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UC President Richard Atkinson took office in 1995 and has championed diversity, helped reform sta

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An eight-year era is ending. Richard Atkinson, the 17th president of the University of California and one of the most powerful figures in public education, is retiring today into a bright but overshadowed legacy. Atkinson has left a indelible impact on higher education in both the state and the nation. He has been a champion of diversity in California’s post-affirmative action era and he has expanded funding to the UC’s research programs. His remarks on admittance policies snowballed to cause two of the nation’s largest aptitude tests, the SAT I and ACT, to revamp the format of the exams. But Atkinson is stepping down at a time when the future of the UC is clouded with uncertainty. State funding to the UC has been cut by $410 million in the past year, and could be cut by $600 million next year. Soaring student fees threaten access to the university as enrollment is expected to grow to unprecedented heights. Funding for many UC programs, including outreach and research, is being cut by up to 50 percent, threatening to unravel some of Atkinson’s key accomplishments. “What we are, and how valuable we are to the people of the state, will be thoroughly tested,” Atkinson said in his closing remarks to the UC Board of Regents in September.

Increasing campus diversity Atkinson is no stranger to tumultuous times. He took office in August 1995 mere weeks after the regents approved the controversial initiative SP-1, which prevented the university from considering race or ethnicity in hiring and admissions. Critics of the initiative feared that it would threaten accessibility to the UC among ethnic minorities, and enrollment of some minority groups did go into a sharp decline after SP-1 passed. Turning this decline in minority enrollment around became Atkinson’s first challenge. He urged the regents to create a task force that reached out to minority groups, and went to Sacramento personally to secure funding for outreach programs. At Atkinson’s behest, the regents voted to rescind SP-1 in 2001. Atkinson’s policies have had an impact on the makeup of the university’s student body: In the fall of 2003, minorities made up 19.8 percent of the UC’s freshmen class, up from 18.8 percent in 1997. “Atkinson’s tenure will be remembered as a time when access was generally threatened, and as the leader of the institution he found very creative ways to respond to that challenge,” said Winston Doby, the UC vice president of outreach.

A legacy of research Atkinson’s history was rooted in the sciences long before he assumed the UC presidency: As former chancellor of UC San Diego, he brought that campus to national preeminence in the field of research. Before that, he served as the head of the National Science Foundation. “It’s in his bloodline so to speak,” said Roberto Peccei, the UCLA vice chancellor of research. Under Atkinson’s term, outside funding to UC research more than doubled, and the UC established several California Institutes for Science and Innovation at four of its campuses, which create a partnership between scientific industries and university researchers. But university research has fallen onto hard times. Research programs were cut 10 percent last year on top of a 10 percent cut the year before, and the UC is in danger of losing management of the Los Alamos National Laboratories after a rash of administrative scandals broke out last year. But UC officials say Atkinson’s contributions to research far outweigh the problems he faced at the end of his terms. “It would be extremely unfair if the labs move away from the UC to say Atkinson lost the labs. He managed the situation as well as anyone else could manage it,” Peccei said.

Admissions reform Perhaps the most important part of Atkinson’s legacy is the reforms he made in admissions criteria, both for the UC and for colleges nationwide. Atkinson made the university more accessible for freshmen and transfer applicants, opening up a comprehensive review program that put greater weight on a student’s personal achievements and less on test scores. He also pushed for a dual admissions program to help community college students transfer to the UC. But many say it was the changes Atkinson advocated for the SAT exams that will be most remembered. Atkinson made headlines in 2001 when he suggested the UC drop the SAT I requirement for admissions, an exam Atkinson said tested “ill-defined notions of aptitude.” His remarks set off a storm of reactions. Colleges around the country began to reevaluate their admissions criteria, and the College Board, which writes the SAT, announced the next year that it would be changing the exam.

End of the run Many agree that Atkinson has left an outstanding legacy behind him as he retires. And, despite the problems Atkinson had to weather at the end of his term, many also agree that the problems would remain a mere footnote to an otherwise commendable career. “It would have been nice if he hadn’t had to go out with that,” said former UC President David Saxon. “But no, I think he had quite a good run.”

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