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UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SANTA CRUZ |
AS/SCM/257 |
Minutes
Regular Meeting of the Santa Cruz Division
October 27, 1999
Meeting
A regular meeting of the Santa Cruz Division of the Academic Senate was held on Wednesday, October 27, 1999 in Kresge Town Hall with Parliamentarian David Kaun present, Chair Roger Anderson called the meeting to order at 3:02 p.m.
Professor George Brown moved approval of the Minutes of the May 26, 1999 meeting (AS/SCM/256). The motion was seconded and adopted by unanimous voice vote.
Chair Anderson introduced the Senate office staff (Director Mary-Beth Harhen, Cathy Fong, Laurie Babka, and Pam Edwards) and Senate Officers: Vice Chair Carla Freccero; Secretary David Koo; and Parliamentarian David Kaun. Chair Anderson asked and obtained without objection approval to suspend the rules by unanimous consent to allow Assembly Member Fred Keeley to address the Senate. Chair Anderson said Keeley will be the first of a series of California leaders to be invited to address the Senate this year.
Chair Anderson stated three presumptions on assuming his new position: 1) that the campus and systemwide administration will respect the Senate advice about issues; 2) that the Senate will forward imaginative, constructive, and thoughtful analysis of issues to the administration; and 3) that as a whole community, we will reach reasonable consensus on the reaffirmation and reinvention of campus values, tradition, and image.
Chair Anderson then identified the most important issues the Senate will encounter this year: enrollment growth; academic success (admissions and retention); and faculty welfare.
Enrollment growth: UC general campus enrollments are expected to increase by approximately 63,000 by the year 2010, bringing total enrollments to 210,000. This total is about 28,000 larger than the current Long Range Development Plan (LRDP) limits on all of the campuses. The new campus, UC Merced, will absorb only 5,000. The political realities of Santa Cruz almost certainly preclude increases in our LRDP limits. Given this and staggering per capita and operating costs using historical measures, UCSC will need to find non-traditional means to accommodate increased enrollments. The feasibility of year-round operations is being studied.
There is also active planning for the development of a Santa Clara Valley Regional Center, an off-site center which would host research activities, UC Extension, University Development, outreach efforts, and educational programs for UC-enrolled students. Of all the Regional Center activities, only the latter, educational programs for UC-enrolled students are likely to generate permanent state support. The schedule for development of an academic plan is short. The Regents have already recommended that a permanent allocation of $2.5 million be put into the University budget for the year 2000-2001. The Academic Senate is just starting its review, and much of this year will be required to reach a plan that might be endorsed. The Committee on Planning and Budget’s (CPB) 1998-99 annual report contains some very useful discussion on issues surrounding the Regional Center. The Committee on Educational Policy (CEP) and the Graduate Council have also begun looking into this matter. To facilitate discussion, there will be an Academic Senate Forum on the Santa Clara Valley Regional Center on November 16.
As another part of growth, UCSC will add more than 400 students per year until we reach 15,000. Most of the resources to support this growth accrue with marginal funding at the rate of approximately $12,000 per student, including state support and student fees. New programs and resources for their support add to the growth issue. Moreover, growth within the limited campus resources may be a temptation to make greater use of non-Senate instructors, so a campus study of their role in UCSC’s educational programs is necessary. CPB’s annual report also discusses this issue.
Academic Success (Admissions and Grading): UCSC retains about 94 percent of our best first-year students and about 84 percent of all first-year students. The percentage of overall retention of students is very low. Thus the campus needs to explain the statistics and to identify the factors that predict success. UCSC has become modestly selective in admissions during the past year and will become increasingly more so. This year, the Committee on Admissions and Financial Aid will develop a strategy for selective admissions and for faculty involvement in reviewing applications.
This year, Academic Senate committees will discuss the evaluation of students. CEP will report at a later Senate meeting about proposals and possible legislation for the grading system. Curriculum and grading are solely within the jurisdiction of the Academic Senate and we must be willing to reaffirm or reinvent the courses we offer and the methods by which we evaluate student work.
Faculty Welfare: Planning has begun this year for additional faculty housing. The most likely sites are Terrace Point and/or Inclusion Area D, which sits directly north of the Barn Theater. The campus is also planning for additional child care facilities and pursuing strategies to alleviate problems of domestic partner hiring.
Introduction of New Faculty: Chair Anderson introduced the Deans of the academic divisions or their designates, who then introduced newly hired faculty members.
Social Sciences: Dean Martin Chemers introduced Assistant Professors Robert White (Anthropology); Bin Bin Guo (Economics); Philip McCalman (Economics); Judith Scott, (Education); Weixin Cheng (Environmental Studies); Gregory Gilbert (Environmental Studies); Dennis Kelso (Environmental Studies); Heather Bullock (Psychology); Colin Leach (Psychology); and Lionel Cantu (Sociology); and Professor Judit Moschkovich (Education).
Humanities: Dean Jorge Hankamer introduced Associate Professor Tyrus Miller (Literature).
Arts: Dean Houghton introduced Assistant Professor Amelie Hastie (Film and Digital Media).
Natural Sciences: Dean David Kliger introduced Assistant Professors Karen Otteman (Environmental Toxicology); Robert Boltje, (Mathematics); Ehud Baruch (Mathematics); and Raphael Kudela (Ocean Sciences); Associate Professor Stephen Thorsett (Astronomy and Astrophysics); and Professor Jonathan Zehr (Ocean Sciences).
Engineering: Professor Joel Ferguson introduced for Electrical Engineering, Assistant Professors Ali Shakouri and Peyman Milanfar; Associate Professor Jiayuan Fang; and Professors Benjamin Friedlander and John Vesecky. Professor Phokion Kolaitis then introduced Assistant Professors Scott Brandt (Computer Science); Tara Madhyastha (Computer Science); Hongyun Wang (Applied Mathematics & Statistics); and Neil Balmforth (Mathematics & Statistics).
Chancellor Greenwood welcomed Chair Anderson, and the new faculty; thanked the Chair and Senate Advisory Committee for continuing the regular meetings with the administration to identify and resolve campus issues; noted the one-page handout of faculty accomplishments; and made the following remarks and points.
UCSC is moving into the next stage of its development as a research university. In addition to accommodating heavy growth of undergraduate enrollments, the campus must also build its graduate programs and research reputation. The enrollment figures are based on current enrollments in K-12, which show steady and sustained growth until about 2012; on accomplishing the transfer MOU with the community colleges; and on the assumption that graduate students will be about 18 percent of the total. These numbers could increase for the campus if outreach efforts toward under-represented groups are successful.
In the 1960’s, UC was growing at a rate of 6,000 students per year for about seven years. Thirty percent of that growth was absorbed by new campuses, such as UCSC. While the current enrollment growth is thus not unprecedented, only 8 percent is projected to be absorbed by the single new campus at Merced. Current UC growth is projected at 25 to 43 percent. The options for accommodating this growth are of varying desirability, but all must be carefully considered: year-round operation; increased graduation rates; and off-site activities.
The Santa Clara Valley Regional Center initiative has moved more quickly than anticipated, but it will be at least another year before any program there will be implemented. For the Regional Center, funds will be added to the campus budget separately, and thus without any impact on our campus capital or operating budget.
The financial needs of growth are enormous and diverse, including infrastructure. One good news is that, this year, the campus received $3 million for deferred maintenance instead of the usual $400,000. Another is that the campus received over $50 million in external public support this year. For private funding, it was also a banner year, with the raising of $18.4 million, which is more than what Riverside raised and just $1 million less than that of Santa Barbara. These external funds will need to be doubled, at least, to support the anticipated growth.
The challenges of enrollment growth present an unprecedented opportunity for UCSC to distinguish itself. In the next ten years, enrollment growth to 16,900 students by 2010 will increase budgeted faculty by 316 FTE, for a total of nearly 900. Adding 309 through retirements and separations over the next ten years, we expect to hire over 600 new faculty, i.e., 60 per year. This is unlike the last nine years when approximately 20 new faculty were hired each year. This aspect of growth presents a great challenge that must be first met through good academic planning.
Last year, a new budget process was begun to provide a resource allocation framework that ensures campus growth is planned strategically. The process provides not only for appropriate expansion of existing programs, but also for the development and implementation of new programs. The EVC’s resources for the budget initiatives process only add at the margins of the institution. Only one in four faculty to be recruited will potentially be hired into positions created through the initiative process. The vast majority of campus resources reside in the divisions and their departments. The Santa Clara Valley initiative is another opportunity due to growth that will increase the excellence and presence of UCSC.
d. Assembly Member Fred Keeley
The State of California is undergoing a sustained growth of enormous proportion. The projections are that, during our lifetime, the state of California will add the equivalent of the population of the State of New York. Unless deliberate, careful decisions about managing that growth are made, California’s environment will simply become unliveable. This growing population will, for the first time, have no ethnic majority in the census next year. Ten years from now, there will be a new majority that will be younger and less white than the majority of the past.
Another aspect of the sustained growth is the changing economy. The recession in the early 1990’s was a result of international and national defense spending changes which caused essentially a collapse of that major industry. When we came out of the recession in California, the recovery was not fueled by a recovery of the defense industry, but instead was led by an enormous expansion by the high tech industry. The other two legs of the new California economy are the entertainment industry and everything around visitor serving. According to Laura Tyson, former member of the President’s Council of Economic Advisors and now at the Haus School of Economics in Berkeley, the numbers of the new economy show that almost all of the accumulated personal wealth goes to people with a college education.
When Governor Davis came into office, he called for four bills in education largely to address the issues of K-12 and accountability. One was a bill that would rank the academic performance of California’s K-12 schools by location. Based on the data from the Department of Finance and the Department of Education, school ranks were confirmed to be predictable using only the ethnic composition of the school and the average family income of the school. Putting this information together, you see a growing population, the majority of which is going to be Latino and relatively young from the worst performing schools trying to get on the first rung of the economic ladder, but this is available only to people with a college education.
This is a very challenging environment in which to set a pattern for the appropriate growth and development of the University of California, CSU, and the Community Colleges. Higher education in California has had the reputation for three things: being world-class; affordable; and accessible. Although still world-class, higher education is now less affordable and less accessible than ever, especially for the emerging majority. The solution is to increase teacher pay to a level that will ensure both adequate recruitment and retention.
Another aspect of growth needs to address two issues of infrastructure: housing and transportation. In Silicon Valley, for example, 40,000 new, fairly high-paying jobs are created a year. They also create 8,000 housing units a year. The result is that, more people working in Silicon Valley do not live there, but commute 1 ˝ to 2 hours a day each way. The impact of this lifestyle on families, relationships, and communities is profound On the March ballot, there will be a $2.1 billion environmental protection and bond measure, a $2 billion water bond, and a $750 million library bond. These bond measures, as part of the push for infrastructure, should include a public policy architecture to "grow smart" and reward communities which try to have a jobs-housing balance.
In light of California’s projected growth, decisions are needed to connect infrastructure, quality of life, and community building. Previous discussions about infrastructure have ignored such value considerations, but these discussions must now become value-enriched to address the legitimate issues of a growing majority of the state. The University and this campus are the institutions that can contribute to the broader discussion of community and infrastructure and of adding value to state policy.
For the benefit of the new faculty, Professor Shelly Errington gave a brief overview of the Academic Senate structure before presenting highlights of the Assembly meeting of October 20, 1999. The budget was the top item. At the federal level, University Office of the President (UCOP) is concerned about possible decreases in funds for research. At the state level, UCOP is working to reach agreement with Governor Davis on a new partnership that would guarantee a level of state funding over a period of four years. Contracts and grants awards to the University totaled $2.37 billion in fiscal year 1998-99, an increase of nearly 10 percent. The University also received a record $926 million in private support in the same period, an increase of 23 percent.
Other University matters from the spring and fall meetings were then mentioned. Enrollment growth remains a major challenge, for which year-round attendance and outreach to K-12 and other colleges are issues to be addressed. Michael Cowan, UCSC Professor of Literature was elected Vice President of the Assembly and will become President next year. Carol Tomlinson-Keasey was appointed Chancellor of UC Merced. That campus is moving to make its first academic appointments this year, including a national search for the founding Director of the Sierra Nevada Research Institute. The Human Relations Department is making progress in its negotiations with the graduate student union. There are new library initiatives, including the new California Digital Library. Groundbreaking for the UCDC center in Washington, D.C. has begun and should be completed in the next two years. A new California-Mexico collaborative research project has been funded. Problems of the UC-Stanford Hospital merger are still not solved. A new policy on termination of incompetent faculty was discussed and is cause for great concern among faculty.
4. Special Orders: Annual Reports
CAF member Rebecca Braslau presented the annual report, which was received without comment.
CAP Chair Sandy Chung presented the annual report, which was received without comment. Responding later to an inquiry from the floor, Chair Chung confirmed that CAP recommended to the EVC that the sentence about the inclusion of a statement on the quality of the candidate’s narrative evaluations be removed from the policy. CAP did not discuss the policy on delinquent narrative evaluations (CAPPM-006.000).
CAFA Chair John Wilkes presented the annual report, which was received without comment.
CAA Chair Judy Yung presented the annual report, which was received without comment.
CCT Chair Charlie McDowell presented the annual report, which was received without comment
CEAP Chair Margo Hendricks presented the annual report, commenting that the committee has had on-going discussion about and welcomes input regarding the use of the Education Abroad Program as a management structure for enrollment growth.
CEP Chair George Brown presented the annual report by first commenting on the committee’s work on the General Education Requirements. Although the CEP legislation for reforms to the GE Requirements was approved on the Senate floor last winter, it was overturned in a subsequent mail ballot. There are still serious problems in the general education program on this campus, especially in the area of developing writing skills. While some departments and corresponding agencies do offer writing instruction in the discipline, CEP believes more opportunities can be provided for students to study the art of writing in their discipline through a system of incentives, without requiring the disciplines and departments that are unwilling or unable to teach writing to do so.
CEP worked with Associate Vice Chancellor of Undergraduate Education Linda Goff to craft a new policy on academic misconduct. Academic discipline through the grading system is the responsibility of the Academic Senate, but discipline is also administered by the administration through sanctions. Discussion ensued about the difficulty of administrating discipline through academic sanctions in cases of cheating. Under active consideration, but not yet included in the policy, is the suggestion for a deferred grade option.
It was noted that the annual report states CEP is continuing to work on a faculty handbook on grading and narrative evaluations that is on a Web Site. It was suggested that the Web site for the handbook include advice on how to write a narrative evaluation.
CFW Chair Barry McLaughlin presented the annual report, stating that the committee worked mainly on the issues of child care, health care, and parking fees. Child care is now listed as an item for development on the campus, so that funds can be raised. A feasibility study, expected to be complete by the spring, is being done to identify a donor pool for the facility.
There was discussion about the present standoff with Santa Cruz Medical Clinic regarding retirees losing their primary care physician upon retirement. Santa Cruz Medical Clinic does have a monopoly in the county. It was noted that Pacificare and HealthNet have a program for retirees. It is possible to get a referral to UCSF through a physician at the Santa Cruz Medical Clinic.
The parking fees for faculty are less than that of staff because the Faculty Association is still in negotiations on the matter.
CPB Chair John Hay presented the annual report. A correction to the report was noted: the Charts on page 52 are switched in the description of them on page 48 of the report. Chair Hay pointed out six important issues in the report.
CPB was commended on the thoroughness of its report.
j. Committee on Privilege and Tenure (AS/SCP/1254)
P&T Chair George Blumenthal presented the annual report, which was received without comment.
RJ&E Chair Mark Traugott presented the annual report. There was discussion on which decisions of RJ&E need or are subject to Senate approval; the level of detail to be included in its annual report; and the need for more clarification on the status of its decisions.
l. Committee on Teaching (AS/SCP/1251)
COT member Mary-Kay Gamel presented the annual report, which was received without comment.
COC member Shelly Errington moved approval of the nominations listed in the CALL (AS/SCP/1243). The nominations were approved by unanimous voice vote.
CER Chair William Domhoff reported the committee has recently completed a survey of emeriti that has not yet been fully analyzed. He noted concerns regarding retirement among faculty are increasing and that, if faculty are not treated as well as they were in the VERIP in 1994, they may be reluctant to retire.
c. Committee on Admissions and Financial Aid
BOARS representative Peter Euben reported that the Board of Admissions and Relations with Schools is considering establishing criteria for accreditation to private schools and home schools that are currently unaccredited by the University of California. Altering the way credit is given for taking AP courses; and eliminating SATs; or substituting ACTs for SATs are all being considered to ensure more fairness in admissions.
Kirti Srivastara, after some introductory remarks, reported on the Student Assembly's activities of last year. The UC Student Association (UCSA) won a campaign for a 5 percent rollback of in-state fees. Measure C was a referendum to have a student retention center on campus. It failed because students were being asked to pay another $7 for something they believed should already be provided. SUA also worked on Regent reform. It is difficult for the one student regent to keep informed of statewide activities, so there will now be two student regents with overlapping time for training. SUA is supporting UCSA's fight to repeal SP-1 and SP-2 on all UC campuses and is asking faculty to support the reinstatement of affirmative action. They are also working on forming a statewide hate crime policy and parent-student child care issues. This year Santa Cruz became a member of USSA (United States Student Activists or Student Association). SUA is hoping to sponsor a students-of-color conference this year, which would bring students of color UC-wide to Santa Cruz. Faculty are invited to be speakers. SUA is also taking up the issues of rent control and police brutality; developing a late-night cafe program for activist expression; starting a newsletter, perhaps with the Alumni Association; and aiming to improve communications among students, faculty, staff, and administration.
Aradhna Tripati, a member of the executive council of GSA, made some introductory remarks and then reported that GSA will focus this year on, among several issues, affordable housing and establishing a graduate college at UCSC. The Chancellor's task force on the graduate college has completed its report, so GSA is now strongly advocating for the development of a graduate college. A statement from GSA was read regarding the housing issue and included the following points.
Graduate students have seen their rent increase by more than 10 percent each year for the past several years to the current level of $660 a month to share a four bedroom apartment on campus. Grad students have been warned that their rent will continue to increase at the same rate for the foreseeable future, projecting an estimated $800 a month rent two years from now. Off-campus housing in most cases, have risen even higher. At present, Teaching Assistant take-home salary is about $1,100 a month, which is comparable to the take-home salary of a Graduate Student Researcher. More than half of the graduate student's salary is needed for housing at the current time and the portion is expected to increase to two-thirds in two years. More than half of the graduate students at UCSC rely solely on this income, in many cases to support partners and/or children who have no affordable access to health care under the current policy. Cost-of-living increases have only been 2 percent for graduate students, but rent increases have been 25 to 50 percent over the past several years. This is causing rising debt for graduate students, many of whom are faced with $25,000-75,000 of debt from undergraduate and graduate school. Quality of housing and financial pressures significantly impact graduate students and the whole campus in negative ways. Housing costs will affect graduate enrollments. With graduate enrollments projected to increase by more than 50 percent in the next decade, plans for affordable, subsidized housing, perhaps in part through a residential graduate college, must be implemented immediately. Graduate students look forward to working with faculty to ameliorate the current crisis, which if left unresolved, will likely retard campus growth.
The Chair adjourned the meeting at 6:06pm.
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ATTEST: David Koo February 14, 2000 |
Recording Secretary: Mary-Beth Harhen