We were running in the face of the deepest cultural tendencies. WAS built into the UCSC experiment. Much of the brief plan is given to laying out the idea behind the small-college system. That set up an immediate conflict. Nationwide, professional academics make their careers by advancing within their disciplines.
Research universities gain their reputations by building well-rounded departments.
To accommodate that conflict, it was decided at the outset that the hiring and promotion of all faculty members would be done by committees set up by both colleges and departments. That created a cumbersome system fraught with infighting, while frustrating some faculty members and keeping others away. Finally, Chancellor Robert Sinsheimer did away with the system in 1986 and gave all hiring power to the departments. A Stanford grad with 20 years at IBM, Mantey was recruited to come to UCSC in the mid-1970s. He turned the job down, largely because he didn't like the two-committee setup.