Dear Colleagues:
Welcome back to campus for the spring semester. I hope 2012 is off to a very good start for each of you.
The return to campus following the winter break always comes with an upswing of activity and news from the state legislative arena. Earlier this month, Gov. Brown released his proposed budget for 2012-13, which contains good news for the University of California. His proposal restores some funding to the UC system by including $90 million as part of the state's obligation to contribute to the University of California Retirement Program. The proposal also maintains supplemental funding support for UC Merced at $5 million and rolls this funding into the UC budget base, hence eliminating the need to include the funding annually as a line-item budget request.
As you know, the governor's proposed budget marks the beginning of a long legislative process. Additionally, it is built on revenue assumptions that include voter approval of a ballot initiative in November that proposes a temporary 1 to 2 percent income tax increase for individuals earning $250,000 or more and a sales tax increase of one-half of 1 percent. Should the initiative fail, new budget triggers would be pulled, including a massive cut to K-14 education and $200 million each to UC and California State University systems.
While the governor's budget proposal is in many ways a hopeful start for UC, it is merely a framework that will see many changes in the months ahead as it moves through the Legislature and, ultimately, the November election. I urge you to help me fight for the University of California in Sacramento. Your voice counts with our elected officials. If you haven't already done so, please sign up to be a UC Merced Advocate at UCforCalifornia.org. You'll receive alerts and calls to action at important points during the budget process when our elected officials need to hear from the UC Merced community.
The governor's budget proposal also includes some changes in the Cal Grant program that we will need to monitor closely. Under the proposal, the minimum grade-point average would be raised in order for students to qualify for the grants. The proposed change could negatively impact UC Merced students who depend on Cal Grants as part of their financial aid package.
Annual Budget Call for 2012-13
Later this week, the annual budget call for next fiscal year will be distributed to the deans and division heads. The call kicks off UC Merced's internal process for receiving and reviewing new funding requests for the upcoming fiscal year. This process always results in new funding requests that far exceed the new revenue that the university will receive. Thus, decisions about new funding can be sources of conflict and concern within the campus. As such, it's critical for the campus community to understand campus funding priorities, funding needs across the university, and decision-making processes and priorities.
During this year's budget process, we intend to post new funding requests, which are due in March, on a password-protected website so that any member of the university community who wants to review these requests can easily do so. We've also expanded the Budget Committee, which makes funding recommendations to the chancellor, to include all vice chancellors and deans in addition to two staff, two faculty and two student representatives. The new composition of the committee will help to ensure that each division headed by a vice chancellor and each school has a voice at the decision-making table and an opportunity to explain fully the new funding requests that they have submitted for consideration.
Additionally, we have shifted to a more strategic approach to developing the campus budget by identifying six key institutional objectives for new funding consideration. The objectives are as follows:
- to strengthen critical research infrastructure;
- to strengthen interdisciplinary research;
- to enhance student academic support and improve student success and retention;
- to address faculty or staff retention challenges;
- to improve operational efficiency or effectiveness; and
- to ensure campus safety or compliance with state and federal laws and regulations.
Each new funding request must explain how the funds requested will be used to advance one or more of these institutional priorities. Intended outcomes and success measures also must be clearly articulated and included as part of the new funding request.
Because we anticipate that only a very modest sum of new dollars will be available to support new funding requests for FY 2012-13, we will limit the number of requests that come forward from each division, school, institute or center. The Budget Committee will rank requests into three tiers and provide a brief, written rationale for each ranking. Once I have received these rankings, I will make final — and no doubt very difficult — decisions, and then explain these decisions and the results of the Budget Committee's deliberations to the broader university community in an open forum.
Next year, for fiscal year 2013-14, we will launch broader campus conversations about our annual budget process and move toward even greater transparency.
Demand for UC Merced
With an eye on the coming academic year we recently announced prospective undergraduate student application data for Fall 2012. You may recall that total enrollment reached nearly 5,200 this past fall — a 19 percent increase over the previous year. I am very pleased to report that demand for UC Merced continues to rise as evidenced by a nearly 10 percent increase in applications for the coming school year.
Graduate applications are also up compared to last year at this time — yet another positive sign of the growing reputation of UC Merced's faculty and academic and research programs. Growing the number of highly qualified graduate students is critical to UC Merced's research university mission, and we will see increased emphasis on this area in the coming years. Final application results will be available in the spring.
While the growing popularity of a UC Merced education is certainly a positive sign of the success of our young university, I also recognize that the growth in student enrollment has outpaced the university’s ability to build the research, instructional and support space needed to accommodate this growth. As I've discussed with faculty and staff in various forums, we therefore intend to moderate growth of the undergraduate student body in the 2012-13 academic year to ensure a quality experience for all. Instead of the initially planned growth of 600 new net students, our goal is to accommodate 400 this fall.
Update on Various Campus Initiatives
I am pleased to report that we are making progress on several important initiatives that I have previously discussed with you, including space challenges for administrative and support staff, automation of business processes and internal communications.
Space for Administrative and Support Staff
Not surprisingly, the recently completed assessment of space needs for administrative and support staff revealed a serious space deficit for these functions that echoes our shortage of instructional and research space. The Division of Student Affairs, in particular, is seriously impacted by the shortage of on-campus space, but the assessment revealed that there are some critical on-campus space needs in other areas as well.
The space assessment also revealed that a significant number of administrative and support functions are eligible to be moved to off-campus locations, thereby increasing the on-campus space available for critical student and instructional support.
Unfortunately, off-campus space currently leased by the university is also limited. This means that in the near term, only modest off-campus relocation can occur. I expect vice chancellors to reach agreement collectively on these initial relocations within the next 10 days or so, and also to identify the support areas that will be moved into these soon-to-be-vacated on-campus spaces. Capital Planning & Space Management, which provided analytical support for the space assessment process, will soon post online its findings and survey data for broader campus review.
Going forward, it will be critical to continue our efforts to meet UC Merced's space needs through construction of new facilities on campus as well as through the identification of additional off-campus space.
Automation of Business Processes
The automation of business processes emerged as a clear and compelling campus priority during my initial listening sessions across campus last fall. Thus, I am pleased to report progress in this area.
Earlier this year, the Department of Information Technology created a Document Management Committee tasked with developing the functional requirements needed for an enterprise document-management system. Once identified and implemented, the system should benefit the entire campus by providing functionality such as imaging, document storage and retrieval, workflow, online forms and business-process automation. My understanding is that the committee has made considerable progress (see documents posted on the committee's website). I know that you will join me in looking forward to a document-management solution that reduces the frustration currently encountered with cumbersome paper-based processes while improving our daily work lives and organizational effectiveness.
Internal Communications
Internal communications also emerged as a clear and compelling campus priority during my initial months as your new chancellor. Based on the input provided by you in the campus survey on internal communications conducted last fall, we know there are a number of key internal communications challenges related to how we share (or fail to share) important information across the university.
Recently, my senior team met with a communications consultant to review survey results and to determine how best to respond to UC Merced's organizational communications challenges. We agreed to create a comprehensive plan that will address the internal communications needs of our fast-growing, resource-constrained campus as effectively as possible. In particular, we'll be looking to strengthen critical internal communications tools such as the website and intranet. Accomplishing these objectives will benefit from additional insights from you in a number of areas as we move forward.
Campus Construction and Impacts
If you work on campus, you have undoubtedly noticed the upswing in construction projects. The ongoing work is part of the largest construction push at UC Merced since the campus opened for operations in 2005.
While construction projects currently under way are causing parking, traffic and other challenges, I am confident the end result will provide more critically needed physical space to accommodate our growing campus community. The resulting four new buildings — Science and Engineering Building 2, Student Services Building, Housing 4 and Recreation Center North — will expand our physical facilities by approximately 25 percent and provide additional research, academic, housing and recreation space.
The Recreation Center North building will be the first to come online, with an expected opening date in August. When that project is completed, the Library Lot 2 is expected to reopen for faculty and staff who possess preferred parking permits.
More detailed information about the ongoing projects and their impact on traffic and parking will be included in the February issue of Panorama, our campus' monthly electronic newsletter. Additionally, Physical Planning, Development and Construction (PPDC) has promised to launch a website that will include updates on construction, so stay tuned for more information.
Supporting Our Local Community
A chili cook-off and bread bake-off on Jan. 12 launched this year's United Way fundraising campaign. Twenty-six UC Merced employees participated in the contest, which raised $808 for United Way. Even if you weren't able to participate in this fun event, I hope you will join me in donating to support programs that directly benefit those in need right here in Merced County. Learn more about our local United Way and how you can support it through donations or volunteering.
I also want to express my appreciation to the faculty and staff who donated to the Toy Drive at the campus’ Holiday Reception in December. Our generous employees donated more than 80 wrapped toys, which were delivered to the United Way for distribution in Merced County. It's heartwarming to know we were able to bring a smile to so many children here locally during the holidays.
These charitable efforts help to reinforce the service leg of the UC Merced mission, which complements our fast-growing capabilities in research and teaching. As always, I thank you sincerely for your dedicated, often heroic efforts on all three fronts.
Sincerely,
Dorothy Leland
Chancellor
