San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Brown appoints talent chief to UC Board of Regents
In one of Jerry Brown’s final acts as governor, he has appointed the head of a Los Angeles talent agency to the University of California Board of Regents, filling the final open seat on the influential education panel.
Jonathan “Jay” Sures, 51, is co-president of United Talent Agency, where he has been an executive since 1998 and has represented several Hollywood figures and journalists, including Chuck Todd of NBC and Jake Tapper of CNN.
Sures is also vice president of the company’s charitable foundation, treasurer of the Entertainment Industry Foundation, and a member of the UCLA Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center board of directors. Brown announced the appointment Friday evening.
Most of the 26 regents serve 12-year terms and must be confirmed by the Senate Rules committee. They set tuition, appoint campus chancellors and determine their pay, and establish policies on academics, faculty finances and planning.
The panel has one student member and seven ex-officio members — including the governor — who serve by virtue of their office.
In July, a study by the nonprofit Campaign for College Opportunity found that the composition of governor-appointed regents was disproportionately white and male, even though the students attending UC campuses were far more diverse.
The study, called “Left Out,” also looked at diversity on the governing board of the California State University system and the state Community College Board of Governors and found a similar lack of nonwhite appointees. But those panels had more gender diversity than the UC regents.
With the addition of Sures, who is white, the 18 governorappointed regents include eight white men and three white women. Four Latinos and two African Americans (evenly divided between men and women), and one Asian American woman also serve as regents.