May 13, 2014
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April 28, 2014
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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.
March 16, 2014
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With more information about how changes impact faculty and staff, we can seek better mechanisms that would permit faculty to negotiate these elements of our compensation.
March 12, 2014
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March 4, 2014
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We would like to bring to your attention an Op-Ed written by Colleen Lye and James Vernon, Co-Chairs of the Berkeley Faculty Association, on behalf of its Board. The article appeared today in the Daily Cal, and details the systematic degradation of faculty pay and benefits. We are concerned about the fact that faculty not only pay more now for retirement and healthcare programs that offer less value, but also that the evolution of the benefit system has led to serious inequalities between faculty in how retirement, health and other benefits are administered.
We encourage you to follow the link below to read the full article.
http://www.dailycal.org/2014/03/04/paying-yet-getting-even-less/
November 19, 2013
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Please consider signing the petition and spreading the word amongst your colleagues. The petition will be sent to Director of UCOP Labor Relations Peter Chester.
http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/uc-faculty-in-support
August 28, 2013
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On August 28, CUCFA sent the following letter to San Francisco’s City Attorney Dennis Herrera:
August 28, 2013
City Attorney Dennis Herrera
City Hall, Room 234
1 Dr. Carlton B. Goodlett Place
San Francisco, CA 94102-4682
cityattorney@sfgov.org
fax: (415) 554-4745
(delivered by e-mail and fax)
Dear City Attorney Herrera,
We applaud your quest for injunctive relief from the decision of the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges (ACCJC) to terminate City College of San Francisco’s accreditation on the basis that the ACCJC unlawfully allowed its advocacy and political bias to prejudice its evaluation. Thank you for supporting City College and all those who are trying to protect the public interest in low-cost, high-quality education for all kinds of learners.
Our organization, the Council of University of California Faculty Associations (CUCFA), made a public statement decrying ACCJC’s actions against City College of San Francisco at the time of the termination. We reiterate our concern, and hope your suit will help City College to continue its broad educational mission.
Thank you again for supporting high-quality public education for all Californians.
Best regards,
Patricia Morton, President, Council of UC Faculty Associations
Professor and Chair, College of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences, UC Riverside
August 21, 2013
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On August 21, CUCFA sent a letter to H.E. Ambassador Mohamed M. Tawfik at the Embassy of Egypt in Washington, D.C., and to Consul General El Husseuni Abdel Wahab at the Egyptian Consulate in Los Angeles expressing expressing their concern about the imprisonment in Cairo of the internationally renowned documentary film maker, scholar and professor at York University (Canada) last Friday.
Read full letter here.
July 29, 2013
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To faculty colleagues at UCSF:
We are writing to apprise you a proposal to prohibit submission of grant applications to organizations that pay indirect costs of less than 10 percent (details attached). The Faculty Association believes that this proposal would adversely affect faculty, particularly junior faculty.
We wrote Chancellor Desmond-Hellmann to express our opposition to the proposal, citing the difficulties this policy would pose for junior faculty working to obtain early career funding as well as its impact on senior faculty’s ability to continue to obtain NIH funding. We also explained how this would have negative consequences to the resources of already struggling departments and raised concerns that this policy would likely affect scientific and academic freedom by eliminating funding from foundations which are often able to fund controversial research.
A copy of this letter is linked HERE. We would be interested in your thoughts and knowing how such a proposal would likely affect you and your department.
We will keep you apprised of any response and further developments.
Ed Yelin, Chair
UCSF Faculty Association
May 2, 2013
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“It’s the wrong solution to the wrong problem,” said Robert Meister,chair of the Council of UC Faculty Associations and professor at UC Santa Cruz, in a phone interview. He argued that the problem is inadequate funding and the solution is to increase it. “The legislature and the governor have been cutting higher education on a per-student basis for ten years,” he said. “The universities and colleges have been reducing the number of admissions, especially at the community college level, and also reducing the number of seats in required courses. Those problems wouldn’t exist if the university, and particularly the community colleges, were adequately funded.” Meister said he believes the state of California could easily restore funding for all three public higher education systems to the levels they were at in 2000, referring to a statement on the Web site of the Council of UC Faculty Associations, which states that “for the median California tax return (individual or joint), restoring the entire system while rolling back student fees to what they were a decade ago would cost $48 next April 15.”
Read full article [here]. by Leila Meyer, Campus Technology.
