This is Senate Chair David Brundage, and I’m excited to send you the first edition of our new Senate Newsletter for Winter 2022. Although the Senate has employed various strategies for outreach to the larger body of Senate faculty over the years, ranging from other newsletter formats to informal email updates from the chair, our vision for this new electronic newsletter is a quarterly update that will (1) address the current state of the Senate and/or campus from the chair or other officers’ perspective; (2) brief the faculty on important issues currently under review by the Senate; and (3) provide links to the most significant Senate responses from the previous quarter. It is our hope that these newsletters will provide pithy information that keeps our colleagues informed and engaged with campuswide and Senate plenary issues, even between periods of Senate service. I’m committed to providing updates in my Chair’s Letter in advance of our Senate meetings, and hopefully these newsletters will provide context for the discussions that take place at the Senate meeting to follow.
As you would expect, COVID-19 continues to dominate Senate activity, as it does that of the campus as a whole. The sudden emergence of the Omicron variant and its associated logistical challenges have made for a turbulent winter quarter. I want to begin by thanking all instructors who used their brief winter break to rapidly revise their teaching plans in order to pivot quickly to remote instruction for the first four weeks–and then pivoted back again to in-person instruction. It has been a rollercoaster ride, but teaching, research, and the basic work of the university continues to get done because of the dedication and hard work of the entire campus community.
Going forward, we know that the continuing COVID-19 impacts on our instruction, research, and lives will be profound. And these impacts are felt differentially, raising critically important equity concerns. The Senate is working hard to respond to these concerns. In December, I sent out the first of two reports from the systemwide Mitigating COVID-19 Impacts on Faculty Working Group (MCIF-WG), which was convened by UC Provost Michael Brown in response to a number of recommendations from the systemwide Academic Council. That preliminary report recommended that campuses should: (1) adjust expectations for promotions and merit advances to conform to the principles of Achievement Relative to Opportunities; (2) create funding programs to recover from research losses; and (3) provide campus-level support for approved modification of teaching duties. The MCIF-WG is now beginning to wrap up its work. Be on the lookout for its second and final report in the spring.
I would like to draw your attention to several other matters of importance that are ongoing. The first is an Academic Council-approved Memorial to the UC Board of Regents that reads: The University of California Academic Senate petitions the Regents for investments in UC’s infrastructure that will reduce on-campus fossil fuel combustion to 5% of current levels by 2030. If this is approved by the systemwide Academic Assembly in April, all voting members of the Senate systemwide will receive an electronic ballot, accompanied by arguments for and against the Memorial. If a majority of the voting members approve it, the Assembly will forward it to the President for transmission to the Regents, as provided for in Regents Bylaw 40.1.
On a similar note, you may be interested to learn that several UC campuses have established special or standing committees on the climate crisis. Our Senate Executive Committee (SEC) and Committee on Committees began considering legislation to establish a UC Santa Cruz Senate committee in late spring 2021. After considerable deliberation, and input from interested faculty across the campus, we have instead requested that Chancellor Larive and CPEVC Kletzer consider establishing a standing joint Senate/Administrative committee (a new format for us) on climate change. Our thinking is that this committee can take up matters in the wide array of areas where climate change touches our lives, such as curriculum, teaching, research, and campus operations, and it is our hope that we can work in partnership across these areas. At the January 25, 2022 meeting of SEC, we had a productive discussion on the matter with the Chancellor and CPEVC, and I am pleased to report we are currently working with them to formulate a structure, charge and membership to inaugurate this body.
There has been much discussion, both locally and systemwide, on the topic of faculty salaries. In response to growing pressures on both staff and faculty we believe the Office of the President is likely to propose 4.5% salary increases for staff, and a 4% range adjustment for faculty. The Academic Senate has been greatly concerned about the allocation model for these adjustments, in particular whether they will be based on full salaries, or only the on-scale portion of salaries. We are not yet sure of the outcome of our consultations with the administration on this matter, but we have argued strenuously that adjustments should be made on full salaries in the future, and perhaps adjusted retroactively as well. There is also a systemwide Senate recommendation to direct the additional 1.5% off-scale equity salary increment preferentially to faculty in the lower one-third of overall income tiers, in recognition of increasing cost-of-living expenses, particularly housing and childcare costs, affecting lower-income faculty, who are also disproportionately women and faculty from underrepresented groups. I promise to report more on this topic as it develops.
Lastly, as you will see linked below, the Senate finalized a review of the Baskin School of Engineering Regularization: A Proposal to Complete the Establishment of a Professional School of Engineering at UC Santa Cruz. The proposal imagines a 2022 completion of the 1997 project to form a fully functioning professional school of engineering on the UC Santa Cruz campus.
The proposal focuses on several areas of autonomy for the Baskin School, for example, a more direct role in School admissions, and degrees conferred including the Dean’s signature. There are many implications of the proposed changes, which the Senate has sought to highlight in our response. Our primary aim is to help the Baskin School achieve its goals, while mitigating impacts on students, administrative functions, and unforeseen enrollment challenges. I hope you will have a chance to keep abreast of this important campus development as it rolls out.
