Text of Speeches

David Kliger
Remarks to the Academic Senate
March 6, 2009

Good Afternoon.

I want to take this opportunity to provide you with additional news on the budget, and my plans for moving forward to meet this challenge.

In my recent address to the senate I provided information on what we knew at the time about the state budget.

I discussed the actions that were being contemplated or taken by President Yudof to address the projected budget shortfalls.

I also shared with you the actions we have taken locally to respond to the mid-year budget cut as well as our planning for additional permanent reductions in 2009-10.

As you know, the state adopted a budget that reduces UC funding by $115 million.

Based on that, and associated assumptions about the share of that cut that will likely come to us, we project that we will need to permanently reduce our budget by $13M in 2009-10.

That estimate takes into account current information regarding expected increases in revenue (due to expected approval of increases in system-wide fees).

It also takes into account the estimated costs of other known mandatory increases such as academic merits and utilities.

This $13M will be captured by distributing the reductions over two broad categories:

Administrative Divisions: $8.5 million
Academic Divisions: $4.5 million

As I stated two weeks ago, the magnitude of the reductions we face will require that we reduce funding across all functions of the institution, including our core academic areas, IT and student life operations.

Earlier this week I initiated consultation with CPB and provided for their consideration my preliminary assignments of targeted reductions across the academic and academic support divisions.

I have also informed principal officers of the preliminary reduction target for their unit, and asked that they proceed now to plan for implementation of the actions that will be necessary to absorb the budgetary reductions by July 1, 2009.

My approach in assigning the divisional targets is shaped by the fact that I believe that our current situation is not one from which we will recover quickly.

I also believe it is imperative that we keep moving forward and retain the ability to invest in essential areas of opportunity and development.

To do this we must plan to reduce divisional budgets differentially.

This is a nice way of stating the hard truth that some areas within the university will endure larger cuts than others.

As you will recall, in January I had asked principal officers to provide me with a summary of how they might implement a 10 percent reduction to their operating budget.

This was done to determine how best to preserve the essential functions needed to support instruction and research.

It was important to do this, because we must acknowledge that essential functions extend far beyond the immediate classroom and/or laboratory and take place within every division on campus.

The assignment of reductions to the academic support units is based on review of those summaries, the proposed actions and the resulting impacts.

The target reductions by division range from 2.38% up to almost 10%.

For the academic divisions a similar review was done, but I applied three additional factors:

First, it is not my intention at this time to modify our academic plan – the current crisis will require adjustment to the pace and sequencing of FTE allocations, without modifying our long term goals.

Second, in considering the distribution across academic divisions, these factors were foremost in my thinking regarding short-term actions:

  • Reductions will be responsive to expected enrollment trends to ensure timely progress to degree.
  • We will consider how we can best leverage the national investments expected in the areas of health and energy independence.
  • We will support areas or programs that have the potential to make significant impacts in their field, or have a strong potential to attract private funding.

And third, a 10% reduction of state funded budgets would inevitably result in negative impacts to undergraduate and graduate instructional programs, a substantial decline in graduate student support, and a reduction of research support – moving the campus farther away from our long-term academic goals.

Therefore the resulting reductions to academic divisions are substantially less than 10%.

They range from 3.8 to 5.3%.

This is all very sobering, but let’s look at history for just a moment:

The UC system has experienced dramatic reductions of state support over the past two decades.

In fact, since 1990 when I was appointed Dean of PB Sci, there has been a succession of budget cuts.

Permanent cuts were made at the system wide and campus level in 1990-91 and every year forward through 1994-95.

That happened again at the beginning of this decade, with UCSC experiencing permanent budget reductions totaling over $25 million between 2001-02 and 2005-06.

But, let’s assess what we have been able to do over that period and how that has shaped who we are today.

Consider the following:

  • The interest in UCSC from prospective students has increased significantly during the past five years, making us increasingly selective within the UC system.
  • 55% of UCSC undergraduates report assisting faculty with research or creative activity, underscoring our commitment to undergraduate education.
  • Our six-year graduation rates have been steadily improving with our most recent rate reaching a campus high and a rate comparable to AAU institutions.
  • When normalized for size, UCSC is second only to Berkeley among UC campuses in the ratio of alumni earning doctorates to the total number of baccalaureates awarded -
    • When engineering doctorates are excluded, UCSC is first among the UCs.
  • UCSC’s core value of service is reflected in the campus’s ranking as second in the country among universities of its size for the number of alumni serving the Peace Corps.
  • During the past fifteen years, the campus has more than doubled the number of Ph.D. programs as well as doubled the number of doctoral degrees awarded.
  • UCSC’s overall citation impact was higher than all but three of all AAU institutions in the most recent 5-year period (2003-07) – when the analysis narrows its focus to public institutions, UCSC’s research impact is the highest.
  • Research awards to UCSC, reflecting the quality of our faculty and their work, increased 44% in the past five years.
  • UCSC faculty rank 9th among AAU institutions without medical schools in terms of federal research dollars per faculty member.
  • International economics, environmental science, literature, linguistics, history of consciousness and astronomy/astrophysics are consistently ranked among top 10 programs nationally.

This is impressive progress during a time when state support per student was reduced by almost 40%.

We have much to be proud of.

UCSC truly is a distinguished research university committed to high-quality undergraduate and graduate education.

Now we face further permanent budget reductions of approximately $18 million over a two-year period – $4.5M in reductions this fiscal year and the additional $13M anticipated next year.

Understandably, in the midst of this it can be difficult to imagine a bright future.

However, I am confident we will continue to progress - our past demonstrates our ability to do just that.

But it will require even more creativity and flexibility.

Let me conclude with a recent comment from one of our divisional Deans:

“Our challenge then, is to imagine and plan for a strong, stable institution with a smaller state budget, and then to make the decisions necessary to move us towards that goal…We must think hard about what aspects of our programs are truly distinctive and are critical for us to preserve, and what we are willing to give up in order to protect the things we value. We must always focus on achieving excellence in those things that we choose to do, and we must be prepared to compete successfully for those non-state resources we need to build and sustain this excellence.”

As faculty members and leaders of this campus, we have an obligation to work together with staff and students to make the changes that are now required of us.

We will, as we should, debate and deliberate.

But then we must be ready to support the decisive actions needed to preserve the strength and excellence of this exceptional place.