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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