So, what exactly does a university system chancellor do?

What does the chancellor do anyway?

The following comment (with the typo!) at Jack Bog's Blog sets it up well:

Does he have the power to hire and fire the presidents of the universities, or people that report to the presidents? Does he have authority over the budgets of the universities? Does he have authority to establish levels of tuition and fees? Does he have authority to approve capital projects? How about cirriculum? If he does these things, he's probably paid fairly. If he doesn't, then what exactly does he do?

To which this follow-up comment is hilarious:

A lot of chancelling is involved

Is it a big deal at all?  Yes, it is.

To begin with, a few years ago, then chancellor, Richard Jarvis, was sent off packing because the governor in his infinite wisdom decided to try a different approach in managing higher education in the state.  Jarvis, who grew up in the faculty ranks, was replaced by George Pernsteiner, who is the current chancellor (via this comment):

Pernsteiner was an inside appointment by Neil Goldschmidt, just before the sex scandal broke. George Pernsteiner is pretty much unique among university chancellors in not having a PhD. The RG editorial board wrote:
Pernsteiner was chosen without any of the hallmarks of a chancellor's hiring - no nationwide search, no interviews, no public process.
Then in 2005, the new OUS Board President made it permanent - again, no search or public process.

The chancellor, in this new arrangement, has become a highly paid liaison between the legislative and executive branches of Oregon.  Or perhaps even like a lobbyist for the Oregon University System!

Oh well ...

BTW, one term Jarvis taught an introductory freshman course in geography here at my university.  A funny incident he told us--when the geography faculty got together with him for coffee--was this: the first day of classes, apparently a student walked up to him and complained about the large class size (may have been about 45 students) which was a contrast to the "low average class size" the university's brochure had advertised.  Jarvis response was something like this: "I am just an adjunct faculty here.  It is the administrators who make these decisions."