Dear colleagues,
I am excited to share with you the results of the inaugural Chancellor’s Innovation Awards.
This program, which I announced last February, was created as a vehicle for recognizing and rewarding staff members who develop innovative ideas designed to benefit the campus through enhanced efficiencies, custom services and operational excellence.
Colleagues,
As many of you know, Elisabeth Gunther has been serving as UC Merced’s campus counsel in a part-time capacity since 2008. As the campus has grown in size and complexity, her work with UC Merced has increased and, as of the beginning of the 2015-16 fiscal year, Elisabeth will step into this role in a full-time capacity, hence serving as the campus’s first Chief Campus Counsel.
Colleagues,
From its founding, UC Merced has distinguished itself as a center for innovation and entrepreneurial spirit. These qualities are as important today as they were at the beginning. We face challenges that will require us to be a leader among UC campuses, if not national higher education, in organizational excellence, customer service, process efficiencies and a positive work environment.
Dear Faculty and Staff,
As we begin to wrap up the fall semester, I’d like to provide you with an update on campus developments that potentially affect all of us and answers to questions that have surfaced recently.
Strategic Workforce Planning
Dear colleagues,
Congratulations on wrapping up our 10th academic year last week! Final exams were administered, papers read, projects evaluated and grades assigned. Much behind-the-scenes work was also completed to ensure the year ended on a high note.
As I watched more than 1,100 graduates walk across the stage this weekend at commencement, I marveled at how far we’ve come as a campus in a short decade – from stellar research and academic programs to an array of athletics and student life options and much, much more.
As everyone hoped would happen, UC President Janet Napolitano and Governor Jerry Brown have reached a compromise resolution with respect to UC funding for the next few fiscal years that brings more resources into the UC and minimizes student tuition and fees.
According to the agreement, there will be no tuition increases for the next two years for in-state undergraduate students; in subsequent years, the increase will likely follow the rate of inflation.
Dear faculty and staff,
I want to report back to you on the 2020 Project update I gave this morning at the UC Board of Regents meeting in San Francisco. As I explained in my note to you earlier this week, this was an informational session to bring the Regents up to speed on the scope of the project and the strategy we’re proposing to deliver the project as quickly and cost-effectively as possible.
Dear faculty and staff,
One of our top priorities over the last few years has been to find creative means of adding sufficient new facilities by the end of the decade to ease existing space constraints and support enrollment growth to 10,000 students, despite uncertain levels of state funding. Today, I want to advise you of a major step forward in our “2020 Project” planning that we believe will achieve these objectives quite effectively.
Colleagues,
From its founding, UC Merced has distinguished itself as a center for innovation and entrepreneurial spirit. These qualities are as important today as they were at the beginning. We face challenges that will require us to be a leader among UC campuses, if not national higher education, in organizational excellence, customer service, process efficiencies and a positive work environment.
Dear faculty and staff,
As we begin to wrap up the fall semester, I’d like to provide you with an update on campus developments that potentially affect all of us and answers to questions that have surfaced recently.
Strategic Workforce Planning
