As UC struggles with state and federal budget cuts, UC officials are striving to marshal public support from alumni, students and parents, faculty and staff, and other members of the university "family." In this interview, Michael Reese, associate vice president for university affairs, discusses how a new advocacy campaign, called the "UC for California Alliance," is working to build enduring, broad-based financial, legislative and public support for the university.

Q: What was the impetus behind this new campaign? Reese: It was a crisis that was many years in the making. In January 2004, we found ourselves facing the fourth year of severe state budget cuts and growing uncertainty about federal support. Plus, we were grappling with the repercussions of legislative term limits in Sacramento. We no longer have the long-term support among legislators that we once enjoyed, and we haven't had the same ability to educate legislators sufficiently about the university's impact in California. All those things combined prompted us to launch a new way of doing advocacy where the focus is on building support for the many initiatives the university is embarking on today.

Q: What are the principal goals? Reese: Last year, our focus was on the state budget crisis. Now, as the budget compact with the governor appears to be holding, we have the luxury of using this year as a building year. We can begin to lay the groundwork for issues that are going to be important to us this year, and the year after, and the year after. In the long term, those issues will include graduate education, the math and science initiative, and maintaining federal financial aid and basic research support. In the short term, we need to focus on academic preparation funding. That's the one piece of the state budget where the governor's proposal is just not adequate, and we are going to fight hard for the restoration of that money.

Q: Is this advocacy program unique among top-ranked public universities? Reese: We've looked around the country at different models of university advocacy, and we've found that the UC system is emerging as the national leader in this arena. The comprehensive nature of this effort is really unique. Other universities are doing pieces of it very well, but no one has put it together the way that we have, and that speaks to the strength of our system and our ability to deploy 10 campuses around this initiative. We get several calls a month from universities across the country looking for advice in launching their own advocacy campaigns.

Q: Have you identified any best practices? Reese: In the area of recruiting industry and business leaders, which is a priority, UC Irvine has what it calls a "CEO Roundtable" that enlists regional business leaders to advocate on the university's behalf. Irvine officials have been working in partnership with UCLA to bring industry leaders from both cities up to Sacramento where they can help tell the UC impact story to legislators and also to the news media. We also have found lessons to be drawn from other universities. Interestingly enough, one of them is North Carolina State University which, under the leadership of then-Chancellor Fox (now chancellor of UC San Diego), did particularly well in forging new relationships with industry and business leaders to help make the case for greater support.

Q: What feedback have you received from alumni, students and parents? Reese: The impact of engaging grass-roots support has been born out through the "UC for California" electronic advocacy campaign, which asks people to contact the legislature and the governor on a range of issues facing the university. In just one year, that campaign has enlisted 9,000 active participants who have generated 125,000 pieces of mail, including letters, e-mail messages and faxes. That number has been growing by 33 percent every three months. Most of the growth has been among alumni, and we're now focusing on faculty, staff, students and parents. The dramatic success of the electronic campaign tells us that we have a lot of support out there.

Q: How do these recent efforts differ from UC advocacy campaigns in years past? Reese: Advocacy was previously regarded strictly as a government relations responsibility. These new efforts approach advocacy from different perspectives that have the potential to support a number of other pressing needs, not the least of which is development or private support. We now recognize that advocacy must be a collaborative process involving all of the university, its many constituencies and stakeholders. The role of the Office of the President is really to coordinate. To be most effective, the authority and responsibility for this campaign must be delegated to the campuses.

Q: How has President Dynes been involved? Reese: President Dynes has made this campaign one of his top priorities. He has seen the impact of this effort first-hand, and believes that he would not have been able to negotiate the compact with the governor, nor secure the support of the legislature for enrollment and academic preparation funding, without this new kind of advocacy effort. He has also taken this up as a personal mission as he's been traveling up and down the state as part of his continuing "tour" of California.

Q: What has been the response from elected officials so far? Reese: Many elected officials have seen us as a little arrogant in our approach to Sacramento, and have criticized us for being unwilling to get our hands "dirty," so to speak. So they have expressed appreciation that we've been willing to take advocacy to a whole new level and to engage them in a new way. As just one example, we are creating what we call a "UC Legislative Caucus" of members in Sacramento who represent the campuses and medical centers. We want to call on them when we have needs, but more importantly, we want them to call on us when they have needs. Our faculty includes some of the top experts in the world on any number of subjects. We'd like to make our expertise available to the legislature to help them when they are seeking to advance public policy.

Q: What can an individual employee do to help out? Reese: We hope our staff will recognize how incredibly influential they can be. We have conducted public opinion research that clearly indicates that "word of mouth" — what people hear from their neighbors and friends — can have greater influence than what they read in the newspapers. If you want to become involved, a good first step is to become informed about the issues facing the university. For instance, university employees know firsthand the effect budget cuts have had on salaries, on health care costs, and on workload. This, in turn, affects the quality of the institution. And when quality begins to suffer, it lessens the impact we can have on the lives of Californians. And as one recent study concluded, no other institution has had a greater impact on the lives of Californians than UC. We need more staff to tell that story. And once they do so, we will build more support.

For more about the advocacy campaign, visit: http://www.ucforcalifornia.org.