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March 29, 1999
Chancellor Greenwood and other campus administrators touched on a wide-ranging set of issues related to UCSC growth at last week's "Staff Forum on Campus Growth."
Some 250 staff members attended the morning forum, which took place on Tuesday, March 22, in Classroom Unit 2. Those in attendance heard presentations on the history of growth at UCSC and on a new process for allocating budget resources on campus. At the end of the forum, a panel of administrators answered questions submitted by staff.
A tenet upheld by the administration at the forum was that UCSC must continue to grow to accommodate its share of the next generation of UC-eligible students--and that growth is taking place in accordance with the campus's Long Range Development Plan.
"We need to put up some new facilities, we need to be able to develop some new staff positions, some faculty positions, and--do I dare say it in front of this group--we need parking," said Chancellor Greenwood, receiving applause from the audience.
The Santa Cruz campus is not as well developed for its enrollment as other UC campuses, she added. UCSC has only 84 percent of the facilities UC space formulas say it needs, while most other campuses have 92 percent or more.
Compounding its facilities shortfall, UCSC expects to grow from a current enrollment of some 11,000 students to 15,000 within the next decade.
UCSC's growth is driven by expected enrollment increases throughout the UC system. UC, which currently enrolls 163,000 students statewide, must accommodate 220,000 students by 2010, according to recent projections.
According to the way UC currently allocates funding to the campuses, UCSC receives approximately $10,000 (state support and registration fees, minus student aid) for each student it enrolls. Next year, the campus is projecting an enrollment increase of 430 students, for example, resulting in an additional $4.3 million in funding.
These extra funds enable the campus to hire more faculty and staff and meet other challenges posed by growth.
To help the campus manage the additional funds, Executive Vice Chancellor John Simpson has established a new budget process, which he discussed at the forum.
The new budget model allocates 50 percent of new funding on a formula basis to all campus units--academic and nonacademic. The remaining 50 percent is awarded on the basis of initiatives submitted by unit heads.
"We want to emphasize long-term, multi-year planning," said Simpson. "We must consider where we're going, what we're doing, and how best we can do all that."
Each of the funding proposals will be posted on the Web so that members of the campus community can review the initiatives and see which received funding, Simpson said. The Web posting is expected to take place in May, when the funding decisions are scheduled to be made.
An earlier presentation at the forum was made by Assistant Vice Chancellor Frank Zwart of Physical Planning and Construction, who discussed challenges to development (the campus's 2,030 acres have a vertical elevation greater than in the entire state of Florida); the history of development (the UCSC landscape was mined and heavily logged when it was the Cowell Ranch); and future development (more pedestrian paths and bridges, the proposed Science Hill parking structure, and new Interdisciplinary and Physical Sciences Buildings). Zwart also illustrated how campus growth is shaped by long-term planning.
Following the two presentations, an administrative panel answered questions submitted by staff. The questions touched on a variety of subjects, including parity raises and cost-of-living adjustments for staff, the proposed parking structure and its effect on parking rates, housing assistance for staff, and the relocation of some UCSC business activities to the former Wrigley Building.
Also on the panel were Julia Armstrong-Zwart, assistant vice chancellor for Human Resources; Francisco J. Hernandez, vice chancellor for Student Affairs; Jan Tepper, UC police chief and director of Parking Services; and Tom Vani, vice chancellor for Business and Administrative Services.
To view a videotape of the event, call Clare Greene at (831) 459-3247 or send e-mail to clare.greene@macmail.ucsc.edu.