This puts the sac bee in a very diffficult position. Having pushed out LK for tthe same reasons what do they do now? Admit that this is not a real problem (probably the case) or go after May/? The bee will do nothing because it knows it was wrong to go after LK and it wants a lot from May: see sac town UC DAVIs classrooms! What a joke.

I think they are already backtracking:

http://www.sacbee.com/opinion/editorials/article135814103.html

The boards he sits on are somewhat less conflict of interest-y than Katehi's boards. I think Sacbee did a passably honest reporting job by breaking the news (I think it was them) in the first place and examining how this is similar and different to Katehi's situation.

In all honesty, Katehi was just not a good chancellor... mired in controversy from Illinois from the beginning, sat on boards that were in direct conflict with the interests of students and the university's mission, presided over the pepper spray debacle, directed a botched PR cover-up, had some hand in hiring/promotion oddities, and repeatedly failed to make timely decisions. Any one item may not have been enough to can her, it was her ongoing habit of bad judgement. Many of her cohorts have committed one or two of the sins mentioned and they still have their jobs. Most have not committed all in rapid succession. I know many insiders liked her because she checked multiple boxes on diversity. If anything, they gave her a pass longer than they would have if she weren't in a protected class. The Bee did not go after her unfairly. She was just straight up incompetent and unethical in most regards. Gould was incompetent as a head coach, but he was ethical and a nice guy. Can't say that for Linda.

I object to the amount of moonlighting that has worked its way into academia. Professors do it when the do paid "consulting" on the side and administrators do it when the participate in extraneous executive boards. Being chancellor isn't a 40-hour a week job. Done properly, it is probably 60-80 hour a week job, always on call. So I question the same things the Bee does -- how does one have time to do extra work, and if they are not doing much extra work, why are they being paid so much? The key differences here are:
1. This guy was honest about these board positions upfront. Shame on universities everywhere for making this the norm, but it does not appear any rules were broken.
2. These boards do not appear to be entangled in the University's day-to-day operation the way a textbook supplier is, nor do they appear to be in direct odds with the University's mission the way a fraudulent diploma-mill is. I do, however, think the alleged "benefits" to the University are probably overstated. The main benefit is to the person receiving the paycheck.

Nonetheless, I think it is worth giving this Chancellor a chance. Even though I disagree with his moonlighting, I do not see a pattern of poor judgement at this time.

Great post, fugawe09. (Y)

Fugawe09 I disagree with almost everything in your post. When LK became chancellor she was academically the best chancellor UCD ever had. Great personal history, great academic achiever, Nat'l Academy of Engineering, woman's stem leader and on and on. And, by the way she is not in a "protected class"- where did you come up with that? She hired Hexter who in turn has hired some of the best faculty in UC Davis history. UC Davis ratings were never higher and are still highest in history. Pepper Spray: it was on her watch and so she owns it, but she had nothing to do with it. What she did afterward was right on. The police chief who DID OWN the incident was fired and wwe moved on. The whole PR/email scrubbing thing was probably not real smart, but all universities and big corporations do it. Look what berkeley did with its own Dirks. Almost $400,000 spent to clear the "great name" OF UC Berkeley lost on his watch. For what? Oh, just a $1,500,000 deficit and a horrendous sexual harassment situation over the past few years. What LK DID WAS NOT even close in the dollars spent by Berkeley. Her problem was this: the bee hated her and the bee had some very disgruntled employees at UCD that were providing info to the bee. In other words, she had enemies and that would become her downfall. Yes, the sacramento bee took LK down. Why? Funny accent? Uppity female? No, She was just not moving fast enough on what the bee really, really wants from UCD: a downtown presence in sacramento. Just look at the last editorials from the bee basically saying we will leave MAY alone on his board sitting IF WE GET UC DAVIS IN DOWNTOWN SAC! The bee wants a "satillite UC CAMPUS in the downtown"! 12 miles from Davis! Ridiculous! Never will happen. Chancellor May be very careful, you might be next to go!

How about the unstated politics ... highly unlikely a liberal paper in a liberal capitol will go after our first African American Chancellor. Trend with our last three leaders?

LK and her team put up some record fundraising numbers I think raising over $1 Billion and reaching the stated goal a year early.

@69aggie I am going to choose to respectfully agree to disagree with you on LK's performance as Chancellor. Moving on...

I am not certain the Bee has an agenda other than to sell newspapers and get clicks so they can sell more advertising. Some of the dirt they uncovered on LK just lent itself to selling news, like "Get me off the Google." Outside of this controversy, the Bee tends to under-report on UCD news, but I don't think it's personal. It is likely just that UCD news doesn't drive revenue for their business.

I don't personally know enough about the proposed railyard satellite campus to have an opinion, but you've got a state legislature that has determined it is more cost effective to grow existing universities than to plant new ones, combined with the City of Davis trying everything to stall the supply of new housing, so something has got to give. Is there strong public support for this in Sacramento that the Bee's editorial board would be catering to?

As far as Chancellor May goes, I think the best advice is to avoid impropriety and the appearance of impropriety and you won't give the media negative fodder to work with.

+1

My first response is that in the course of all the drama last summer fully all the academic senate signed a letter in the bee supporting LK. On the issue of the sac bee and UC Davis coverage, I live n ow in the Bay Area and read the SF Chronicle daily. The Chronicle reports all the news about UC Berkeley UCSF and Stanford's achievments on a daily basis in a very positive and friendly way. The Chron is very proud of its universities and says so. Strangely, the bee does not do so with UCD. Its reporting on UC Davis and city of davis is very negative." Yet, and this is important, the bee wants a UC campus in the downtown, why, not for the benefit of UC students, but for the "economy of their downtown" Not a real benefit for UC Davis.

Pretty much all major universities have satellite campuses in major cities.

I firmly believe it's something we should be doing. Isolationism is not good for an institution.

Not so sure about that...not Stanford, not Berkeley, not even sure UCLA does that... I could be wrong, but typically what I see are extension coarses.

UCLA is all over Los Angeles, so is USC, University of Washington.

Stanford almost did it with New York. Cornell did it in New York.

UCLA has a satellite campus elsewhere in LA?

They have offices around LA where students can go and take courses. They are not a satellite campus in the sense of an NYU in Dubai, but they do allow undergrads to do so.

If this "second" campus can offer specialized courses for poli sci, urban planning, civil engineering, econ majors, then I am all for it.

I would say only allow junior and seniors to take courses in Sacramento. In my opinion, it would help with the development of the student. They may even take it as a prep for life as a graduate student.

I'm not for a scenario where students go to school in Sacramento for all 4 years. That would not be something that I think we should do.

Whatever any of these other universities do, they do for the benefit of the student and the university based on their own policies Or, perhaps, if a land grant school, the general and the goal policies of land grant universities. Not because of some pressure from a local newspaper who wants to "revive the sacramento downtown" with UCD undergrads presumably shopping and going to Kings games. In the midst of the whole LK thing there was some mention that the bee felt that LK had reneged on the "World Food Center" that the bee felt she had "promised" to deliver for the rail yard project. The bee wanted sac to become a "world food center". Problem: UCD academic senate did not like this idea at all and it was basically killed. That was the final straw for the bee which felt betrayed and went on to to make sure LK did not survive. Now the bee is on to the same scheme with May: Deliver on some sac UC Downtown stuff or we will hit you with your board sitting same as LK> AND THAT WAS not a pretty thing to watch. Oh, and this just out: Sacramento wants to be named the "FOOD TO FORK CAPITAL OF THE COUNTRY" AND WILL PUT SAME ON ITS GIANT WATER TOWER! Seems to be a thing sac really wants!! Watch out May. Who said keep your friends close and your enemies closer? LK never followed that rule and it cost her dearly.

I'm not sure about all of this...how it fits together. I'd think econ majors take classes on campus, and Davis is the world leader in ag. Now we want students to add the expense of driving to Sac to an empty rail yard for the Bee?

Connecting to Sac would be a good thing, how to do it effectively is another matter.

I second the idea of some majors (upper division only and not in your first quarter if a transfer student) taking courses in Sacramento. However, this should not replace the main campus. You could hold some Econ, some POL/IR courses, maybe one CRD course (since they usually have projects in Sac anyway). Ummm lets see, maybe a UWP or Engineering class here or there. But essentially limit it because you don't want to detract from what makes us UC Davis, a premier land grant, ag school. The funny thing is whenever I'm on the Cal campus and see Wheeler Hall, I remember how opposed he was to a University Farm. He was forced by the legislature (at that time each county had an equal vote). He did whatever he could to quash it, and barring that keep it close to Berkeley.

+1

USC has a graduate program offering a masters degree in public administration in Sacramento. Something like that or a political science school makes sense with the proximity to the Capitol.

On the other hand the Department of Corrections (or as they call themselves, the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation,) actually runs two separate facilities in Folsom. Folsom State Prison and California State Prison-Sacramento. Let's not go there.

I was disappointed with LK on some fronts, but the Bee was really a noxious throughout her tenure.

The pepper spray incident was horrific. I'm glad we are pretty much passed that.

Aside from that, I really wanted her to succeeed. She did do some great things and she did have a great vision for us.

Hopefully, as already stated in a an article I can't seem to remember, Hexter stays on. He's phenomenal.

Perhaps when May is on campus he can reach out to LK and strategize to make UC Davis better. I highly doubt she'll leave with the baggage she has accumulated. We'll potentially have three high caliber leaders at the same time. This might actually turn out to be something good.

If Hexter stays that would be great. But its very likely that he will be recruited away due to his success at UC Davis. His academic hires were great as well. I very much would like to see him stay on. What article says he will?

You know, that post above is about a week old. For some odd reason, it did not post until today.

I could be wrong, but I think I read it in the Davis Enterprise somewhere.

Recent Enterprise article says May will stay on his boards and cites no conflicts. No word from Bee except to say they are still OK on it, unlike its position with LK who had no conflicts whatsoever and made no big money on her boards. Nope. Bee just did not like LK and so far May is OK. What is new is that that Sacs mayor Steinberg is going to Atlanta to meet May at the Georgia Tech Innovation Square to see if it might work in Sac. Again, Sac is hoping UCD can bring hope to its city. The difference is 1) Georgia Tech is in downtown Atlanta not 20 miles away like UCD. and 2) Atlanta is the home of numerous corporate Hqs with big money to spend on innovation. Look for a big Bee push to, again, try and pry away UC funding to help redevelope its downtown to the detriment of our students. I guess you cant blame them, but May must look first to the needs of his Davis campus. Then, maybe, Sacramento.