Former UW dean Denice Dee Denton fought for diversity

Denice Dee Denton, former dean of the University of Washington's College of Engineering and chancellor of the University of California, Santa Cruz, was remembered by colleagues Sunday for her dedication to education and diversity.

Appointed dean of the UW College of Engineering in 1996, Ms. Denton became the first woman to head such a college at a top research institution.

The educator was "one of the most fervent advocates for diversity," said UW spokesman Bob Roseth.

Ms. Denton, 46, died early Saturday in San Francisco.

She had served as chancellor of the 15,000-student Santa Cruz campus since February 2005 after nearly a decade as engineering dean at UW.

Officials believe her death to be a suicide. She was found around 8 a.m. after apparently jumping from the 43-story Paramount apartment building downtown.

Ms. Denton's mother, Carolyn Mabee, was in the building at the time and indicated to investigators that her daughter had been suffering from depression as a result of personal and professional pressures.

At UC Santa Cruz, Ms. Denton had recently come under fire from campus employees and union officials after she charged the university with $600,000 in remodeling expenses for her home and after the university created a position for her partner, Gretchen Kalonji, herself a former UW faculty member.

During her tenure at UW, Ms. Denton co-founded the Center for Engineering, Learning and Teaching (CELT), a National Science Foundation program aimed at maximizing the research and learning potential at the college. It was the first program of its kind, Roseth said, and such universities as Harvard and Stanford have modeled programs after it.

Ms. Denton was known as a champion for all students but especially for the underrepresented. Her ambitious restructuring of all 10 departments at the college led to striking advancements, especially among women and minority students.

Ed Lazowska, chairman of the UW Department of Computer Science and Engineering, worked side by side with Ms. Denton as she executed what Lazowska described as an essential overhaul.

"She had incredible integrity and incredible backbone," Lazowska said. "She really stood up for us."

Ms. Denton was born in the rural farming community of El Campo, Texas, and grew up mostly in Houston. She got her doctorate in electrical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Before coming to the UW, she was a professor at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, in the department of electrical and computer engineering and held teaching positions at the University of Massachusetts and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich.

Information from The Associated Press is included in this report.

Kathy F. Mahdoubi: 206-464-8292 or kmahdoubi@seattletimes.com