(Editor's note: This is part of an ongoing series of Dateline articles examining how campus colleges and schools are being affected by state budget cutbacks.)
Cuts in state funding to the College of Engineering have prompted an administrative reorganization and intensive efforts to reduce operating expenses and are spurring a drive to attract more private giving to the college, according to Dean Enrique Lavernia.
The college is required to make a permanent cut in funding of $710,000 over three years, starting in 2003-04. That follows a temporary mid-year cut of $456,000 (1.7 percent) imposed in 2002-03.
Most of the cuts come as a general reduction of about 6 percent in base budgets, excluding faculty salaries. They also include a targeted cut of $70,000 in the TOPS (Towards Outstanding Postgraduate Student) fellowship program.
About 60 percent of the cuts will be absorbed by the Dean's Office, with the remainder met by departments, Lavernia said.
The college will meet the cuts by reducing operating expenses, delaying replacement of equipment where possible and by reducing staff positions through attrition and retirements, he said.
Class sizes in some programs are already high and, as enrollments increase, the college continues to be concerned about adequate support for teaching, in the way of teaching assistants and lecturers, Lavernia said.
"While these budget reductions are painful, I really feel that this provides us with an opportunity to change how we do things," Lavernia said. "It's an opportunity to take a really hard look at the way we are providing services."
For example, the college recently reorganized its undergraduate office. The office now has two units, Student Services and Academic Enrichment and Recruitment, reporting to Associate Dean Gary Ford. The MESA (Math, Engineering and Science Achievement) Center (including the pre-college program and the college MESA Engineering Program), the Center for Engineering Professionalism, the Women in Engineering program and the Engineering Undergraduate Research program will now be within the new AER unit.
Lavernia acknowledged that these changes will require greater cooperation among college staff and said that he had met with students and staff to discuss their concerns.
The college has seen dramatic growth in the past five years, Lavernia said. Undergraduate enrollments are up by 23 percent over the last five years to 3,310 and graduate enrollments are well over 1,000, a 45 percent increase in the same time. The impact on college graduate admissions means several departments are unable to admit as many as 20 to 50 percent of UC-eligible applicants.
At the same time, research grant awards have also grown dramatically, reaching nearly $80 million in 2001-02.
The college is also recruiting 20 new faculty this year. Lavernia said new faculty would attract grant income to the college by developing new research areas and exploiting funding opportunities in interdisciplinary areas and emerging areas of research in engineering.
Lavernia said he is especially concerned about staff workload due to more students, more faculty and more research grants. "That means things will take longer to do," he said. Due to workload, the college has seen very little participation in the START voluntary time reduction program, introduced in May this year as a way of reducing staff salary costs.
Norman Tien, chair of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, echoed those comments.
"It's a double challenge for us as we are a growing department," he said. A quarter of the department's faculty are new assistant professors, six of them hired in the last two years. New hires are "hungry" for grants but that means more work for support staff, amplifying budget problems, Tien said.
While the department's undergraduate student population had remained stable, partly because of a shortage of faculty, the number of graduate students had grown rapidly following the tech industry downturn. About 15 percent of graduate applications for UC Davis were for electrical and computer engineering, he said.
Tien said his department had made some cuts, but was still looking at the situation to see where further cuts could be made. Faculty positions are exempt from the cuts, leaving a much more limited scope for budget reductions, he said.
Lavernia said that the college was stepping up its efforts to attract charitable gifts. For example, the college recently received gifts of $2.5 million from professor emeritus Warren H. Giedt and his wife, Leta, and $3 million from DTL Mori Seiki, a West Sacramento company working in computer-aided machine tools.
"The college as a whole has not yet reached a baseline of stable giving. There is potential to be realized," he said.
Graduate student fellowships and endowed chairs with discretionary funds were two areas suitable for funding by charitable gifts, Tien said. Such funding could release departmental funds for other needs.
Rida Farouki, chair of the Department of Mechanical and Aeronautical Engineering, said that his department had tried to anticipate the budget problems and had shed most temporary positions. Some teaching commitments previously met by external speakers had been taken over by department faculty. The department also cut funds available to faculty for minor classroom needs from $2,000 per year to $1,200.
"Barring catastrophic cuts, I think we can cope for the coming year," he said.
Despite some apprehension about the 2004-05 budget, Lavernia said that he felt UC Davis was particularly well poised for success.
"We're a very broad university with a strong interdisciplinary culture," he said.