The UC Board of Regents at its March meeting officially designated Larry Vanderhoef and UC San Francisco’s J. Michael Bishop as chancellors emeriti. Both are stepping down June 30.

Vanderhoef plans to spend the coming year writing a book, developing a new class and continuing his work on building international links, as well as other service activities nationally and on campus.

Vanderhoef and Bishop will resume their status as professors, above scale, as policy specifies and as approved by the Board of Regents.

The board agreed that, for one year, through June 30, 2010, both will be paid the same as when they were chancellors: $315,000 annually for Vanderhoef and $402,200 for Bishop.

During this one-year period, they will be on administrative leave in lieu of sabbaticals. The leaves are contingent upon their return to tenured faculty positions for a minimum of one year. Vanderhoef is a professor of plant physiology, affiliated with the Department of Plant Biology.

He intends to contribute substantively as chancellor emeritus. He will return to the faculty, developing and teaching a biology course for nonscience majors, and will continue his work at the national and international levels, leading university accreditation reviews and promoting interactions in the Middle East and Far East. He plans, as well, to write a book about UC Davis’ past quarter-century, uniquely observed through his eyes as chancellor and provost.

Vanderhoef came to UC Davis in 1984 as executive vice chancellor and subsequently become provost and executive vice chancellor, until his appointment as UC Davis’ fifth chancellor in 1994.

A campus budget spokesman said that when Vanderhoef completes his administrative leave and returns to the faculty, he will be paid a professor’s salary.

Office set for new conference center

The Board of Regents also agreed, per policy, to pay reasonable and customary moving expenses for Vanderhoef and Bishop — who will be vacating chancellor’s residences. Vanderhoef’s moving expenses are estimated at $7,500, and Bishop’s at $10,000.

In Vanderhoef’s case, consistent with UC policies and practices, the university will provide him a campus office and an executive assistant. Similarly, one of Vanderhoef’s predecessors, James Meyer, received an office and assistant when he became chancellor emeritus.

Vanderhoef and his assistant are due to be housed in the new university office building and conference center going up at the south entry. University Relations will occupy other offices in the two-story building.

This building is adjacent to the Graduate School of Management’s new home, which also is under construction, and both structures are within walking distance of a third construction project: a privately developed hotel.

The regents also approved a nonsalary operating budget of $39,000 for Vanderhoef’s office in 2009-10, in these approximate amounts:

$14,000 in general office expenses.

$18,000 in international travel-related expenses in support of Vanderhoef’s continuing work in Asia, including Iran, developing student and faculty exchange programs.

$7,000 in domestic travel-related expenses.

At UCSF, Chancellor Bishop, a Nobel Prize winner, maintained his personal office and laboratory, which will allow him to carry out his duties as a professor and chancellor emeritus.

Bishop is a professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology and director of the G.W. Hooper Foundation, a biomedical research unit at UCSF.

Promotion for Vice Chancellor Meyer

In another UC Davis personnel matter, the regents approved an interim “reslotting” and promotion for John Meyer, who retains the same title: vice chancellor of the Office of Resource Management and Planning.

With the promotion comes a $44,700 pay increase — but, because of UC’s tough budget times, Meyer has elected to forgo the increase for at least a year.

The promotion is the result of his increased responsibilities at Resource Management and Planning, which last year grew to include Facilities Management (formerly Operations and Maintenance) and Architects and Engineers, as well as the arboretum. The office also established a new division: Environmental Stewardship and Sustainability.

Before the reorganization, Meyer’s Office of Resource Management and Planning comprised 48 full-time-equivalent positions, to take care of budgeting and institutional analysis, capital resource management, and campus planning.

Today, with the newly added units, the office’s FTE count is 852. At the same time, the office’s operating budget went from $5.05 million to $72.5 million a year.

Along with the promotion, the regents put Meyer in a new pay grade. It ranges from $192,300 to $297,400, up from $172,300 to $265,000.

At the same time, per policy, he was due a promotional salary adjustment of $44,700 (22.3 percent), from $200,200 to $244,900.

But, according to the regents agenda, “Mr. Meyer, in response to the significant fiscal constraints at the campus and throughout UC, will forgo the increase in salary for a period of no less than one year, until March 1, 2010.”