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Saturday, June 24, 2006

Chancellor Kills Herself

SAN FRANCISCO — An embattled University of California chancellor who was criticized for helping her partner secure a top-paying university job died Saturday morning after apparently jumping from a downtown hotel, authorities said.

Denice Dee Denton, 46, the chancellor of the Santa Cruz campus, apparently jumped from the Paramount Hotel near Union Square around 8 a.m. and landed on a parking garage, police and university officials said.

The Medical Examiner's office and a university spokesman confirmed her death, though the cause was still under investigation.

"Those of us who worked closely with Denice valued her intelligence, humor, and commitment to the ideals of diversity and higher education," UC Santa Cruz Campus Provost David S. Kliger said in a statement. "We are deeply saddened by her death."

An employee union in 2005 criticized the university's creation of a $192,000-a-year job for Gretchen Kalonji, Denton's longtime partner and a former professor of materials science at the University of Washington in Seattle.



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Update, via kentucky.com:

'Denton was noticeably absent from the university commencement exercises earlier this month, and some employees said she had not been at work for at least two weeks. When asked about her absence, university officials told them she was ill.'


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Reactions begin:

From a blogger:

You haven't heard the last of this story. Denice Denton's financial situation was becoming news.


(I don’t know whether he’s talking about the old news of her questionable use of funds, or something new.)



Comments from a UCSC live journal:


It's pride weekend in San Francisco! If there was any time to be a happy, rich, lesbian chancellor, it would be now.

I just saw this on the news and was gonna share but you beat me to it. Not a hoax. I feel horrible; she didn't deserve to be our chancellor, but I didn't want her to DIE. I'm totally shocked.

I just wanted her to get fired. But suicide? Harsh.




From a similar live journal:


it's so surreal, i don't want to believe it




Yet another student's live journal:

chancellor denice denton committed suicide in san francisco today.
jumped off a building.
even though i didn't really know her..had only met her a few times...i feel sad at this news.
mostly i feel guilty for the times that she was made fun of, or disliked because of things she did. (our show BUZZZ made fun of her a great deal)
she didn't show up to our graduation because of health reasons and we all thought that it was because she just didn't care enough to show up. then a week later she was so depressed she killed herself.
i wonder if the buzzz had any affect on her? i mean i'm sure it was a myriad of things that caused her to be sad, but i'm sure us doing a show that made fun of her did not help.
i don't know what to feel or how to feel right now.




A comment from another live journal:

Ripped from the pages of a naturalist novel.


He’s right. There’s a Theodore Dreiser sadness to the story, at least at this early stage. Jumping from a place called “The Paramount” on a summer morning in San Francisco.

And what could possibly have been enough to prompt it? That’s a naturalist element too -- the way the act suggests a world of causeless malignity.

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The San Francisco Chronicle describes her as having been “despondent over work and personal issues.”


'She had been on medical leave from the university since June 15 and was expected to return to work this week, said UC Santa Cruz spokesman Jim Burns. …Denton's mother, Carolyn Mabee, was in the building at the time of her death, police said. She told authorities that her daughter was "very depressed" about her professional and personal life.'


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UPDATE: An example of life sounding like a naturalist novel:


'Denton's maternal uncle, Gilbert Drab, of Gun Barrel City, Texas, said …"It's a real tragedy. That's what happens when you get really bright people -- too much on their mind."'