Editorial: In Yudof, regents find leader UC system needs

The University of California system – 10 campuses, five medical centers and three national laboratories – is at a crossroads. With its leadership stepping down after five years, with UC's share of the state budget declining, with the economy changing rapidly and with a need for innovation greater than ever, a new UC president will step into an extremely challenging environment.

On top of these long-term issues is the need to recover from the 2005 controversy over administrative bloat and bonuses, stipends, relocation packages and other forms of unreported compensation to top administrators. Then there's California's short-term state budget crisis, which will likely require increases in student fees and rethinking of financial aid.

Fortunately, in Mark Yudof, a search committee has tapped the right person to serve as the next University of California president.

Yudof, a first-rate constitutional scholar and teacher, has served as chancellor of the University of Minnesota system (1997 to 2002) and the University of Texas system (2002 to present). The University of California really needs someone from outside the system to bring in fresh ideas, fresh personnel and shake up old ways of doing business. Yudof is ideally suited to do that.

Yudof has shown himself to be a quick study, an extremely effective manager, an imaginative thinker and a savvy political leader in working with governors and legislators. Amazingly, he still teaches. He believes strongly in academic freedom and in shared governance with the faculty.

Under the leadership of someone with Yudof's qualities, the drift that brought the regents to an inappropriate degree of micromanagement will surely end, with the regents stepping back into their proper policy and oversight role.

As a response to controversy that dragged on from late 2005 to early 2007, the Regents already have approved major restructuring of the UC president's office. These plans would make the president's office smaller – amounting to a cut of 404 full-time-equivalent positions and $52 million in spending. If his history in Minnesota and Texas is any guide, Yudof certainly would review and rethink structural issues, going back to first principles: What is the role of UC's systemwide administration in relation to the campuses?

Yudof 's experience makes him intimately familiar with the budgetary climate of the nation's public universities. In California, while the state's per-capita spending on prisons increased 126 percent (in constant dollars) from 1985 to 2004, per-capita spending on higher education declined 12 percent. Twenty years ago, UC got half of its budget from the state; now it's 20 percent.

Yudof has been a master in fighting for public universities in the state budget process and in seeking revenues from elsewhere. He has sought endowed professorships, increased financial aid for students and encouraged research partnerships.

UC needs a president with the right mind-set and skills to use a smaller, more focused UC president's office to aggressively set a long-term direction in changed circumstances. Yudof is a plum selection for that task.

The regents vote on Yudof's selection on March 27. They should approve it with unanimous enthusiasm.