Accreditation Home | Process | Presentation

Standard 4:  Creating an Organization Committed to Learning and Improvement

4.2:  Planning processes at the institution define and, to the extent possible, align academic, personnel, fiscal, physical, and technological needs with the strategic objectives and priorities of the institution.

UC Santa Cruz Summary of Evidence

The alignment of resource allocations with campus planning objectives is best described in two documents:

Planning for 2010, a report summarizing the concordance between campus core values and long range plans for academic divisions and student support services.

New Business Architecture, a synopsis of a strategy for delivering support services emphasizing: a collaborative environment where staff have ready access to the tools necessary to do their job efficiently and effectively; a workplace that allows University staff to maintain high levels of job satisfaction while providing the highest levels of customer service; an environment where technology solutions minimize time spent processing mundane, routine transactions. As the core of this architecture, we will build a business portal to enhance individual employee productivity by striving for simplification.

Executive Budget Committee. Anticipating that the economic climate for UCSC has turned chilly and could become frostier in future years, in fall 2002 the campus initiated a broad discussion of more efficient ways of conducting our business that would reduce costs while at the same time expanding the institution’s capacity to educate students and conduct research. We are embarking on a systematic set of strategic actions to eliminate unnecessary costs, to strengthen the effectiveness of key campus functions, and to provide the capacity to support future programmatic growth.

To begin the consultation process, in December 2002, UC Santa Cruz established an Executive Budget Committee (EBC) as an overall advisory body to the Chancellor and the Campus Provost on budget issues and priorities.

In January 2003, the EBC engaged AVCOR Consulting, a privately held consulting firm, to help the campus undertake an agenda of change. Together with AVCOR, the EBC challenged campus leaders to look beyond traditional solutions to save costs – most notably “across-the-board” cuts to unit budgets – and instead to review critically the traditional ways we have conducted business with an eye towards specific strategic reductions.

Three project teams focused on 1) Policies, Practices, and Procedures, including most general and administrative functions on campus, including information technology; 2) Academic Instruction and Research; and 3) Revenue Generation. The first two teams were each charged with formulating strategies to drive $10 million of costs off campus; the third was charged with formulating plans to bring $5 million in new revenues to campus.

In response to an open call to submit their ideas and suggestions for consideration, staff, faculty and students offered influential suggestions. A number of Academic Senate Committees, in particular the Committee on Planning and Budget, provided valuable insight into the development of many of the initiatives. The community offered over 100 suggestions, of which 50 were worthy of detailed analysis, and 20 deemed appropriate for implementation, falling into the following categories:

Business Functions. These initiatives will redesign core services throughout the campus, including: human resources, payroll, purchasing, workers compensation, and the processing of financial transactions. This initiative will involve both process redesign and technology enhancements and will include the addition of a long overdue electronic time-and-attendance system, and a recruitment-management system.

Information Technology (IT). In order to contribute to the campus-wide cost reduction effort and to improve our basic IT services, we plan to consolidate information technology services (e.g., workstation support, web and application development) with operations (e.g., server hosting, database operations).

Resource Management. For example, we will evaluate auxiliary enterprises to ensure that they are based on effective business models that minimize financial risks. We will also evaluate the campus’ internal economy (e.g., recharge policies and processes) for possible improvements.

Academic Issues. We will work closely with the Academic Senate to develop better tools to manage our enrollment, to deliver our curriculum (especially to our lower-division students in large classes), to redesign the freshman experience, and to ensure that campus academic processes are efficient and effective.

Links to Evidence and Related Documents

• Campuswide Long Range Planning Process ("Planning for the UC Santa Cruz of 2010")
• Executive Budget Committee
• UC 2010 - A New Business Architecture for the University of California

Copyright ©2003 UC Regents | Maintained by susan.jessen@adm.ucsc.edu