Sky and Telescope - August 2015 - 27

with an overall budget of some $20 billion. By 2011, California was spending more on state prisons than on higher
education. Overall, state support fell from 78% of the total
cost per student in 1990-91 to 39% in 2013-14.
In this ﬁscal context, academic research was under
pressure, including UC's astronomy and astrophysics programs, widely regarded as UC's crown jewels.
In 2008, UCOP hired former Space Telescope Science
Institute director Steven Beckwith as Vice President for
Research and Graduate Studies. Beckwith's top challenge was to save money as the state cut its intercampus
research funding by 40% over the next ﬁve years. At the
same time, UCO was trying to adequately fund its more
expensive collaborations on Keck and the planned Thirty
Meter Telescope (TMT), also on Mauna Kea.
But Lick supporters contend that Beckwith's inﬂuence was destructive. Letters, articles, and reports (many
publicly accessible online) document a complex history
of deliberations held in closed executive sessions, where
he expressed skepticism and half-truths not just about
Lick but also about the practicality of adaptive optics and
the viability of TMT.
UC astronomers argue that, since Beckwith was the
oﬃcial spokesman and supporter of UC research, his
words sowed doubt in the minds of colleagues, funders,

and others outside the UC system. Astronomers laid
out Lick's cost-eﬀectiveness and importance, to no avail.
Ultimately, the UCO Board pushed recommendations
that led to UCOP's letter instituting a "glide path" to end
Lick funding.
The threats to Lick and the questionable proceedings
behind them stirred up criticism in local outlets, plus
national attention in publications such as Science and
the New York Times. Bay Area amateur and professional
astronomers and other Lick supporters, led by retired
UC astronomer Robert Kibrick, founded Friends of
Lick Observatory, dedicated to fundraising and public outreach. Two-thirds of California's congressional
representatives petitioned the UC president in a letter
spearheaded by U.S. Representative Zoe Lofgren. The
renowned cosmologist Alex Filippenko (UC Berkeley)
took a sabbatical semester in fall 2013 and devoted much
time the following year to publicizing Lick's plight further and raising funds.
Although verbally and in letters Beckwith and UCOP
insisted their intention was not that Lick close, they
put no visible support behind fundraising. "Private
donors and foundations want to feel they are putting up
matching funds - that UC is a fully engaged but cashstrapped contributing partner," explains Kibrick. "Lack
of UC support sent a message that UC did not have interest or commitment."
Then events took a fundamental turn. In the summer
of 2014, Beckwith left UCOP to return to teaching at UC
Berkeley. A few months later, adaptive optics pioneer
Claire Max (UC Santa Cruz) became UCO interim director. "From the very beginning, the UCOP provost [Aimée
Dorr] and I established a strong working relationship,"
Max says. "We looked at each other and said, 'Let's make
this work.'" Max and her team developed a budget plan
the provost accepted. On October 29th, UCOP rescinded
its decision to defund Lick.
As soon as UC was a partner again, donations for Lick
began materializing - ﬁrst $300,000 from the HeisingSimons Foundation in December 2014, to upgrade the
Shane reﬂector's Kast Spectrograph, then in February
2015, $1 million over two years in unrestricted funds
from Google.

Strategic Planning

RESEARCH WORKHORSE The 3-meter Shane telescope is
Lick's technology test bed. Astronomers installed on it the ﬁrst
laser guide-star adaptive optics (AO) system in 1995, and today
its two spectrographs and state-of-the-art AO make it useful
for a range of projects, including large surveys.

Lick emerged with an annual budget from UCOP of $1.5
million, down from about $2.5 million a half decade
earlier. "UCOP put a base under us, so it's now possible
to go after the money we really do need," Max says. UCO
is working to publish a strategic plan this year that will
focus on a twin path: education and public outreach, and
forefront science.
Outreach plans include expanding the summer
visitor programs and the popular Music of the Spheres
concerts, designing a self-guided walking tour of the
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Sky and Telescope - August 2015

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