ACADEMIC
PLANNING COUNCIL
Bulletin #75
October 3, 2006
I. Welcome and Introductions
II. Review of
III. Emerging Themes from the
IV. Proposal for Undergraduate
Education Task Force/Planning Committee
V. IT Guidance
Committee: Background and Update
I. Welcome and
Introductions
Provost Rory Hume welcomed new and returning members of the
Academic Planning Council at this first meeting of 2006-07. New members in attendance included: Thomas Cogswell
(Division Chair, UCR); Dan Greenstein (Associate Vice Provost – Scholarly
Information, UCOP); Charles Louis (Vice Chancellor – Research, UCR); Wendy Max
(Chair, UCORP); Genaro Padilla (former Vice
Chancellor – Student Affairs, UCB); Brenda Robles (Undergraduate student,
UCLA); Jeffrey Steindorf (Associate Vice Chancellor,
Budget and Planning, UCSD); Sam Traina (Graduate
Dean, UCM); Richard Weiss (Chair, UCEP).
Provost Hume stated that the role of the APC in the University’s
academic planning process is to act as a philosophical and procedural adviser
to him, pulling together the myriad themes emerging from the several planning
activities underway in UC.
II. Review of
Provost Hume updated information from previous APC meetings on the
various planning activities underway at UC.
He described UC’s systemwide
planning activities, starting with the Long Range Guidance Team whose 18 months
of review and deliberations are coming to conclusion with a strategic vision
that identifies the major themes that will influence and guide the University’s
aspirations to be the world’s greatest research university in 2025.
A second set of planning activities is encompassed in Planning for
Doctoral and Professional Education (PDPE).
The Task Force and its associated work groups have been discussing new
allied health degrees in response to changing licensure requirements; how to
promote interdisciplinary programs; UC’s role in
providing Education doctorates; the need for law education, endorsing UCI’s proposal for a new law school, while UCR’s law school proposal is put on a slower path; and UC’s role generally in providing doctoral education in the
future. Financial support for graduate
students has been the topic of a separate task force.
The Health Sciences Enrollment Growth Advisory Group has responded
to recommendations from the Universitywide Health
Sciences Committee for growth in five professional schools (medicine, nursing,
optometry, pharmacy, and public health) and will report to The Regents in
November 2007. (See http://www.ucop.edu/healthaffairs/UC%20binder_final_9.1.pdf
for background).
The planning activity with widest scope and implications for the
future is the systemwide academic planning process
that has just started with a round of visits by Provost Hume to campus
Executive Vice Chancellors. Provost
Hume cited Clark Kerr’s intent for academic planning to be done as a system,
going back to the earliest years of the Master Plan. However, most planning has been at the
campus level, with very little systemwide
discussion. The intent of this new
process is to enable better decision-making through more communication across
campuses. It is not intended to stifle
creativity or individuality; rather, it is expected to promote differentiation
and uniqueness among the campuses. Systemwide planning will also meet The Regents’ desire to
have a deeper understanding of campus and universitywide
priorities, helping them make more informed decisions involving resources.
The first year of the systemwide academic
planning process will be relatively low key, with Chancellors, Executive Vice
Chancellors and the appropriate Senate committees sharing information among
themselves about their own academic aspirations, plans and priorities. There will be a similar process in the second
year, with campuses responding to more focused questions about their
plans. The third year and beyond will
depend on the results of experiences in the first two years. The role of the APC will be to monitor the
process, to be observant critics, and to help design the direction and focus of
the process in the second year and beyond.
In the discussion it was noted that currently interdisciplinary
programs (a key component of academic planning discussions) are primarily
within campuses, but that more can be done across campuses. The current study of how to encourage and
support new MRUs, and the California Institutes for
Science and Innovation were cited as two examples of promising activities. Members also noted declines in federal
research funding and encouraged planners to be cautious about the difficulty of
sustaining faculty who have benefited from previous years of explosive growth
(particularly in NIH funding). It was
suggested that increasing collaborations across campuses might help faculty
weather declines in support.
(Two other planning activities, the Undergraduate Education Task
Force/Planning Committee and the IT Guidance Committee are discussed below.)
Links to previous discussions of UC planning activities at the APC:
http://www.ucop.edu/planning/apcfiles/apc74.htm
http://www.ucop.edu/planning/apcfiles/apc73.html
III. Emerging Themes
from the
At the time of the APC meeting, the Long Range Guidance Team (LRGT)
was working on various presentation formats of its key findings, such as
web-based reporting. Provost Hume described
the broad conclusions that would be presented in various forms to different
audiences with an interest and stake in the University. The LRGT has affirmed the enduring and
valuable identity of UC as a land-grant, public research university, even in
the face of significant financial and political challenges in
Despite the challenges, a primary theme emerging from the LRGT
deliberations is that UC holds considerable advantage, and the key to its
continued success, if campuses work together as a system, capitalizing on “the
promise and power of 10.” Finding ways
to create a less redundant and more efficient infrastructure will allow local
(and cross-campus) academic programs to flourish despite the considerable
financial and political challenges facing the University.
In addition to leveraging UC’s strength
as a system, Provost Hume reported that it was clear to the LRGT that UC must
work with CSU, other universities, the State, and K-12 to ensure the recovery of
K-12 education in
APC members noted that while there is a wealth of activities
already underway at UC to improve K-12 education, they lose impact through
being fragmented and uncoordinated.
Members noted that the Science and Math Initiative is a good start to
changing campus mindsets about UC’s responsibilities
to
IV. Proposal for
Undergraduate Education Task Force/Planning Committee
The APC continued discussion from previous meetings on the best
structure for a systemwide undergraduate education
planning group. They agreed that a task
force might be too time-limited, and unable to address all the topics proposed
by UCEP in its recommendation for a systemwide group
(http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/senate/reports/ac.ucep.ug.edu.tf.0406.pdf)
Members preferred an alternative structure, an ongoing subcommittee
of the APC, that would address fewer issues at a time,
but in greater depth. However, there are
different opinions about the composition of such a group, with some suggesting
that only the faculty should address undergraduate education, with others
speaking for a more constituted group.
There was agreement; however, that representation of too many interest
groups would make the group unwieldy and could divert attention from its basic
educational focus.
Both UCEP and the Undergraduate Deans were scheduled to confer and
advise on their preferences for structure and charge, after which the Provost
will move forward with naming a group.
V. IT Guidance
Committee: Background and Update
Associate Vice Provost Dan Greenstein described
activities to date of the Information Technology Guidance Committee, a universitywide group charged with identifying strategic
directions for IT investments and services. Given that the
University spends between $1.2 billion and $1.6 billion on information
technology (hardware, software, staff, and associated services), there is
significant opportunity to explore how best to organize that investment not
only to meet the goal of improved efficiency, but to support innovation in
instruction and research. Through the use of ad hoc working groups,
the Guidance Committee has launched investigations in six areas: network,
research computing, digital stewardship, instructional technology, common
business architecture, and student experience. These groups are
currently collecting information from campus users and developing
recommendations in each of these areas.
AVP Greenstein listed a number of challenges facing the Committee’s
development of recommended strategies, including the lack of any model for
collaborating across the campuses on such a vast scale involving so many
functional groups, many of them unknown to each other. There are redundancies
across and within campuses, because so many purchases and system developments
are made locally at the department and even the individual level. Such
redundancies accumulate into inefficient use of resources on a large scale,
resulting in lost opportunities for collaborations and integration that might
have increased the output and activity of all participants. An
associated challenge is how to help functional groups with similar needs become
aware of each other in order to work toward developing a more shared
infrastructure. AVP Greenstein pointed out that there can be success when
even a few units or campuses work together toward a shared common solution to a
particular problem or activity they all share (e.g., the agreement of several
campuses to develop a common effort reporting system, and collaboration in
telemedicine).
The APC’s role with respect to UC’s IT strategy will be to align priorities that emerge
from unrelated, competing planning processes (e.g., how to balance desired
growth and investment in telemedicine and instructional technology and
administrative systems, among other priorities); to convince users of “the
promise and power of 10” when trust levels for collaboration are low; and to
identify the most useful role that OP can play in providing service and support
to these new efforts. There will be recommendations from all six
areas in spring 2007, with expectation of incorporating priorities in the
budget that will go to The Regents in November 2007.