'Strategic thinker' Greenwood to lead UC Santa Cruz
Insider Robert Dynes takes UCSD chancellorship
M.R.C. Greenwood, dean of graduate studies and vice
provost for academic outreach at UC Davis, has been named chancellor of
UC Santa Cruz by the UC Board of Regents.
A nationally respected scholar and recent Clinton administration official,
Greenwood, 53, will be the seventh chancellor of UC Santa Cruz, succeeding
Karl Pister, who will retire in June.
Greenwood is but in the latest in an impressive
line of chancellors-in-the-making at UC Davis.
She was selected following a nationwide search by an advisory committee
composed of regents, faculty, students, staff and representatives of the
UC Santa Cruz Alumni Association and UC Santa Cruz Foundation.
At the same meeting, Robert Dynes, a renowned physicist and an expert researcher
in semiconductors and solid state circuits, was selected as the sixth chancellor
to head UC San Diego.
Dynes, senior vice chancellor for academic affairs--UCSD's top academic
officer--since last August, succeeds Richard Atkinson, who was named UC
president last October after 15 years as chancellor at the San Diego campus.
Both Dynes and Greenwood will assume their new posts July 1.
"With her expertise and insight into the importance of federal funding
of research and her skills as a campus leader and strategic thinker, M.R.C.
Greenwood is uniquely well suited to lead the Santa Cruz campus," Atkinson
said.
Clair Burgener, chair of the UC Board of Regents, praised Greenwood's appointment
saying, "She is highly intelligent, eminently accomplished in science,
education and administration and a keen judge of people."
Reporting that she was honored to be Santa Cruz's chancellor, Greenwood
said, "The University of California at Santa Cruz is a jewel in the
finest research university system in the world. ... Our challenge, working
together, will be to move into the next century with dedication to our innovative
roots and with fresh approaches to the increasingly challenging times for
public higher education." From December 1993 to May 1995, Greenwood
took a leave of absence from her duties at UC Davis to serve as associate
director for science in the White House Office of Science and Technology
Policy. In that position, she advised the Clinton administration on issues
related to national budgetary priorities and federal investment in fundamental
scientific research.
As dean of graduate studies at Davis since 1989, Greenwood is responsible
for approximately 80 departmental and interdepartmental programs. She also
participates in the development of training grants and has responsibility
for the post-doctoral programs of the Davis campus. As vice provost, she
leads the UC Davis innovative Internet-based university outreach program
and oversees university extension, summer sessions and a variety of other
outreach-oriented units.
Elected in 1992 to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of
Sciences, Greenwood has served as an officer in several scientific disciplinary
societies and policy-making boards and is the recipient of numerous honors
and awards.
Greenwood graduated summa cum laude from Vassar College with a bachelor's
degree in biology in 1968. She received her doctorate in physiology, developmental
biology and neurosciences from Rockefeller University in 1973.
She was an assistant professor of human genetics and development at Columbia
University from 1976-78. From 1978-81, Greenwood was associate professor
of biology at Vassar College, and she served as professor and chair of the
biology department and as a John Guy Vassar Professor of Natural Sciences
from 1986-89.
Greenwood joined UC Davis in 1989 as dean of graduate studies and professor
of nutrition and internal medicine.
Founded in 1965, UC Santa Cruz has 10,117 students and is the home of
the Lick Observatory and the site of several nationally renowned research
centers, including the Institute of Marine Sciences and the Institute of
Tectonics.
In a survey released last fall by the National Research Council, two of
UCSC's doctoral programs were ranked in the top 10 in the nation, astronomy
and astrophysics (6th) and linguistics (10th). Two other programs--earth
sciences, and biochemistry and molecular biology--also placed in the top
25 percent. Santa Cruz's faculty includes 13 members of the National Academy
of Sciences, 17 members of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; four
Kellogg Fellows; one MacArthur Fellow; and one member of the National Academy
of Engineering.
