Professor Emeritus Charles Schwartz                  May 30, 2000
...

Dear Charlie:

In President Atkinson's absence and on his behalf, I am writing in 
response to your letters of March 2 and April 27 about the containment 
of costs associated with accommodating UC's enrollment growth over the 
next ten years.

We are working with the State to find cost-effective ways to provide a 
high-quality education for the anticipated increase in students and are 
exploring the use of summer sessions as well as off-campus sites to 
minimize capital expenditures.  We do not anticipate increasing the 
University's student-faculty ratio as a way to deal with the influx of new 
students, however, because doing so would put us in a non-competitive 
position with regard to recruitment and retention of faculty.

Throughout the years of budget cuts in the 1990s, the University kept its 
promise under the Master Plan for Higher Education by continuing to offer 
admission to all eligible Californians applying at the undergraduate level, 
and it managed to provide a high-quality education.  Before the budget 
cuts, UC's student-faculty ratio was 17.6 to one.  However, the actual 
ratio of students to faculty during the 1990s, which ranged from 18.0:1 to 
19.7:1, was much higher than the budgeted ratio because the University 
continued--through extra efforts by its faculty--to honor the Master Plan 
and take more students than were funded by the State.  UC's student-faculty 
ratio compares unfavorably to those of its eight comparison institutions, 
which in the past averaged 17:1 at the public institutions and 10.4:1 at 
the private institutions.  Even with full funding of the budgeted 
student-faculty ratio, the University will be at a competitive disadvantage.

The University's faculty have worked hard to provide required courses and 
to sustain interaction with undergraduate students.  The average 1997-98 
primary-class teaching load has increased 12.1 percent since 1990-91.  In 
the final analysis, faculty commitment is the most important factor in the 
University's ability to preserve the quality of its instructional program.

Your suggestion of providing only 1,000 new faculty for 63,000 new students 
would seriously undermine the quality of the education UC offers its 
students.  This approach would amount to 12 new faculty annually for each 
UC campus and would result in a student-faculty ratio of 24 students for 
each faculty member--a 35 percent loss from a decade ago.

We believe that better approaches are those that accommodate enrollment 
growth and at the same time improve the quality of education by providing 
students with the opportunity for more personal interaction with faculty.  
UC is developing ways to strengthen the quality of its undergraduate 
programs by hiring faculty with the goal of reducing class size and 
offering additional seminars or tutorials; providing undergraduates with 
increased opportunities to work with faculty on their research projects; 
providing additional instructional support to academic departments and 
faculty; and increasing academic advising for students.

                                     Sincerely,
                                     
                                     Jud
                                     
                                     C. Judson King
                                     Provost and Senior Vice President-
                                      Academic Affairs
                                     
cc:  President Atkinson
     Vice President Hershman

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