The commission developing a new vision for UC’s future heard this week from UC Davis faculty, staff and students concerned that the state’s eroding support for higher education is weakening one of the world’s great universities.

The Nov. 30 session at UC Davis was one of several planned UC Commission on the Future meetings aimed at gathering feedback from across the UC system. The commission was created by UC Board of Regents Chair Russell Gould to address how UC can best serve the state in a time of diminishing resources. Neither Gould nor any other regent attended the UC Davis meeting.

Those speaking at the UC Davis public forum included representatives from the Academic Senate, Academic Federation, Staff Assembly and student body. About 40 student protesters showed up outside the Buehler Alumni and Visitors Center to register their noisy but civil opposition to higher fees.

‘Worries, visions’

In her opening remarks, Chancellor Linda Katehi said that it is time to speak up and to examine how the UC operates. “Share your worries and your visions,” she asked the audience.

That is just what Staff Assembly Chair Peter Blando expressed in his comments. He highlighted the value of staff and how they help faculty and students navigate the complexities of the university.

But with budget uncertainty roiling the UC landscape, he said, staff members are anxious about what happens tomorrow.

“We find it painful to look into the future here at the university,” said Blando, citing job losses and higher workloads.

Just cutting staff through layoffs is not the solution, he said. This would only result in more “errors, omissions and oversights” in projects and programs. “Faculty and students seek advice, counsel and sage wisdom from staff.”

Shared governance

John Oakley, Academic Senate vice chair and a law professor, told the panel he had mixed emotions about the commission’s mission.

“I’m here clapping with one hand. The other hand is biting my fingernails,” he said.

Faculty, Oakley said, want to be sure the commission gives them a chance to react to its proposals and that those proposals are consistent with their commitment to quality, affordability and access.

”The UC is the gold standard in research. We haven’t failed — we’ve been defunded,” he said.

Oakley strongly endorsed the shared governance aspect of the UC where the Academic Senate oversees curricula and determines UC's conditions for admissions, certificates and degrees. Under this, the regents and campus administrations determine budgetary matters and policy directions — with advisory input from the faculty.

“Anything more than incremental change needs to be identified as a promising idea,” he said.

Oakley also challenged the legitimacy of faculty members who serve at the behest of the administration on panels and other working groups. The only faculty members who can truly represent faculty, he claimed, are those chosen through the senate process.

Later on, in her closing remarks, Mary Croughan, commission panel member, Academic Council immediate past chair and a professor of epidemiology, seemed to counter Oakley’s assertion, saying that “most areas of the UC are not in the purview of the senate.”

Croughan co-chairs the research strategies working group, one of five groups analyzing UC issues — the others are reviewing the size and shape of UC, education and curriculum, funding strategies, and access and affordability.

Students question ‘efficiency’

Axel Borg, a librarian and Academic Federation member, said the UC could lose “one of the greatest libraries of all time” if draconian budget cuts continue.

While he applauded Katehi’s recent decision to re-examine the General Library’s budget situation for 2009-10 and beyond, Borg said that the library faces many serious challenges in an increasingly digitalized age. Without proper funding, he warned, the library could be forced to restrict access to its facilities.

Access and affordability were on the minds of the student speakers, who face a 32 percent fee increase and other looming changes in the year ahead.

Cassandra Paul, a graduate student in physics, said the UC should not become a “diploma factory.” She worried that the UC’s new emphasis on “efficiency” actually means cutbacks and higher fees.

“Maximizing efficiency undermines the integrity of the UC system,” she said.

Rather, Paul said, the UC’s focus should be on access and quality, as found in the 1960 California Master Plan for Higher Education that established an admissions principle of universal access and choice.

“Students are not willing to compromise the quality of this institution on the altar of efficiency,” Paul said.

Student Allison Zike challenged any notion of scaling back degree requirements so students can move through the system more quickly and inexpensively.

“Cutting degree requirements sends a message to students that our education is devalued,” said Zike, who also spoke out against more online education, increases in the numbers of higher-paying non-resident students, and faculty and staff furloughs.

Innovation, opportunity for change

In response to the student criticisms, panel member Nathan Brostrom expressed his support for student voices in the commission’s fact-finding process.

“You’re absolutely right. You are facing higher fees and reduced services. There is an issue of sticker shock,” said Brostrom, interim UC executive vice president for business operations.

At the same time, though, Brostrom said the UC must do a better job of spreading the word about its new Blue and Gold Opportunity Plan designed to cover student fees if their family earns less than $70,000 a year.

Joining Brostrom and Croughan on the panel was Peter Taylor, UC chief financial officer; Keith Williams, a UC Davis senior lecturer in neurobiology, physiology, and behavior; and Marsha Kelman, UC associate vice president for policy and analysis. Not in attendance was Daniel Simmons, Academic Senate vice chair and UC Davis professor of law, and Henry Yang, former UC Santa Barbara chancellor.

In March, working groups like the one that visited campus are due to give their recommendations to the full commission, which is expected to give its report to the Board of Regents in April.

Taylor said the UC must find a way to overcome the lack of state funding or risk tumbling from the ranks of institutional greatness.

He told a story about his father, a fiscal planner for a highly acclaimed Southern California school district, who lamented spending the last years of his career presiding over the downscaling of the once proud educational system into a mere mediocrity.

“We can do better,” Taylor said. “We have to think innovatively.”

What's next

The town hall meeting at UC Davis was one of a series of such meetings that are being held around the UC system. The last one is scheduled for Dec. 7 at UCLA.

Then come a pair of public forums: Dec. 8 in San Francisco (at the UCSF Mission Bay Community Center, 1675 Owens St., from 1:30 to 4:30 p.m.) and Jan. 19 in Southern California (time and location will be announced on the commission's Web site in January).

On the Net

UC Commission on the Future

UC Davis chancellor, students talk budget crisis, fee increases.