Insisting that the move has nothing to do with the steady stream of bad news coming out of Citigroup, Frank Yeary resigned this month as the bank’s global head of M&A to assume a newly created vice chancellor position at the University of California, Berkeley. Though his departure coincides with the exodus of other senior executives as Citi grapples with billions of dollars of subprime-related losses, the 44-year-old Berkeley grad explains that “this is more about what’s going on in higher education.” In any event, he won’t escape financial turmoil when he starts his new job in August. His task: create stable funding sources through public-private partnerships. Yeary, who will donate his $200,000 salary to a scholarship program for bright kids from poor families, says that about 40 percent of Berkeley students come from families with household incomes below $45,000.