APC Role

                                            Revised  10/13/99

            ACADEMIC PLANNING AT THE SYSTEMWIDE LEVEL

The APC was originally proposed by the 1992 Transition Team Task Force because of a felt need for a body capable of synthesizing
the larger synoptic view of the University.  It has evolved to be a valuable dialog between the Academic Council and Administration
leaders (1).


Roles of the APC:

*    The APC's most important role is multidimensional in nature

*    To raise questions, to frame the issues and, perhaps, to analyze the alternatives concerning the University's academic
     directions

*    To identify appropriate bodies for attending to those matters and to stimulate their interest

*    To create task forces to examine specific issues, where necessary, and

*    To coordinate where coordination among agencies is appropriate.

Depending on the subject matter, these primary functions may require that the APC rethink traditional ways the University does
things, expand people's thinking horizons, float options, infuse the discussions with information and staff analysis, develop

alternatives that are substantively attractive, and suggest ways to use resources that provide additional incentives for change.

The APC can formulate and recommend long-term initiatives for consideration by the established processes.  It can provide
useful advice on cross-cutting issues.  It can help coordinate the discussion of issues among administrative and Academic
Council entities.  It can provide early alerts to matters of concern that arise in any of the bodies represented on APC.  And
it can recommend new processes or modifications of existing processes to facilitate change within the University.

Its role is not to create a top-down, static plan that attempts to lay out details for future development of the system, its
campuses and units, but rather to ensure that a proper planning process is operating to move the University toward a consensus
future vision on issues of systemwide import.

In all of these efforts, APC must remain cognizant of the numerous constituencies, groups, and agencies with a major stake
in academic planning.  Interaction of these groups provides a significant and desired stability (self correction) to the
University through their own internal mechanisms of planning and review.  At the same time they can operate to limit flexibility
unnecessarily, to constrain the options needed to adapt, and to impose unjustifiable inertia to change in the face of a rapidly
changing environment.  APC needs to balance its efforts quite delicately, providing only the amount of top-down direction that
is necessary to keep the system as a whole moving in appropriate directions.


Systemwide Academic Planning

Planning issues at the systemwide level should be systemwide in nature, i.e., they should be driven by identifiable benefits that
accrue from taking a larger view of the purposes and directions of the University, rather than simply summing individual campus
plans.

Appropriate issues include:

     *    Exploring and enabling major academic vectors (e.g., management of electronic information)

     *    Facilitating synergism among campuses

     *    Facilitating intercampus program consolidation, where desired

     *    Assuring adequate coverage of fields and educational functions within the system

     *    Moderating among conflicting requests for new academic units (professional schools, etc.)

However, the internal forces that must be tapped to address issues such as these arise from within the campuses, and
particularly within the faculty on whom the responsibility of carrying out the University's mission will fall.  Thus the issue
of how APC links in to other agencies is important.


Structure and Linkages

The APC has a line advisory role to the Provost on systemwide issues, but it is not a level of approval in between the
Academic Council and the Systemwide Administration, or between the campuses and the Systemwide Administration.  APC advice
should not circumvent or replace the established Senate and Administration review and consultation mechanisms.

In addition to its line responsibility to the Provost, APC interfaces with the Council of Chancellors, the Council of Vice
Chancellors, and the Academic Council through its membership.  It is important that the role and linkages of APC to these other
groups be well understood and that there be acceptance of APC's role by these other bodies.

While issues can be identified and framed and incentives provided at a systemwide level, program definition comes from the
campuses, colleges/schools, and departments.  It is also clear that in the University of California, initiatives for consideration
 can come from many sources--the Provost, the Academic Planning Council, the Academic Council, the Council of
Chancellors, the Council of Vice Chancellors, the UC Students' Association, and the individual campuses--and that consensus is
built for new directions by widespread discussion of initiatives among these and other groups.  Thus to summarize APC's role
within all of these linkages, it is to facilitate such discussion on a broad and timely basis.

_____________________________
     1 Other interactions between the Academic Council and the
Administration are provided by meetings of the President and the
Provost with the Academic Council Chair and Vice Chair, meetings
of the President and Provost with the Academic Council, and
occasional meetings involving Chancellors and/or Vice Chancellors
and the Academic Council.