UC Santa Cruz chancellor jumps to her death in S.F.

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2006-06-24 19:50:20 PDT -- UC Santa Cruz Chancellor Denice Denton, apparently despondent over work and personal issues, died Saturday after she jumped from the roof of a 42-story San Francisco apartment building, police said. Denton's partner, Gretchen Kalonji, has an apartment in the building, property records show.

Denton, a well-regarded engineer, had been named this spring in a series of articles examining UC management compensation. She had been criticized for an expensive university-funded renovation on her campus home, and for obtaining a UC administrative job for Kalonji.

Denton, 46, died Saturday morning after jumping from the Paramount at Mission and Third streets, police said. The building is advertised as San Francisco's tallest luxury rental apartment building. A guest at the nearby Argent Hotel called authorities at 8:17 a.m. to report a body on the roof of a parking structure below the apartment building, police said. The medical examiner ruled her death a suicide.

Denton had been on medical leave from the university since June 15 and was expected to return to work this week, said UC Santa Cruz spokesman Jim Burns. She was absent from the university's commencement exercises last week because she was not feeling well, he said.

Denton's mother, Carolyn Mabee, was in the apartment building at the time of her death, police said. She told authorities that her daughter was "very depressed" about her professional and personal life.

In a statement issued Saturday evening, UC President Robert Dynes said Denton's death is "a tremendous loss for the entire University of California family."

"Denice was an accomplished and passionate scholar whose life and work demonstrated a deep commitment to public service and to improving opportunity for the disadvantaged and underrepresented," the statement said. "She was a person of enthusiasm, of big ideas, of tremendous energy, and of great promise. In a relatively short time at UC Santa Cruz, she began moving on ambitious plans for the campus and emerged as an important voice in national higher education issues."

Kalonji, who was hired as director of international strategy development in the UC Office of the President in Oakland as part of Denton's recruitment package, was returning this evening from Washington, D.C., where she had been on university business, UC spokesman Michael Reese said. Denton had been provided a 2,680-square-foot home on the UC Santa Cruz campus, the subject of a story in a Chronicle series this spring examining perks and pay in the UC system.

Before she moved into her university-provided house on campus in 2005, she asked for dozens of improvements -- everything from a new fence for her dogs to new wiring, speakers, amplifier and CD player for a built-in sound system, according to university documents. In all, a $600,000 upgrade was made to the home, though it is not clear how many of the improvements were at Denton's request. Denton's annual salary was $282,000.

As a result of that and other spending disclosed in the media, Dynes tightened rules for renovation projects at university-owned homes and the offices of top executives.

In 2005, UC unions protested the hiring of Kalonji, a former University of Washington professor of materials science, into a $192,000 UC management position. UC also provided Kalonji, then Denton's partner of seven years, a housing assistance allowance of up to $50,000.

Denton assumed office on Feb. 14, 2005. In addition to holding the top post at the 15,000-student campus, Denton was a professor of electrical engineering, according to the school's Web site.

Shortly before taking the Santa Cruz post, Denton made national news for confronting Harvard President Lawrence Summers after he insinuated in a talk that women might be less science-prone for genetic reasons. Denton was in the room when Summers made the controversial comment.

UC Santa Cruz Campus Provost David Kliger issued a statement Saturday evening calling Denton's death a "tremendous loss."

"During Chancellor Denton's tenure here, she devoted herself toward strengthening UC Santa Cruz," he wrote. "Those of us who worked closely with Denice valued her intelligence, humor, and commitment to the ideals of diversity and higher education. We are deeply saddened by her death."

Kliger said Denton was a woman who dedicated her life and career to helping young people, especially women and minorities, advance in the field of science.

"She led this campus with clear statements of the importance of education in transforming lives and in creating opportunities for all," Kliger wrote. "She herself had lived that experience, rising from modest means to achieve with distinction at every stage in her life."

Kliger will manage the campus operations in the wake of Denton's death until Dynes appoints a new chancellor, Reese said.

"But we are so not even thinking about that right now," Reese said.

A manager at the Paramount apartments, which sits directly across the street from the new Museum of the African Diaspora, declined to comment Saturday.

Residents of the building said units rent for $3,000 to $9,000 a month. On the top floor, residents have access to an open-air rooftop terrace. The parking structure where Denton's body was found can be seen below.

Denton previously was the dean of the College of Engineering and a professor of electrical engineering at the University of Washington. She was the first woman to hold such a position at a top research university, according to her biography on the UC Santa Cruz Web site.

News of Denton's death reached her former colleagues at the University of Washington on Saturday evening.

"I never expected this," said Mani Soma, acting dean of the school's college of engineering, which Denton previously ran. "She was an outstanding performer here, and we were extremely glad to have her."

Soma said Denton was known as a hard worker who had very high standards. Some former colleagues were in tears when they learned of her death through news reports, he said.

"I learned a lot from her," Soma said. "She expected people to perform, and she also worked like crazy. She really set an example."

Denton received a doctorate in electrical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She also held academic appointments at the University of Massachusetts, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich and the University of Wisconsin- Madison, the UC Santa Cruz Web site said.

She recently won a prestigious national prize called the Maria Mitchell Women in Science Award, which recognized her work in developing programs to encourage women and girls to study science.