SAN FRANCISCO ““ The UC Board of Regents set the stage for
a look into new strategies to help the university system ride out
future financial difficulties at their meeting Wednesday.
UC President Robert Dynes told reporters after the meeting that
the ideas to be discussed at their November meeting would border on
“revolutionary.”
At this point, the board does not have any specific information
on what these new tactics will be, but Dynes said the board plans
to brainstorm over the next few months.
For now, University of California officials said no long-term
strategies to mitigate the effects of future funding cuts would be
ruled out, and the university may use increased private support,
student fee increases and more restrictive admissions.
Due to the uncertainty caused by the UC’s relationship
with the Legislature, regents said they have to prepare for the
worst in terms of funding cuts.
“We have a very unreliable partner in the
Legislature,” Regent John Moores said. “We’re
losing ground to the privates and the privates know it.”
Some regents expressed frustration with the board’s lack
of adequate response to recent funding cuts.
“We’re having meetings like this, but we’re
not coming up with solutions,” Regent George Marcus said.
State contribution to UCLA’s operating budget fell from
20.7 percent to just 15 percent since 1997, a dip that has led to
increases in tuition for undergraduate and graduate students.
UCLA Undergraduate Students Associations Council External Vice
President Jeannie Biniek spoke at the public comment period
Wednesday about how these fee increases have affected her
personally.
“I must work more than 20 hours a week in order to be able
to pay,” she said. “I haven’t been able to excel
and be where I hoped I’d be because I have to deal with an
unimaginable work burden.”
Regents also discussed the growing salary gap between UC faculty
and faculty at comparable private schools, which some university
officials said would gradually deteriorate academic quality at the
10 UC campuses.
“The erosion has been going on for decades and people here
assume the quality will remain,” Dynes said.
The regents pointed to some ways the decrease in funding has had
a visible impact on the university, including the UC’s
slipping student-to-faculty ratio and an inability to maintain many
of the new buildings recently erected at various campuses.
Throughout much of the nearly six-hour meeting, a mood of
disinterest permeated the board table ““ UCLA Chancellor
Albert Carnesale fiddled with his BlackBerry and Lieutenant
Governor Cruz Bustamante quietly joked with Regent Judith
Hopkinson. UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert Birgeneau answered his
cell phone during one of the morning’s presentations.
Also on Wednesday’s agenda was an update on the UC’s
ongoing bid to continue control of the Los Alamos National
Laboratory. The Department of Energy recently opened the
facility’s contract to competition amid a series of
mismanagement allegations over the past few years and protest from
some students that the UC should not be involved with a facility
that deals with nuclear weapons development.
The UC is currently in competition with a team formed by the
University of Texas and Lockheed Martin. The Department of Energy
is expected to announce its pick by the end of the year.
The UC recently partnered with San Francisco-based engineering
company Bechtel National to improve the security at the embattled
nuclear facility.
Regents Chairman Gerald Parsky, who also sits on the board
revamping security at the lab, said the UC-Bechtel team has made
significant strides toward improving the UC’s bid.
“We’ve made it very clear that we recognize that
things needed to change,” Parsky said, echoing many of the
day’s speakers who agreed the lab had turned a new page.
Dynes reminded the audience, the press and the regents that the
fate of the UC’s bid for Los Alamos would have significant
implications on the lab’s future and how the institution will
be run.
Wednesday also marked the first meeting for two newly appointed
regents, Russell Gould and Leslie Schilling, while the board also
discussed the impending departure of Carnesale, who recently
announced his resignation after eight years at UCLA.
“(Carnesale) has been an outstanding university leader and
a wonderful colleague,” Dynes said.
Dynes also announced that he’d soon begin the search for a
replacement, noting that the search for a new chief executive at
UCLA was especially important for the university.
“This is a serious one and I plan to take it very
seriously,” Dynes said.