ACADEMIC PLANNING
COUNCIL
Bulletin #65
February 6, 2004
I.
Budget
II.
Graduate Education
III.
UC Merced
I.
Budget
Vice President Larry Hershman
joined the APC for a discussion of the current status of the University’s
2004-05 budget, as presented in the Governor’s Budget. While it contains serious cuts and policy
recommendations that are problematic for UC, the Governor’s Budget could have
been far worse if the governor had not decided to make cuts to all agencies and
to put a $15 billion bond on the ballot.
Despite improvements to the economy, the magnitude of the State’s
financial problem is so large and complex that the next several years will
continue to present difficult budgets.
The Governor has indicated strong support for UC and understanding of
the contribution UC makes to the State’s economy and supply of an educated
workforce.
There are many areas of concern to
UC, some of the most significant of which are related to fees and financial
aid, the student-faculty ratio, enrollment cuts, another 5 percent cut to
research (on top of the 10 percent cuts in each of the last two years) and
lagging salaries. The proposed student
fee increases (10 percent for undergraduates, 40 percent for graduate academics
and substantial increases for professional students and nonresidents) combined
with cuts to UC and Cal Grant financial aid, pose major problems. UC will seek approval for a different plan
for raising fees because 40 percent for graduate students is too high. UC will not reduce the student-faculty ratio
as the budget proposes, but the result is an unallocated cut. The proposed enrollment cut is being
criticized widely in the press and by some legislators, but VP Hershman noted
that enrollment growth may realistically be slowed in coming years due to
anticipated changes in eligibility requirements that will reduce the number of
UC eligible students. With respect to
salaries, faculty merits will be funded by UC, but longer term budget planning
must address the underfunding of salaries before it is too late to catch up.
APC members agreed that not only is
the proposed 40 percent increase in graduate fees unsupportable, but the
Department of Finance’s direction toward privatizing professional programs is
also harmful to campuses. There were
comments that UC should not continue to take more students than the State is
willing to fund. There were
suggestions for finding ways to work more closely with community colleges if
the State continues to try to shift some lower division enrollment away from
UC; VP Hershman acknowledged that there is strong pressure to do this. With each area designated for cuts (e.g.,
outreach and research) APC members argued for maintaining University and campus
flexibility for setting priorities.
II.
Graduate Education
In 2001 the University’s Commission
on the Growth and Support of Graduate Education made a number of
recommendations regarding ways of increasing support for graduate students to
meet anticipated growth and to increase competitiveness. The APC reviewed a report of progress
campuses are making to reach these goals and discussed the particular
challenges to graduate support that the Governor’s Budget fee and financial aid
proposals imply. With fees and tuition
increasing more than expected and the outlook for support from state, federal,
and private sources being less favorable than previously assumed, it has been
difficult to implement the Commission’s recommendations as quickly or fully as
hoped. Within this context of financial
constraint, the APC also considered persistence, completion and time to degree
statistics for graduate students.
One concern of several APC members
was that large increases in fees and therefore in the amount of support needed
for graduate students could lead to the hiring of more postdocs. They pointed out that the cumulative impact
of individual faculty members making independent decisions to have fewer
graduate students could be quite damaging to a campus’s graduate program and
its undergraduate education. Another
issue raised was the impact of the budget proposal in particular on humanities
and social sciences students who are less likely to be supported by extramural
funding.
APC members also discussed whether
all the existing mechanisms for keeping graduate students--particularly
doctoral students--on track and making reasonable progress toward their
degrees, were being followed rigorously.
They requested more information from campuses about effective practices
to enable graduate student progress and completion. They noted that such information would be helpful to campuses if
it becomes necessary to scale back graduate student growth.
III.
UC Merced
Executive Vice Chancellor David
Ashley informed APC members about the current status of UC Merced.
Despite budgetary setbacks and the one year delay in admitting the first class,
the campus has hired deans for its three schools and faculty for most of the
six approved majors from which future academic programs will develop.
Buildings are under construction and they plan to open in fall 2005 with 60
faculty and 1,000 undergraduate and graduate students.
Each school currently has two
majors: Social/Sciences/Humanities/Arts has World Cultures and History,
and Social and Behavioral Sciences; Engineering has Computer Science and
Engineering, and Environmental Engineering; Natural Sciences has Biological
Science and Earth Systems Science. CCGA has authorized the campus
to award an individual graduate program degree with five initial areas of
emphasis; a sixth area will be added this year. The graduate program is
designed around the graduate group model. Eventually there will be more
specific degrees as the campus grows. Some graduate students have already
followed the newly recruited faculty from other institutions.
Faculty hiring has been scaled back
due to the budget cuts. Nevertheless, the campus has received
approximately 3,000 applications, many from former UC students or faculty who
want to return to the UC system. In addition to the initial 60 ladder
rank faculty (half of whom are expected to be at the full professor level)
there will be 15 lecturers. A systemwide CAP was created to review all
applicants. Researchers from the Livermore Lab interested in teaching
have expressed interest in adjunct appointments.
The campus is developing
administrative mechanisms to support sponsored research both for transferring
existing faculty grants and for submitting new proposals. UCM already has
two research institutes: The World Cultures Institute and the Sierra
Nevada Research Institute. The National Parks is seeking increased
collaboration with the campus, and has provided research station facilities in
Yosemite, with discussions about the possibility of another in Sequoia/Kings
Canyon National Park.
The library is being developed to
take full advantage of the electronic resources of the California Digital
Library and the intercampus loan program. UCM is also participating in
the Carnegie Mellon Million Books Project, which is digitizing thousands of
classic academic texts, thereby reducing the cost of printing to pennies per
book. The library will also open with print materials, both purchased and
donated, but not to the extent of traditional libraries. The physical
structure is being designed to encourage discussion, and will be electronically
linked with dormitories and offices on campus.
APC members discussed whether
students would be disadvantaged by the individual graduate degree approach and
its generic degree titles. It was noted that in academic hiring it is
usually more important to know the faculty with whom the student had worked and
the nature of the dissertation; however, nonacademic employers might have more
difficulty evaluating the significance of the degree.