UC DAVIS: OFFICE OF THE PROVOST
November 14, 2005
Provost's Update, Fall 2005
There is great activity on both campuses in Davis and Sacramento, so I wanted to share just a few of the many recent accomplishments that represent progress toward goals outlined in the campus' strategic plan.
http://strategicplan.ucdavis.edu/
The report on second year implementation efforts and goals for the coming year will be listed shortly on that website.
I also want to mention three current priorities that are receiving, and clearly deserving, of significant effort:
a. Graduate student support: This issue is at the top of the priority list for UC Davis, as well as all other UC campuses. The Academic Council and the Council of Vice Chancellors for UC met together this year to generate ideas, plus two systemwide task forces are working on this topic. Some progress is being made, but there is clearly work yet to do. For example, the following budget proposals have been recommended to UC Regents for approval at their November 2005 meeting: elimination of nonresident tuition for doctoral students who have advanced to candidacy; no increase in nonresident tuition for graduate students; 45% return-to-aid on education fee increases (that's greater than the historical 1/3 return-to-aid); and redirection of potential savings from the Strategic Sourcing Initiative (streamlining of University purchasing) to graduate student support. UC Davis has significantly increased its investment in graduate student support over the past three years, moving from 9th in 2001-02 to 4th in 2003-04 in per capita net stipend for all graduate academic students. However, as we all know, escalating fees have consumed increasingly more resources from both intramural and extramural sources. Many of us are continually working on reducing the fees themselves, particularly non-resident tuition, to alleviate the demands on all available funds; however, the current challenge underlines the critical need to build an endowment for graduate student support, a high priority in our campus comprehensive campaign.
b. Renovations: With older buildings, renovations are a major part of our capital activities. Prioritization, implementation and information on the status of renovation projects are important to everyone involved in these efforts. Therefore, to address those needs, we will be using a new approach by the end of this quarter. Briefly, a committee with academic and administrative representatives will work on prioritizing projects, defining timelines and providing current status information through a website. Once this is complete, faculty can track campus renovation projects on the website (the beta site for testing is http://www.ae.ucdavis.edu/Projweb/projects.nsf/MasterProject?OpenView).
c. Faculty salary compression: Our campus, along with other UC campuses, is struggling with the "loyalty tax". We are seeing a shrinking differential between the salaries of our long term faculty members and those of our newer faculty, because of the market demands in hiring new faculty (we are also impacted by the high costs of housing and start-ups). We are reviewing several options and models to address this issue. As we all know, any approach would require investment of permanent (ongoing) resources and limit options for other priority investments. We must address this issue-but there is much discussion ahead.
FRAMEWORK FOR SUCCESS
Pay Raises for Faculty and Staff Employees: This year, the state funded a 3 percent increase for staff salaries, effective October 1, 2005, including merit-based increases. Additional funds were provided to help address increases in employee health benefit costs and market-driven and equity salary issues. http://www.dateline.ucdavis.edu/dl_detail.lasso?id=8462 With only a few exceptions, academic appointees, including Academic Senate and Academic Federation titles, will receive a 2 percent range adjustment, effective October 1, 2005. http://directives.ucdavis.edu/2005/05-091.cfm
Faculty Position Allocations: Based on a formula, 63.0 FTE faculty positions were allocated to schools/colleges this fall; plus, an additional 39.0 FTE faculty positions were allocated to academic initiatives that emerged as high campus wide priorities from proposals submitted by the schools/colleges last spring. We will assess this new allocation approach to define improvements needed for using this biennial process in the future. http://www.news.ucdavis.edu/budget/
Leadership Development: The MSOs (Management Services Officers) For the Future program was initiated this fall to develop a diverse pool of highly talented and motivated staff with an interest in pursuing MSO positions in academic departments. http://sdps.ucdavis.edu/mso.htm
Lactation Award: UC Davis is making it easier for working mothers to breastfeed on campus with 22 lactations rooms - an effort that recently received the "mother-baby-friendly workplace award" from Yolo County.
http://www.dateline.ucdavis.edu/dl_detail.lasso?id=8388
Campus Book Project - The Kite Runner: The Book Project continues to promote a greater sense of community among students, staff, faculty, and community members by creating a common experience and provoking dialogue.
This academic year, our community is reading and reflecting on Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner. For a listing of this fall's book project events, see http://occr.ucdavis.edu/ccbp/programs.cfm.
Fall Convocation: Listen to Each Other's Stories: At this year's Fall Convocation, Chancellor Vanderhoef encouraged faculty staff, and students to participate in My Personal Compass, a program intended to encourage people of different beliefs to listen to one another.
http://mypersonalcompass.ucdavis.edu/
Segundo Dining Commons: The new Segundo Dining Commons is a great success with students, and also with faculty and staff - enjoy a meal there! http://www.ucdavis.edu/spotlight/1005/dining_commons.html
DISCOVERY
Sponsored Research Funding Soars: External funding of research at UC Davis grew by $86 million (a 20% increase) in 2004-05, to just over half a billion dollars - an impressive accomplishment by our faculty, staff and students. http://www.dateline.ucdavis.edu/dl_detail.lasso?id=8436
Stem Cell Center for Excellence Funded: The campus received a $6 million grant from NIH to establish a Center of Excellence for stem cell research to study cellular therapies for childhood diseases (Professor Alice Tarantal, PI-Pediatrics and California National Primate Research Center).
http://www.dateline.ucdavis.edu/dl_detail.lasso?id=8446
New Building for Watershed Sciences: The Center for Watershed Sciences celebrated the grand opening of its new campus home on October 26. The new building was paid for with $3 million from the state's Proposition 13, the 2000 water bond approved by voters; $2 million from campus funds; and private gifts. The watershed center is dedicated to the interdisciplinary study of critical issues in watershed science, with a focus on the sustainable restoration and management of Northern California stream, lake and estuarine ecosystems.
http://www.news.ucdavis.edu/search/news_detail.lasso?id=7517
Celebration of honors:
Professor Robert Feenstra (Economics): Bernhard-Harms Prize for international economic research (Kiel Institute for World Economics)
http://www.dateline.ucdavis.edu/dl_detail.lasso?id=8467
Professor Philip Power (Chemistry): Elected to the Fellowship of the Royal Society
http://www.news.ucdavis.edu/search/news_detail.lasso?id=7386
Cooperative Extension Specialist Desmond Jolly (Agricultural and Resource
Economics): Outstanding Black Agricultural Economist Award
http://www.news.ucdavis.edu/search/news_detail.lasso?id=7426
Professor Deb Niemeier (Civil and Environmental Engineering): 2005 Leopold Leadership Fellow (Stanford Institute for the Environment)
Elected to the American Association for the Advancement of Science: Alan Bennett (Plant Science, Office of the Vice Chancellor-Research); Robert Cardiff (Pathology); Alan Hastings (Environmental Science and Policy); Walter Leal (Entomology); Cheuk-Yiu Ng (Chemistry); Neelima Roy Singh (Plant Biology)
http://www.dateline.ucdavis.edu/dl_detail.lasso?id=8506
LEARNING
Freshman seminars: Progress has continued in providing access to these seminars during the fall quarter when demand is the highest. Our faculty are teaching over 70 freshman seminars this fall, much to the delight of advisers, students and parents.
Time to degree: Pilot programs developed by a joint Senate-Administrative committee are currently in place to assist students in graduating in a more timely manner. These include a change in the minimum progress requirement and allowing students to request more units at pass one. Initial data at census for Fall 2005 suggest that these changes have encouraged students on average to take more units than in previous fall quarters.
Innovation Bootcamp: Professor Andy Hargadon (Graduate School of Management) led a new learning opportunity for science and engineering graduate and post-doctoral students this fall on how to translate their research into viable products for investment and the competitive market.
http://www.news.ucdavis.edu/search/news_detail.lasso?id=7463
Course approval: At the request of the Letters and Science Courses Committee, the Senate Committee on Courses has significantly simplified the course approval process. These simplifications have now been implemented by the Offices of the Chancellor and Provost and the Office of the Registrar in the online system. The simplified Course Approval Form also has an improved user interface -- these improvements are described online at http://caf.ucdavis.edu.
Distinguished Teachers and Mentors: The Academic Senate has recognized Douglas Gross (Cell Biology and Human Anatomy), Naomi Janowitz (Religious Studies), Kathryn Olmsted (History) and Wendell Potter (Physics) with Distinguished Teaching Awards. Susan Kauzlarich (Chemistry) and Amiya Mukherjee (Chemical Engineering and Material Science) both earned the Senate's Distinguished Graduate Mentoring Award.
http://www.dateline.ucdavis.edu/dl_detail.lasso?id=8364
ENGAGEMENT
Chancellor's Fall Conference 2005-Internationalizing UC Davis: Participants in this year's Fall Conference-160 students, faculty and staff members, donors, alumni and administrators-shared ideas about what UC Davis should do to strengthen international educational opportunities for students and the campus' overall engagement abroad.
http://www.dateline.ucdavis.edu/dl_detail.lasso?id=8437
Participants recommended actions needed to achieve this goal which ranged from increasing the number of languages taught at UC Davis to adding or incorporating a general education requirement for "global competency."
We will discuss, refine, and advance these ideas in a variety of campus forums as the academic year progresses.
New International Faculty Database Launched: New to the UC Davis International Programs Web page is a database that provides easy access to information on the international expertise of UC Davis faculty. To access the new database, go to the International Programs Web page at http://www.ucdavis.edu/international , then go to "Quick Links" and select "International Faculty Database."
UC Davis Health System: The Association of American Medical Colleges
(AAMC) has honored the Health System with its Outstanding Community Service Award for 2005 for its long-standing commitment to serving the health-care needs of local and regional communities.
http://www.ucdmc.ucdavis.edu/newsroom/releases/archives/som/2005/aamc11-2005.html
Writers conference: The Tomales Bay Writers' Workshops, organized by Professor Pamela Houston (English) and sponsored by the UC Davis Creative Writing Program in cooperation with the UC Davis Extension, held its inaugural session in October. The workshops were fully subscribed. For details, please see:
http://extension.ucdavis.edu/courses/coursedescription.asp?type=I&unit=Arts&prgList=WRT&CourseID=31819.
Partnering with K-12 Schools: The History Project at UC Davis recently received a Teaching American History grant ($990,607, in partnership with CSU Sacramento and the San Juan Unified School District), and an Improving Teacher Quality grant ($1,000,000 in partnership with the School of Education and the Grant Joint Unified High School District). Through these grants, UC Davis works with school districts in our region to train teachers and improve curriculum in K-12 schools.
http://historyproject.ucdavis.edu/
UC Davis Experts Address Avian Flu: UC Davis faculty members are working on a variety of activities that address avian flu, a potentially serious worldwide health threat.
http://www.dateline.ucdavis.edu/dl_detail.lasso?id=8453
Hurricane Relief: The UC Davis community is reaching out to hurricane victims in a variety of ways. For more information, see http://www.news.ucdavis.edu/hurricane/.
Alumni Honored: The California Aggie Alumni Association recently honored six UC Davis alums for outstanding personal or professional
achievements: Masoud Kayhanian, Ph.D. '88; Dawn Imamoto, Cred. '95; Koichiro Aramaki, M.S. '78; Qifa Zhang, Ph.D. '85; Norm Weil '73, J.D. '76; Joaquin Galvan '81, M.Ed. '93. Please see their stories at http://www.dateline.ucdavis.edu/dl_detail.lasso?id=8465.
Best regards,
Virginia S. Hinshaw
Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor
University of California, Davis
One Shields Avenue
Davis, CA 95616-8558
530/752-4964; Fax 530/752-2400
vshinshaw@ucdavis.edu