The University of California made a big purchase last week. For roughly double the $421,000 annual salary of current UC President Robert C. Dynes, Mark Yudof, chancellor of the University of Texas system, will become the new CEO of our university. Now we’ve got make sure he’s worth his salt.
Some students have wrung their hands about the size of his salary. These complaints are understandable, particularly at a time when state funding for the UC has been declining. Fee increases also lie threateningly on the horizon, and students want to know that the UC’s limited resources are being well spent.
Nonetheless, relative to the UC’s $417 million budget deficit, $800,000 really isn’t much. The pay is hardly extravagant, either; the guy is taking a pay cut to come here.
Instead of fretting about a few dollars, we should make sure Yudof’s priorities are straight when he sets up shop in Oakland and that he follows through to solve the big problems his predecessor could not.
The UC has three major problems right now. The first is financial. Over the past 20 years, state funding per student has dropped more than 40 percent. As I’ve argued before, increases in fees and aid can partially offset these losses without hurting accessibility, but they won’t solve the problem. During this decline in funding, the UC’s lobbying operation in Sacramento has dwindled in size. We actually have a larger operation in Washington, D.C. than we do in Sacramento!
The UC should not be less competitive just because it is a public system. Unfortunately, a decline in our stature is inevitable if the state continues to underfund the system. Yudof must beef up our lobbying operation and make sure that the UC is the first priority in next year’s budget.
The other two problems are organizational. Since the compensation scandal of 2005, when regents were found to have granted pay increases without review by the full board, the regents have been trying hard to be more transparent and have involved themselves more with the functions of the university. In the process, though, the lines have blurred between the board, the campuses and the UC Office of the President, which is responsible for the state-wide coordination of services.
A recent report by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges criticized the regents for their uncoordinated decision-making process. Perhaps more telling, Chairman of the Regents Richard Blum wrote recently that, on the board, “the right hand is frequently unaware of what the left hand is doing.”
D’Artagnan Scorza, the student regent-designate, sympathizes with the board’s problems. He notes, however, that the board has gone too far in its push for transparency and has gotten stuck in the details. The regents are so caught up in the minutiae of each budget cycle that there’s no time to plan for the long term. It takes years now for the university to approve construction projects and months for it to approve the hiring of administrators. These delays are unacceptable.
The board has hired a consulting firm to oversee a reform. Certain regents, too, have started working on specific areas of reform. Yudof’s job will be to make sure all of this works well. The board must become more efficient, so that the university can be nimble in responding to the challenges of the day.
Finally, Yudof will need to oversee a reform of the Office of the President itself. The office has been characterized by some as a wasteful bureaucracy, and much of the plan to eliminate this year’s budget deficit involves cutting jobs in the office and decentralizing university services to the campuses. Some of this might be a good way to save money, but Yudof will have to manage UCOP’s reform carefully.
Scorza points out that many services, such as the community college transfer program, need leadership at the campus and state levels. UCLA, for instance, cannot coordinate with all of the Cal States and community colleges to facilitate transfers. But if the program is decentralized entirely, it may be harder for students in say, the Central Valley, to transfer here. Yudof must make sure that services are decentralized rationally, instead of just being scattered to the wind in a massive push against bureaucracy.
Managing the best public university in the world is a big job. Rightly, it deserves big pay. That pay, however, must be for good performance. Let’s make sure that Yudof delivers.
What do you think Yudof’s priorities should be? E-mail Reed at treed@media.ucla.edu. Send general comments to viewpoint@media.ucla.edu.