San Jose, Calif. ? Dee Denton, the controversial chancellor of the University of California Santa Cruz, fell to her death Saturday from the 44th floor of a San Francisco apartment building, the medical examiner’s office confirmed. Her death is being investigated as a suicide, officials said.

She was 46.

San Francisco police said her body was reported at 8:17 a.m. outside the Paramount apartments – where her partner, Gretchen Kalonji, lives. The luxury rentals are billed as the “tallest apartment for rent in San Francisco” and are located across from the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

“Nobody observed her jump,” said a San Francisco police source, who said the person who reported her body had called from the nearby Argent Hotel.

Her tenure as chancellor was a rocky one. The openly gay leader was criticized for having the university foot the bill for $600,000 in renovations to her campus home, including a $30,000 enclosure for her dogs, a new dishwasher, sub-zero refrigerator and updated bathroom. She also outraged university union members when her partner was hired to work for the UC system at a six-figure salary.

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.