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Former University of California Chancellors Urge New Funding Models for UC

Research & Occasional Paper Series: CSHE.15.11 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY http://cshe.berkeley.edu/ FORMER UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA CHANCELLORS URGE NEW FUNDING MODELS FOR UC October 2011 ABSTRACT In this era of massive budget cuts, the survival of the University of California as a great institution of learning has become the subject of increasingly urgent debate. Twenty-two of the twenty-nine living former UC chancellors met in San Francisco on June 26-28, 2011 to discuss the current threats facing the University and all of California public higher education. Although the chancellors were not unanimously agreed on every point, there was general consensus regarding the principal recommendations on funding the University and protecting its quality. On August 4, 2011 they sent UC President Mark Yudof this report on their discussions. Dear President Yudof: Thank you for joining us during our assembly of former UC chancellors in San Francisco on June 26-28. As you know, this meeting involved 22 of the 29 living former chancellors. Some of us served as long ago as the 1960s, and one of us was involved in drafting the 1960 California Master Plan for Higher Education; all of us share a deep concern for the University of California. Vice President Patrick Lenz’s comprehensive presentation on the budget was immensely useful to our discussions, and we especially appreciate your taking the time to give us your perspective on UC as well as listening to our thoughts and suggestions. As we promised, we are writing now to share some of the ideas that came out of our two-day meeting. Our first message is that we support the actions you and the Regents are taking to address the current fiscal crisis and want you to know of our desire to help in any way we can. There can be no doubt that the University faces the most far-reaching restructuring of public higher education in this state since the 1960 Master Plan. Today’s California, however, is very different from the California of 1960. The Master Plan was the product of a disciplined and coordinated effort by the leaders of California’s public and private colleges and universities to create a better and more stable future, grounded in the conviction that higher education is a public good. Today’s restructuring is the sad outcome of decades of ballot-box budgeting, unfunded mandates, and other political restrictions on the rational use of the State’s General Fund. The unintended consequence is that the University of California and the California State University have been relegated to struggling for essential support within the 15 percent of the State budget that remains discretionary and within the Legislature’s control. Our two institutions are now the single easiest target for budget reductions. High levels of public approval and low levels of State funding have become a pattern in California. A UC or CSU education is, by default, increasingly treated as an exclusively private good, rather than as the benefit to society it was traditionally held to be. This can have only one outcome for the University. The Regents and the UC community will ultimately be forced to decide whether the University will continue to be among the best universities—not just one of the better public universities—in the world. We consider it imperative that the choice be the more difficult path of remaining a great university. So it is critical to understand where the budget news leads and what can be done about it. It goes without saying that the faculty are pivotal. They are the ones who will create new academic models and new and more efficient educational delivery systems. For this reason, we are especially worried about faculty recruitment and retention; a central mechanism for tracking both might be useful to you and the chancellors. We are just as concerned about maintaining the quality of graduate education and opportunities for research. The University must have an evolving intellectual agenda in key areas of research, scholarship, and education, developed by the faculty, articulated by the chancellors and the president, and supported by the Regents. This is what attracts faculty to the University and creates rallying points for the state’s opinion leaders, the general public, and our students.