Strong and widespread campus support for keeping the offices of research and graduate studies separate will result in the initiation soon of national searches for heads of both units. Chancellor Larry Vanderhoef and Provost Robert Grey have accepted the near-unanimous advice of several groups consulted in late fall quarter. "We have concluded that, on balance, the case for keeping the offices separate is strong, and national searches for those two officers will be initiated soon," Vanderhoef said. In a memo to the chancellor summarizing campus consultations, Grey indicated that the current vacancies in these positions "posed an opportunity, and indeed an institutional obligation, to re-examine these positions and to consider whether the responsibilities currently assigned to them should merge into a single position. "Universities need to be always on the alert for ways to reduce administrative costs, and a significant number of leading research universities, including several campuses in the UC system, administer research and graduate studies with a single administrator model. It is also the case that research and graduate education are often closely linked, and there are advantages to having the resources that support these two enterprises administered by a single office." While believing that either a merged or separated model can work well, Grey said "the argument in favor of merger is not compelling. It is also the case that the campus community currently sets great stock in the separation of the two positions and that there are advantages to having clearly identified leadership positions for these two key elements of a major research university." The question of a merger was last raised in 1993, during the Phase III budget-cutting process. The campus community strongly favored leaving the two positions separate. Neither position was vacant at the time. Based on recent consultations, Grey advises that the capacity for leadership in technology transfer and research development be explicitly noted in the position description for the vice chancellor for research, and that the dean of graduate studies position have significantly increased emphasis on coordination with deans of academic units and decreased emphasis on line responsibility for administrative functions. Mohammed Ghausi, retired dean of the College of Engineering, is currently serving as interim head of both these units.