Linda Katehi

Linda Pisti Basile Katehi-Tseregounis (born January 30, 1954) is a Greek-born American engineering professor and former university administrator.

[10][11] Katehi has stated that she was drawn to electrical engineering as a teenager in 1969, when she watched Neil Armstrong’s Apollo 11 Moon landing.

[14] In her early US career, Katehi worked at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor from 1984 to 2001 as a professor of electrical engineering and computer science,[15][16] and as associate dean of academic affairs and graduate education starting in 1994.

[22] In addition to her university roles, Katehi was appointed by President George W. Bush to the committee on the National Medal of Science.

Under Katehi's leadership, UC Davis co-hosted the Governors' Global Climate Summit 3: Building the Green Economy in November 2010.

[46] In September 2014, Katehi announced a partnership between Mars, Incorporated and UC Davis to create the Innovation Institute for Food and Health.

[50] Additionally, Katehi announced a partnership with a government agency in Chile to expand research on a global level in conjunction with the UC Davis World Food Center.

UC Davis aims to become a Hispanic Serving Institution by having at least 25% of their undergraduate student body made up of Latinos by the 2018–2019 school year.

[5] According to Inside Higher Education (IHE) "Linda Katehi has held on as chancellor despite numerous controversies, but she is placed on leave over issues related to employing her daughter-in-law.

Further, Napolitano's letter said, the academic program that employs Katehi's son has been moved into the department where her daughter-in-law works, and "placed under her direct supervision."

According to UC Davis, the grant money will be used, in part, to create the Center for the Advancement of Multicultural Perspectives on Science (CAMPOS).

"[61] The Network recognized Katehi for her work in increasing STEM opportunities for women and girls and serving as a role model in the field.

[63] In July 2017, the Sacramento Bee reported that Katehi would begin teaching at UC Davis again in the 2017-18 academic year as a "distinguished professor".

Public interest experts criticized the move as atypical, noting that Katehi's salary would be higher than any other professor in her department, even those with full teaching loads.

[65] Before coming to UC Davis, Katehi served as provost and vice chancellor for academic affairs at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign from April 1, 2006, to June 2009.

In August 2015, a federal judge allowed a spoliation of evidence claim to proceed against the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in an action that was associated with the resignation of the Chancellor.

When the group of peaceful protestors refused to move, campus police officers pepper sprayed them while they sat on the ground, linking arms.

Mark G. Yudof appointed former Los Angeles Police Department Chief William J. Bratton to head the investigation.

"[81] On July 31, 2012, a UC Davis spokesman announced that John Pike, a police officer who pepper-sprayed students, was no longer employed by the university.

[82] On April 13, 2016, the Sacramento Bee reported that the university's Office of Strategic Communications, whose budget was increased from $2.93 million in 2009 when Katehi came into office to $5.47 million in 2015, had paid $175,000 to public relations consultants "to scrub pepper spray references from [the] Internet" in order to repair the online image of Chancellor Katehi and the university.

On August 9, 2016, the Sacramento Bee reported in a follow-up article that Katehi had once asked an aide to edit her Wikipedia page to protect her reputation.

[84][85] During her tenure as chancellor of UC Davis, Katehi became embroiled in a controversy, detailed below, over her service on outside boards of directors ("moonlighting").

[92] UC President Janet Napolitano called the DeVry board membership "a mistake," but said she did not consider it a ground for Katehi's resignation at the time.

[94] On April 1, 2016, hundreds of students walked out of classes and, with faculty, protested and called for the resignation of Katehi in a press conference.

Protesters stated Katehi represents the "corporatization and privatization of [the] university," and that she has "failed to properly address racial and religious tensions on campus.

[86] Katehi had not received the permission of University of California president Janet Napolitano to serve on this board, as required by UC rules.

[86] Some elected officials and fellow academics faulted Katehi for making personal profit from a firm whose practices and interests are in conflict with the values of public education that are central to the UC system; some saw the DeVry position as furthering a history of participation in ventures at odds with her responsibilities as chancellor of a public university.

In March 2016, Katehi said that she would donate all stock proceeds earned while serving on Wiley's board to a UC Davis scholarship fund.

Linda Katehi meeting with faculty, students, and potential students at UC Davis