Chancellor Larry Vanderhoef emphasized collaboration over controversy in his annual State of the Campus address before 100 members of the Academic Senate last Friday.

Vanderhoef apologized to the faculty leadership for the turmoil brought on by the agreement that he made with Celeste Rose when she resigned last summer as vice chancellor of University Relations. "I am very sorry," Vanderhoef said.

"My intentions were only to protect the university. I truly wanted to avoid the financial and political costs of extended litigation," the chancellor said, noting he was also concerned about retention and recruitment of faculty and staff, and about maintaining momentum in University Relations. He added that, knowing what he knows now, he would not enter into the same agreement again.

The chancellor again expressed his disappointment that his critics in the Academic Senate chose to ask for a no-confidence vote over the Rose agreement, rather than talk with him to reconcile their differences.

With the senate and administration working together, Vanderhoef said, the university is making strides in such areas as graduate student support and time-to-degree progress, and expansion of summer programs on campus and abroad.

"We cannot do these kinds of things individually," he said.

Vanderhoef said his administration soon will begin working with a senate committee on another shared priority: a remedy for "growing salary inequity." It is the result of the university's having to pay "more and more" to faculty recruits, or not be able to lure them away from other universities, even smaller institutions like Kansas State University.

"Our faculty salary scales are essentially broken," Vanderhoef said. The result is salary inequity — or "salary compression" — for veteran faculty members who have devoted themselves to this university, he said.

"We must — together — turn this around," the chancellor said. The goal, he said, is to have a plan in place by July 1, with the first steps to be implemented in the new academic year.

Vanderhoef opened his address by discussing the Rose agreement. The controversy stems from Rose's resignation July 1, 2005, and the settlement under which she is being paid as a special adviser to the chancellor, yet has no specified duties and apparently has yet to agree on a project to work on. The settlement gave her $205,000 annually plus benefits for two years, and a $50,000 "transition payment."

The chancellor said that the specter of litigation arose late in the negotiations when Rose accused the chancellor himself of race and gender discrimination — charges that he denies. Rose is African-American.

"I wanted to avert the damaging impact of discrimination allegations, no matter their merit, on the recruitment and retention of our faculty, staff and students," he said.

The chancellor said he also wanted to prevent the university from losing ground in its preparations for the university's first comprehensive fund-raising campaign, which he called "a critically important undertaking for our campus."

Vanderhoef said: "It was the university's best interests — not my own — that guided my thinking and decision-making. … Would I make those decisions over again, knowing what I know now? No, I would not."

The chancellor said that he regretted how the Rose controversy had "sullied" the UC Davis reputation.

But his apology did nothing to appease his chief critic, Professor Jerald Theis, who said after the meeting, "Apologies be damned."

Theis, a professor of medical microbiology and immunology, circulated the 50-signature petition that resulted in the senate bringing a no-confidence vote against the chancellor.

Academic Senate Chair Dan Simmons said 2,800 ballots are due to arrive by campus mail on Feb. 24, and are due back by March 10.

The vote cannot force Vanderhoef out of office, and Vanderhoef has said he has no plans to resign. UC President Robert Dynes has also said publicly that he wholeheartedly supports the chancellor.

At the senate meeting, Professor Leo Chalupa commended Vanderhoef for doing a "fabulous job" as chancellor, then asked, "How could a senior member of your administration make these charges?"

"It's inconceivable that people who know you would believe that, but what led to this?" asked Chalupa, a professor of ophthalmology and neurobiology. Chalupa said he did not believe that Rose would play the "race card," so he was still left to wonder about her motive.

In other comments, Vanderhoef once again acknowledged that the UC system had made "mistakes" on executive compensation, and outlined how the Board of Regents was taking steps to bring about change. He also noted that at UC Davis, at his request, an audit is "well under way" into his expenditures and those of his senior management team.

The chancellor said the entire UC system is committed to "greater clarity, greater accountability and greater oversight by the regents."

Theis shared with the senate an article from UC Focus, published by the president's office, in which the first paragraph stated: "UC regents are moving toward revising and simplifying executive compensation and benefits, in part to restore public confidence in the university."

Then Theis told the senate that the article came out in October 1992, when the UC system last faced widespread criticism for its compensation practices.