Leadership and Governance

Robert C. May

Distinguished Professor Emeritus, Philosophy & Linguistics, UC Davis

Robert C. May is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Philosophy and Linguistics at UC Davis. He received his Ph.D. in Linguistics and Philosophy from MIT in 1977, and his Bachelor’s degree from Swarthmore College. Prof. May joined the UC Irvine faculty in 1986, and moved to UC Davis in 2006. He held the Venice Chair in Philosophy of Language and Theoretical Linguistics, a Fulbright Distinguished Professorship, and visiting positions at Columbia University, Ecole Normale Superieure, and Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales.


Prof. May’s research interests span areas in...

Gary Matkin

Former Dean of Continuing Education, University of California, Irvine
Former Dean, Continuing Education, Distance Learning, and Summer Session Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley, 1989, Education M.B.A., University of California, Berkeley, 1970, Political Aspects of Business B.S., University of San Francisco, 1966, Accounting Certified Public Accountant (inactive), 1966, California License E14426 Other Experience Associate Dean, CE, UC Berkeley 1990-2000 Director, Admin Services, UC Berkeley 1975-1990 Business Officer, UC Berkeley 1973-1975 CPA, Various 1966-1973 Download Gary W....

James Johnsen

Senior Fellow, National Association of System Heads

Jim is Senior Fellow at the National Association of System Heads (NASH) and Lecturer in the School of Management at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. At NASH Jim is working with leaders and scholars on a major “rethink” of the role of public university systems in achieving societal goals in an increasingly volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous world. He is a member of the Westerrn Commission on Higher Education.

Jim was President of the University of Alaska system from 2015 to 2020 during a period of severe state funding cuts, administrative consolidation, and academic...

Janet Holmgren, Ph.D.

President Emerita, Mills College – Oakland, California; Senior Vice President for Strategic Advancement, University Now – San Francisco, California

Janet L. Holmgren is a consultant to higher education and nonprofit organizations. Her current and recent consulting work includes the Lower Cost Models for Independent Colleges Consortium, Bay Path University, the Women’s College Coalition, the East Bay Community Foundation, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Davis Education Foundation, the Peralta Community Colleges, Cooper University, UniversityNow, and the University of Advanced Technology. She speaks annually at the Education Leadership Academy of the University of California, Berkeley and is an adjunct faculty...

Wyatt R. (Rory) Hume

Former Provost and Executive Vice President, University of California

Following service as Dean of the Faculty of Dentistry at UCLA, Dr. Hume was appointed Executive Vice Chancellor for that campus in 1998. He then served from 2002 as President of the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia, then from 2005 as Vice President for Health Affairs then also as Provost, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of the ten-campus University of California System.

Dr. Hume retired from the University of California in 2008 and was then for four years Provost of the United Arab Emirates University. He was appointed Executive Director,...

Cristina González

Professor Emerita, School of Education & Department of Spanish, UC Davis
Education

Ph.D., Spanish – Indiana University, Bloomington – 1981

Select Publications Books

Clark Kerr's University of California: Leadership, Diversity and Planning in Higher Education (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers, 2011).

Articles “Higher Education Reasserts its Role as a Public Good,” University World News, 422, July 15, 2016. Liliana Pedraja, Co-Author. “Privatization and Access: The Chilean Higher Education Experiment and Its Discontents,” Research and Occasional Papers Series, Center for Studies in Higher Education, University of California, Berkeley, CSHE...

George Blumenthal

Former Director, Center for Studies in Higher Education and Chancellor Emeritus, UC Santa Cruz

George R. Blumenthal served as Director of the Center for Studies in Higher Education from 2019 until 2023. He continues his involvement with CSHE as Affiliated Faculty and as a member of the ELA Advisory Board.

Blumenthal was UC Santa Cruz's 10th chancellor. He joined the campus in 1972 as a faculty member in astronomy and astrophysics and was named chancellor on September 19, 2007, after serving as acting chancellor for 14 months.

The Blumenthal era has been marked by a commitment to ensuring that the doors of opportunity at UC Santa Cruz are open to all:

The number...

C. Judson King, Sc.D.

Former CSHE Director; Provost and Sr. Vice President, Emeritus - university-wide; and Professor Emeritus of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering

C. Judson King served as the director of the Center for Studies in Higher Education from 2004 - 2014. He is currently a CSHE faculty associate and professor emeritus of chemical and biomolecular engineering. At the Center, his research has focused on systemic and institutional concerns as well as issues specific to engineering and technical disciplines. His chemical engineering research has centered upon separation processes, including spray drying, freeze drying, solvent extraction, and adsorption.

Since joining the University of California in 1963, King has served in a variety of...

Robert Shireman

Senior Fellow, The Century Foundation

Since his first education policy job in 1989, Shireman has played key roles in a wide variety of higher education finance, access, quality, and governance issues. He shepherded the evolution of the nation’s income-based student loan repayment system from its initial adoption in 1992 to its expansion and improvement by President Barack Obama. He organized the federal response to emerging signs of predatory for-profit career training in 2009, leading to a widely discussed set of regulatory reforms and enforcement actions. Shireman’s analysis of local needs in California prompted changes in...

Ellen Switkes

Senior Associate

Ellen Switkes is Senior Associate and Co-founder of the “Breakfast with George” mentoring program for higher education executives who are ready to move into senior executive positions. She also is co-founder and Director of CSHE’s Berkeley Institutes on Higher Education (BIHE), targeted to higher education leaders from nations outside the United States. BIHE focused on the essential characteristics of major research universities in the United States, with particular emphasis on the University of California as a case study, and on linking Institute programs with CSHE-based policy research...