[Faculty] UCAD Plus Joint Task Force Update #3

[UCR Provost]

*This letter is sent on behalf of UC System Provost and Executive Vice
President Katherine S. Newman; Academic Council Chair Ahmet Palazoglu; and
Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor Stern. For your convenience, the text
of letter is pasted below with the PDF attached.*




*Subject:* UCAD Plus Joint Task Force Update #3



Dear Colleagues,



We are reaching out to share our third update on the work of the UCAD Plus
Joint Task Force
<https://senate.universityofcalifornia.edu/committees/ucad-plus.html>.
Since our last communication, our workgroups have coalesced around short-
and long-term recommendations that support the core mission of this task
force, which is to identify strategies and actions that will improve
coordination and build resilience across the UC system. Each of these
groups has diligently identified creative ways to leverage existing
strengths and external partnerships to improve efficiency and preserve and
expand capacity amid ongoing disruptions.



You can learn more by reading through the summaries provided below by the
co-chairs of each UCAD Plus workgroup.


WG1 – Research Activities & Infrastructure

WG1 has begun drafting our report. Though these are still preliminary, our
recommendations fall into three categories. The first involves developing
strategies for gap funding. We recognize that there is no replacement for
federal funding given its magnitude, and no solutions that will apply
uniformly to all research projects or disciplines. But there are a number
of actions that can be undertaken that could stabilize research programs
that have lost funding, such as reframing existing research to better align
with emerging federal priorities; working with foundations and donors to
target research areas that cannot be reframed or are otherwise impacted;
and building international partnerships and participating in international
research funding opportunities.



The second category looks at how to build resilience into our research
infrastructure. We are considering how to better incentivize building
shared research infrastructure, including for cross-campus collaboration;
how to maximize the efficient use of existing infrastructure; and targeted
investments aimed at preserving data and other resources that are currently
at risk due to federal policies, but which will be necessary for future
research on key topics such as climate change. We also point out existing
examples of shared infrastructure that seem to be highly successful and
consider these models to be worthy of further study and replication.
Finally, we are considering recommendations involving additional
campus-based planning for research disruptions due to exogenous shocks and
natural disasters, as preliminary work suggests that research continuity
planning should be more robust.


WG2 – Academic Personnel Evaluations

The working group is in the process of finalizing and stress testing its
recommendations. It is landing on recommendations including a set of
principles for the implementation of Achievement Relative to Opportunity
(ARO) principles that balances providing flexibility and opportunity for
disrupted faculty while maintaining UC’s long-standing standards for
quality and excellence embodied in our promotion and advancement policies.



Our preliminary set of recommendations are in the following categories: (1)
Clarifying the application of ARO; (2) Contextual evaluation of faculty
performance and workload; (3) Flexibility in research and scholarship
evaluation to include new models of research and funding; (4) Flexibility
in career pathways within existing faculty series; and (5) Flexibility in
teaching and mentoring evaluations to include models such as
cross-department and cross-campus teaching.


WG3 – Program Evaluation and Alignment

We have structured our discussions around the seven fundamental questions
that the group identified earlier and have developed a total of about 25-30
recommendations. One theme that runs through them is strengthening the
connections between individual campuses, so that UC can more fully leverage
the power of the entire system.



The recommendations begin with ideas for strengthening ties between similar
departments across the system, including regular meetings among department
chairs, systemwide workshops among similar departments, and intercampus
courtesy appointments. These activities can help develop synergies between
departments at different campuses, facilitate sharing of resources, and
possibly promote shared offering of courses.



We also offer specific recommendations on how courses could be shared
across the system, including on-line synchronous classes as well as sharing
in-person classes using, e.g., intensive summer schools and "semester away"
options for students from one campus to spend a semester at another campus.
We expect such flexibility may help smaller programs maintain viability by
partnering with similar programs across the system. It may also help larger
programs offer more specialized or targeted training to students gathered
from across the system.



In a similar spirit, we recommend greater sharing of laboratory and
instrumentation resources across the system (note overlap with WG1). We
also make recommendations on the utilization of teaching versus research
focused faculty. Several recommendations focus on the function of program
reviews and how to place such reviews in the broader context of the
department, school, campus, and national discipline. Finally, we end with
recommended changes to some University policies and procedures.


WG4 – Instructional Opportunities

Workgroup’s report focuses on making recommendations in four general areas



   1. Adopt a culture of shared departmental responsibility for
   instruction. This includes moving from informal to formal backup plans for
   individual courses and understanding which course materials are suited for
   shared development.
   2. In moving from an individual culture of instructional responsibility
   where it is “one instructor, one course” to a shared culture of
   responsibility, adjust the merit and promotion process to account for this
   shift.
   3. Adopt instructional team models that are both pedagogically effective
   and flexible enough to be responsive to disruption.
   4. Conduct systematic data collection on disruptions and online tool
   usage for better planning.  This is one of the potential roles we
   identified for UC Online. In addition, UC Online can play a role in
   programs that build on cross-campus enrollment and identifying impacts of
   the regulatory system on our ability to respond to disruptions.



We close the report with a section that highlights specific recommendations
drawn from the discussion for various levels within the UC structure. We
consider UC Office of the President (UCOP), the systemwide Academic Senate,
campus administrative structures (including the department level), and
divisional Academic Senates. A key point is that communication between
these different levels is essential to effective handling of disruptions.


WG5 – Future of Graduate Education

The overarching goal of this working group is to improve student outcomes,
ensure program sustainability, and maintain academic quality in the face of
significant and increasing resource constraints, while acknowledging and
respecting disciplinary and campus variability.



After consulting with Academic Senate Coordinating Committee on Graduate
Affairs (CCGA) and the Council of Graduate Deans (COGD) and surveying
campus practices, the workgroup is developing specific implementation
suggestions in four key recommendations:



1.     Support innovation and experimentation

·        Create a competitive systemwide pilot funding program (innovation
seed grants) for individual campuses and multi-campus collaborations

·        Prioritize pilots targeting shared curricular resources, advising
structures, degree completion support, and program review redesign

2.     Improve time-to-degree outcomes

·        Require programs to monitor student progress against
discipline-appropriate benchmarks and address concerns when normative
timelines are approached or exceeded

·        Develop stigma-free off-ramps for more graduate students,
including those not making timely progress toward degree completion, and
alternatives to doctoral student status (postdocs, lectureships, research
staff) for long-tenured students

3.     Ensure program quality and sustainability

·        Strengthen existing program reviews to explicitly evaluate
time-to-degree, completion rates, placement outcomes (beyond academic
placements), and program size sustainability

·        Where programs persistently fail benchmarks, consider targeted
improvement plans, restructuring, or discontinuation

4.     Align faculty incentives with evolving doctoral program structures

·        Clarify expectations for teaching and advising loads and ensure
faculty advancement pathways remain viable as program sizes change

·        Ask University Committee on Academic Personnel (UCAP) and campus
academic personnel administrators to review how doctoral supervision and
mentoring are weighted in faculty evaluations



*******************



*Next Steps*



We have more work to do and will report on next steps in a month. The UCAD
Plus Joint Task Force and the Administrative Transformation Initiative,
convened by COO Rachael Nava and CFO Nathan Brostrom, will meet jointly on
April 3 to discuss shared recommendations and areas of future
collaboration. The groups will meet again in-person at UC Irvine in early
May. Following these meetings, the UCAD Plus workgroups will refine and
finalize their recommendations for submission to the UCAD Plus Steering
Committee in early June.



We look forward to staying in touch as these essential conversations
continue.



Cordially,



Katherine S. Newman

UC System Provost and

Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs

UC Berkeley Chancellor’s Distinguished Professor of Sociology & Public
Policy



Ahmet Palazoglu

Chair, Academic Council

Distinguished Professor of Chemical Engineering, UC Davis



Hal Stern

Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor

Distinguished Professor of Statistics, UC Irvine

Convener, Council of Executive Vice Chancellors (COVC)
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://scotmail.ucr.edu/pipermail/faculty/attachments/20260402/af876945/attachment-0001.htm>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: UCAD Plus Task Force Update #3.pdf
Type: application/pdf
Size: 185194 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <https://scotmail.ucr.edu/pipermail/faculty/attachments/20260402/af876945/attachment-0001.pdf>