Pamela Burdman is a freelance writer in the Bay Area and former higher education reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle. Send comments to comments@californiajournal.com

It has been more than 35 years since Clark Kerr left as the University of California's 12th president. But his death last month was a distressing reminder for many at UC who worry that Kerr's inspirational legacy, which looms large over all of the nation's public universities, could be dying with him.

Kerr was architect of California's Master Plan for Higher Education, a national model for public colleges and universities. Embodied in the plan was Kerr's concept of a quality research university that also provides academic access to the very brightest high school students in California. Now the state's budget problems could imperil the plan's promise of a UC slot for the top one-eighth of high school students. They could also disrupt the plans for opening a 10th campus in Merced - the first new one since Kerr's time.

Since 1970, UC's budget has fallen from about 7 percent of total state spending to just 4.1 percent, a pattern being repeated around the country. As the whole pie shrinks, the task of maintaining UC's excellence is even more challenging. Students are already angry about a 40 percent tuition hike over the past two years, faculty are grumbling about salary freezes, the federal government is threatening to pull the contracts UC has had to run three national science laboratories for more than 50 years, and the system's admissions policies continue to provoke controversy around the state.

On his final day in the job last October, out-going UC President Richard C. Atkinson warned that if budgets didn't improve, the university system serving 200,000 students was heading for "disaster." The man the system is now counting on to avert that outcome is Robert C. Dynes, a nationally respected physicist who left his job as UC San Diego chancellor to succeed Atkinson on October 2. No one has the illusion that task will be easy. Just consider Dynes' first week on the job. On day two, a front-page story in the Los Angeles Times contained a critical assault on UC Berkeley's admissions policies from John Moores, chairman of the UC Board of Regents. On day four, Governor Gray Davis, a self-professed friend of higher education and Atkinson buddy, lost the recall election to Arnold Schwarzenegger, whose views on higher education are unknown.

"Bob Dynes probably couldn't have come in at a worse time," commiserated his counterpart at California State University, Chancellor Charlie Reed.

Dynes acknowledges hesitating before accepting the role. "I knew that I would be facing these problems," he said. "I could have always done science. What pushed me over the fence was the realization that no matter what science I could have done, I would not and could not have the same impact [that] I could have in taking on this job."

Dynes, 60, a national expert on semiconductors and superconductors, joined the UCSD faculty in 1991 after a 22-year career at AT&T Bell Laboratories. He climbed quickly through the UC ranks to succeed Atkinson as San Diego's chancellor in 1996.

At UCSD, Dynes was known for creative problem-solving and a calm approach to building consensus. Enrollments grew by 25 percent, and the campus continued to do well in the research area, ranking sixth nationally in federal research grants at the end of his tenure. Dynes also put an emphasis on collaborations between university researchers and the private sector, and income from technology developed on campus grew by 76 percent during this tenure. These included wireless technologies licensed by Qualcomm and a host of biotech start-up companies based on UCSD patents.

Though a better listener than speaker by reputation, Dynes hasn't been shy about speaking, and his personal story lends itself to the job. Born and raised in Ontario, Canada, Dynes gave up the idea of a hockey career to become the first in his family to attend college. He then continued with graduate school at a physics professor's urging.

In November, he told a group of faculty he still remembers the deep impression left by a professor's visit to his sixth grade class, underscoring his commitment to the university's outreach programs.

This year, UC outreach programs were slashed by 50 percent. Within a few weeks of the faculty powwow in November, the goal of preserving the programs became more elusive when state Finance Director Donna Arduin recommended axing the remaining 50 percent. Her plan would eliminate programs in existence since the 1970s to help prepare minority students to attend UC. After the 1996 passage of Proposition 209, which halted affirmative action policies in government, those programs were made race-neutral and, with the Regents' blessing, expanded in order to reach more disadvantaged students.

Arduin hinted at yet deeper cuts when she told a legislative committee that UC and CSU are over subsidized. To Dynes, statements like that reveal the need to better convey the value of a research university, a role he seems to have embraced whole heartedly. He began with a series of web chats with the UC community in his first weeks in office.

In early December, Dynes convened a forum on the university budget at UCLA.

"People expect the best of higher education in the country and believe they're paying for it, but have lost track of what it costs," he told the audience. "The governor and the state of California are focused on a couple of issues - one is K-through-12 schools and the other is the economy. If higher education isn't the transducer between K-through-12 and the economy, I don't know what is. California is an innovative and remarkably entrepreneurial state. We're the envy of the rest of the country in part because of the creative blood that exists here in California, and that comes from higher education."

The web chats, the budget forum, and Dynes' decision to forgo an inauguration in favor of an "inaugural tour" to every UC campus are emblematic of his everyman touch. So are his public moves to eschew UC's elitist reputation and work closely with CSU and community colleges. He told the press that two of his first calls in office were to Reed and to community colleges chancellor Thomas Nussbaum, both of whom joined him at the budget forum.

And during his first regent's meeting, he became the first president in recent memory to walk out and talk to students. After loud chanting and drumming reached inside the conference room at UCLA's Sunset Village, Dynes strolled out the door and borrowed a student's megaphone. "You are a noisy and powerful group," he told the students, though he demurred on their demands to hold future regents meetings at UCLA. Regents like Dynes' easy manner. "He's not burdened by ego. He's comfortable to be around, and he doesn't take himself too seriously," said Regent John Davies. Those were among the qualities that won over the regents who reviewed the 300-odd candidates, including UC Santa Cruz chancellor M.R.C. Greenwood.

Some newspaper accounts speculated that his marriage to physicist Frances Hellman, daughter of San Francisco financier Warren Hellman, a UC Berkeley alumnus and major donor to Democrats and the university, played a role in pushing Dynes to the forefront. But insiders deny that. They say a more relevant qualification was Dynes' experience with the national labs - a familiarity that could lend both expertise and credibility to UC now that the Department of Energy plans to re-open competition for managing the $4-plus billion dollar enterprise, which are responsible for the nation's weapons stockpile.

For more than two decades, Dynes has worked as an advisor and consultant to the labs' physics research and weapons programs. He was also vice chair of UC's national lab council and member of a board overseeing the Los Alamos nuclear lab.

Lab management came under scrutiny first, in 1999, when scientist Wen Ho Lee was accused of spying for China. Though Lee was cleared, UC was faulted for lax security. A year ago, a bigger blow came with charges of fraud and misuse of federal funds. In April, Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham cast blame on the university and decided to open the contracts to other bidders (a move seen by some as an attack on California by Republicans with ties to the University of Texas).

Some of Dynes' first actions as UC president were to appoint a vice president for lab management and win the regents' approval for creating a separate Board of Directors for the labs. Though UC is preparing as if it will compete for the federal contract, Dynes says the regents won't make an official decision until after authorities announce the criteria and the timelines in the second half of 2004. The competitions are expensive to enter, and the current budget squeeze means UC would have to look to non-state funds to cover the cost.

Dynes will also have to act soon on appointing new chancellors to fill vacancies at the Berkeley campus and his former campus in San Diego. And he will have to balance pressure to complete construction at Merced and maintain funding for other campuses. Finally, amid the fiscal problems, he has had to defend high pay among some of UC's top executives, including his own salary of $395,000.

Among the thorniest problems he will face are those on the minds of the noisy protesters at UCLA, the interlocking issues of enrollment funding, admissions criteria, outreach programs, and minority enrollment.

UC admission policies have changed in recent years, de-emphasizing the SAT exam and adopting a "comprehensive" review policy very similar to that favored last year in a U.S. Supreme Court decision involving the University of Michigan. But in his critical report last fall, Regent Moores questioned why 3,200 students with SAT scores above 1,400 were turned away by UC Berkeley while 386 students scoring 1,000 or below were granted admission.

Dynes and UC Berkeley Chancellor Bob Berdahl said the high scorers either came from out of state, had withdrawn their applications, applied to highly competitive engineering majors, or earned below average grades in high school. The low-scorers, who included 241 black and Latino students, had high grades in high school or overcame their low SAT scores by excelling in areas such as athletics, music and community service, the officials said. In contrast to Moores' claims that incoming classes are academically weak, UC insists that incoming students are stronger than ever.

Questions involving admissions are far from settled, and against the backdrop of budget problems will be tough to resolve. Among the questions under debate:

Should UC cap enrollment, breaking with the Master Plan, if legislators carry through on their plan to deny money for increased enrollment? Or, if, as some suspect, UC is currently capturing more than the top 12.5 percent of high school students, how can UC revise eligibility criteria without changing rules midstream or disproportionately hurt the chances of disadvantaged kids? Should UC impose drastic tuition hikes to back-fill money denied by the state - or open top campuses to more non-California students with their higher tuition dollars, at the risk of alienating California taxpayers?

"Bob Dynes is going to be willing to be bold, to do things which have not been done before," said former UCLA Chancellor Charles E. Young, now President of the University of California. "I think that's going to be required. The great achievement of the master plan was creating a system in which all of its parts could be excellent. If actions are taken that reduce the quality, they are not being true to the master plan."

Dynes looks to communication as part of the solution: defending admissions policies, but saying UC must explain them better. He has set up a study group of regents, administrators, faculty, and students to examine some of the enrollment questions. As for his own views, Dynes has said he would sooner cap enrollment than damage the institution's quality. But he has also been outspoken about diversity, appointing himself Chief Diversity Officer at UCSD when some questioned his commitment. If he has his way, diversity won't be pitted against quality.

"Diversity adds to the quality of an academic institution," he said in his first major policy address at a joint UC-Harvard conference. "There is no conflict or compromise. On the contrary, a monolithic student body or faculty results in a lower-quality education. We have to find ways of continuing to meet our historical commitments to the people of the state we serve - both now and 10, 20, 30 years in the future."

To Dynes, Kerr's writings are "almost a bible." If he successfully guides the university through the current crisis, his solutions could make UC a new model for how universities around the country can live in an environment very different from the one in which Kerr presided.

"Resources are going to be dramatically reduced for the foreseeable future," notes Young. "Demands on universities in terms of numbers and in terms of social needs are going to be even greater. A lot of leadership is going to have to come from the University of California. Despite the problems it's facing, and maybe in part because of the wrenching that has just occurred through the recall and election of a total outsider [as governor], California may very well be the first to come up with a modus operandi in this new era."