UC President Janet Napolitano shakes the hand of the newly confirmed UCSF Chancellor Sam Hawgood, MBBS, at a press briefing after the Board of Regents approved his appointment on July 17. Photo by Cindy Chew
Sam Hawgood, MBBS, was confirmed Thursday morning as UC San Francisco’s 10th chancellor in a unanimous vote by the UC Board of Regents. The appointment is effective immediately.
Hawgood, 61, whom University of California President Janet Napolitano tapped for the position July 9 after an international search for a leader for the $4.2 billion health sciences campus, has served as interim chancellor since April 1, when he succeeded Susan Desmond-Hellmann, MD, MPH.
“Throughout a truly exhaustive selection process … Dr. Hawgood demonstrated the intellectual inquisitiveness, leadership acumen and powerful vision we seek in our chancellors,” Napolitano said, noting that the search committee reviewed more than 375 candidates for the role before narrowing it down to seven finalists. “When an exhaustive search lands on a candidate from within the institution, I think it is a sign itself that the enterprise is fundamentally robust.”
Now celebrating its 150th anniversary, UCSF includes nationally top-ranked graduate schools of medicine, dentistry, nursing and pharmacy, as well as affiliated hospitals, a pre-eminent biomedical research enterprise and a graduate division with nationally renowned programs in basic, biomedical, translational and population sciences.
In accepting the appointment, Hawgood said he is fully aware that it will not be by his appointment, but rather his actions, that he will earn the title.
“The work we do at UCSF occurs at the intersection of three sectors – higher education, health care and discovery,” he said. “Opportunities for advancement, even transformation, in all three sectors are huge but all three of these sectors are also ripe for disruption by new organizational and business models.
“As chancellor,” he continued, “I will have both the opportunity and indeed the obligation to provide forward-looking leadership and make UCSF a model for the country at a time of such great opportunity in the health sciences.”
An Unwavering Commitment to Excellence
The appointment was met with high praise both inside UCSF and externally, with members of the academic, scientific, clinical and political worlds praising Hawgood’s thoughtful and highly principled approach to everything he undertakes and his “unequalled” breadth of experience as an academic physician, research scientist, educator and dean of one of the nation’s top medical schools.