ACADEMIC PLANNING
COUNCIL
Bulletin #64
December 12, 2003
I.
Systemwide Library Options
II.
Agriculture in
California: Division of Agriculture and
Natural Resources
III.
Enrollment Planning Update
I.
Systemwide Library Options
University
Librarian Daniel Greenstein met with the Academic Planning Council to discuss
the implications of pricing policies of major publishers, Universitywide
efforts to share resources, and the future of scholarly publishing.
Recent negotiations with the publisher Elsevier have highlighted the problem of
the increasing cost of serials (regardless of publisher) in a context of
declining budgets. The implications for academic libraries is that there
has been no net increase in the number of serials purchased for over a decade,
even as expenditures for them have risen 200 percent. With the increase
in knowledge in the same period of time, universities are consequently
acquiring an even smaller proportion of academic scholarship. Libraries
become less able to provide researchers with what they need, and researchers
themselves are not able to reach as wide an audience with their publications.
Library
expenditures on monographs have also declined as the cost of journals has
risen. Disciplines for which monographs are a vital means of reporting
upon research are particularly impacted: there are fewer places to
publish monographs, and fewer copies of published monographs are being printed
and distributed. And because works by established authors represent fewer
economic risks to publishers, it is increasingly difficult for a junior faculty
member to achieve first monographic publication.
Librarian
Greenstein described ways in which the UC libraries have responded to this
crisis, which has been developing over the last decade. First, they have shared
campus-based and centrally funded library resources to such an extent that the
library system has become a genuinely interdependent one in which the
collections and services that a campus library makes available to local
faculty, students, and staff, are inextricably bound up with and dependent upon
those collections and services made available elsewhere. This interdependence
is evident in the shared digital collection of online journals and reference
databases that the libraries have assembled and acquired together, in an
automated interlibrary loan system that enables libraries to share the printed
and other materials that they hold locally, and in their use of regional
library facilities. Through these activities, the University libraries have
avoided over $70 million of annual costs.
Campus
librarians are considering other ways of sharing resources, including
eliminating unnecessary redundancies of existing materials (to save shelving
space, and acquisition and processing costs) and working with those who manage
instructional technology funds and programs to find ways of integrating
separate but necessarily dependent online information environments. The
library also has interest in persistently managing the University’s scholarly
digital assets (i.e., preserving web and other electronic information for
future use). Since others in the University have similar interests in
electronic archiving, there may be opportunities for a variety of groups across
the campus and UC organization to share technological resources such as
hardware and expertise.
The
particular challenge for the libraries in pursuing these new avenues of
resource sharing is to find a way to convene all interested parties whose areas
of organizational focus are widely divergent (both academic and non-academic),
but whose needs for technological infrastructure are similar.
The
second way the UC libraries are responding to the unsustainable business model
they are confronting is to consider alternative means of publishing and
distributing scholarly materials. Libraries have traditionally
concentrated on the acquisition of materials, but as technology improves, they
are in a better position to share them as well. Working with the UC
Press, the libraries have developed Internet technologies that enable UC
faculty readily and easily to disseminate openly and to the widest possible
audience working papers, peer-reviewed series (publishing volumes as they come
available) and peer-reviewed journals, and monographs.
Looking
ahead, Librarian Greenstein described how the libraries will ramp up their
efforts to change the economics of scholarly publishing. UC’s influence is national, and through
research, analysis and carefully articulated goals that can be supported in
practice, UC could be persuasive in convincing faculty of the need to accept
alternative ways of publishing. Areas
of research should include analysis of the cost of doing things the way we do
and analysis of alternatives both in terms of cost savings and cost shifting. Of particular importance is the development
of principles and criteria to inform purchases, and then to act
accordingly. Finally, the libraries
will consider how to leverage the existing California Digital Library
infrastructure for broader benefit to the University.
The
APC discussion centered around the need to work collaboratively across
campuses, across disciplines and across very different parts of the
organization. Extending a common set of
tools provides the possibility for centralized (as compared to redundant)
purchase of technology, while allowing for local distinctiveness. For more information see http://libraries.universityofcalifornia.edu
II.
Agriculture in
California: Division of Agriculture and
Natural Resources
Vice
President Reg Gomes spoke with the APC about the role and structure of the
Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources in UC, with particular focus on
the Agricultural Experiment Station (AES) and Cooperative Extension components. Vice President Gomes noted that unlike other
industries, agriculture does not have its own research base, relying on public
universities instead. The Experiment
Station is the research arm for agriculture in California. Its operations are located at nine Research
and Extension Centers and three UC campuses.
Cooperative Extension is the outreach, or public service arm and resides
in regional and county offices.
Most
of the State funding for Agricultural Experiment Station (about 85 percent)
goes directly to the Chancellors at the three campuses, where faculty carry
joint Organized Research (OR) and Instruction and Research (I&R)
appointments. Most of the remaining
funds are available to researchers at campuses as well as AES research sites,
mostly on a competitive basis. ANR does
not do any graduate education directly, but provides funds for research to help
students.
President
Atkinson created an Advisory Commission on Agriculture and Natural Resources,
which meets semi-annually to discuss major issues facing the agricultural and
natural resources communities and UC’s role in addressing them. This group of industry leaders and
representatives of environmental organizations provides a strong advocacy role
for UC’s presence in California and nationally.
Strategic
and academic planning for ANR occurs within an Executive Council, which sets
the long-term direction, and within a group of associate deans, program
directors and regional leaders who address shorter-term issues. ANR administration also brings together
groups from all campuses to address cross-cutting issues not normally thought
of as agricultural, such as developing ways that ANR can work with outreach
programs for K-12 schools and students.
In recent years the Academic Senate
has had an interest in ANR (particularly the Agricultural Experiment Station)
and how it integrates into campus academic and governance structures. VP Gomes noted that ANR, with its strong
public orientation and concentration at just a few campuses and offsite locations,
often does fall outside the mainstream of campus and faculty. The Council has at various times proposed
creation of a committee to consider agricultural activities within UC.
III.
Enrollment Planning Update
The
APC members discussed a variety of issues related to short and long range
enrollment planning. They reviewed the
Department of Finance’s most recent demographic projections of California
public high school graduates and of UC enrollments. In both cases, their projections are for higher numbers than the
previous year’s projections. However,
as in former projections, after 2008 the large growth in high school graduates
plateaus, with only small increases and declines projected for the next decade.
The
more immediate issue facing UC is California’s budget situation, with uncertain
impacts on enrollment at the time of the APC meeting. The Legislature had instructed UC and CSU not to plan for funding
of enrollment growth in 2004-05.
Subsequent discussions with the Department of Finance have indicated the
possibility of cuts to enrollments.
Campuses have developed a variety of enrollment scenarios, anticipating
a number of possible budget actions, which will be known when the Governor’s
Budget is released January 10, 2004.
Campus
admissions offices will be reviewing applications and admitting students in
this uncertain budget environment, with offers being made before the final
budget is signed.
The
APC reviewed draft commentary from the Academic Council, which will be
presented to The Regents after the Governor’s Budget is released. The main principles put forth in the
Academic Council’s document are to maintain the quality of the student academic
experience, i.e., not to enroll students without sufficient funding to support
them, thus maintaining the student-faculty ratio, and to use comprehensive
review as the mechanism for selecting students, even if the number of students
to be admitted is smaller than before.
Other recommendations are to maintain the current undergraduate to
graduate ratio and to make the admissions process more “transparent” to
students, so they can better predict their chances of being admitted.
APC
members also noted that if freshmen are being turned away, then it is
reasonable to implement mechanisms, such as higher fees for students who enroll
beyond some expected number of terms, that encourage more students to graduate
within four years to make room for more new students.