Delany, a professor and former chair of animal science, became an associate dean in 2009 and served as interim dean for almost a year and a half, until January 2014 when Helene Dillard assumed the top post in CA&ES.

Dillard described Delany as “exceptionally well qualified” to be the executive associate dean, noting the success she has had as a department chair, associate dean and interim dean. She performed “admirably” as interim dean, “bringing stability internally to the faculty, staff and students, and externally to our stakeholders,” Dillard said.

“I have worked closely with Mary since I began my tenure as dean, and I value the dedication and commitment she has to our college.”

Delany, an avian geneticist, holds the John and Joan Fiddyment Endowed Chair in Agriculture. She joined UC Davis in 1995 with a joint appointment in the departments of Avian Sciences and Animal Science (the departments merged in 1997); she served as the animal science chair from 2005 to 2009.

She has successfully led strategic planning efforts at both the departmental and college levels, and is known as a strategic and thoughtful leader who listens to all perspectives, Dillard said. 

Delany’s responsibilities as the executive associate dean include:

• Work with the associate deans in regard to organization, structure and function of college programs and initiatives.
• Provide oversight, coordination and stewardship of college resources, facilities and programs.
• Represent the college in land use, and space and capital expenditures projects; and serve on campus planning groups.

•••

Vice Provost Carolyn de la Peña of Undergraduate Education announced two appointments, each the culmination of an internal search:

• Psychology professor Matt Traxler, interim associate vice provost, a one-year, 50 percent appointment, effective Aug. 1. A search will be conducted during the new academic year to fill the post permanently, de la Peña said.

The vice provost said Traxler has a strong history of leadership in undergraduate education at UC Davis. He served as the chair of the psychology department’s undergraduate education committee for six years, and has served on the Academic Senate’s Undergraduate Council for five years, including two years as chair. “In that capacity, he has made significant improvements in the program review process in collaboration with administration and colleagues in the senate,” de la Peña said.

Traxler has conducted research to identify negative consequences of nonenforcement of prerequisites, and, according to de la Peña, has helped to foster a positive culture of assessment at UC Davis. He was a member of the steering committee for the university's recent accreditation review by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges.

As associate vice provost, Traxler will collaborate with campus leadership in several areas to support student success, for example, by working to ensure the program review process leads to concrete improvements to the student experience; and by participating in projects to renovate classrooms and conceptualize 21st-century learning environments.

He will directly supervise staff in UE’s Center for Leadership Learning and the Washington Program, and provide support for Undergraduate Education’s accreditation efforts.

“Matt will make significant contributions to our efforts to ensure that all UC Davis undergraduates receive the highest quality educational experience,” de la Peña said.

Traxler, who joined the faculty of the Department of Psychology and Center for Mind and Brain since 2002, researches the processes that underlie language comprehension.

• Helen Schurke Frasier is moving from the Office of Graduate Education to the Office of Undergraduate Education, to serve as assistant vice provost effective Aug. 11.

De la Peña said Frasier has broad experience in analyzing educational issues, conceptualizing programs and processes, and partnering with the Academic Senate, as well as expertise in persistence and retention issues.

As assistant vice provost, Frasier will serve as the chief administrative officer for Undergraduate Education, and will have responsibility for core staff supervision, strategic planning and the implementation of new programs. Her oversight duties will take in Academic Advising, English as a Second Language and Entry Level Writing, and she will collaborate with unit directors in setting goals, managing budgets and achieving academic improvements. 

In addition, she will work with other campus units, including Budget and Institutional Analysis and the University Registrar, to ensure that enrollment growth is managed effectively, and will support Undergraduate Education’s strategic planning, and time-to-degree and accreditation efforts.  

She has worked in the office of the vice provost of Graduate Education and the dean of Graduate Studies since 2007, and has served as the director of analysis and policy since 2009. In that position, according to de la Peña, Frasier has contributed greatly to graduate student success through policy analysis and program development, designing and implementing the Mentoring at Critical Transitions program and working extensively on the graduate academic program review process.

•••

Marcie Kirk Holland has been appointed to lead the Internship and Career Center where she has worked for 22 years. When the appointment takes effect July 29, she will be the center’s first permanent, full-time, staff-level director. 

The center is losing its faculty director, Subhash Risbud, who will become co-chair of the Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science. He joined the Internship and Career Center in 2005, when it was part of Academic Affairs; now Student Affairs has responsibility for the center, thus the need for a staff-level director instead of a faculty director.

Lora Jo Bossio, associate vice chancellor of Student Affairs, announced Kirk Holland’s appointment, noting that she has more than 25 years of career counseling experience and is nationally recognized as a leader in developing strategies and best practices in career development.

Kirk Holland started at the ICC in 1992 as an internship coordinator (a position now known as a career service specialist). Under a reorganization in 2007, she joined the management team as project manager, a position subsequently retitled assistant director.

She has served as an adjunct faculty member at California State University, Sacramento, and Chapman University, where she designed and taught master’s-level career development courses to graduate students in the masters in counseling and masters in education programs.

Bossio noted Kirk Holland’s “keen eye for spotting trends and leveraging opportunities to prepare our students for the global economy,” for example, in helping to develop the Oaxaca (Mexico) Quarter Abroad program, and as a co-founder of Global and Local Opportunities Begin with Education, or GLOBE.

“Marcie has a history of program development and innovation along with experienced leadership in cross-campus collaboration,” Bossio said.

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Updated July 1: Kelly Ratliff and Karl Mohr took up their new posts today, Ratliff at Finance and Reource Management, and Mohr at Campus Planning, Facilities and Safety.

•••

By Dateline staff

Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi on Friday (June 6) put into effect her earlier announced plan to divide Administrative and Resource Management, and appointed a new associate chancellor, Professor Prasant Mohapatra, to lead the campus’s effort toward further administrative realignment and transformation.

Mohapatra, former chair of the Department of Computer Science, moves into his new role after a year as the campus’s interim chief information officer and vice provost of Information and Educational Technology. The campus is expected to name a new CIO-IET vice provost within a couple of weeks.

The ARM split had been awaiting the appointment of a new vice chancellor to lead the financial side, in the role of chief financial officer. The CFO recruitment is underway, with a selection expected by January.

In the meantime, longtime ARM Vice Chancellor John Meyer decided to leave the university. The search for his replacement will begin in the fall, with an appointment expected by July 2015.

The interim leadership plan, effective July 1, splits ARM as follows, under two senior associate vice chancellors, both of whom are veteran UC Davis executives:

• Kelly Ratliff, the campus’s chief budget officer, who will now have responsibility for a unit called Finance and Resource Management, which includes the Shared Services Center and Human Resources.

• Karl Mohr, assistant executive vice chancellor in the provost’s office, who will now have responsibility for Campus Planning, Facilities and Safety.

(Each unit's name is different than what was announced originally.)

All this transition, Katehi said, provides an opportune time “to take stock of our overall administrative structure” — the task she assigned to Mohapatra.

“To ensure that our administrative and management configuration is on a par with the excellence of and in support of our academic mission, it is important for us to examine in a comprehensive manner whether there are other administrative realignments that would enable an effective, versatile and transparent administration in support of an institution that aspires to be a leader nationally and internationally,” Katehi said. 

Ratliff and Mohr

Today, Ratliff serves as associate vice chancellor for Budget and Institutional Analysis. “Kelly has provided stalwart counsel and leadership through the past few years of serious budget challenges and, among other things, has also performed outstanding work devising and implementing the new incentive-based budget model,” Katehi wrote in a message to the campus community.

As senior associate vice chancellor for Finance and Resource Management and interim chief financial officer, Ratliff will oversee ARM’s divisions of Accounting and Financial Services, Human Resources, Budget and Institutional Analysis, the Shared Services Center and Organizational Excellence. 

Mohr’s new portfolio, as interim senior associate vice chancellor, takes in ARM’s Campus Planning and Community Resources, Design and Construction Management, Facilities Management, Utilities, Safety Services, the UC Davis Fire Department and administrative support services for the Police Department.

Mohr served as assistant vice chancellor of Capital Resource Management in ARM and also worked on the 2020 Initiative before joining the provost’s office full time in 2012.

To fill in for Mohr, Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor Ralph J. Hexter has tapped someone who formerly served as an executive in the provost’s office: Robert Loessberg-Zahl, who today serves as director of Institutional Analysis, part of ARM.

Feedback welcomed

Katehi urged the campus community to be involved in the examination of the university’s administrative structure.

She described an outreach plan that will include town forums and other consultations, and said she will ask administrative staff “to be extensively engaged in identifying the management capabilities that need to be enhanced, thereby enabling us to accomplish our vision as the leading UC in the 21st century and allowing us to fulfill our land-grant mission in California, nationally and around the world.”

The chancellor said she welcomes feedback, thoughts and input “about the changes you believe would enhance the overall effectiveness of UC Davis’ administrative operations.”

Send your comments by email.

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The UC Davis Administrative Officers for the Future program celebrated a graduating class of Davis campus and UC Davis Health System employees last month.

“It is essential that we nurture a well-trained and diverse cadre of leaders who can take us to even greater heights over the coming years and decades,” Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi said. “The Administrative Officers for the Future program is the latest example of our commitment to developing current staff so they can become the future leaders of our university.”

A work force audit had previously revealed the bench was thin for hiring behind chief administrative officers who will be retiring over the next several years. The seven-month course built a pipeline of employees who can someday fill CAO and other key leadership positions when they become available.

Collaborating across the causeway

The university built the training program’s cohort as a broad and diverse representation of the campus and UC Davis Health System communities. The participant numbers — 18 from Davis and 12 from Sacramento — reflected the percentage breakdown of employees on both campuses.

Managers identified the participants as high-potential employees and came up with far more than could be accommodated. This created tough decisions for the selection committees, but assured a diverse mix of experience, knowledge and perspective.

“The diversity of our cohort, along with the many perspectives introduced by presenters, facilitators and project sponsors, allowed us to experience a broader perspective for all that UC Davis has to offer,” said participant Mari Royer, academic personnel analyst in the School of Education.

“The course presented a holistic education that challenged us to consider future leadership opportunities at One UC Davis, not just at our respective campuses.”

The program’s design team comprised learning and development experts from Staff Development and Professional Services on the Davis campus, and Training and Development on the Sacramento campus. Best practice elements from talent development programs in university and health system settings included:

• Diverse cohort of high potentials
• Customized competency model
• Classroom instruction
• Assessments, including a 360-degree review based on the competency model, a functional skills self-assessment and a writing assessment
• Career development planning, including three informational interviews with leaders whom the participants did not work with on a day-to-day basis; individual development planning; and “Career Journey Talks” in which five top UC Davis executives shared their personal stories about their journeys to leadership
• Experiential learning, in project teams
• Time commitment — the cohort met two days per month for seven months, contributed 40 hours each to projects, and spent time on independent assignments. The participants developed deep skills by applying instruction in their day-to-day work.

“We spent a lot of time together and had opportunities before, during and after class to learn from each other,” said Benjamin Gamez, Human Resources analyst. “Our discussions revealed many similarities between the goals and priorities of our two campuses.”

Learning by doing

The team projects served as the program’s capstone, testing all that the participants had learned. Project proposals came in from both campuses, with the potential sponsors eager to tap into what each team offered: a combined 120 hours of work on researching the assignment and delivering a resource-capable solution.

In choosing the 10 assignments, one for each team, the training program organizers looked for projects that could be accomplished within the time frame of the course, which built upon the core competencies of an administrative officer, and increased participants’ exposure to mission-critical work.

“The projects were an amazing learning experience for all of us,” said Steve Lanterman, budget and finance manager for Facilities Management. “We utilized our unique skill sets to solve campus problems and it was very rewarding knowing we helped solve real-time campus and health system issues.

“Despite the program’s having reached its official end, we have agreed to continue the program independently, holding monthly meetings with plans to seek additional projects to work on as a team.”

Projects completed during the course, and the future projects being tackled independently, all have real value for UC Davis.

The Internship and Career Center’s Marcie Kirk Holland sponsored a project that will assist her unit in providing services for international students.

“The team’s approach has had an immediate, positive benefit, affirming and refining our approach to resource allocation,” Kirk Holland said. “Their effective use of qualitative and quantitative research provided a comprehensive report in a short timeframe, something our office would not have been able to accomplish without shuffling responsibilities.”

Cameron Blount, chief administrative officer for the UC Davis Eye Center, experienced personal and professional fulfillment in his role as a sponsor. “Working with a motivated group of professionals on a real-world project that affects the daily lives of so many health system administrators was a tremendous exercise in mentorship, teamwork and problem solving," he said. "Not to mention the very product my team put together addressed a significant need for my own department.” 

Investing for the future

The Administrative Officers for the Future series is the latest investment to develop leaders from within the ranks of UC Davis employees.

“The experts within our Staff Development and Professional Services unit and our Training and Development unit comprised a team that continues to utilize industry best practices to create model employee development programs for UC Davis,” said Susan Gilbert, associate vice chancellor of Human Resources. “The long-term success of these programs is measured over years, but early indicators suggest the Administrative Officers for the Future program will prove to be a wise investment for the university.”

In 2007-08, a similar leadership development course was held for student affairs officers on the UC Davis campus, to address a disparity between the identified bench strength revealed in the work force audit and the competencies expected of these officers.

In 2005-06, a work force analysis revealed a knowledge-and-skills gap between the long-standing campus management services officers who were nearing retirement eligibility and the strength of the employees below them in the organizational structure. To address the gap, the UC Davis Management Services Officers for the Future program was developed and delivered. Today, more than 80 percent of those graduates are still with the university and have since advanced to more senior leadership positions.

Opportunities for development

Staff Development and Professional Services (Davis campus) and Training and Development (Sacramento campus) provide learning opportunities year-round. If you have questions about your own development, start by checking out the unit websites.

Resources at UC Davis exist to allow staff to invest in their own development. Either through classroom instruction, Web-based learning, or toolkits and assessments like those used in the Administrative Officers for the Future program. In fact, many resources from the program are available online in the form of the Administrative Officer Development Toolkit; it is designed for chief administrative officers and aspiring CAOs who are interested in building strength in the six administrative officer competencies — competencies that were developed through extensive research and focus groups to identify the common traits of the highest performing CAOs now employed at UC Davis.

“Opportunities await our emerging and future leaders at UC Davis,” Gilbert said. “It’s never too early, or too late, to start investing in your career path.

"Contact our UC Davis Human Resources specialists at campus Staff Development and Professional Services and the Health System's Training and Development unit and let them help you get started.”

Scott Yates is project and communications manager in Human Resources.

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A white paper from Budget and Institutional Analysis spells out the provost’s plan: Starting in 2014-15, the central campus would put about $2 million toward Ph.D. students’ nonresident supplemental tuition, or NRST, for those international doctoral students who are in their second and third years of study and who have not advanced to candidacy.

The UC-wide NRST is $15,102 a year; the central campus already pays 25 percent of this for graduate student researchers paid from extramural grants. But that still leaves the GSRs with 75 percent of their NRST to pay, and other Ph.D. students with 100 percent of it to pay.

In some cases, research grants cover the NRST, and in other cases the money comes from departments and graduate groups. Now the campus is proposing to cover what the departments and graduate groups are paying.

Thus, the departments and graduate programs would save about $2 million. “Each graduate program would decide how to use these funds for graduate student support,” the white paper declares. “The allocations may be used as fellowships to bolster support for existing students or to support growth in graduate enrollments.”

The proposal calls for the central campus to cover NRST — the portion that is not covered by grant funds — for international Ph.D. students (U.S. graduate students normally obtain California residency by the end of their first years — so, for them, the nonresident supplemental tuition goes away).

The NRST proposal is part of a proposed incentive-based budget model for graduate tuition allocation, as outlined in the white paper. The budget office is seeking comments through Friday, Jan. 24. Send comments by email to Jason Stewart.

$135.5 million in overall support

NRST remission is but one element of graduate student support at UC Davis, totaling about $135.5 million a year in the broadest sense:

• Fellowships — $37.2 million
• Earnings and fee remission for TAs and other teaching positions — $24.2 million and $20.2 million, respectively
• Earnings and fee remission for graduate student researchers — $18.9 million and $22.4 million, respectively
• Student loans — $10.6 million
• Work study earnings — $1.1 million
• Other employee benefits — $1 million

The sources of this support include graduate tuition revenue, unrestricted state funding; extramural research funding (direct charges and indirect cost recovery); and endowments, gifts and grants.

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Here is what is happening:

• ARM — The Davis campus’s Administrative and Resource Management will be divided into two units, one called Finance and Resource Management, and the other called Campus Planning, Facilities and Safety.

• Dotted lines — The executives in charge of similar administrative functions in the UC Davis Health System will have dotted-line relationships to vice chancellors on the Davis campus.

Implementation is expected to begin before the end of the calendar year, said ARM Vice Chancellor John Meyer, who sent a letter to ARM’s 1,500 employees this week to tell them about the change.

“Our mission is to provide the resources and services that are needed for the 2020 Initiative,” Meyer told Dateline UC Davis. “And this organizational structure suits our campus well, so we can get the job done.”

The future includes the campus’s 2020 Initiative, built on enrollment growth of up to 5,000 undergraduates as a way to put UC Davis on more stable financial footing.

But this is not growth for growth’s sake. “We are raising up all of UC Davis, with more diversity, more faculty, more research, more innovation and more economic development around the region,” the chancellor said, “and we must do it with good planning, good budgeting and first-class facilities.”

Finance and Resource Management

Given the increasing economic complexities facing higher education institutions, coupled with the campus’s expanded financial responsibility associated with UC’s new systemwide budget model, the chancellor said, “it is more critical now than ever that we have the expertise needed to effectively manage our current $3.7 billion and growing annual campus budget.”

As such, a new vice chancellor-chief financial officer (CFO) will lead this new division, comprising Accounting and Financial Services, Budget and Institutional Analysis, Human Resources, Organizational Excellence and the Shared Services Center.

The health system’s chief financial officer will have a dotted-line relationship to the vice chancellor-CFO of Finance and Resource Management. The university has begun recruiting for this position, and hopes to have someone on board by the end of 2013.

“Our new organizational strategy acknowledges the importance of developing a comprehensive view of all campus finances,” said Meyer, noting how the campus — under UCOP’s new budget model — has been granted increased autonomy in financial management.

Campus Planning, Facilities and Safety

Meyer will lead this division, comprising the remainder of ARM: the units that are responsible for sustaining a sound infrastructure and enriching campus experience. They are Campus Planning and Community Resources, Capital and Space Planning (formerly Capital Resource Management), Design and Construction Management, Environmental Stewardship and Sustainability, Facilities Management, Utilities, the Fire Department and Safety Services as well as Police Department administration (the police chief will continue to report to the provost and executive vice chancellor).

The executive director of the health system’s Facilities Services Division will have a dotted-line relationship to Meyer.

The division’s primary tasks will include the development of a new and comprehensive campus master plan to address UC Davis’ “extraordinary current and future capital needs,” Meyer said. The plan will address not only the 5,000 additional undergraduates as envisioned by the 2020 Initiative, but corresponding numbers of graduate students, faculty and administrative support personnel.

New growth spurt

ARM came into existence in October 2009, in the third year of what would turn out to be five consecutive years of reduced state funding to UC. As a result, UC Davis was looking everywhere for cost savings and efficiencies.

Thus, the university consolidated the Office of Administration and the Office of Resource Management and Planning, bringing all of the campus’s municipal-like services into one unit — the new ARM.

Coupled with the retirements of Stan Nosek as vice chancellor of the Office of Administration and Maurice “Mo” Hollman as associate vice chancellor for Facilities Management (neither was replaced), the ARM consolidation saved an estimated $900,000 a year.

But, just as ORMP had been established to support a campus growth spurt, now comes a new spurt — the 2020 Initiative — and a move toward closer coordination between the university’s two campuses.

“Our two new administrative divisions will position us well for the future,” Meyer said.

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And whereas other academic institutions might have taken two to three years to make the switch, UC Davis did it in 16 months — a feat that Kelly Ratliff, associate vice chancellor of Budget and Institutional Analysis, and Jason Stewart, principal budget analyst, are happy to talk about.

And so they will, having been accepted as presenters at two forthcoming conferences: the Western Association of College and University Business Officers, or WACUBO, and the National Association of College and University Business Officers, or NACUBO.

“We are excited about these opportunities to share our experiences with our peers,” Ratliff said this week before departing for the WACUBO meeting in Anchorage, Alaska.

Ratliff and Stewart, along with David Maddox, who worked on the UC Davis project as a consultant, will present what WACUBO calls a “Tale from the Front.” The UC Davis tale and others on the program focus on “issues currently being dealt with on our campuses and presented by your peers who have actually dealt with these issues.”

Ratliff and Stewart will make the same presentation, “How to Design and Implement a Budget Model in 16 Months,” at the NACUBO annual conference, July 13-16, in Indianapolis.

Greater understanding

Phase I of UC Davis’ new, more transparent budget system, implemented for 2012-13, provides the faculty and administration with a greater understanding of and control over their budgets.

For example, the campus now apportions tuition according to a formula that considers number of student credit hours, number of majors and number of graduates.

And research units keep more of what formerly went to the central campus for indirect cost recovery. These overhead reimbursements are based on direct research expenditures and, under the new budget model, more of these funds stay with the units that actually generate them.

Future phases will address faculty resources, summer session and graduate tuition revenue.

As UC Davis grows, as the schools and colleges adopt new approaches to teaching and as enrollment patterns shift, academic leaders will have a more precise idea of how those changes will directly affect their funding — and can make adjustments.

The model is a form of "responsibility-based budgeting," though not quite as radical, as Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor Ralph J. Hexter pointed out — in that the UC Davis model retains a provost’s allocation, which is funded largely by the provost’s keeping a portion of each revenue stream and pooling these funds with state funds.

UC Davis’ hybrid model, incentive-based budgeting, does the following:

• Attributes a significant portion of revenue to the units that generate it.
• Increases unit responsibility for funding their activities.
• Offers incentives to provide a strong experience for students, identifies and pursues new revenue, and manages resources with an eye to long-term returns.

White papers

When Chancellor Katehi and Provost Hexter opted for a new budget model, the campus had already seen a 34 percent decline in state funding from 2007-08 to 2011-12.

Not knowing what the future would bring, they decided to act quickly — without a steering committee. Instead, budget planners relied on the provost (he participated in regular working sessions); the Council of Deans and Vice Chancellors; assistant deans and chief operating officers; the Academic Senate, especially the Committee for Planning and Budget; department chairs; and “anyone or any group that invited us to present.”

The budget team also prepared a number of white papers, each one dealing with one topic, for example, undergraduate tuition, indirect cost recovery and the provost allocation.

Stewart described the white papers as “an important communication tool for us,” spurring discussion among campus leaders and budget planners. The provost added budget letters and a video.

All of the white papers are online, along with updates and status reports, overviews and frequently asked questions, and the provost’s letters.

The website also includes materials from the University of Michigan and the University of Washington, locations of UC Davis field trips to meet with budget planners who had already gone to similar models.

Now, UC Davis has its own new model, in place for almost a year, and UC San Diego has already paid a visit to learn more about how we did it.

Online

Budget and Institutional Analysis

Incentive-Based Budget Model

UC Davis Budget News, including the provost’s video

The forum, scheduled for 5 p.m. Tuesday (Dec. 4), is the first stop for campus budget officer Kelly Ratliff on her round of talks with students, faculty and staff, intended in part to try to answer that very question. She is scheduled to meet with the campus Communications Council on Thursday (Dec. 6), and is arranging similar meetings with the Academic Senate and Staff Assembly.

Ratliff, vice chancellor of Budget and Institutional Analysis, will explain how Prop. 30’s approval on Nov. 6 saved the university system from an additional cut of $250 million in state funds, but that the proposition did not bring any additional revenue to the UC system.

Therefore, Prop. 30 did not do anything to erase UC Davis’ 2012-13 budget shortfall of $56 million — comprising a $5 million cut in state funds, $25 million in cuts that the campus did not address permanently last year, and $26 million in increased costs for salaries and benefits.

The student assistants to the chancellor have organized next week’s forum: “Prop. 30 … Now What?” It is open to everyone on campus, but the discussion will be student-focused — particularly around the topic of tuition.

“Tuition costs are an important factor in a student’s mind and having that be a discussion point is relevant to what a student would want to hear,” said Artem Trotsyuk, one of the student assistants to the chancellor.

The 2012-13 academic year began without a tuition increase — and Prop. 30’s passage ensured that there will be no midyear tuition increase.

Instead, the governor and Legislature agreed to “buy out” whatever the university could have raised itself in higher tuition for 2012-13. Now the UC system is asking the state to do the same next year, and to consider reinvesting in UC after years of cuts.

The Board of Regents earlier this month approved a systemwide 2013-14 budget that calls on Gov. Jerry Brown and the California Legislature for the following increases in state funding:

• $150.2 million as a base budget adjustment of 6 percent.

• $15 million for planning and start-up of the new medical school at UC Riverside.

Next year’s budget also assumes the state’s delivery of $125.4 million for the 2012-13 tuition buyout (the state deferred payment for one year) and asks for $126.5 million for a tuition buyout in 2013-14.

If the state does not come through with the funding, UC officials said, “the university would plan to increase mandatory systemwide tuition and student fees by an amount sufficient to generate $126.5 million, net of financial aid, to support core operating budget needs.”

Brown will declare his position when he releases his 2013-14 state spending plan, scheduled for Jan. 10. That will be the starting point for talks with the Legislature on the state’s next budget.

As for this year, UC Davis is still stuck with that $56 million shortfall. The campus is estimating that it can shave $3.5 million of that shortfall by increasing the enrollment of national and international undergraduates, and $4 million by continued efficiency efforts (the Shared Services Center, for example).

That leaves the campus with a $48 million hole to fill, not only for this year but every year thereafter — because that dollar amount represents ongoing expenses.

Reserves and other one-time actions will take care of all but $10 million of the problem this year.

The Tuesday (Dec. 4) forum is set to run from 5 to 6:30 p.m. in Griffin Lounge, first floor, Memorial Union. Check out the event’s Facebook page here.

Online

New this week: A one-page update on the campus’s new incentive-based budget model, including information on what’s different, what stayed the same and what’s next.

Budget news (look in the “Facts and figures” box for PDF links to the UC Davis budget overview and a fact sheet on 2012-13 student tuition and fees).

Budget and Institutional Analysis

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The university, which now ranks eighth among all U.S. public research universities according to U.S. News & World Report, also saw record numbers of new undergraduates from California and from outside the United States among its record total of 33,300 students.

UC Davis’ total domestic student population is also more diverse overall, with nearly one in five from historically underrepresented groups.

"By attracting an increasingly talented and diverse entering class, UC Davis is clearly a compelling option for more and more outstanding students,” said Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi. "Our new undergraduates and entire student population are tomorrow’s leaders and vitally important to our future."

Among the most important overall trends:

• The university's overall enrollment — including graduate and professional students — increased by 647, or nearly 2 percent, from last fall's 32,653.
• New freshmen (5,208) are up 10.7 percent from last fall's 4,705, and their number is second in size only to the 5,513 who enrolled in fall 2006. Their average GPA increased from 3.88 in fall 2011 to 3.96 this fall.
• New transfer students, most of whom come from California community colleges, reached a record high of 2,888, compared with last fall's 2,770 — a 4.3-percent increase. Their average GPA for college studies increased from 3.34 to 3.36.

Ethnicity

• Freshmen students from historically underrepresented groups — African American, American Indian and Chicano/Latino — make up about 22.2 percent of domestic students (United States citizens or permanent residents), down slightly from 2011.
• Among transfer students, historically underrepresented groups account for 21.8 percent of students, up from 19.4 percent last year.
• Overall, nearly 20 percent of the campus’s 30,197 domestic students are from historically underrepresented groups, up from 18.8 percent a year ago.

Socioeconomic measures

• The percentage of new freshmen considered low income declined from 37 to 30.4. Those reporting that they would be in the first generation of their family to earn college degrees decreased from 40 percent to 33.3 percent.
• The percentage of new transfer students considered low income increased from 31 to 32.3. Those reporting that they would be in the first generation of their family to graduate from college increased from 42.6 percent last fall to 44.4 percent this fall.

Ensuring access continues to be a high priority; slightly more than half (53 percent) of all UC Davis undergraduates last year paid no net tuition. (Data for 2012 is not yet available.)

Residency

• While first-year international students increased significantly (from 198 to 309), UC Davis also welcomed more California residents (4,808 compared to 4,357 in 2011). In-state students comprise more than 92 percent of new freshmen.
• International transfer students also increased (from 206 to 279), while California transfers grew to a record high of 2,596, from 2,545.
• In overall enrollment, even as international student numbers increased, the number of California residents increased to a record high and continue to predominate (94.7 percent of the total undergraduate student population).

With almost 2,000 UC Davis students in programs offered off campus, the Davis campus student population is an estimated 31,307. This number is expected to decline slightly when averaged over three academic quarters.

The campus’s office of Budget and Institutional Analysis provided most enrollment data; Undergraduate Admissions provided information on new freshman and transfer students.

Tables available

• Fall 2012 enrollment by college and level/class
• Enrollment by ethnicity
• Enrollment by supplemental fee assessment

Well, the election has come and gone, the voters approved Prop. 30 — boosting income tax rates for the state’s highest earners for seven years, and increasing the sales tax for four years — and, yes, that $56 million shortfall is still with us.

Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi knows it, and she wants you to know it, too. “While we celebrate the passage of Prop. 30,” she said in a Nov. 7 letter to the campus community, “there is still work ahead as we continue to face financial challenges.”

Here’s why: Even without Prop. 30, UC Davis is still dealing with $25 million in cuts from 2011-12 (cuts that have not been addressed permanently), an additional cut of $5 million for 2012-13 and $26 million in increased costs for salaries and benefits.

Prop. 30 did not change any of this. The money from Proposition 30 goes to kindergarten through 12th-grade schools (89 percent) and community colleges (11 percent).

For UC, Prop. 30 prevented an additional cut of $250 million, of which UC Davis’ share was likely to have been around $40 million. 

Prop. 30 also spelled relief for UC students: no midyear tuition increase this year. Nor was there an increase to start the 2012-13 year, after the state agreed to “buy out” whatever the university could have raised itself.

UC Davis’ share of the buyout is $17 million, but, unfortunately, the state will not disperse the money until next year. So that $17 million is no help for this year’s budget shortfall.

Which still leaves us at $56 million. The campus is estimating that it can shave $3.5 million of that shortfall by increasing the enrollment of national and international undergraduates, and $4 million by continued efficiency efforts (the Shared Services Center, for example).

That leaves the campus with a $48 million hole to fill, not only for this year but every year thereafter — because that dollar amount represents ongoing expenses.

Reserves and other one-time actions will take care of all but $10 million of the problem this year.

So, what happens next year? That depends — once again — on the Legislature and the governor. If they don’t give UC anything extra, the Davis campus faces a shortfall in 2013-14 that could exceed $60 million.

UC President Mark G. Yudof, for one, sees Prop. 30 as “an opportunity to bring stability to the funding of public higher education in California.”

And certainly there is the hope, as the economy improves, to see the state begin to reinvest in public higher education.

“The task ahead of us now is to do everything possible to strengthen the capacity of the university to serve people in every part of the state through academic excellence and public service,” Yudof said in a Nov. 7 letter, in which all 10 chancellors joined him in signing.

Online

Budget news

Look in the “Facts and figures” box for PDF links to UC Davis budget overview and a fact sheet on 2012-13 student tuition and fees.

Budget and Institutional Analysis

President Yudof's Nov. 2 Web chat covers Prop. 30, the trigger cut, campus climate and raises for nonrepresented staff.

The new model is more transparent and provides faculty and administrators with a greater understanding of and control over their budgets. 

“An incentive-based budget model will let units see that if they improve or increase their activities in certain areas, they will see a flow of dollars come to the unit that is in relation to the increased activity,” Hexter says in the video interview.

Hexter would like to see everyone in the campus community take time to understand this new approach to budgeting and its implications: “Right now, we are all stakeholders. We’re stakeholders in the need to see that our revenue is maximized and that we’re efficient in our use of resources.”

Importantly, in this first year of the new incentive-based model, the campus is not assigning new base, or permanent, reductions beyond the multiyear strategies that took effect in 2011-12.

However, in a Sept. 24 letter, Hexter acknowledged “significant uncertainty” over the 2012-13 budget. It assumes that the state’s voters on Nov. 6 will approve Proposition 30, Gov. Jerry Brown’s tax-increase proposal.

If it fails, the UC system faces a “trigger” cut of $250 million, which, when divided up among the campuses, could cost UC Davis up to $40 million.

“In the meantime, it is important to communicate baseline budget allocations for 2012-13,” Hexter wrote in his September letter to deans, vice chancellors, vice provosts and the university librarian. Those allocations are due to be posted soon.

In his letter, Hexter said the campus estimates total revenue of $3.6 billion from all sources for 2012-13, “a modest increase over prior years demonstrating the continued successes we continue to experience even as we grapple with fiscal challenges.”

Still, the campus “continues to face a substantial shortfall” of approximately $49.6 million to $55.8 million in the state- and tuition-funded portion of the budget (generally referred to as 19900 funds). The shortfall breaks down as follows:

• $25.4 million — the portion of the 2011-12 shortfall that the campus addressed with one-time funds.

• $5.3 million — new state cuts.

• $18.9 million to $25.1 million — fixed-cost increases for salaries and benefits, and employer contributions to the UC Retirement Plan.

Ongoing strategies to bring in more revenue, cut costs and be more efficient (for example, the Shared Services Center) are expected to generate about $7.5 million in 2012-13, leaving a shortfall of $42.1 million to $48.3 million to be addressed with reserve funds or other, short-term strategies.

Hexter’s letter shows how the incentive-based model will work in the distribution of undergraduate tuition: $196.5 million. The deans will receive about 70 percent, or $136.4 million, based on the following formula:

• Student credit hours — 60 percent

• Degree majors — 30 percent

• Degrees awarded — 10 percent

The rest of the undergraduate tuition money, $60.1 million, goes into the provost allocation fund, “to ensure prior-year base budget spending authority is maintained for 19900 general funds.”

In the video interview, Hexter said that looking forward, a unit that over time increases student credit hours or the number of students who major in the programs in that unit will see more money come its way.

Online

Incentive-Based Budget Model

Budget news

Budget and Institutional Analysis

2012-13 budget planning

Provost’s budget allocation letter (Sept. 24, 2012)

Campus Budget Overview (Oct. 4, 2012)

Davis campus Human Resources chief Karen Hull is moving into a new role to oversee Organizational Excellence.

She knows the territory, having led the development of the campus’s Shared Services Center, a giant first step toward a better organized, more efficient way of running the university. The center opened in February after two years of planning.

Hull, a 22-year veteran of the UC Davis staff, managed the shared services implementation project for three years in addition to her role as associate vice chancellor of Human Resources. Now she will devote all of her time to Organizational Excellence, with a goal of broadening its impact across the campus.

More Organizational Excellence does not necessarily mean more shared services, Hull said. “It means having the best organizational model at the lowest cost. Organizational Excellence will provide the tools, resources and training to get there — at no cost to the units.”

Stepping in as Human Resources associate vice chancellor is Susan M. Gilbert (see box). Hull will work with her during a two-month transition before going full time in Organizational Excellence, which, like HR, is a unit of Administrative and Resource Management.

“Organizational Excellence, so very important to the campus’s financial future, needed a leader solely dedicated to this project,” said John Meyer, vice chancellor of Administrative and Resource Management. The Shared Services Center, for example, is expected to save $4 million in 2012-13. Long term, with subsequent phases, the campus estimates savings of $10 million annually.

The center handles transactional work relative to finance, human resources and payroll for these units: Administrative and Resource Management, Office of the Chancellor and Office of the Provost, Information and Educational Technology, Office of Research (vice chancellor’s office) and Student Affairs, plus Development and Alumni Relations and the other units that comprised the former University Relations and External Relations.

The next step calls for these units to go through the Shared Services Center for certain information technology needs: help desk and desktop support.

Opportunities on the academic side

While the Shared Services Center supports administration units, a committee of assistant deans and others is exploring opportunities for greater efficiencies in academic administration. Hull, associate vice chancellor of Organizational Excellence, and Steven Roth, assistant dean, Division of Social Sciences, in the College of Letters and Science, are leading this effort.

Whether on the academic side or the administrative side, Hull and her team will help facilitate and guide departments through organizational change. Services might include assisting in strategic planning, building effective teams, mapping and re-engineering business processes, and other improvement and efficiency strategies.

“The wisdom and ideas for improvement are always held in the departments, in the people who do the work and who know what needs to be changed,” Hull said.

Hull added that UC Davis is “fortunate that executive leadership has invested in an Organizational Excellence team capable of expanding our ability to advance these types of efforts on our campus.”

The campus embraced “organizational excellence” even before adopting that term as the initiative’s title.  First it was the Administrative Process Redesign Initiative, which, in its first year, 2009, saw the consolidation of the Office of Administration and the Office of Resource Management and Planning — creating Administrative and Resource Management.

Other major reorganizations since then have involved Facilities Management, Budget and Institutional Analysis, grounds and landscaping, the Division of Social Sciences, and the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.

Daunting assignment

Hull joined the university in 1988, working in UC Davis Extension as a program representative, a continuing education specialist and a department chair. She left the campus for two years, then returned to lead Campus Events and Visitor Services.

Eventually, she added Mediation Services, Organizational Development, Transportation and Parking Services, Fleet Services and Repro Graphics to her portfolio in the former Office of Administration.

She held the title associate vice chancellor for business services — a natural fit for someone like Hull with a Master of Business Administration.

Then, in July 2007, she took the helm of Human Resources, not as an HR expert but as a leader, someone new to the organization and its work, someone who could ask, “Why do we do things like that?” — and, when appropriate, institute changes.

She credited the HR team for “being tremendously professional, incredibly capable and service-oriented” — all of vital importance as the campus endured budget cuts, furloughs, campus closures and 500 layoffs since 2007-08.

“No, it was not easy,” said Hull, who lost positions in her own unit. She said she is proud of HR’s role in supporting the campus in transition and change through a variety of services, including employee counseling and training, organizational redesign, and preparing UC Davis employees for job searches on and off campus.

New reality: Fewer resources

The transition to the Shared Services Center was equally daunting, a very emotional time for employees as the campus moved to a new way of doing business. But, during the two-year process, Hull and her team kept the campus informed at town halls and brown bags, and even offered classes on the shared services work environment (as people decided whether to apply for jobs at the center), and how to cope with stress and change.

For Hull and other campus leaders, who dealt with a 32 percent cut in unrestricted state funding (a loss of $139 million) over four years, the handwriting was on the wall. “We knew we were going to have reductions, so we had to figure out how to manage our work with fewer resources,” she said.

The Shared Services Center is one only strategy. Administrative clusters (in which departments share personnel) comprise another. Other opportunities include work simplification, increasing employee engagement and identifying better ways to link resource planning with customer priorities.

If asked, Hull and her team will assist departments in developing their own strategies to address “pain points” and identify areas that could benefit from intervention. Then the Organizational Excellence team will help the departments stay on track.

“We don’t want people to talk about change for half a day, and then not make it happen,” she said. “We are creating our own future, making things better than they are today.”

Reach Dateline UC Davis Editor Dave Jones at (530) 752-6556 or dljones@ucdavis.edu.

Follow Dateline UC Davis on Twitter.

Amid a sea of economic uncertainty in California, UC Davis continues to tack toward a new, more transparent budget model that will provide campus faculty and administrative leaders with a greater understanding of and control over their budgets.

Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor Ralph J. Hexter, in a letter this week to the Council of Deans and Vice Chancellors, shed some light on the latest developments concerning campus budgeting.

In the May 21 letter, and in numerous presentations throughout the past two months, Hexter, as the campus’s chief budget officer, and staff from the campus’s Budget and Institutional Analysis team stressed that the shift to the new budget model will not drive any change in budget allocations for the 2012-13 year.

Instead, the budget model’s major change for the upcoming year will be a simple “recoloring” of campus funds to ensure more clarity and transparency. In other words, deans, vice chancellors, business officers and everyone else will see a new structure in place that will allow them to more easily see the sources of revenues flowing to individual schools, colleges, departments and units.

Today, for example, departments and units are accustomed to receiving general fund dollars, which are a combination of tuition and state support.

But beginning July 1, for the 2012-13 budget year, units that generate undergraduate tuition revenue through instructional activities will be able to identify a portion of their general fund, or “19900” funding, as coming directly from tuition. Units will be keeping a portion of their tuition based on a formula that considers number of student credit hours, number of majors and number of graduates.

In addition, units that conduct research will be able to keep more of the indirect, or overhead, costs that sponsors pay UC Davis for research. These overhead reimbursements are based on direct research expenditures and, under the new budget model, more of these funds will remain with the units that actually generate them.

Units will also be receiving a provost allocation, which is funded largely by the provost’s keeping a portion of each of the revenue streams and pooling these funds with state funds. Assuming that state support for the campus is not cut any further, the provost will use this allocation to assure that 2012-13 allocations to units are roughly equivalent to their 2011-12 allocations. 

As UC Davis grows, as its schools and colleges adopt new approaches to teaching and as enrollment patterns shift, academic leaders will have a more precise idea of how those changes will directly affect their funding.

“We will still need to grapple with the state budget going up or down, with tax referenda and state tax policy, and with changes in enrollment,” Hexter said. “The model isn’t changing any of that.

“We’ve been using this iterative process to explain to faculty and administrators how this new model will work, and to consider their feedback. We’re introducing people to as much detail as they need and want. And we are listening to what they have to say. We are locking in on an approach, but we will refine it, as needed, as we move forward.”

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Budget and Institutional Analysis