Today marks the end of UC San Francisco Chancellor Susan Desmond-Hellmann’s five-year tenure. In December, it was announced that she would step down from her current position to become CEO of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Desmond-Hellmann took over at UCSF in 2009, at a time of system-wide budget cuts, tuition increases and layoffs. As tuition continued to rise, she became the target of harsh criticism over high salaries for administrators and faculty.
“A 23,000 person, $4 billion university does not run on its own gas. It needs leadership,” she told KQED's Scott Shafer recently. “The ability to hire people and pay them what they are worth is good for the state, good for the university, and shouldn’t be the subject of pandering."
When she was appointed, Desmond-Hellmann became the first female Chancellor in UCSF’s 150-year history. Prior to joining the university, she directed the development of new drugs at biotech company Genentech, a background she said was more controversial than her gender.
“[I] felt no pressure as the first woman Chancellor. I did feel some pressure that individuals looked to me as a drug company lady,” Desmond-Hellmann told Shafer, adding that some in the university were originally “suspicious of my motives, suspicious that I would value private industry over our public mission.”
Despite initial skepticism and continuing budgetary struggles, Desmond-Hellmann helped UCSF become one of the top publicly funded medical schools in the country, boasting prestigious dentistry, medicine, nursing and pharmacy programs. In addition to robust research and clinical operations, Desmond-Hellmann points to the establishment of precision medicine as a distinguishing contribution to the University.