Mandel to leave for UC Irvine

Maxson to form committee to find replacement

After serving six years as vice president for University Relations and Development at Cal State Long Beach, Jerry Mandel will leave that post Friday to take the position of vice chancellor of University Advancement at the UC Irvine on May 22.

CSULB President Robert Maxson has not hired a permanent replacement for Mandel's position but has appointed Robert Bersi, senior director of Endowment Development, to fill the position on an interim basis.

President Maxson said he is currently forming a search committee of five to six people to begin a national search for Mandel's replacement and is expecting to name the replacement in time for the fall semester.

Mandel's salary was $114,720 this school year, said Toni Beron, CSULB spokeswoman. The director of public information at UC Irvine, Karen Newell Young, said that Mandel would be making $131,500 as vice chancellor there.

Maxson said Mandel's replacement would make about the same amount of money as Mandel, or possibly a little less.

Young said Mandel was chosen through a UC Irvine search committee, which was impressed by Mandel's track record of fund raising at CSULB. CSULB's fund raising, under Mandel's leadership, has tripled the funds the school has received since the beginning of his tenure, Young added.

One reason Mandel said he is moving to UC Irvine is because it offers positions that CSULB does not, including ones in community and governmental relations, which Mandel will be in charge of.

"I've worked with Washington, Sacramento and the local community on a lot of key issues," he said. "I enjoy that, and that's not here. I'll also have an opportunity to work with a medical school and medical center, which is doing some very cutting edge work in cancer. These are areas that are intriguing which I've never looked at before."

Mandel said that although the salary did influence his decision to take the position at UC Irvine, it was the opportunities that the job offered that solidified it.

While Mandel said he is sad about leaving the CSULB community, he felt that the UC Irvine opportunity was too good to pass up.

"It's a very difficult decision," Mandel said. "I've been in the California State University system for 26-27 years. I've been at Cal State Long Beach for six, and I graduated from here. We've put together the finest university advancement program in the system, and I had a wonderful time working with the alumni and the staff, so that will be very difficult."

"But I've reached a point in my career where it's time for me to move to the next level, and UC Irvine offers me the opportunity to move to a new level," he added. "At this stage in my life, this is my last kind of move."

Currently, Jim Asp is serving as the interim vice chancellor of University Advancement at UC Irvine. Mandel will officially be replacing Kathy Jones, whom Young said left UC Irvine for a position at Georgetown University last summer.