THE CHANCELLOR: LIVE
Chancellor May will be a guest on radio and television shows the next two days, and will host a Q&A on Facebook next week:
- Radio â Insight With Beth Ruyak, 9 a.m. Wednesday (Aug. 9), 90.9 FM and online.
- Television â Good Day Sacramento, 8 a.m. Thursday (Aug. 10), Channel 31.
- Facebook Live â On the °”TV Facebook page, 3:30-4 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 15. You can submit questions live or in advance via email. A recording of the half-hour Q&A will be available afterward on the °”TV Facebook page.
Yes, we have a new chancellor!
Heâs in the papers and on TV and radio. Heâs on social media. Heâs meeting business leaders, city leaders and legislators.
Most important, Gary S. May is here, officially, on the Davis and Sacramento campuses, as our universityâs seventh chancellor and first leader in 15 months who doesnât have âactingâ or âinterimâ in front of his title. And that had people excited, evidenced in part by 19 retweets of ¶ÙČčłÙ±đ±ôŸ±ČÔ±đâs July 25 article on Mayâs arrival one week hence.
âI think thereâs some pent-up anticipation as a result of the transition ⊠moving on from the previous administration to the new future,â May said in an interview with Dateline °”TV his first day on the job, Aug. 1. He emphasized he is looking forward, not back.
Secondly, he said, âI think that there is certainly excitement in the minority community about having an African American chancellorâ â the first in °”TV history. He found himself taking office the day media reports surfaced of the Justice Departmentâs plan to investigate universities for admissions practices that allegedly discriminate against whites.
In an official statement Aug. 2, he commented: âIt would ⊠be deeply troubling if the administrationâs actions deepened divisions and exacerbated racial tensions. Higher education has served as a key vehicle to providing upward mobility for all as well as an opportunity for us to learn both about and from our differences and our history. It would be a major step backwards if those opportunities were diminished.â
He commented further the next day in an interview with The Davis Enterprise: âThatâs something that makes me very irritated. Itâs a clearly misguided initiative. Itâs ridiculous to put forward the argument that white students are discriminated against, when by every measurement and every study, thatâs just not the case.â
On a trajectory to Mount Everest
Chancellor May and his wife, LeShelle, met hundreds of faculty, staff and students on Day 1, during two meet-and-greets â a light breakfast at °”TV Health and an ice cream social in the afternoon on the Davis campus, outside, in 100-degree weather.
âPresident Napolitano called for a °”TV chancellor who could take the heat,â May told a crowd of several hundred people on the Mrak Mall. âI guess I had a different understanding of what exactly that meant.â
In his prepared remarks, the former dean of engineering at Georgia Tech said: âI am truly excited about leading °”TV to new heights. Your university â and, now, I am proud to say, âour universityâ â is already a Mount Whitney. âWeâ â Iâm happy I can say that now, too â we are already on a trajectory to a Mount Everest.â
Dateline asked Chancellor May to elaborate on his goal of seeing â°”TVâ become a household name across the country. âIf youâre not in higher ed and youâre from east of the Rockies, you probably have not heard much about °”TV,â he said. °”TV is certainly well known in academia, he added, but thereâs room to improve, particularly in the East, say, when parents sit down with their teenagers to discuss college options.
â°”TV should come up in the conversation,â he said. âI think it happens with some of our UC sister schools â UCLA and Berkeley. And thereâs no reason why °”TV couldnât be part of the same conversation.â
How do we get there? âFirst, you have to be excellent at many things, and I think we are. ⊠We need to get that story out there to a broader audience, and we need to be even more innovative, like partnering with Sacramento and the business community in developing an innovation ecosystem. Athletics are important, too, because sometimes a laymanâs first introduction to any university is watching their team on television.â
âAnd, finally, just recruiting the very best people of all sorts, including the best faculty, certainly the top students in the state of California ⊠and having those people excel at what they do.â
Listening and connecting
In his , Chancellor May said he would begin work immediately on a strategic plan for the university. (The self-described âTrekkieâ has given the plan a tentative title of âTo Boldly Go,â a reference from the Star Trek television and movie series.)
âSuccessful plans require buy-in or consensus from those who have a stake in its outcome,â May said in his remarks at the ice cream social. âThe stakeholders are all of you â students, faculty, staff and alumni. I want to make sure everyone has an opportunity to provide ideas.â
He also talked about his âlistening tour,â which is well underway. âBelieve me, my calendar through December is filling up quickly, as it should be.â
Chancellor May is doing more than listening. Heâs âconnectingâ with people on social media, and by that we mean interacting with people â people like Sarah Lloyd â16, who tweeted to the new arrival: âOMG what dorm did you get put in!?!â He responded: âI got something called the Residence. What did you get?â
FOLLOW THE CHANCELLOR
The "Residence" is the Chancellorâs Residence, of course. Itâs just across the street from campus, allowing him to walk to and from Mrak Hall â and meet people along the way. You can also see him at the Activities and Recreation Center, lifting weights. LeShelle May is a new ARC member, too; she has been taking spin classes.
LeShelle May worked as a computer engineer for CNN in Atlanta for 21 years, and she told Dateline that she is still on the job, now working remotely. She also spoke of her °”TV projects, starting with sexual violence and harassment, working to prevent it and assisting its victims.
âOf course, men can be violated, but itâs mostly women who are violated, and, so, I want to start hearing their stories, and ask if thereâs any way that I could help mitigate some of the numbers â they seem to be high everywhere.â
âAlso, I plan to just participate in a lot of STEM activity, because Iâm very involved in women in science, so Iâve been asked to speak on a few panels and people are reaching out to me.â
A third component will be working to get more Davis campus students involved with the medical center, say, as participants in the neonatal intensive care unitâs Cuddle Buddy program.
What others are saying
- â âMayâs arrival offers a chance of a reset. Meeting with The Enterprise on Wednesday, he emphasized that the city and the campus âhave to be good partners and good neighbors to each other.â Heâs already getting to meet his neighbors, reporting that he and his wife, LeShelle, have been enjoying walking into downtown Davis for dining and shopping.â
- âHumble, but firm. A man with strong convictions who still has the ability to listen to others. On a personal level, people are going to like him. ⊠That May is qualified for the job is unquestioned. He could have happily and comfortably remained at Georgia Tech, where he is highly revered and nothing short of a living legend. That makes me think that he plans to lead, not merely preside. And it also makes me think he will not hunker down at the Top of the Mrak when the inevitable campus crisis lands on his doorstep.â
- about the city of Sacramentoâs $44 million windfall from the Volkswagen emissions scandal settlement, and how Mayor Darrell Steinberg proposes to leverage âsome of the money to attract private investment and to make Sacramento an advanced vehicle technology hubâ â âRefreshingly, Steinbergâs ambition and sophistication are matched by new °”TV Chancellor Gary May. While he and Steinberg havenât talked specifically about the VW money, May says he wants the university to be more engaged in Sacramento as an economic partner. He wants to pursue a âtransformativeâ innovation hub, perhaps similar to Technology Square, developed to boost a poor area of Atlanta by the city, corporations and Georgia Tech, where May was dean of engineering. Steinberg went to Atlanta earlier this year to meet May and tour Technology Square. âThe mayor and I are on the same page,â May told The Beeâs editorial board.â