New hire is UC’s 1st Black leader
ExOhio State chief takes helm from Napolitano
A physician who recently stepped down as president of Ohio State University will become the University of California’s 21st president and its first Black leader, taking over the $37 billion system next month at a time of extraordinary upheaval and financial disarray because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Michael Drake, 69, who will earn $890,000, about the same as at Ohio State, has deep roots at UC and in California. He served for nine years as chancellor of UC Irvine until 2014, was a medical professor at UCSF — where he earned his medical degree specializing in ophthalmology — and served as UC’s vice president of health. Drake also took his undergraduate degree at Stanford.
“If you’re looking for some
one with vision, you can’t go wrong with an ophthalmologist,” said Regents Chairman John Pérez, the first of many regents who praised the selection of Drake.
“Dr. Drake is an exceptional individual and a wonderful person,” said Regent Gareth Elliott, who chaired the search committee.
Regent Sherry Lansing said: “Michael’s track record in diversity and access is extraordinary.”
Drake, addressing the regents online after their unanimous and enthusiastic approval of his appointment on Tuesday evening, thanked his family, colleagues and mentors before summarizing this moment in time and hinting at his priorities.
“We face very, very significant challenges,” he said. “As we speak today, we have a global pandemic that is still spreading. Yawning wounds of social injustice, and longterm threats of environmental degradation and climate change. UC is one of the bestequipped places to meet these challenges, and to be fully engaged in finding a solution.”
The new president succeeds Janet Napolitano, the former U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security under President Obama who has led UC for seven years. Napolitano, who announced her retirement last fall, will join the faculty of the Goldman School of Public Policy at UC Berkeley. Napolitano was paid $654,889 last year.
Headquartered in Oakland, UC has 10 campuses across the state, as well as five medical centers and three national laboratories. More than 280,000 students are enrolled in the system that employs about 227,000 people.
Drake will head what is widely regarded as one of the world’s great university systems. Four of its campuses — UC Berkeley, UCSF, UCLA, UC San Diego — are among the 20 best in the world, according to the independent Shanghai Rankings of all universities, compiled annually. UC Berkeley, at No. 5, is the topranking public university.
Students, faculty, staff and campus leaders alike are expected to applaud the appointment of an African American president. Drake’s arrival comes as the country is rethinking race relations after numerous killings of unarmed Black people by white police officers, and as student leaders across UC have long made social justice issues a priority.
“Our No. 1 thing was that we wanted a president who is generally aware of what marginalized students are going through — and what is needed to support those students,” Varsha Sarveshwar, president of the UC Student Association, told The Chronicle before learning who had been chosen. Sarveshwar cochaired the student advisory committee on selecting the new president, and said Monday that naming a person of color “would be historic. It would be a meaningful milestone.”
Sarveshwar said that in a conversation with students earlier Tuesday, Drake “affirmed his commitment to equity and inclusion, to accessibility and affordability, to rethinking public safety, and to student consultation.” She said she hopes and expects him to follow through.
At Ohio State in 2017, Drake imposed a fouryear freeze on tuition and fees, as well as on the price of room and board for firstyear students who were state residents. He is also credited with creating a variety of other programs intended to reduce the price of college for students in need.
His Ohio State biography says he guided the university in providing more than $100 million in aid for needy students since 2015, and doubling the size of a fullscholarship program in 2018.
UC students have complained for years that the university’s muchtouted Blue and Gold program, which wipes out tuition and fees for undergraduates from families earning less than $80,000, doesn’t cover the price of room and board.
Meanwhile, the COVID19 pandemic has thrown all universities into an unprecedented state of uncertainty.
With nearly $1 billion in state cuts, campus budgets in freefall and academics in disarray because students and professors haven’t been able to safely gather together since the winter, UC is forced to reinvent itself in the new era. Instruction is expected to be mainly online throughout the fall.
“We’re forced in these circumstances to make that work,” Drake told The Chronicle in an interview following his confirmation, adding that he was especially impressed that faculty — many of whom had rejected online education at UC not many years ago — were doing well with such courses now that the pandemic left them little choice.
This week, as faculty, staff and students told The Chronicle what they expected from a new president, one theme emerged: They wanted the leader to see beyond the pandemic.
“It’s important not to just look at the short term. The president will need to develop a plan for the next five to 10 years,” said Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of Berkeley Law.
Chemerinsky and Drake together made news in 2007, when, after hiring Chemerinsky to be dean of the UC Irvine law school and signing the contract, Drake rescinded the constitutional scholar’s appointment. Rumors swirled that the chancellor had been pressured by California Republicans, accusations that Drake denied.
Following a national outcry, Drake reappointed Chemerinsky, who has since said that he and Drake have reconciled.
Drake also joins UC at a time when the university system may have an opportunity to admit far more students from underrepresented ethnicities than it has been able to do in decades, since voters approved Proposition 209 in 1996. The law made affirmative action illegal in public hiring and university admissions, and at UC, the admission of Black students has remained at roughly 4% ever since, although the number of Black admits more than doubled to 4,400 as the university system grew in size.
Last month, the regents endorsed Assembly Constitutional Amendment 5, which would offer California voters a chance to decide, by a simple majority, whether to repeal Prop. 209.
Drake, who was born in Manhattan, is married to attorney Brenda Drake. Among many organizations he has served with, Drake has been on the board of the Association of American Universities, the Association of Academic Health Centers and the National Collegiate Athletic Association.
He is also on the board of directors of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.