Napolitano discusses compensation, reduced funding with UC faculty

Recent funding cuts remained the top concern among faculty across the University of California during a web chat with President Janet Napolitano on Tuesday afternoon.

“We have stabilized from the deep cuts during the recession,” Napolitano said. “Now the question is how we move forward and continue to invest in academic quality and in the classrooms for our students.”

The hour-long Google Hangout was the fourth in a series of online discussions Napolitano has been conducting with various groups of the University to understand the demands and concerns of the UC community. Previously, she had spoken to students, staff and alumni. This was the first time Napolitano held the chat with faculty members.

Faculty and Napolitano also discussed faculty compensation, the diversity of University leadership, the future of online courses in the UC and issues of licensing and financial aid for undocumented medical school students.

Though the six faculty panelists in the web chat came from different campuses and departments, all shared concerns about the impacts of recent federal and state funding cuts on the University’s faculty and students.

Federal research funding, which supports about 60 percent of the University’s research activities, has been declining since 2009 and has fallen to levels not seen since the early 2000s, according to the 2014 Accountability Report. In part, the federal sequester effective March 2013, which cut research and development spending across the board, caused this decline.

In 2010, the UC received about 7.4 percent or more than $2.7 billion worth of all federally funded research money, making it one of the largest recipients in the country, according to data from the Center for Measuring University Performance. Although state funding for the University is increasing, it remains about 20 percent below that in the 2007-08 fiscal year.

“Every tax dollar invested in the UC has brought much more returns to the state through the technology and science discovered and the talent trained,” said Kristofer Pister, professor of electrical engineering and computer sciences at UC Berkeley.

In particular, the reduced research funding is especially affecting junior faculty who may be less likely to receive grants, said Rudy Ortiz, associate professor of biological sciences at UC Merced.

“Studies have shown that the most significant discoveries are made earlier in scientists’ career, meaning we’re leaving a lot of good science on the table,” Napolitano said in response.

Kimberly Lau, a professor of literature at UC Santa Cruz, also inquired about the University’s support for the UC Humanities’ Network, an umbrella group that connects and coordinates the University’s humanities’ initiatives, and the UC Humanities Research Institute, a multi-campus research unit that supports interdisciplinary research.

“These (institutions) have often been treated more as projects than vital infrastructure in the eyes of the UC, despite the critical interdisciplinary work they support,” Lau said.

In response to these concerns, Napolitano said the UC is looking to create grants aimed at younger faculty and will reexamine the University’s support for the humanities.

Audiences viewing the discussion were also invited to pose questions to Napolitano. Gina Sosinsky, a professor of neuroscience at UC San Diego, asked about the lack of support for “soft money” faculty who bring in large research grants, as well as a financial safety net for mid-level non-tenure track faculty.

Pay for faculty at the UC is currently about 12 percent lower than that of its comparative private and public institutions, according to the 2014 Accountability Report.

Napolitano said the University is increasing funding for faculty startup packages, which helps new faculty to begin their research, and to match the offers from other competing institutions.

A faculty member also voiced a concern about an increasing number of nonresident students in the University, which the UC said it needs to enroll to make up for the decline in state funding following the recent recession.

“With the tough budget times, there’s strong pressure to admit more out of state students to raise tuition revenue,” Pister said. “But as a California resident and tax payer, these are some serious red flags.”

Currently, about 13 percent of the University’s student population is from out of state, including international students. Yet, about 20 percent of the University’s and 30 percent of UCLA’s freshmen population came from out of state for the 2014-15 year.

“There is a great desire from other campuses to grow their out-of-state population, because campuses get to keep the (supplemental) tuition revenue,” Napolitano said. She added that chancellors have been considering imposing an out-of-state population cap, though details for that have yet to be worked out.

The group also discussed the absence of a systemwide policy regarding undocumented students attending medical and other professional schools at the UC.

A few weeks ago, Gov. Jerry Brown signed into legislation a proposal by the UC to create a revolving loan fund to provide financial aid for students who are under Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals.

Though it is still unclear whether the fund will be open to professional graduate students, Napolitano said the University believes qualified students trained by the UC deserve to have opportunities to serve in their profession.

On the issue of online education, Napolitano said online learning can be a useful tool to address the bottle neck problems for some popular courses, though she said it will not become an essential element of UC education.

“I don’t think you can get a quality university education by taking a few online courses,” she said. “There’s just something about having students and professors together in a physical setting.”

The availability of online courses, however, may help some students graduate on track in four years, an important advantage, Napolitano said.