Three Years Ago

I said I would recall the past, so let me begin at a point before I accepted the deanship. In all honesty the day School of Medicine Dean Haile Debas said, "Mary Anne, why don't you throw your hat into the ring," I cringed. But then I thought why not at least explore the idea. One of the first things I did was talk to people. I needed to frame, for my own decision-making purposes, the breadth of what was happening in the School. The picture that emerged in 1998 was complicated indeed.

Internally three years ago

We began to implement a massive new Doctor of Pharmacy curriculum, and we grew increasingly concerned about the lack of resources required to implement it fully.

Our one graduate program in pharmaceutical chemistry was in the midst of reconstruction, and we had just added a new graduate program in what we then called medical information sciences.

There was tremendous angst among the faculty in the association with both of these academic program changes.

Our research enterprise flourished, and we continued to receive more funding from the National Institutes of Health than any other pharmacy school by far.

Space remained dilapidated, scattered, and inadequate. The loss of Laurel Heights was a grim reality. It became clear that we were losing space opportunities because we had kept our eye on the promise of Laurel Heights and not on the campus politics of space allocation.

We headed for a budget deficit primarily because of the very unfavorable state student-to-faculty funding ratio for our Doctor of Pharmacy program. The state budget had been cut. Faculty positions were frozen. The state had promised to steadily increase student professional fees, but the fees were frozen before the full fee schedule was reached. We had hired faculty members on the basis of a full fee schedule. The situation was not good.

Many of faculty members felt demoralized. They had pent-up aspirations but no resources to unleash them.

The School's culture was friendly, but fragmented. Faculty and staff members identified with their units or labs, or perhaps with their departments. Association with the School was a far stretch for a lot of people.

On campus, the School had a reputation for strong science and competent clinicians, but it was still considered one of the "small" schools.

Externally three years ago

The Human Genome Project was about to come out. NIH funding was up. The public was beginning to understand the importance of basic science.

The once-clear divide between chemistry and biology had begun to fade.

Clinical revenues were down, way down.

Academic health centers struggled to compete with the private sector and its single mission of patient care.

Medical errors were a huge problem.

The pharmacist shortage grew. Schools of pharmacy opened up across the country. A second pharmacy school within the UC system -- at UC San Diego -- gained approval.

Consumers grew older, and the impact of this demographic on pharmaceutical benefits and care came sharply into focus. Many health care consumers remained underserved.

The state budget was robust. Confidence was high. The focus of the UC Regents was on undergraduate enrollment, and a new UC campus was approved for the Central Valley.

California had a new governor, and he was not about to increase student professional fees on his first watch.

Locally within the past three years

Our retention and recruitment of faculty and staff members has been seriously jeopardized by the extreme cost of living in San Francisco and the tight labor market, both of which are now changing.

The UCSF Medical Center-Stanford University Medical Center merger demerger has created a stressful fiscal and clinical environment for us all.

Planning for the UCSF Mission Bay campus has consumed many a meeting, side conversation, and late night phone call. Now that the Mission Bay agenda is set for phase one occupancy, the Renaissance of the Parnassus Heights campus and a programmatic approach to space on that campus has helped to focus the work of those staying on Parnassus Heights to rebuild this site.

There has been a tension between the clinicians and scientists as the balance between those who "have" and "have not" has changed.

The possibility of locating a new UCSF Medical Center hospital building at or near UCSF's new Mission Bay campus has sparked much campus discussion and debate because of implications for UCSF professional training and clinical programs, and for this School in particular, the implications for where our future center of gravity should be physically located.

And we have been planning for a fundraising campaign to help make possible the vision of this University, which is funded much more like a private than a public institution.

Next Page: Dean's Challenges and Approaches