Denice Dee Denton is dead.

Why would a successful educator who held The Rock Hudson Memorial Chair in Non-Euclidean Sex at UCSC (Home of the Banana Slugs!) take a swan dive onto a parking garage? There must be clues laying around here somewhere...

Santa Cruz Sentinel: UCSC Chancellor Denton dies in jump from skyscraper

UC Santa Cruz Chancellor Denice Dee Denton leaped to her death from a 43-story luxury apartment building in San Francisco early Saturday, San Francisco police said.

San Francisco police are investigating the death as a suicide, Sgt. Neville Gittens said.

Denton's mother, Carolyn Mabee, was in the building when the 46-year-old Denton died, police said. Mabee told authorities that her daughter was "very depressed" about her professional and personal life, the San Francisco Chronicle reported Saturday night.

Denton, who took over as UCSC chancellor in February 2004, had been on medical leave since June 15, campus spokesman Jim Burns said Saturday. She was expected to return to work this week.

"The death of Chancellor Denice Denton today in San Francisco is a tremendous loss," UCSC Provost David Kliger said in a statement. "We are deeply saddened for the campus and for her family and many friends."

A guest at the nearby Argent Hotel in San Francisco reported seeing a body at 8:17 a.m. on a three-story parking garage behind The Paramount.
Denton's longtime partner, Gretchen Kalonji, lives in the building on Mission and Third streets near the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, police said.

Police did not say from which floor Denton jumped, or where in the building Kalonji's residence is. An officer at the scene said she had jumped from the west side of the structure.

Paramedics pronounced her dead at the scene, police Sgt. Gittens said.
Paramount employees declined comment Saturday evening.

The cause of death is under investigation. The San Francisco Medical Examiner's Office will perform an autopsy this week, an official said.

Spring quarter has ended and UCSC's campus was nearly deserted Saturday, but some remaining students reacted with sorrow.

"It's sad and a shame, but she must have had a reason," said Chloe Lavender, who graduated from UCSC this month.

UCSC police had sealed off University House, Denton's on-campus residence, and turned away reporters Saturday afternoon.

Kalonji, hired as director of international strategy development in UC's Office of the President in Oakland as part of Denton's recruitment package, was returning Saturday evening from Washington, D.C., where she had been on university business, UC spokesman Michael Reese said.
Denton and Kalonji had both previously worked at the University of Washington. (Where they shared The Rock Hudson Memorial Chair in Non-Euclidean Sex. - F.G.)

Saturday night, Kalonji had not responded to a message left for her.

The news of her apparent suicide shocked local civic leaders.

"This is just a terrible, terrible personal tragedy," county Supervisor Mardi Wormhoudt said.

"It's intrinsically tragic," Mayor Cynthia Mathews said.

Denton's tenure at the university had been rocky. She came under fire in March for demanding $600,000 in home renovations during contract negotiations and, in 2005, an employee union criticized the university system's creation of a $192,000-a-year position for Kalonji when Denton was hired.

But Saturday, university officials praised Denton.

"She led this campus with clear statements of the importance of education in transforming lives and in creating opportunities for all," Provost Kliger said.

"In a relatively short time at UC Santa Cruz, she began moving on ambitious plans for the campus and emerged as an important voice in national higher education issues," UC President Robert Dynes said in a statement.

She now knows The Truth. May God have mercy on her soul.