DRAFT - QUESTIONS/ISSUES RAISED BY PARTICIPANTS

ACADEMIC PLANNING COMMITTEE

ACADEMIC SUPPORT PLANNING COMMITTEE

PROVOST’S ADVISORY COUNCIL

The Academic Planning Committee met jointly with the Academic Support Planning Committee and the Provost’s Advisory Council on April 10 & 24, 2001 at 8:00 am in the Cowell College conference room.

Joint Meeting April 10, 2001

Present: George Brown (Chair), Steve Kang, Wlad Godzich, Alison Galloway, Martin Chemers, John Simpson, Dave Kliger, Meredith Michaels, Carol Freeman, Burney Le Boeuf, Barbara Rogoff, Roger Anderson, Barbara Brogan, Francisco Hernandez, Ernie Hudson, Susan Gillman, Julian Fernald, Laurie McCann, M.R.C. Greenwood, Lan Dyson, Kathy Jefferds, Beau Willis, Galen Jarvinen, Leslie Sunell, Karen Eckert, Kathleen Dettman, Lisa Akeson, Ed Houghton, Ron Suduiko, Tom Vani, Max Ritchie, Larry Merkley, Cathy Sandeen, Joel Ferguson, Susan Gilman, Carol Barclay, Fana O’Halloran, and Betsy Moses.

Absent: Lynda Goff, Frank Talamantes, Bob Meister, John Hay, Linda Kittle, Darrell Long, Barry Bowman, John Tamkun

Joint Meeting April 24, 2001

Present: George Brown (Chair), Steve Kang, Wlad Godzich, Alison Galloway, Martin Chemers, John Simpson, Dave Kliger, Meredith Michaels, Carol Freeman, Burney Le Boeuf, Barbara Brogan, Francisco Hernandez, Ernie Hudson, Susan Gillman, Lan Dyson, Kathy Jefferds, Beau Willis, Galen Jarvinen, Leslie Sunell, Karen Eckert, Ed Houghton, Ron Suduiko, Tom Vani, Max Ritchie, Larry Merkley, Cathy Sandeen, Carol Barclay, Fana O’Halloran, and Betsy Moses, Lynda Goff, Frank Talamantes, John Hay, Linda Kittle, Betty Rush, Bob Meister, Shelly Errington, Mary-Beth Harhen, Dave Belanger

Absent: Roger Anderson, Darrell Long, Barry Bowman, John Tamkun

General:

• Proposals are rather conservative and divisionally oriented; need discussion of what is missing and what are the synergies between the proposals.
• Encourage all the divisions to think more about summer programs, including what are the right program elements needed to attract students from other UC campuses. [The discussion also brought up topics on how to hire summer faculty with appointments in the clinical series.]
• All the deans should think about the campus’ role in K-12 education—what opportunities, synergies, etc. might be possible (e.g., summer Arts program for gifted high school students).
• What are divisions considering in terms of collaborations with near-by institutions (e.g., Cabrillo, NPS, CSUMB, SJSU, etc.)? Who might be the campus’ potential partners? [In the discussion, the issue of CSU wanting the doctorate was raised and the need to UC campuses to propose joint PhD programs.]
• The divisional proposals don’t appear to take advantage of the advances in distance learning technologies (especially given UCSC programs such as UCDC, EAP, SVCenter, MBEST, etc. and the campus’ leadership role in UCCP and the strengths of our UNEX program).
• There was no discussion of programs the campus might shrink or eliminate?
• What are the divisional plans for diversifying the faculty? What role will the campus provost play in this effort?
• The Santa Cruz campus is being asked to change in fundamental ways as it grows (e.g., growing from a predominately undergraduate campus to a comprehensive university). Is there recognition at UCOP that it will be necessary to adjust the funding formulas for UCSC to reflect this change (i.e., redistribute the pie)?
• CPB is interested whether the “tidal wave II” phenomenon will further the funding gap between campuses? (Senate)
• How is the campus going to transition from its current growth phase to a “steady state”? (Senate)
• What is the relationship between the proposals in the executive summaries and the campus’ principles for setting priorities? What are the resource impacts of those proposals? Do the goals articulated by Provost Simpson require modification? (Senate)

Engineering:

• When engineering was envisioned, it was to grow to a size of about 90 FTE (similar to Rice); the executive summary now envisions 140 faculty FTE. What effect will that have on the growth plans of other divisions, particularly natural sciences?
• What does an engineering management PhD mean (i.e., what is research in engineering management)?
• Startup costs vs. an investment in the future: Given the significant costs associated with new senior faculty hires, it is important to stagger senior targets of excellence hires in a unit so as to spread out the costs. But also need to consider the research (and overhead) funds that such senior hires might generate. When making appointments, consider the “pay back” on startup costs.

Natural Sciences:

• How does one take advantage of the overlap between the goals of SOE and natural sciences? In order to also leverage interest on the national level, should we consider the idea of a “Santa Cruz Institute for Innovative Science and Engineering”?
• Given the increases in the NIH budget, should the campus consider links between campus programs and those on the UC health sciences campus to enable pre-clinical work to be done at UCSC? E.g., UCSC ßà UCSF or UCSC ßà UCB Public Health?
• Leveraging the investment in and the incredible opportunity of CISI … need a much better analysis of what these institutes will mean over time (e.g., to faculty, to students, etc.). We need a strategy for UCSC to leverage our piece of the CITRIS and QB3 proposals.
• How can other divisions share in the overhead generated by faculty in natural sciences (given that the campus generally provides the start-up for new hires)?
• More information about the timing of new hires (and therefore the need for startup) was requested. (Senate)
• Is the division considering the use of distance learning technologies, e.g., in the Center for Math and Science?
• What are the staffing impacts of the natural sciences plans?
• Given the goal of doubling research dollars, what will be the implications for postdocs, technical support staff, etc.? (Senate) [In the discussion that followed, the question of how to count postdocs was also raised.]
• How can graduate groups be established? How can deans encourage cross-divisional work? (Senate)

Social Sciences:

• The divisional plans seem conservative. Are there plans to establish a new professional school in the social sciences disciplines?

Humanities:

• While the humanities program proposals are quite interring, are there sufficient numbers of interested graduate students to meet enrollment goals (and achieve the critical mass to make the programs feasible)?
• Several of the humanities initiatives could position the campus to make major announcements about the future of the humanities (e.g., Master of Public Humanities). What is the strategy to ensure that other campuses do not first adopt these good ideas? Should the campus also consider a MAS in this area?
• In supporting the humanities initiatives, what is the potential for support from funds other than State funds?
• How will the division accomplish the growth in undergraduate enrollments suggested in the executive summary? (Senate)

Arts:

• There was a discussion of programs that could take advantage of our location and strengths in State-supported summer instruction, as well as the Silicon Valley Center (e.g., Shakespeare Santa Cruz, digital arts, etc.). The discussion indicated a sense of “impending synergy”.

Graduate Studies:

• Which of the campus’ services should be centralized vs. decentralized?
• What should the campus’ target be for the mix of MA vs. PhD students?

Library:

• What proportion of the collections budget comes from donations? [This lead to a discussion of how the UCOP needs to “re-calculate” the base library budgets given then new graduate programs, etc., at UC Santa Cruz.]
• How does the library budgets fair relative to CSU? (Senate)
• If the Chancellor/EVC moved out of the library, how many years of stack capacity would that provide the campus? (Senate)

Undergraduate Education:

• On the issue of which services should be centralized vs. decentralized, it was noted that decentralizing is most effective when the expertise needs to be near the client and responsiveness is paramount, while centralization is most effective when there must be “unity of command” and high predictability for results. [The discussion included the difference between “coordinate”, “oversight”, and decentralization.]
• How will the campus review the VPDUE proposals to re-organize to improve coordination?
• The ITC is considering bringing together a task force to make recommendations on instructional support … these discussions will be related to the VPDUE proposals.
• The campus needs more “self knowledge” in order to act intelligently on these organizational issues (rather than on anecdote). How will this be accomplished?

Student Affairs:

• What services should be provided by the professional staff within Student Affairs vs. by faculty and academic departmental staff (e.g., monitoring/intervening in areas of student academic success)?
• Which of the Student Services activities should be offered on a centralized vs. decentralized basis? (Senate)
• What are the structural impediments to realizing the Student Services plan that should be discussed on a campuswide basis?

BAS:

• How does BAS anticipate and plan for cost and service drivers such as the increases in sponsored research?
• Almost 58% of the BAS budget is derived from recharges. Is that the right amount? What are the incentives for “monopoly” units to keep costs down? [There was also a discussion on whether there should be more State-funded and less recharge-funded services.]
• What BAS services might be outsourced?
• How will BAS make the “quantum leap” in services that will be required in some areas (e.g., technology) in order to bring the campus up to the levels it requires? How does the campus get the larger Santa Cruz community involved in the provision of some of these services (e.g., housing)?
• In last year’s initiative proposals, BAS focused on severe funding shortages ($6.5M) in areas of critical need such as PP&C and infrastructure; the executive summary was silent in these areas. (Senate)
• There was an expression of satisfaction that BAS is reconstituting the “business practices committee” in order to streamline processes and reduce costs. Are there other areas where such analysis would be applicable?

Office of Research:

• There are two aspects of the VCR position: (a) the compliance/legal/paperwork aspect and (b) the leadership for the institution in planning its research future. What is the focus of the their plan? [In the discussion that followed, there was both support for leadership by the VCR and the concern that it was risky since that leadership really belonged with the academic dean.]

University Relations:

• What is UR doing to enhance the fundraising skills of provosts, divisions, etc.?
• What is the difference between the activities covered in the executive summary and the specifics of a 7-year capital plan? What should be the role of UR? What will it cost? (Senate)

Campus Provost:

• What is the Campus Provost’s role in the diversification of the faculty?

Academic Senate:

• When will the Senate take a comprehensive look at its By-laws, some of which seem more appropriate to a by-gone time?
• Is there any value to considering a representative model for the Senate?
• There are different Senate committee structures on other UC campuses. Is the current Senate advisory structure optimal as the campus experiences tremendous growth?
• The history of the Senate goes back to the 1800’s while UC has changed dramatically since then (e.g., changes in the role of student services, more use of lecturers—not represented on the Senate, etc.). Are there any changes planned systemwide?
• Is it advisable to provide monetary awards for faculty research lectures?