Dornsife dean to assume new position
Steve Kay, dean of the Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, will leave USC on Nov. 30 to assume his new position as president of the Scripps Research Institute, Provost Michael Quick announced in an email today.
“Leading with enthusiasm and dedication, Dean Kay ensured the continued excellence of our institution’s oldest and most diverse academic unit over his three-year tenure,” Quick said in the statement. “He leaves USC in a stronger position to solve some of society’s most challenging problems that ultimately serve the global public good.”
Dornsife executive vice dean Dani Byrd will become interim dean on Dec. 1. Byrd has previously served as vice dean for research advancement, vice dean for faculty and research and vice dean for institutional affairs within Dornsife college.
Kay became the 21st dean of Dornsife in 2012. Prior to his appointment at USC, Kay was dean of the division of biological sciences and Richard C. Atkinson Chair in biological sciences at the University of California, San Diego. A prolific researcher, Kay has published over 200 papers and is a leading expert on genes and circadian rhythms. He has previously held a faculty position at the Scripps Research Institute, where he will now serve as president.
Former president of the Scripps Research Institute Michael Marletta, announced his intention to step down in July of last year, after faculty members were angered by his attempts to negotiate the sale of the institute to USC.
According to the San Diego Union-Tribune, Kay and chief executive Peter G. Schultz will have to work to fill a $21 million deficit in the institute’s budget. Kay told the Union-Tribune they will be aggressively pursuing private donations for the institute.
In a separate statement, Quick also announced the search for Kay’s replacement. Quick will chair the advisory search committee along with Avishai Sadan, dean of the Herman Ostrow School of Dentistry of USC. Dana and David Dornsife will serve as special advisors to the committee, which is composed of 12 Dornsife faculty members representing a range of disciplines.
The University of Southern California (USC) should not lose private funding to the university of California at San Diego (UCSD) and its associates like the Scripps Research Institute. USC should increase its fund-raising campaign target to 10 billion dollars and extend the time frame to 2020 so that it is the largest in educational history. It should then gradually acquire these institutes, one after the other, including the Craig Venter Institute. No university in the United States can match the great USC in fund-raising or research delivery; it is located in one of the largest mega-cities with no competition from other large private universities. USC will have a larger supporting alumni than Stanford and that is its greatest asset.