While UCI’s Michael Drake rethinks how to do business with fellow chancellors and UC Prez Mark Yudoff, UCI Executive Vice Chancellor Michael Gottfredson is making tough budget calls on campus: “It’s traumatic. Everybody’s back on their heels.” A broke state of California has made deep cuts-$800 million, or 20%, over two years-in its prized system of higher education. Gottfredson insists that UCI-with UC Davis, the last of 62 universities admitted (in 1996) into the prestigious American Association of Universities-“won’t lower quality.” But there will be staff furloughs, unfilled vacancies, fewer and larger classes, sports cuts and, maybe, non-teacher layoffs. Gottfredson predicts that annual in-state tuition, currently $8,400, will double in a couple of years-still a bargain for Californians, but less so. And more room likely will be made for higher-paying students from out of state and out of country. Gottfredson sees a few silver linings: UCI is speeding up the overdue integration of technology operations and consolidation of HR functions, which should save a few million dollars a year. And, “The bad news is we lost money in our endowment. The good news is, we didn’t have Harvard’s endowment” …
Gottfredson has held UCI’s No. 2 post since 2000, an eternity in UC years. Yes, he says, he still gets calls from college recruiters, but his feelings are the same as when he told the Insider three years ago that he loves living in OC and working for UC (despite the budget challenges) …
Automobile Club of Southern California CEO Tom McKernan, who is trying to improve California’s business climate even as Texas Gov. Rick Perry tries to woo Auto Club jobs to the Lone Star State, passes along a “Texas vs. California” scorecard. A corporate recruiting tool commissioned by the Texas Public Policy Foundation, the 32-page report shows California with higher overall taxes, more regulations, slower economic growth, worse government policies and poorer prospects for the 21st century. Adding insult to injury from a Golden State perspective, the report is authored by Arduin, Laffer and Moore Econometrics, a Florida-based firm led by noted supply-side economist Art Laffer, a longtime Southern Californian who moved to Nashville, Tenn., three years ago, and former Schwarzenegger Finance Director Donna Arduin …
Vivacious Heidi Ann Miller (athlete, nurse, former yogurt chain operator, now owner of Tight Assets boutiques and the World Newsstand in Laguna Beach) gets the Lifetime Achievement Award from the OC chapter of the National Association of Women Business Owners at an Oct. 15 dinner …
A fundraiser for the Irvine-based Free Wheelchair Mission at the Turnip Rose in Costa Mesa drew nearly 400 and raised $800,000. “In a hurting economy those are great numbers-that’s over 15,600 wheelchairs that people will now be getting delivered to them all around the world,” says volunteer Lauren Jolliffe.
