The partner worked in Oakland. Would have been hard to commute from SC.

And I bet you there weren't many jobs in SC which would have paid here what she was worth in a field that wasn't going to kill her career.

And when the Chronicle is making your personal life -- ie, the job your girlfriend got so that she could live near you -- public, you can bet that it is going to cause personal problems.

Yes, if you committ suicide, you have problems. But look what this woman accomplished in her life. Obviously, she was doing a lot of good work for her students and for the academic community. it's a terrible loss and it was largely caused by the need to sell papers. (It reminds me of Vince Foster's suicide note.)

Also, If you're the UC System and you are offering jobs to people who could easily go to Stanford, Princeton, Harvard or Yale where the salaries are 30% to 50% better, and those people say, well, I can't move to California on that salary unless my qualified and competent partner gets a good job that doesn't kill her career, and unless we can live in a comparable lifestyle to the one we are foregoing elsewhere because you only live once, what are going to do? Make job offers to people who are 50% the candidate? Does California want the best university system in the world or not?

Look, the UC System is incredibly unique in the world. Something like half of its students have one grandparent who was an immigrant. At Harvard, less than 7% of the students are Pell eligible. At Berkeley, I think it's something like 30% -- ie, a third its students have parents who make less than 35K a year. It is one of the few university systems in the world where attending it is a major determining factor in ensuring that its graduates will enter the middle class. It gives a fantastic education to people who have no captial and only have learning and knowlege to convert into wealth.

It does this because it attracts the best scholars and management to work there (and it attracts people who are deeply committed to the mission of a public university, as Denton clearly was). But these managers and scholars have their own families and lives to worry about, and maybe when the difference was 10% in salary, they were willing to foresake that difference in order to contribute to the UC system's mission.

But when the difference is as great as it is today, one of the few things helping the UC system hang on by its fingernails is the sort of package Denton got which is compensating her for the fact that she and her partner could have made 30 to 50 percent more in salary alone working at Harvard, Princeton, Stanford or Yale.

[1932]

17. Also, what if Stanford/Harvard/Yale's package was worth $600K in salary

before you even got to the perqs? Should California say, aw, fuck it...let's just let all the best people go off to private universities where they can help the rich stay rich? Or should the UC system say, OK, lets work with the perqs since the legislature hasn't completely foreclosed that possibility and we'll see what we can do so that the working class can have children who make it into the middle class in California, which is great for the state economy and for all our citizens?

[Buzz Clik]

70. excellent point

As stated many times in this thread, nothing truly unusual happened in this deal. The UC system was faced with a decision and made it. Rather that direct the criticism at those who made the decision, the target was the benefactor who did nothing -- absolutely nothing -- wrong.

[Divernan]

19. Campus workers on poverty wages; students faced w/ 29% tuition hikes.

This is a state university branch campus with only 15,000 enrollment. Union workers on the campus are working under expired contracts. Regents created a new position for this partner and hired her in closed session. There was no search done for other candidates for the new position, which is not how things are done at state universities. "International strategy development"? That's the kind of policy level job that the UC system needs one person for, for the entire state system. Give me a break. The partner was a professor of material sciences. UC Santa Cruz could have given the partner a teaching job at half the cost, and it didn't have to give her a separate luxury apartment.

"Hired her in closed session" - no surprise there - they knew California taxpayers would be incensed at the deal. California taxpayers cannot be burdened with staffing every one of the MULTIPLE state universitie campuses with faculty/administrators AND their spouses/partners at salary levels competitive with Harvard, Yale, Stanford or the University of Chicago. (I have some acquaintance with the CA public and private higher ed system, having taken undergrad classes at UC-Sacramento, and a certificate in legal ed program from UC-Berkley, and a son w/ master's from Stanford.) www.santacruzsentinel.com/archive/2005/January/21/local/stories/03.local.htm

All that said, it was the UC administration which agreed to the recruitment package (even approving a $30,000 dog run!), and they should take the heat for it, not the deceased. The thing is, you seem to justify this whole level of compensation with the notion that every state school should be compensating at a level to compete with the very top of the elite private universities. That is a fiscally irresponsible view, when the state is in a budgetary crises and students are graduating with CRIPPLING levels of student loan debt- I just spent some time with some law students this summer and they are looking at 3 decades of loan payments.


January 21, 2005


Criticism flies over new UC position
Incoming UCSC chief’s partner given $192,000 job
Sentinel staff and wire reports
SAN FRANCISCO — The University of California created a $192,000-a-year job for the partner of the new UC Santa Cruz chancellor, a move that is being criticized by employee unions. Union officials representing staff at the 10-campus system say the move is a mistake at a time when the university is cutting budgets and raising fees.

UC officials defended hiring Gretchen Kalonji, the longtime partner of incoming Santa Cruz Chancellor Denice Dee Denton. They described Kalonji as a highly qualified professor who will be an asset in her new job as director of international strategy development.

Mary Higgins, president of the Coalition of University Employees, which represents 16,000 clerical employees, said she was concerned that UC would make such a hire at a time of cutbacks."If you’re sitting there at the regents’ meeting, and you’re hearing the students talk about how difficult it is to make ends meet and then they turn around and do something like this, it’s just so arrogant. It’s so unethical," Higgins said. "There is a moral issue here," added Julian Posadas, executive board member for AFSCME Local 3299 at UCSC. "It’s kind of insulting that the university can create these high-paying jobs when they have workers on campus in poverty wages."

The state’s ongoing budget crisis has prompted fee increases throughout California’s higher education system. In the 10-campus UC system, student fees rose 29 percent in the last year — from about $5,200 (including miscellaneous campus fees) in 2002-03 to the present total of about $6,700 for a student with a full-time class load.

[1932]

21. The state's budget problem is not going to be solved by making the UC

system into a mediocrity.

CA had the best public k-12 education system in America once. It helped make California what is today. But since prop 13, it has suffered and the state is feeling the consequences. At this rate, it looks like the university system is the next sacrifice the state is willing to make to lower the tax burden on the wealthy (and further increase the divide between the wealthy and the poor).

I believe UC they did what they needed to get Denton to go to UCSC rather than an equivalent private school and they didn't offer her anything more than what they needed to attract her. And UC was still lucky to get her.

What will happen as a consequency of Denton's suicide is going to be great for private universities.

[Divernan]

23. Wow! only the wealthy pay taxes in California? Who knew?

Come on! And you really believe private universities exist only to help the rich get richer?

There was a recent report - didn't save the cite to it - detailing that it didn't really matter how well one did in school, where your degree was from - what your GPA was - where your MBA was from - as to who got the plum jobs. The top-paying and lots of not so top jobs are going to people based on their family connections. Cheney - failed out of Yale and went to where was it? Montana? Wyoming?
Karl Rove - never even finished college. Joe Albaugh and his friend Brownie? City College in Oklahoma.

As I said to you in a post in another thread, the rich kids rarely go to the very top level of schools because the other students ridicule them as legacies and because the rich kids don't need to knock themselves out at schools with the most demanding curriculums. Why? Because they will remain rich no matter where they get a degree, or even IF they get a degree. Rich kids tend to go to party schools.

The top universities are where the top research occurs. And that is what draws the top Ph.D.s to those campus - promises of lots of brilliant graduate student/research assistants, and super computer access - and research foundations/offices. Because that is how the top Ph.D.s climb the professional ladder. UCSC, with enrollment of only 15,000, is not a likely candidate for big research grants.

The reasons people with college degrees from state schools are having trouble making it in the middle class are factors like outsourced jobs, near non-existant manufacturing base for our economy; granting work visas to foreigners to come to the states - engineers and computer programers with adequate educations who are happy to work for 2/3 the salary that companies were paying U.S. citizens
California did used to have an amazing education system when I lived there back in the 60's. But the state can't run a deficit. If you want the state to increase financing for higher ed., you have to convince the California voters. But if I were still a California voter, I would want an educational system where the good professors were in the classrooms and labs with the undergraduates - not doing their own expensive research projects and leaving the classroom chores to their teaching assistants - and that is what you find at Harvard.

[1932]

26. please. that doesn't even make sense as an anecdote.

[Divernan]

28. I worked with Nobel Laureates/National Academy of science members

at Columbia, Rockefeller University, & Pitt; administration at Carnegie-Mellon, and taught at 2 universities and one law school. Before going to law school, I worked with faculty and administrators and taught undergrad and grad students for 10 years. I have many friends who are faculty members at many different schools. I know what draws top people to particular universities, and it is not your nonsensical, "making rich people richer" line. I listed a lot of FACTS in my post and you give me no meaningful response. And how is the state supposed to pay for your suggestions?

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

36. Making rich people richer? The property was state property.

[Divernan]

41. No. 1932 thinks that's the function of elite universities.

In reference to a school like UC competing with Harvard/Stanford/ect. for high level administrators/faculty - just read the earlier posts, please.

[1932]

42. I think that's what happens when schools which enroll many children of

the poor and working class lose the best faculty and administrators to schools which enroll very few children of the poor and working class.

It's a joke when Harvard brags that they aren't charging tuition for poor students, when that's 7% or less of their student body. Berkeley, for example, has 1/3rd of its students in a much larger student body who fall into that category.

[1932]

37. I didn't say it was a cause. I said it was an effect.

And when I have more time I'll address your post point-by-point.

[Divernan]

24. State's budget problem not going to be solved by $30,000 dog runs.

Can you at least bring yourself to admit that a $30,000 dog run was a slap in the fact to the students, the union workers and the taxpayers?

[1932]

25. It was called a fence in another article. Capital improvements to state-

owned property which serve the double-function of maintaining property values an d which attract the best employees seem like a decent investment, especially considering that the total package is still lower than what Stanford-Princeton-Harvard would have paid since this woman was enthusiastic about public education.

[Divernan]

29. The LA Times called it a $30,000 dog run.

nt

[1932]

40. And the Chronicle called it fence. Since their witch hunt

got this ball rolling, maybe they feel guilty and that it's time to include some facts in their reporting.

[Gormy Cuss]

27. I'd rather see the money pay for K-12 than UC

If children from working class families aren't getting their basic education needs met there, they won't qualify for UC admission. Children of working class families are much more likely to have access to the community college and Cal State systems than UC.

UC needs to practice fiscal restraint and make judicious use of public funding. If UC wants to compete with private institutions for talent then they need to find private funding sources to endow chairs, building funds, etc. That's how other universities do it.

It's still sad that Denton killed herself.

[1932]

38. We shouldn't need to chose between the two. And this IS fiscal restraint.

It doesn't look like it, but this is what the UC system does because it can't match the salaries at the institutions with which they compete, and it's STILL less than the competitors pay.

[Gormy Cuss]

43. We shouldn't need to chose, but we do.

K-12 education is a more pressing issue at the moment and if a choice must be made, I'd go with K-12 funding as I said above.

UC can not use Stanford or Harvard compensation as a yardstick. Those schools have large endowments.
You are informed on the issue of competitive compensation at the university level, so what is a typical compensation package at a comparable public institution for a chancellor with similar responsibilities, or for that matter a prof?

Perhaps if more of the 1.4 million UC grads would give money to the alma mater it would be a moot point.

[1932]

44. We absolutely do not have to sacrifice one part of the education budget

for another when there is so much money changing hands in California that could reasonably taxed in order to make an investment in society that gives a return on its investment in the form of ensuring that even more social wealth is created.

What is a comparable package at another institution? The Chronicle of Higher Education just published presidents' salaries and, IIRC, Birgenau was something like $100k short of the person in 10th place. He could make much more working at any institution in Berkeley's peer group. The president of Michigan just left for Columbia about three years ago after getting a competitive offer.

Birgenau is committed to helping poor students get a top-level education. Michigan's president was committed to increasing educational opportunities for racial minorities. Schools like Berkeley, and to a slightly lesser degree, Michigan are universities where you can persue those interests and actually have an influence on society, given the size of the student bodies, their demographic makeup, and the influence those universities have on the behaviour of their competion. At Columbia, a tiny percentage of their students fall into the categories in which these administrators want to make their marks on society.

What is a competive salary for a professor? Berkeley did a study just last year trying to determine why 15 of roughly 30 professors offered jobs by Stanford, Princeton, Yale and Harvard decided to leave Berkeley (which is considered a crisis, since these are the best professors on campus and because Berkeley had never lost so many in such a narrow period of time). The offers these people accepted: doubled salary, guaranteed admission for their children, bring any friend along for a tenured position, and a housing stipend. Berkeley can't offer one of those four perqs as a matter of policy, and they can't do the other two because of money, and they can't offer the otherone because they probably feel it pushes the limit and would jeopardize the integrity of the faculty.

Why don't more people donate? Perhaps because for so many, Berkeley was the thing that took them from poverty to middle class and they're like the rest of the middle class and have no savings? Nonetheless, Berkeley is out there begging for money.

[Gormy Cuss]

45. Are you Cal faculty or staff?

I said that if we need to make the choice, K-12 is more important the postsecondary, especially if the goal is to provide opportunities for working class kids to move into the middle class. Sure, in a better society we could tax our way into good education financing, but that's not the reality and unless someone has a proposal on the table to fund all public education adequately, K-12 is where the funds should be allocated first.

I don't have a subscription to the CHE article but from what I gleaned from published news reports college administrator compensation is suffering from the same gross inflation as C.E.O. salaries and faculty salary increases haven't kept pace. Other public universities have presidents who were much better compensated than Birgenau but the mechanism is private compensation on top of the publicly financed salaries.

Again, if Cal can't compete with the compensation packages of Stanford/Princeton/Yale and the like, perhaps the solution is to admit that as a public institution Berkeley doesn't have the luxury to retain those profs. That's the reality in many other public university systems.

What would happen to Cal if it can't retain these profs? It may no longer be ranked the # 1 public institution, but it's unlikely to slip so far down the list that it won't be able to provide the same level of opportunities for poor and working class kids to get an education.
It may be less attractive to wealthy Californians and foreign students, the very people who have been taking advantage of the relatively cheap high quality programs there rather than attending private schools. They're also the very alumni who should be stepping up to the plate to fund Cal programs.

[1932]

51. I am a democrat and a supporter of public education and I think that

it's very important (especially for the largest state in the country) to make available to a lot of people with no capital resources the best professors and the best education possible.

If California doesn't want to have the best university in the world available to its best students regardless of resources, I guess that's their choice. But it would be a mistake. It would be another step towards a two-tier society with permanently poor people and permanently wealthy people, regardless of their willingness to work hard and their talents.

And, as they say, trends start in California and roll out to the rest of the country, which is why it's important that at least California is a bulwark agains the polarization of wealth and opportunity.

[Gormy Cuss]

55. There are many smart, talented graduates of second tier schools

who excel in their chosen professions. I would hazard a guess that the cheaper Cal State system, with its lesser star quality staff, produces more graduates who are able to make the leap from low-income backgrounds to middle class life since Cal State has about four times the number of undergrads as the UC system.

I'm a Democrat and a supporter of public education too, starting in elementary school.

[1932]

56. I think there should be at least one place in the country were a lot of

poor kids have access to the very best professors in the country.

Harvard, Yale and Princeton together might have 300 pell-elligible students in any given year. I believe Cal has 2-3 thousand;

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

35. The university isn't raising fees because of their compensation packages

for academics. The university is raising fees because of the Enron debacle. As I said above, the state had a budget SURPLUS prior to the Enron debacle and tuition was slated to remain flat or even be lowered at the time.

[lindisfarne]

46. Embattled college chancellor dies in fall; suicide suspected (SeattleTimes

headline. Suicide might indeed be the reason, but at the time most papers published their headlines, I don't know how they could be certain. I applaud the Seattle Times for their more accurate headline.

[SoCalDem]

50. I am sorry she took that path, but what she did was wrong.

It;s abuses like this, multiplied ALL over the place, that has given us a lot of the problems we all struggle with..

No pay raises for the rank and file, but the Boss gets ALL the goodies
No health benefits for the workers, but the ones at the top get freebies out the wazoo

Some people lose all sense of "boundaries" when they move up to a power position, and the ones who feel true shame often kill themselves..the others go on to other jobs and continue the pillage..

Had this woman been a 50-something fat-cat businessman with a honey-bunny set up in similar circumstances, people would have been all over it as well..

Women of a certain age have moved up the ladder, and their gender does not protect some of them form being greedy and stupid.

[1932]

52. How is it wrong to accept the offer made to you?

She didn't make them make that offer. She told them what she would need in order to leave U of W, or to, possibly, not accept an offer somewhere else.

The UC system has to make offers like this one because they don't offer salaries as high as other universities.

[SoCalDem]

53. Mea culpa.. I re-read the article and now see that the recruitment

included those perks.. That being said, she should have stood up and demanded that the focus be placed on the University..not her..

I guess she was too depressed and did not want the focus on her, so she killed herself.. Was her mother living in that pricey apartment on the daughter's dime? Maybe she was just at the limit and was tired of having too many people "living off her"..

I DO find it hard to believe that the renovations amount was "not known" as it escalated to 600K.. Most contractors keep pretty good control over the numbers and can tell you at every step of the way, how much it's costing..

Executive compensation IS a big issue to all of us these days, and should be looked at.. If she had a written contract for what she was given, it;s too bad she did not get psychiatric help and fight the Chronicle..:(

[Buzz Clik]

71. Bingo! n/t

[ecstatic]

54. Aren't these two separate issues? This woman was clinically depressed

and needed treatment. That type of depression is oftentimes caused by chemical imbalances in the brain, and therefore, she might have committed suicide even without the scandal.

[Toucano]

58. How very sad.

I hope her family and loved ones find peace during this troublesome time.

[WinkyDink]

67. It's the unions who objected to the partner's job and $$$.

I'm a tad more sympathetic their side, as a Democrat.
"Shortly after her appointment, the University of California (UC) service and clerical workers' unions complained after learning that the university has quietly created a high-paid job for her partner, Gretchen Kalonji, a former professor of materials science at the University of Washington in Seattle. Kalonji was hired to work for the UC system as an international strategist, a new position, at a salary of $192,000 a year, as well as a tenured faculty position. The hiring came at a time of rising student fees and after years of stagnant wages for the University's clerical staff. Denton's salary was $282,000 per year and she was granted a relocation package worth more than $68,000."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denice_Denton

I'd like to know if Dr. Denton was on Prozac or another SSRI drug.