The Saxon Establishment

"When I was an assistant professor," says Theoretical Physicist David Saxon, "I thought the role of a university administrator had nothing to do with anything." Saxon, 55, will soon have ample opportunity to find out if he was right. It has just been announced that in July he will take over as president of the nine-campus, 122,436-student University of California, a trend setter in U.S. higher education.

Saxon, vice chancellor of U.C.L.A. and provost of the entire university, will assume the top job at a crucial period. Once unquestionably one of the best universities in the nation, California has been buffeted by both the excesses of student demonstrators in the 1960s and the conservative fiscal policies of former Governor Ronald Reagan. Libraries and the physical plant have deteriorated, and the university's vigorous growth has been brought to a halt. Berkeley has dropped its departments of criminology and demography; U.C.L.A. has closed down its department of speech and graduate school of journalism. Although U.C. is still one of the outstanding universities, its quality and reputation have clearly been tarnished.

Liberal Candidate. Whether Saxon is a strong enough leader--or will be permitted to have the power--to reinvigorate the university is an open question. Since last fall, when Charles Hitch announced his plans to retire, the regents' search committee had culled a list of 260 names to find a new president. The choice finally narrowed down to Saxon, the candidate of the liberals and moderates, and Robben Fleming, president of the University of Michigan, who was backed by the conservatives. After several trips to California, Fleming withdrew from the running and the regents, with less than a solid vote of confidence, picked Saxon. On the final ballot 13 regents voted for Saxon, four abstained and six were absent. Saxon was chosen, says the regents' chairman William French Smith, because, among other reasons, he knew how the system works: "You can't take too many risks when putting someone in charge of a billion-dollar-plus operating budget."

Saxon came to U.C.L.A. in 1947 after earning a Ph.D. at M.I.T. and doing some research in that school's radiation laboratory. He progressed through the ranks at U.C., along the way collecting what he terms his most satisfying achievement: U.C.L.A.'s distinguished teaching award. He still likes to return to the classroom; last year he found time to teach a freshman seminar in cosmology (the study of the universe) "just to prove to myself that I still knew enough physics to do it."

Given to well-worn tweeds and a dry intellectual wit, Saxon relaxes by playing the recorder in a Baroque chamber group or sitting down with friends for an evening of poker. An avid gardener, he is getting ready to transplant his 30 carefully tended bonsai trees from Los Angeles to the magnificent hillside house north of Berkeley that--along with a $59,500 salary--goes with the president's job.

Saxon describes himself as "somewhat reserved." He will need to cast off some of that academic cool, however, to deal with newly elected Governor Jerry Brown, who has proposed an almost Reagan-like budget for U.C. Brown says he wants no new building and has slashed the regents' construction requests from $114 million to $17 million --barely enough to finish projects already started. Saxon will not be terribly controversial. "Dave is a great guy," says one U.C. dean, "but he's not going to rattle the university establishment. He is the university establishment."

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