Qualities That Will Serve and Guide Him : * UC System President Peltason Will Face Hurdles That Will Test His Humor, Patience
Outgoing UC Irvine Chancellor Jack W. Peltason bid farewell to graduates last week with an encouraging reminder to “be of good cheer†about democracy.
In ordinary times, that message might sound mundane, but one of Peltason’s skills is picking the right message, at the right moment, for the right audience. With a great democratic institution of higher education, the University of California system, facing budgetary stress so severe as to call into question the fulfillment of its mission, he will have to pass his own good-humor test in the future.
Peltason, who is officially in transition until assuming the presidency of the UC system on Oct. 1, has taken his own sound advice in the past in navigating through the tricky waters of governmental, business and community relations. UCI, in turn has benefited by sustaining its most remarkable period of growth during his eight-year tenure. His disarming approach has helped him guide UCI. And it not so incidentally endeared him to the Board of Regents as a sensible alternative to a deadlock over candidates for the system presidency.
The legacy of Peltason in Irvine is quite remarkable. Some examples: The UCI College of Medicine endowment grew from $5.9 million in 1985 to $30 million now. Since the mid-1980s also, more than three dozen projects were built at UCI at a cost of more than $388 million, much of it financed with state construction funds artfully steered to Irvine by Peltason. He loaded up the faculty with first-rate scholars and scientists, and with it, raked in private and federal research dollars. He is capable of patience too; when asked once about the possibility of having a football team at UCI, he gave an almost biblical prophecy: “In the fullness of time .â€
Peltason’s new challenges will require such fortitude, humor and some variations on the skills he exhibited as a builder; he must now put on the hat of a sustainer. In that daunting task, we wish him well.
