1. President Atkinson
President Richard Atkinson met with the Academic Planning Council (APC) at
is first meeting of the 1995-96 academic year. President Atkinson identified for the APC three issues he believes
it will be important for the University to address in the near future.
Campus differentiation--In view of the fiscal and social climate of the State for the foreseeable future, the University
must find new ways for each campus to build its special strengths and contribute its specializations to strengthen
the system.
Distribution of effort and resources between undergraduate and graduate education--With significant changes happening
in Federal research funding and with substantial pressure for undergraduate growth expected in the not-too-distant
future, the University needs to consider carefully how resources should be deployed. Among other concerns it will
be crucial to consider the potential for employment for Ph.D's in each field.
Part-time degree programs--There may be a potential both for meeting the needs of California's industries and professions
and for generating some additional revenue for the University if UC appropriately expands part-time degree programs,
particularly at the masters level.
President Atkinson also noted that he plans to appoint a task force to make recommendations on the structure and
functions of the Office of the President (OP). He said that although OP's staffing has already been reduced from
about 1,400 to about 1,000, he feels it is important to ensure that all the cuts that can be made have indeed occurred
and that OP's activities are appropriately serving the system. He believes it is essential that the University
community and the citizens of California have confidence in the system office.
2. The Academic Planning Council's agenda for 1995-96
After considerable discussion about the background and function of the APC and of a large number of possible activities
it could address this year, APC members agreed that it should limit its scope to issues that require a Universitywide
perspective and focus its choice of activities on long range objectives, issues, and prospects. There was discussion
of a possible role for the APC in recommending or defining overarching goals and/or a vision for the academic aspects
of the UC system. This concept will be explored further at future meetings.
The most important issues for the coming year appear to be:
Graduate, professional, and health sciences enrollment planning--including the implications of long-range Federal
and State resource prospects, changing nature of and needs for graduate and professional education, trends in employment
and manpower needs, trends in student interest, and the appropriate distribution of graduate and undergraduate
enrollment.
Fostering and sustaining excellence--intercampus synergies, means of encouraging and facilitating specialization
and differentiation, opportunities for developing campuses, criteria for assessing quality and opportunities, resource
allocation to support the University's academic goals.
Information technology and library planning--including integration of library planning with other aspects of academic
planning, responses to the systemwide CINITAP committee's ideas and activities, issues of ownership of electronic
information, support for developing and marketing electronic media, and library issues.
UC's responsibility for offering/maintaining academic programs that serve state needs--means of identifying and
prioritizing such programs
Part-time programs--including review of campus/Senate comments on the APC Advisory Committee report on High Fee
Part-Time Professional Programs, review of an anticipated proposal from the UNEX Deans, and consideration of the
prospects for part-time undergraduate degree programs, including the impacts of them on the regular, full-time
undergraduate program and the university's obligations to traditional full-time students.
These five items will be central to the APC's agenda for the coming year.
3. Additional discussion items
At this meeting the APC also reviewed several recent reports projecting job market trends for Ph.D. recipients
and had an initial discussion of the forces affecting planning for graduate education, including Federal funding
of research and support for graduate students, and the possibility that demand for programs leading to a Masters
degree will increase. A number of other systemwide committees are concerned with these issues as well, and the
APC will want to know their assessment of these trends.
Special Advisor Elliot Brownlee, who has responsibility for coordinating "information age" initiatives
within the Division of Academic Affairs, described for the APC's members the variety of activities currently occurring
in information technology. He reviewed the charge and work schedule of the Committee on Intercampus Networking
and Information Technology for Academic Purposes (CINITAP) and indicated that CINITAP hoped to maintain a high
level of communication with the APC. He said that he hoped that CINITAP would have a draft of a major policy statement
on intellectual property issues for the review by the APC at its December or January meeting. He and Julie Gordon,
OP Coordinator for Intercampus Academic Programs, reviewed with the APC the status of the Intercampus Academic
Program Incentive Fund (IAPIF) and the results of the OP Faculty Use of Instructional Technology Survey. Finally,
Brownlee distributed copies of a draft of a "vision statement" entitled "'Information Age' Technologies
and the Future of Instruction: A Vision," and invited the comments and suggestions of the members of the APC.
Finally, the APC briefly discussed the systemwide issues that arise when there are discontinuities between program
development and State needs.
All of these issues will be revisited in future meetings.