Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor Robert D. Grey has announced his intention to step down from the campus’s No. 2 administrative post next July.

Grey, who by then will have completed eight years as the campus’s chief academic and financial officer and as the chief governance official for the UC Davis Medical Center, will complete a six-month sabbatical before assuming a temporary assignment as senior adviser to the chancellor. In this new role, he will help craft a vision for the future of academic health systems and oversee new initiatives in the environment, education, and genomics and informatics.

"This is not an easy step for me, for the opportunity to serve the campus in my current capacity and to work with so many wonderful colleagues has been the greatest privilege of my professional life," said Grey. "Nevertheless, it is time, both for me and for the campus, for a change. UC Davis is blessed with talented and generous people, so I leave my current job with enormous optimism about the decade ahead for our campus."

Said Chancellor Larry Vanderhoef: "This is a day I knew had to come but hoped never would." The two have worked closely together since 1985, shortly after Vanderhoef’s arrival at UC Davis and Grey’s appointment as founding dean of the Division of Biological Sciences.

"We have been the closest of colleagues all these years," said Vanderhoef. "He has always been my very best adviser, bringing the highest of academic standards and the most valued of perspectives to the decision-making table."

Grey’s accomplishments are myriad and significant, according to the chancellor, including:

• Establishing the Division of Biological Sciences. "Keeping that process on track and moving from concept to reality was nothing short of miraculous, given the complexity of the circumstance."

• Helping the campus navigate the budget traumas of the early- to mid-1990s. That experience "pushed us both toward a greater understanding of the total campus, a shared experience that served us well as we moved into better times."

• Leading the academic planning that will guide the campus through the next decade of growth. "Thirty-plus years as a faculty member, department chair, dean, and provost and executive vice chancellor add up to the essential wisdom, the sense of Davis history and culture, and the academic savvy that only he could bring to the task."

"For this and so much more, UC Davis will be forever in Bob Grey’s debt," said Vanderhoef. "I am delighted that Bob will continue to work on behalf of the campus to finish a few projects he has undertaken, and to move into a likely major interest in the next chapter of his very productive career, the future of academic medicine and medical centers.

"Finally, I never doubted that Bob's ability to keep on keeping on, even through those times that were agonizing and absolutely no fun at all, was heavily dependent on his wife, Kathleen. I know from personal experience that one person alone is simply unable to stand up to the rigors of the job Bob has done, and I am most grateful that Kathleen was always there, behind the scenes, with her special support and counsel."

Peter A. Rock, dean of the Division of Mathematical and Physical Sciences, praised Grey’s leadership.

"Provost Grey is very effective in working with the campus’s deans, in part because he once served as a dean and never forgot the challenges that we face," Rock said. "He has provided wise counsel and creative academic vision, and has been strongly supportive of the deans’ efforts to implement their units’ academic visions. We will be fortunate to be able to tap his expertise for a bit longer while he serves as senior adviser to the chancellor."

In assessing his time as provost, Grey pointed to the characteristically high level of collaboration that "will ensure a bright future" for the campus.

"We’ve accomplished a lot as a campus by working together," he said. "We moved from the daunting task of coping with the worst recession in the history of California to the exciting prospect of planning for 5,000 new students and the appointment of nearly 250 new faculty positions and hundreds of new staff positions. At every step of the way, new ideas and advice came from all quarters of the campus and people gave much time and energy to the more difficult task of translating the ideas and advice into solid projects that made UC Davis a better place. I have been struck by how much each person cares about our campus and its future development and well-being."

A professor of cellular and molecular biology, Grey served as dean of UC Davis’ Division of Biological Sciences from 1985 until tapped as interim provost and executive vice chancellor in May 1993; he was appointed permanently to that post in January 1995.

He earlier served as chair and vice chair of the zoology department and as assistant and associate dean of the College of Letters and Science. A member of the UC Davis faculty since 1967, Grey graduated from Phillips University in Oklahoma and received his doctoral degree from Washington University in St. Louis, where he taught and conducted research before coming to Davis.

Grey has served as consultant for a number of universities on academic issues and has been named to numerous advisory boards and committees. Among his honors are the Distinguished Teaching Award of the Davis Division of the Academic Senate, the Magnar Ronning Award for Teaching Excellence and a distinguished alumnus award from Phillips University.

He is a member of the American Society for Developmental Biology, the American Society for Cell Biology, the American Association for the Advancement of Science and Sigma Xi and Phi Sigma honorary societies. He has also been a reviewer and editorial consultant for several professional journals and has published extensively in his research area, biology of fertilization and cell biology.

A national search for Grey’s successor will be initiated immediately.