One year ago: Carol Tomlinson-Keasey

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Carol Tomlinson-Keasey shattered a glass ceiling when she was named to head UC Merced in 1999 before the campus broke ground. No woman had been a founding chancellor of a UC campus. She died one year ago from complications from her eight-year battle with breast cancer.

The founding of UC Merced was riddled with complications, including a site change and a reduction in the size of the campus because of environmental concerns, political leaders who called the campus a ‘boondoggle’ and a state budget crisis that resulted in a one-year delay in its opening.

Tomlinson-Keasey was part of the UC system for almost 30 years. She began as an associate professor of psychology at UC Riverside in 1977, and in the 1990s served at UC Davis in provost positions and as dean of the College of Letters and Sciences. She moved to the UC Office of the President in 1997.

Tomlinson-Keasey, who was a distinguished developmental psychologist, wrote three books and dozens of articles, monographs and book chapters on subjects such as child and full-life development and how gifted children realize their cognitive potential.

For more on her life and involvement in the founding of UC Merced, read Carol Tomlinson-Keasey’s obituary by The Times.

-- Michael Farr