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October 16, 2019
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A proposal for paid family leave to all who work at UC

The Council of UC Faculty Associations’ board has just signed on to a proposal to provide paid family leave to all who work at the University of California. Most working residents of California have access to financial support for pregnancy, bonding with a new child, and caring for a sick family member. The governor is poised to further improve those programs.

University of California workers do not have this access. Staff employees are required to use accrued sick leave to stay home even just after giving birth, and although biological mothers on the faculty have six weeks of paid leave after birth, all other faculty parents are only eligible for teaching relief, and that must be individually negotiated with their Chairs.

Who pays for the work of caring for those who cannot care for themselves is a pressing social justice issue that goes well beyond the University of California. Apart from the raw question of what kind of world we are making, family leave policy also raises obvious equity issues relating to gender and family form. The University of California should be a leader in this context; instead we are far behind. This proposal is the beginning of a significant push to rectify that situation.

The committee working on the proposal is also looking for testimonials about UC employees’ experiences with dealing with a new child or a sick family leave under the current system. If you or someone else you know would like to contribute an account, it can be shared (anonymously or for attribution) here: https://bit.ly/2Bd0Li4

It is high time the University of California offered paid family leave that is at least equivalent to the California Paid Family Leave program.

by Leslie Salzinger for the UCSF Faculty Association

October 8, 2019
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CUCFA Letter re: the Academic Advisory Committee for the Selection of a New UC President

Below is a copy of a letter CUCFA sent to the chair and vice chair of the systemwide Academic Senate regarding the academic advisory committee for the selection of a new UC President.

October 7, 2019

With President Napolitano’s announcement of her resignation, effective August 2020, it is vital to undertake a search process that is open and participatory to counter a national (and UC) trend toward secretive top-down searches that look for a chief executive to preside over the university. Rather, we should seek a selection process that develops the kind of leader we need through democratic consultation with UC’s constituents – faculty members, students, staff, and alumni. Disastrous recent presidential searches in South Carolina, Iowa, and Colorado show what happens when a governing board unilaterally produces a candidate whose remoteness from educational functions and faculty they deem a virtue.

Fortunately, the UC Regents have a formal search process that could ensure an active, democratic, consultative, and representative presidential selection. Regents Policy 7101 prescribes a number of steps following from the formation of a Special Committee comprised of six Regents and other ex officio members that consults with the Regents to set the criteria for the search, discusses potential candidates, and participates in making the final appointment. The Policy describes a potentially huge and dynamic systemwide consultation process that establishes four advisory committees representing faculty, students, staff, and alumni.

The Policy calls for the Chair of the Special Committee to invite the Academic Council to appoint an Academic Advisory Committee, our concern here, composed of not more than thirteen members, including the Chair of the Academic Council and at least one representative of each of the ten campuses, to assist the Special Committee in screening candidates. It is difficult to imagine how each of those Academic Advisory Committee members could represent the views of hundreds if not thousands of faculty between campuses and medical centers, across all disciplines, which have diverse needs, and across racial groups, which also have diverse needs.

So, too, it is not clear how the Academic Advisory Committee members, even if they are prestigious faculty members, campus heavyweights who are recognized as speaking authoritatively for (the leadership of) each campus, would influence the Special Committee or the Board of Regents. In the last three UC presidential searches, the business culture of the Regents has disregarded the professional culture of the faculty. The class gaps between professors and most regents are too wide and, in any case, faculty are stripped of decision rights.

The Policy, however, puts no limitations on the activities of the Advisory Committees. They could affect the presidential search by using the committees to prompt campus discussions about the presidential search in the context of the immediate future of UC. All of the Advisory Committees could set up a series of events in which they talk with their constituents on each of the ten campuses. They would listen to hopes and fears, gather ideas about leadership needs, hash them over, and then transmit the resulting comments, recommendations, or demands to the Special Committee. One faculty member suggested a “UC Day” in which town halls or other public events happen across the UC system at the same time. The Advisory Committees would have to identify a deadline that would fall before the Special Committee’s long-listing and short-listing of candidates such that it (and the Board overall) could fully consider the input. Each committee could do its work in about six weeks. The scope of the issue is limited and the reports could be short.

Another benefit of using the ACs as a public fulcrum: the town halls would be newsworthy. Whatever governing boards think of professors, unions, and students, they do care about institutional reputation, media coverage, and what they hear back from VIPs as a result of that. The timing of these town halls would be especially propitious in the context of the surprisingly vibrant national discussion in the presidential primary races of the need to return to the idea of higher education as a public good rather than a private commodity. The town halls could also serve to promote UC’s and California’s reputation for pioneering the original free college plan five decades ago. California’s Master Plan for Higher Education is globally recognized as having served as the key cultural and economic engine of California. We could again be a model and inspiration for other states and the nation of how to provide free quality higher education for the masses.

Notably, the parting words of both former UC President Yudof and outgoing President Napolitano emphasized the greatest regret of their respective tenures: that they should have been more consultative and deliberative with the faculty.

The CUCFA Board asks Academic Council President Bhavnani to form a democratic and representative Academic Advisory Committee formed of the chairs of the campus Academic Senates, who are directly answerable to their constituents. We also urge you to charge that committee with organizing town halls or other public events on each campus to prompt as large and participatory discussion as possible of both criteria for the selection of a new President and specific candidates for the job.

CUCFA is eager to partner with the Academic Council on this path towards greater and more democratic input by our faculty on a matter of great relevance to the life of our University.

Sincerely,
Constance Penley,
President, Council of UC Faculty Associations
and Professor of Film and Media Studies, UCSB

May 28, 2019
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Chancellor Hawgood’s letter of 5/28/2019 abandoning the proposal to affiliate with Dignity Health

We learned today that the concerted and united efforts of many (including the Faculty Association) have been successful in getting UCSF to give up on its plan to affiliate with Dignity Health. This is an especially important fight, and victory, in light of current efforts (some successful) to turn back the clock. We commend Chancellor Hawgood for his willingness to listen to all of our voices. Click HERE to read the Chancellor’s response to the UCSF community.

May 22, 2019
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Faculty Association letter to UC Regents re: Proposed UCSF/Dignity Health affiliation

May 22, 2019

To the Board of Regents:

Last week we wrote Chancellor Hawgood and President Napolitano on behalf of the UCSF Faculty Association to oppose the proposed affiliation agreement between UCSF and Dignity Health. We did so, in part, based on a survey of our membership. We did so while acknowledging that the need for UCSF Health to achieve economic viability now and in the future may require UCSF Health to foster agreements with a range of health care institutions. Our opposition is to affiliation with this particular institution.

Because of the importance of the issue and because of some concerns about the representativeness of our membership, we extended the same survey to the entire UCSF faculty. Seven hundred and five faculty responded and the results are nearly identical to those from our membership. Twenty-seven percent of the faculty respondents support the affiliation, 10 percent take a neutral stance, while 63 percent oppose. More than three-hundred faculty added comments on why they voted as they did. Those comments are available on our website.

As we wrote in our letter to Chancellor Hawgood and President Napolitano, the practices of Dignity Health violate the duty of a state institution to serve the needs of its patients based on their medical needs and the best evidence-based treatments of the patients’ choosing. With respect to Dignity Health, the issue is usually framed in terms of reproductive rights of adult women. We think that that is a crucial issue and ought to be determinative in of itself, but this framing ignores the needs of patients of all ages. For adolescents, the issue of access to information about reproductive issues and to the full range of medically-indicated contraception is important. For adults of all ages, the issue of access to effective palliative care is germane.

There is also an opportunity cost in the education of medical students, residents, and clinical fellows. Time spent in clinical environments in which there is no exposure to all medically-indicated treatments short-changes the trainees, meaning that the trainees have to seek the exposure during the times normally devoted to other training opportunities or forego training in the proscribed areas.
We sincerely hope that the University will not persevere to effectuate the agreement with Dignity Health.

Sincerely,

The Board of the UCSF Faculty Association
Member, Council of UC Faculty Associations

cc. University of California San Francisco Chancellor Hawgood
University of California President Napolitano

May 22, 2019
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Comments received in response to the UCSF Faculty Association survey concerning the UCSF/Dignity Health affiliation agreement

Because of the importance of the issue of the proposed affiliation between UCSF and Dignity Health, we extended the two question survey that was initially sent just to Faculty Association members, to the entire UCSF faculty. Over seven hundred faculty responded. Twenty-seven percent of the faculty respondents support the affiliation, 10 percent take a neutral stance, while 63 percent oppose. More than three-hundred faculty added comments on why they voted as they did. Those comments are available on our website.

The comments are listed according to the position taken. We have also posted the letter that was sent to the faculty along with our survey.

Faculty who support the affiliation.

Faculty who oppose the affiliation.

Faculty who believe that we should avoid taking a position concerning the affiliation.

——————————————————————

Dear UCSF Faculty Members,

We recently surveyed the members of the UCSF Faculty Association about whether they supported, opposed, or held a neutral position on the proposed affiliation between UCSF and Dignity Health. We’ve since been encouraged to have the rest of the faculty weigh in on this most important issue. At the bottom of this email is a link to the one question survey. In the paragraphs to follow is our introduction to this matter. The paragraphs in support and opposition were written with the cooperation of those on both sides of the issue in order to cast this as fairly as possible. For the record, while a quarter of our members who voted held a neutral position, three quarters of the rest opposed the affiliation agreement with Dignity Health.

———————————————————————

As you may know, UCSF is proposing to enter into an affiliation agreement with Dignity Health, a group of non-profit Catholic hospitals. People within our membership who normally agree on most matters are on both sides of this issue. With no clear cut consensus having emerged, we thought we’d ask you to vote on whether we as an organization should support or oppose the affiliation agreement between UCSF and Dignity Health, or merely abstain from taking a formal position.

The arguments in support of the agreement are that Dignity Health has the capacity to serve as a portal into UCSF’s specialty services while providing high quality care in emergency services and hospital admissions when UCSF is at or near capacity for both. Further, Dignity Health has a far better track record than most large non-profit health care organizations in providing uncompensated care, accepting Medi-Cal patients, and treating patients from vulnerable backgrounds. For those who are fearful that UCSF faculty will have to abide by the dictates of a Catholic Health Care organization, we have been assured that there will be no oaths to sign nor will there be a ban on counseling patients on where they may receive services not offered at Dignity Health for religious reasons.

The arguments in opposition of the agreement are that UC is providing its imprimatur to an organization that does not provide a full-range of reproductive health services to women, limits the scope of contraceptive services and counseling available to patients of all genders, and restricts the extent of end of life care. Because students and residents would be doing rotations in these facilities, during the time of the rotations the education would be delimited by the services not available. Beyond the practical effects on the services provided and educational opportunities forgone, UCSF as a State of California health care organization would be tacitly accepting that the limits placed by an organization run in accordance with Catholic principles do not clash with our mission to provide the fullest range of evidence-based care.

We ask that you vote on what our position should be and provide in the text fields some of the rationale for your decision.

The Board of the UCSF Faculty Association

May 15, 2019
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We oppose the proposed UCSF/Dignity Health affiliation agreement

Dear Chancellor Hawgood and President Napolitano,

We write on behalf of the Board of the UCSF Faculty Association to oppose the proposed affiliation agreement between UCSF and Dignity Health. We do so while acknowledging that the need for UCSF Health to achieve economic viability now and in the future may require UCSF Health to foster agreements with a range of health care institutions. Our opposition is to affiliation with this particular institution.

We have surveyed our membership about the proposed affiliation and the results are overwhelmingly in opposition (a quarter were neutral, but among those choosing a position, three-quarters were in opposition). The specific comments of some of our respondents are instructive. Other than editing for typos, we include them in the pages to follow. One of the supporters perhaps states how distasteful the proposed affiliation is even to one supporting it. The supporter wrote:

“I am reluctantly voting to support. I am holding my nose.”

The practices of Dignity Health violate the duty of a state institution to serve the needs of its patients based on their medical needs and the best evidence-based treatments of the patients’ choosing. With respect to Dignity Health, the issue is usually framed in terms of reproductive rights of adult women. We think that that is a crucial issue and ought to be determinative in of itself, but this framing ignores the needs of patients of all ages. For adolescents, the issue of access to information about reproductive issues and to the full range of medically-indicated contraception is important. For adults of all ages, the issue of access to effective palliative care is germane. One of the majority in opposition to the affiliation wrote:

“Any association with religious-led health care systems should be opposed by an institution that is promoting diversity and inclusion and is science driven”.

We sincerely hope that the University will not persevere to effectuate the agreement with Dignity Health.

Sincerely,
The Board of the UCSF Faculty Association
Member, Council of UC Faculty Associations

Comments of Respondents to the Faculty Association Survey

The Faculty Association should probably remain neutral, because there are strong enough arguments to support either side. But it was annoying to read the editorial by David Teitel in the Chronicle supporting the affiliation, without to my knowledge, a vote of the full UCSF Academic Senate in favor of his position. Why was the vote supporting in position undertaken by only the “Executive Council”? The performance of the UCSF Academic Senate leaves a bad smell.

The FA should support the affiliation *if* Dignity health is willing to affirm in the strongest legal terms that UCSF providers are not only allowed to discuss reproductive and end of life options not offered at that facility with patients, but also (1) post signs saying so, (2) offer up to date printed lists of services and locations where patients can receive the services, and (3) allow providers the time and resources to make “warm hand offs.”

I agree with the concerns about differences in family planning goals. The importance of this from a genetics and neurodevelopmental perspective will continue to grow and we should not be tacitly endorsing the Catholic view as acceptable. I worry the perception will be very damaging long term. How will we respond if the President of the US tweets that we agree abortion for any reason should be prevented. San Francisco is a target for this type of polemicism.

Dignity health is against giving women reproductive choice. It goes against UCSF mission.

In the current atmosphere of LGBTQ marginalization, attacks on women’s right to choose and the most recent invocation of the ‘conscience’ rules by the Trump administration, I do not believe it is in the best interest of UCSF to align itself with Dignity Health.

Any association with religious-led health care systems should be opposed by an institution that is promoting diversity and inclusion (UCSF) and is science driven. The stated pros/cons are only part of the larger picture. Many of the students, staff, faculty and patients might have an issue of working/learning/serving in Catholic led institution. UCSF as a major leader in health has a choice who to partner with, and that should be an institution that has the same values as our University.

I think there are good arguments on both sides. Devil is in details and I would want to see them before making an opinion. I strongly oppose making their positions on implementation of the end of life option act an issue parallel to gender and reproductive health. Lethal prescriptions are not medical care, nor should we be pressuring anyone or any organization to participate. That, in fact is illegal.

Students can be informed of the religious based limitations and the alternative options can be offered to patients.

As indicated they provide excellent services that are needed and there is no oath to accept or abide by catholic doctrine.

I can honestly and sincerely see both sides of this issue. I would say, that if we do proceed, the learning opportunities to show how systems differ based on religion vs. science and the resulting impact on patients should be a core part of curriculum for anyone rotating through. For patients, the access vs women’s health access issue is a hard choice. Philosophically I am completely against the affiliation, but pragmatically I can see the benefits.

As written, UC is providing its imprimatur to an organization that does not provide a full-range of reproductive health services to women, limits the scope of contraceptive services and counseling available to patients of all genders, and restricts the extent of end of life care.

Look at what just happened in Georgia – the right to choose is under fire. Do not support limits to a women’s rights.

I prefer no association This is a Catholic organization and not a representative of all religions groups.

I do not believe that we can ethically support this affiliation.

“Dignity Health”. Ha. There is nothing dignified about denying health care based on superstition and religious prejudice.

I do not believe that UCSF, as a state institution, should affiliate with a health care organization that has religious affiliations that result in a restriction of care. UCSF should find more compatible institutions to affiliate with that share our mission and goals.

Thanks for your leadership in our abiding by our values.

Putting UCSF’s logo on these hospitals would be give the impression that we accept the limits that they place on access to reproductive care. It would be better if the affiliation was not listed as a full affiliation but rather as a “partial” affiliation.

I am reluctantly voting to support. I am holding my nose. I very much disagree with the position the Catholic church takes on the treatment of women and LGBTQ persons carrying over to the health care that Dignity health provides.

This issue requires more discussion and debate. Thus I refrained from voting yes or no. I am also distressed that the sensitivity of this issue was not identified earlier — before the agreements were started.

If our trainees are to rotate through these hospitals, I would favor an affiliation only if there was no gag order regarding counseling patients on the full range of options regarding birth control and choices regarding abortions.

Whereas I understand the benefits of an alliance with a “feeder” health care organization, and have personally had excellent care at Dignity, I cannot support UCSF’s imprimatur on their denial of full services to women.

UCSF currently seems to care about nothing but money.

The compromise with our beliefs is too large.

I support the affiliation but opinions are strong and emotional on both sides. The FA should abstain as there are good arguments on both sides and the FA’s position is not going to be a major determinant of what will actually happen.

Both positions arguing and arguing against this issue have merit. At this time the Faculty Association should take a neutral stance concerning this affiliation.

The upside of providing optimal care to patients make the merger worthwhile while the students are sufficiently savvy to appreciate the problems working in a restrictive environment but they will have to deal with these problems when leaving into practice.

We should not give up training time while serving in a setting which doesn’t provide the full range of reproductive and end of life care.

I think there are good arguments on both sides.

On balance this will improve health care for many individuals. It is not an approval of the Dignity/Catholic philosophy as multiple alternatives are available.

Dignity has one of the better records on indigent care. I would support a statement after the affiliation deploring their stance on women’s health services.

Opposes unless Dignity will allow UCSF’s docs to provide evidence based reproductive health care.

No matter what efforts are made on our part, patients and the public (and many medical providers) will be confused and will think we are endorsing some of their principles (i.e. it’s fine to impose your own personal religious beliefs on the health care of other people).

Although Dignity Health provides some important services, I am concerned about the precedent of affiliating with an organization that does not honor the PRIDE values that are considered integral to our mission as UCSF.

Women’s health, while important, is a single issue. Dignity is the state’s largest provider of care for the underserved, which trumps the women’s health issue. If we don’t proceed with affiliation, it will limit our ability to meet our mission to serve the people of the Bay Area and beyond.

March 28, 2019
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CUCFA and AAUP’s Statement in Support of UC Workers

The executive board of the Council of UC Faculty Associations (CUCFA) joins the executive board of the California Conference of the American Association of University Professors to express unconditional support for the just demands of our colleagues and friends of the Union of Professional and Technical Employees (UPTE-CWA) and American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME). These are the people who supply the labor and technical support that enables faculty to carry out the educational mission of the University of California.

For too long, the Board of Regents and the upper levels of the UC administration have pitted professors, staff, and students against one another. Despite this, UC faculty, students and staff are learning to come together and support one another in tackling the serious problems they face with our system of higher education in California. We stand with the fundamental unity that binds us together in all sectors of California Higher Education, and we tell UC Administrators this simple truth about their staff:

They Do The Work! Without them, there is no University of California.

Issued by the Executive Board of the CA-AAUP and CUCFA
March 28, 2019

August 19, 2018
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Joint Letter in Support of Librarian Academic Freedom

August 18, 2018

President Janet Napolitano
University of California
1111 Franklin St., 12th Floor
Oakland, CA 94607
Email: president@ucop.edu

Joint statement by CUCFA and CA-AAUP:

On July 26, 2018 UC negotiators rejected a proposal by the UC-AFT Unit 17 that academic freedom be recognized as a right of all UC librarians as academic employees. UC negotiators reportedly argued that academic freedom is granted only to faculty and students “to enable free expression in the classroom,” that it is “a professional standard established by faculty, for faculty,” and that their position was consistent with “AAUP’s stance on Academic Freedom.”

The American Association of University Professors (AAUP) has rejected UC negotiators’ claims and clarified that since 1972 it has recognized librarians as faculty (Joint Statement on Faculty Status of College and University Librarians – https://www.aaup.org/sites/default/files/files/2013 Bulletin/librarians.pdf). Specifically, the joint statement affirms that:

College and university librarians share the professional concerns of faculty members. Academic freedom is indispensable to librarians in their roles as teachers and researchers. Critically, they are trustees of knowledge with the responsibility of ensuring the intellectual freedom of the academic community through the availability of information and ideas, no matter how controversial, so that teachers may freely teach and students may freely learn. Moreover, as members of the academic community, librarians should have latitude in the exercise of their professional judgment within the library, a share in shaping policy within the institution, and adequate opportunities for professional development and appropriate reward.

The Council of University of California Faculty Associations (CUCFA) and the California Conference of AAUP chapters (CA-AAUP) wholeheartedly agree with AAUP’s 1972 statement, recognize librarians as fellow faculty, and jointly support UC-AFT Unit 17’s request that all librarians be “entitled to academic freedom, as their primary responsibility to their institution and profession is to seek, state, and act according to the truth as they see it.”

CUCFA and CA-AAUP therefore urge UC President Napolitano to instruct UC negotiators to grant academic freedom to university librarians as they rightly deserve and have requested.

Sincerely,
Stanton Glantz,
President, Council of UC Faculty Associations
Professor of Medicine, UCSF

cc: UC Regents

July 31, 2018
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UCSF Faculty Association letter concerning faculty compensation

The UCSF Faculty Association sent a request to reconsider the decision, to differentiate between faculty with and without clinical responsibilities, in the amount of salary which counts towards pension estimates.

July 26, 2018

Dr. Elena Fuentes-Afflick
Vice Dean for Academic Affairs, School of Medicine
University of California, San Francisco

Ms. Maye Chrisman
Vice-Dean for Administration and Finance
University of California, San Francisco

Dear Dr. Fuentes-Afflick and Ms. Chrisman,

We write on behalf of the UCSF Faculty Association, an independent body which advocates for faculty welfare, in order to request reconsideration of the decision to permit departments to differentiate between faculty with clinical training and researchers in salary scale and, hence, in terms of earned pension benefits. This reconsideration should occur immediately rather than be deferred so that faculty with just a few years left in their careers are not penalized by the decision and will be able to receive the full benefit of a higher pension scale.

There are three germane issues.

The first is equity. While we all recognize that clinicians earn more than researchers, UCSF has been built on treating everyone as equal colleagues. This new policy breaches that principle.

Second, the proposed two-tier system will have the effect of having researchers effectively subsidizing the retirements of more highly compensated clinical faculty. Both those with and without clinical training have been at the same retirement scale, so they both have contributed exactly the same amount on their covered compensation up to the point at which the proposed change is made. Because retirement benefits are based on the highest (generally last) three years’ covered compensation, after three years at the new scale (and with slightly higher contributions), the faculty members with clinical responsibilities will have pension benefits that are over 7% higher but will have contributed much less than that in extra contributions to the system compared to their researcher colleagues.

Third, we question whether there is a fiscal need to create this two-tiered system. The stated rationale for the difference in salary scales was that PhD faculty presented greater financial risk to departments because clinical faculty can cover funding shortfalls through clinical work while PhD faculty cannot do so. No data have been provided to demonstrate that this theoretical risk is substantial enough to warrant creating a two-tier system. The information on the extent of the additional risk, if any, should be made available so that the rationalization for this differential change can be transparent. It is likely that such risk is very small given that funding shortfalls are generally for a only portion of salary for a finite period and not a faculty member’s entire salary and would only apply to some faculty for some of the time. Furthermore, the risk is made smaller by another recent change in faculty conditions of employment. Whereas faculty in compensation plans previously had to work full-time, faculty members may now reduce effort below 100 percent if desired. That being the case, faculty members can mitigate the risk to departments, if necessary, through reduction in time. In addition, most faculty without clinical training have had to be highly successful in extra-mural funding to get to the current stage of their careers and have often generated considerable indirect costs for the university along the way precisely because they could not rely on clinical revenue to supplement extra-mural grant funding as a pay source. Track records of historical funding levels between faculty with and without clinical responsibilities should play a role in the decision to differentiate the scale levels of compensation subject to pension accrual.

We also want to make it clear that we are not arguing against raising the covered compensation from 1.3 to 1.4 for clinical faculty. We are arguing that this change should be made for all faculty just as it has been historically.

The UCSF Faculty Association respectfully requests immediate reconsideration of the differentiation between faculty with and without clinical responsibilities to maintain UCSF’s history of equity in faculty pay and to provide all faculty with compensation that is competitive with comparator Schools of Medicine around the country.

Sincerely,

The Board of the UCSF Faculty Association
Member, Council of UC Faculty Associations

July 5, 2018
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Followup with UC National Center for Free Speech and Civic Engagement

Towards the end of May, CUCFA sent a letter to the leaders of UC’s new National Center for Free Speech and Civic Engagement, asking for their help in stopping the “Anti-Semitism Awareness Act” (ASAA) and H.R. 4508 (commonly known as the “Prosper Act”). Last week, Executive Director Deutchman responded to our letter. Our original letter and her response are both online. Below is our followup to that response:

July 5, 2018

Dear Ms. Deutchman,

Thank you for your response to our May 30 letter expressing concerns over the potential impact of two legislative initiatives on the relationship between free speech and academic freedom on our campuses. And thank you also for sharing it with the University Office of Federal Government Relations.

While we appreciate both gestures, we are puzzled by your statement that “the Center is not in a position to engage in this sort of legislative advocacy.” We read in its very first statement of purpose that:

“…the Center explores how the fundamental democratic principles of free speech and civic engagement must adapt to the challenges and opportunities of modern society. Through research, advocacy, debate and discussion, the Center helps ensure that the next generation of leaders is prepared to defend and advance these values,” (our emphasis – https://freespeechcenter.universityofcalifornia.edu/about/)

We also notice that the Center bears the quite ambitious name of National Center for Free Speech and Civic Engagement (again, our emphasis), and that it is situated in UC Washington DC. We therefore find it odd that a Center advocating for civic engagement and claiming national status would refuse to engage with issues that touch directly on its central mission.

We would very much appreciate some clarification regarding the way you intend to manage and steer the activities of the Center. Our confusion about its mission and raison d’être stems in large part from the absence of faculty involvement at all levels of the initiative. With the exception of the designation of two prestigious academics, Professor Chemerinsky and Chancellor Gilman, as co-Chairs of its Board of Advisors, and the presence of Lawrence Stone (University of Chicago) on the Board, none of the ten members of its Advisory Board is a current member of any university faculty. In addition, no UC Senate Faculty Committee was ever charged with, or created to assist in designing the purpose and activities of the Center, or in choosing its Advisory Board, or its Executive Director. While the President of our University has the right to create Centers, our Compendium (https://www.ucop.edu/institutional-research-academic-planning/_files/compendium_sept2014.pdf) regulating the establishment and running of Academic Units, including “Centers” (see especially p. 29) unequivocally prescribes consultation with the “Academic Senate.” And it is a time-honored convention of shared governance in the UC System that the budget and activities of even “non-ORU” (Organized Research Units) Centers are subject to faculty Senate input, periodic reviews, and appropriate reporting.

We would like to use this exchange as an opportunity to learn from you how the Center’s leadership understands not only its mission but also its relationship to UC Senate faculty, for we would also be happy to assist suggesting ways UC faculties could be better integrated into the activities of the Center.

On behalf of the Council of UC Faculty Associations Executive Board,
Claudio Fogu,
CUCFA Vice President for External Relations,
and Associate Professor of Italian Studies, UCSB