The UCSF Faculty Association surveyed the entire UCSF faculty to solicit feedback on the impact of Operational Excellence (OE) on grants management and human resources.  The survey also included a question about the academic climate for faculty at UCSF in the wake of the fiscal problems of the last few years, affecting the state allocation to UC and NIH funding, as well as OE.

We are sharing the results with you.  There are two files; the first includes the quantitative responses to the survey questions while the second is a compendium of responses to an open-ended question about the climate at UCSF for faculty.

Just under 400 of you responded. Those who did, broadly reflect the composition of the faculty in terms of School, academic series, and rank. The results need no explanation.  While the results varied, the vast majority indicate that the new system of grants management has increased work time for faculty and staff and increased costs for departments and divisions. Even greater proportions indicated that in the wake of the changes in HR, faculty and staff time devoted to HR activities have increased, as have the costs for departments and divisions.  It is notable that the ratings were similar across schools, series, and ranks, and that the comments reveal a pattern of concerns that have increased the faculty workload.

While there have been many challenges to the climate for faculty over the last few years, clearly OE has added to the stress experienced by faculty members, not reduced it.  It could be argued that many of us may be unaware of the increase in costs to departments or divisions.  However, discussions with many departmental managers indicate that that is not the case: the managers also report an increase in costs. And, as we know, when departments experience higher costs, of necessity they turn to faculty to recoup them through such mechanisms as lowered indirect cost returns and increasing taxes.

It is time to re-evaluate OE since it is not providing better service and it is costing faculty and academic units in terms of time and money.