University of California

Denton was the first openly gay, and at 45, the youngest person to be appointed to be chancellor in the University of California system by UC President Robert Dynes.^[4] She succeeded Martin Chemers, who served as acting chancellor following the resignation of M. R. C. Greenwood who became the University of California Provost.^[7][8][9]

Denton's recruitment package would eventually include a $275,000 salary, $68,750 as a moving allowance, improvements to the chancellor's on-campus residence which included a $30,000 dog pen initially budgeted at $7,000. Included in the deal was a tenured professorial appointment with a $192,000 salary, and a housing assistance allowance of up to $50,000 for her partner, Gretchen Kalonji.^[10]

Although much of the 7,000 square feet (650 m²) of her residence was used for campus functions, the approximately $600,000 renovation cost, and overall cost of Denton's recruitment brought criticism.^[11][12] This contrasts sharply against increasing student fees, up 79 percent in four years, and low pay raises for clerical and service staff.^{[citation needed]}

After an April 2005 campus protest over these issues resulted in the arrest of 19 students, 200 faculty signed a petition condemning her "unwarranted" use of force. She also was allegedly a victim of personal harassment, in the form of verbal insults. A barricade was tossed through her guest-bedroom window on June 10, 2005.^[13] Protesters advocating higher wages for custodians blocked Denton in her car outside her office for about five minutes on June 6, 2006, while performing a skit about racism.^[14][15]

On April 5, 2005, anti-war protesters forced military recruiters at a campus career fair to leave campus. Denton received dozens of threatening phone calls and e-mails. When it was discovered that protest was listed as a "credible threat" on the TALON database managed by the Pentagon's Counterintelligence Field Agency, Denton helped persuade California Senators Boxer and Feinstein to request an investigation. Ultimately, campus protests were removed from the database.^[16]

After Denton's death, astronomy and astrophysics professor George Blumenthal was named Acting Chancellor, and officially became the university's tenth Chancellor on September 19, 2007.

Boards and memberships

Denton was a member of the UC President's Committee to select recipients of the Medal of Science, and the committee to select recipients of the Alan T. Waterman Award sponsored by the NSF. She was a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Association for Women in Science, and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). She was a member of the NSF Engineering Directorate Advisory Committee and a member of the Visiting Committee for the California Institute of Technology Division of Engineering and Applied Science. Denton served as chair of the National Academy of Sciences/National Research Council (NAS/NRC) Board on Engineering Education. Among many other appointments, she was a member of the NRC Committee on Advanced Materials and Fabrication Methods for Microelectromechanical Systems and of MIT's Advisory Board for Initiatives to Diversify the Professoriate. Chancellor Denton was also a member of the board of directors of the Silicon Valley Leadership Group and the board of directors of Joint Venture Silicon Valley.