As his first year at UCLA comes to an end, Chancellor Gene Block said faculty satisfaction with quality of life is one of the most important areas in which he hopes to achieve success.
“The chancellor acknowledges that the faculty needs to feel comfortable and valued as members of the larger community,” said Vivek Shetty, immediate past chair of the Academic Senate.
The high cost of living in Los Angeles makes recruitment and retention of faculty difficult, Block said. But he added that the university has remained relatively successful in doing so.
Many worry about their salaries, benefits packages, retirement plans, health care, housing and child care options, said Shane White, chair of the senate’s Faculty Welfare Committee. The committee works with the chancellor’s administration to find solutions to these issues through the process of shared governance.
White said that, though he thinks it is unfair to fully judge the chancellor’s accomplishments this early in his career, he is pleased with the goals the chancellor has expressed for dealing with these issues and the direction in which he plans to take the university.
“He has listened to the faculty and told us things we have been delighted to hear,” White said. “He has recognized the key importance of being able to recruit and retain the highest-quality faculty.”
“A leader needs to be visible, and he has already worked very hard at that,” he added.
The chancellor is beginning to prioritize issues to determine delegation of resources and is addressing the problems by creating a committee that will work as an advisory board for him and the provost, Shetty said.
Though UCLA has managed to maintain fairly comprehensive benefits packages, faculty retention could suffer as a result of the disparity between salaries of faculty at UCLA and those at other leading research institutions, White said.
“Our overall financial reward isn’t competitive with our peer institutions’,” he added.
UCLA’s expensive location renders the issues of pay, benefits and housing even more important. Block said the university is searching for new solutions for faculty and staff housing.
Expensive housing and child care options also have a particularly negative impact on junior and female members of the faculty and their attraction to UCLA, Shetty said.
“They are our lifeblood and will sustain our excellence in years to come, so they need to be recognized early on,” he said. “They are the most vulnerable to the pushes and pulls and often the ones who are the most heavily recruited by other universities.”
Maintaining quality benefits packages while simultaneously improving salaries could also help UCLA remain competitive with other universities and desirable to high caliber professors.
Access to benefits such as the UC Retirement Plan, which has historically been one of the best in the nation, is good for all university employees, White said.
“The ability for the faculty to retire with comfort and at an appropriate time is good for university renewal and productivity,” he added.
White also said that, though the chancellor has discussed the possibility of more reasonably priced on-campus housing and child care options for faculty members, a lack of financial resources makes both options more challenging.
“His emphasis on fundraising and university development is very important,” White said, particularly because of the lack of support the university receives from the state. “The next step would be gradually moving this ship in a better direction and getting the necessary financial resources.”
Samantha Simchowitz, a student representative of the Faculty Welfare Committee, said she thinks these important issues affect UCLA students as well as staff.
“If the faculty is happy and secure in their jobs, they will be more likely to be happier and interactive with students,” she said, adding that they will also be more willing to go above and beyond in their jobs and in developing a personal connection with students.
The university needs to find viable ways to ease financial burdens on faculty and help them balance their work and personal lives to retain the quality and desirability of UCLA, Shetty said.
“At the end of the day, the excellence of UCLA derives largely from the quality of the faculty it can attract and retain,” he added.
With reports from Julia Erlandson, Bruin senior staff.