UCSC Chancellor Dies in Apparent Suicide

University of California at Santa Cruz Chancellor Denice Denton fell to her death last week, from what appears to be a jump from her highrise apartment in San Francisco. I am feeling this tragedy quite closely, as an alumnus of that school (yes, I am a banana slug) who has kept up with recent goings on through newletters and old friends still on campus.

The hire of Chancellor Denton was particularly exciting, as she was moving the campus in positive directions. As an advocate for women in science, she was much more than the corporate
overlord than chancellors of big universities usually are, or at least as those at UCSC had been for years.

I imagine that the press' focus on the criticisms of the terms of her hire, with her big salary and a position created for her partner, are at least somewhat off the mark in that they focus only on the public troubles that we can know about, not on the personal things that may or may not be underlying her depression. We almost never know the full story behind why a person kills herself.

Regardless, this loss is a great tragedy for the university and beyond.