Senator Eliot Shapleigh - El Paso, Texas

Mark Yudof

Mark Yudof promises to arrive "bright and early, or at least one or the other," when he begins his new job as president of the University of California system June 16. He's been chancellor of the University of Texas System since August 2002.

The 63-year-old Yudof reflected on his current position and looked ahead to his new one during an interview at his wood-paneled office in O. Henry Hall in downtown Austin recently. Here is an edited account:

Austin American-Statesman: What is your proudest accomplishment as chancellor?

Mark Yudof:I think the proudest one is changing the overall direction of the UT System. When I arrived, we were the Abominable No-Men. We always held up things; we were only regulatory. I feel like with the Board of Regents I remade the system to be more focused on the mission of providing services and adding value to the campuses. I appointed what I think is a very strong team. I think that frankly was very attractive to the University of California.

What would you mark down as the biggest disappointment?

I would say there are two things I really wanted to get done. I wouldn't say they are 100 percent disappointments. But I look at budgets of other universities around the country, including California, and those institutions are better supported than our institutions.

Better supported by the state?

Yes. But it's most salient at UT-Austin, which is trying to compete with Berkeley and Michigan and Virginia and all sorts of places. We had a good legislative session last time mostly, not entirely. I wish we could persuade the Legislature to invest more in higher education. The second thing is we still do not have a long-term strategic plan for higher education in the state. You need to have a vision, and you need to have a plan, and you need to put the dollars into it.

You've mentioned that one attraction of the California position was the fun it would be to climb another mountain. Is there also any frustration with the situation in Texas regarding the legislative support and these other matters? Did that figure into your decision?

It really didn't. Remember, I've been president of the University of Minnesota, and I know a lot about California. If you're a CEO of one of these systems, there are frustrations every week. I have no reason to think the frustration level will be lower in California.

I've been chancellor almost six years and I had mentally decided that eight years in this particular job was about all I wanted to spend, and then I would go back to being a law professor. When I said I had one more mountain to climb, what I meant was, I'm a Type A, and I don't play golf, I don't sail. Being president of the University of California for five years or six years or whatever it turns out to be and then going back to full-time law professoring fit more with my life cycle of what I wanted to do. It was a factor, of course, that it's such a great university system.

In California, doctoral degree offerings are largely restricted to the 10 UC campuses. In Texas, by contrast, we now allow about two dozen public universities to offer one or more doctoral programs. Is this a big policy error on the state's part?

On a case-by-case basis, I think there may have been some errors. But Texas is very different. It's much larger geographically. We need to build more Research I universities, and you cannot build them if you do not have graduate programs.

Which schools in Texas might have a shot at top-tier status, and what would it take to lift them to the status of UT-Austin and Texas A&M University?

We have four regional institutions — UT-Dallas, UT-Arlington, UT-San Antonio, UT-El Paso — and each of them has particular advantages and some disadvantages. Houston is one of America's largest metropolitan areas. It has an institution, the University of Houston, which is just under $100 million in research funding. If the Houston community could get behind that institution ... The other one is Texas Tech, which has a substantial research profile and a medical school.

What about Tech's location on the dusty, windswept plains of Lubbock as opposed to, say, San Antonio?

There is some advantage in being in a large urban area; there's just no doubt about it. But I wouldn't count Texas Tech out. It is also important to maintain our flagships. If these new institutions take money away from A&M and from Austin, it's going to be very hard for them to maintain where they are.

Is that a hard case to make to the Legislature, where some members often make reference to the multibillion-dollar endowment for the UT and A&M systems?

Yes, it is a hard case to make. I had more money at Minnesota, per student and so forth, than here in Texas. The fact is, you add everything in for Austin, and it still does not have the money to be competitive with the very top public institutions.

Has it been disappointing that more progress hasn't been made, particularly with some of the chairmen that you've had for the Board of Regents who have been very well-connected politically?

This is a half-full, half-empty. We're certainly significantly up in appropriations from 2003. The tuition revenue bonds have been the largest in the state's history. The allocation from the Permanent University Fund has been the largest in our history. The ability to set tuition and to use it strategically to increase graduation rates — that's been very helpful. But there still is a lot more progress that's needed.

Do you anticipate smoking with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in his cigar tent at the Capitol in Sacramento?

I think that's a great idea. Someone, a friend from Minnesota, sent me a picture. It was a frame from the movie "Predator," and it had three soldiers in a tent. One of them was Jesse Ventura, one of them was Arnold Schwarzenegger, and for the third, they had superimposed my face over the soldier's face. So, if Carl Weathers succeeds Gov. Schwarzenegger, we know something important is taking place in America, that all the stars of "Predator" are being rewarded in one way or another.