When Robert “Bob” Dynes
came to UCSD as a dashing 48-year-old professor of physics, he
thought he had arrived in Shangri-La and
was convinced he would never leave. Last June, however, the Canadian-born
Dynes accepted the position of president of the entire University
of California system, succeeding former UCSD Chancellor Richard Atkinson.
In an address to a large turnout of faculty and staff in the Faculty
Club shortly before he left for the president’s office, Dynes
admitted to very mixed feelings. “I’ve really dreaded
this day. I did not look forward to it and I’m a very emotional
guy.” Then he added, “but I’ve got a challenge
in front of me, and I’ll be darned if I let somebody else
do it.”
Dynes, a semiconductors expert, came to UCSD in 1991
with 22 years of AT&T Laboratories experience under his belt.
At UCSD he founded a laboratory where chemists and electrical engineers,
working in partnership with the private sector, investigate the
properties of metals, semiconductors and superconductors. He chaired
the department
of physics and rose to
senior vice chancellor for academic affairs
before becoming chancellor in July 1996.
Under his leadership, student
enrollment grew by 25 percent, new pharmacy and management schools
were founded, a new undergraduate college (Sixth College) was established,
the $106 million Eleanor Roosevelt College opened its campus, and
a billion-dollar fundraising campaign was launched.
UCSD Senior
Vice Chancellor Marsha Chandler has been appointed acting chancellor
until a new chancellor takes office. A student
of public
policy and organizational behavior, Chandler spent almost 20 years
at the University of Toronto, where she became dean of the Faculty
of Arts and Sciences. She came to UCSD in 1997.
In a tribute to
Dynes at the Faculty Club farewell, Chandler said UCSD took great
pride in his appointment. “Bob has made an enormous impact,” she
said. “He has propelled a young
campus onto a world stage.”
The committee established to find
Dynes’s successor includes
two UCSD alumni, Peter Preuss, M.A. ’67, vice chairman of
the Board of Regents, and Ross Schwartz, ’79, a San Diego
attorney. The committee will seek the advice of faculty, alumni,
students and
staff, and will make a decision as early as next spring.
Shortly
before he left for the president’s office in Oakland,
the Academic Senate presented Dynes with UCSD’s highest honor,
the Revelle Medal; and the UC San Diego Foundation presented him
with its Civis Universitatis Award. He was elected to the National
Academy of Sciences in 1989, won the 1990 Fritz London Award in
low temperature physics, and is a fellow of the American Academy
of Arts
and Sciences.
In his address to faculty and staff, Dynes said that
at least for the first year he will
be back at UCSD most weekends, partly because his physicist wife,
Frances Dynes Hellman, will remain on campus until next June, but
also because he still has students working on their doctoral programs.
“
So, I will not say goodbye,” he said. “It’s au
revoir, á bientot, hasta luego, or as they say in baseball, ‘See
yah.’” |
