First Administrator Evaluation

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The DFA has begun conducting regular surveys of UC Davis faculty. Our first survey asked faculty if they thought UC Davis should use the upcoming change of Chancellor to strike out in a new direction. That survey resulted in significant coverage in the Davis Enterprise. Our second survey, which asked faculty what characteristics the campus should look for in its new Chancellor, resulted in an invitation to DFA officers to speak to the search committee. Now for our third survey.

The members of the faculty of the university are regularly evaluated by each other, by students, and by administrators. The latter group is not truly evaluated by anyone other than the Chancellor. The DFA believes that administrators should be subject to a regular evaluation by the faculty. With the current turn-over in personnel at the highest level of the administration, it is not useful at this point to evaluate the Chancellor or the Provost. However, the Office of Research and Graduate Studies are two administrative units that have a major impact on the research and teaching activities of the faculty. Our web survey offers the faculty an opportunity to evaluate their performance and to offer constructive suggestions that can be provided to our new Chancellor.

The Office of Research is effective and efficient in supporting my research activities:
Agree strongly   6.7% (3)
Agree   17.8% (8)
Disagree   40.0% (18)
Disagree strongly   31.1% (14)
TOTAL   95.6% 45


Give specific examples explaining why you feel this way:
...they continue to grow in size but provide less support...at the same time they demand more from the faculty while performing less well themselves...
Appears to have a lot of hoops. Does not encourage or facilitate industry sponsorship.
As a faculty member in the Humanities, I have very little contact with the Office of Research. Of the limited contact that I have had, most of it has been positive.
At least, there's a little money available.
delays in processing applications but more important, the Office of Research does not have strong contacts in Washington DC with funding agencies and also with Foundations nationwide. The Associate VC has not held major grants (if so, they are minor) and has little experience himself in getting grants. He is mediocre at best
Despite my impression that they move at a snails pace, I feel they are generally helpful. However, comments from some colleagues feel that they are much more obstructionist by default.
Does not recognize the problems encountered by non-scientists when they have to use resources not available on this campus.
Essentials that are needed (e.g. IRB rapid feedback) is lacking. Grant facilitators are more concerned by process than effective mediation (when needed). The PI is expected to do all of the work with only regulatory oversight from OVCR grant officers. UCD is well behind the other UC's regarding the ability to negotiate patents, limited contracts, etc. It is appreciated that the rules and regulations are complex, but OVCR officers often comes across as obfuscative, giving the impression they enjoy their roles as gate keepers. The office is seldom proactive. However, the VC is quick to take credit.
Fast action (e.g., by David Ricci) in approving and submitting research proposals to funding agencies.
Have always had the impression that it funded only large-scale funding in the sciences. Have never been disabused of this notion. For instance, I don't recall ever receiving an invitation from the Office of Research to submit a project for possible funding, whereas Committee on Research sends out this invitation every year.
HELP us get grants, don't make it harder for us.
Helps me identify funding sources and meet deadlines. Efficient in proposal review and approval.
I always get them my information early, but have on several occassions, not received approvals/had my proposal submitted till the last minute.
I believe the OR has engaged in the continued funding a money losing off campus activities that led to deficits that then had to be reduced by cutting the devil out of IGA, a core activity for social scientists.
I have gotten some small grants.
I have not suffered as much as many of my colleagues. Nonetheless, there have many instances of short delays and confusion between OR and my department. The staff in OR are overworked but this requires better management at the top.
I have three grants with them. The longest has been setting there for 4 years. They are non responsive. The VC of research does not set goals and refuses to set metrics. There is a level of arrogance there that turns off administrators of federal grants programs as well as turns off industry.
If there was a choice for Neutral, I would have chosen that. I compare the office of research to the way it was 13 years ago when I arrived here. Then the sponsored programs branch was a terribly run office that could be compared to a black hole. Sponsored programs appears to be an efficient and friendly office now. There are two issues that remain: 1. The Tech transfer branch is still a black hole. Our campus does a poor job handling opportunities in technology. The people they send out to talk to faculty appear to be poorly trained post graduate students whose main job it is to dissuade faculty from pursuing patenting, etc. I am usually amazed and jealous when I visit other campuses at how much more respect and opportunities they offer to their faculty in the tech transfer area. The big and little bang business competitions are a small step in the right direction. 2. The whole campus needs more support in handling grants before and after they go through the office of research. Office of research could be an advocate for this and should look to how this is done with our main competitors. Many of the faculty at UC Davis are sharing one financial/grants staff person with 30 or more faculty. This makes grant assembly and management a nightmare that stifles creativity.
In general, the office is doing an efficient work considering the turnover of personnel. I just do not understand why the overhead has gone up from 42% to 52% in just 10 years!!! When the campus is getting significant more research funding, the overhead rate should come down! Limit the waste in flowing money into inflated retention and startup packages.
In overall behavior they are more concerned with compliance than with supporting research. They have cut research support while adding new staff recently. Their off campus location is inconvenient. I find them incompetent and unresponsive to research needs at all levels of their organization, including the top
Inflexibility in issues of F&A, contracting.
More concerned "scrupulously enforcing the(ir) rules" than with facilitating submission of proposals.
OR handled the lab fees proposal process poorly, but not nearly as poorly as OP did. More generally, I am neutral on OR. I do not have any major complaints.
Our office works through Penny Walgenbach. She is a stickler for detail, which is great, because the agencies are too. Whether I'm submitting a big grant or a small one, Penny always answers my questions quickly, intelligently, and correctly. I've also submitted several requests for MTA. When I first arrived here in 1990, this process was a nightmare- it could take years. I think the requests were being handled in Oakland. Since the OVCR has started handling MTAs locally, I've been very pleased with the speed and efficiency of the process.
Our UCD OVCR has a long history of being run by an inefficient administration. The daily operation is often counter-productive to the mission of the research faculty. For example, locating OVCR off campus places a significant impediment in terms of the interaction of departmental staff with the relevant grants officers. Our request to be able to fax proposal cover sheets, etc., with hard copies being delivered through the campus mail was rejected by VC Klein. This decision means that numerous trips must be made on a daily basis to deliver what could be provided either electronically or by fax! This is just one example of the insensitivity of the OVCR outfit.
The Office of Research has recently been changing their structure, which has led to increased performance in their office. I submitted a multi-investigator multi-college grant proposal in April 2009 that was handled very efficiently by their staff. Sometimes the contract negotiation process can take longer than needed. I hope this will improve in 2009-2010.
The office of research has substantially cut IGA, which is imperative to my success as an empirical researcher.
The Office of Research is effective as a police force, but not particularly effective as an office to help faculty. I get the feeling that compliance rules the day. In terms of personnel, I think they are understaffed, given the number of proposals and awards they must administer. I don't find the recent PI Ledger Review particulary helpful, simply because I don't have direct access to the type of information that will allow me to validate the ledger. Recently the ledger indicated that I was PI on a grant that I had never seen. I admit this could be typical "teething" problems in a new procedure.
The Office of Research, under the leadership of Barry Klein, has made it difficult for social science researchers to secure access to many data sources by attempting to renegotiate standing contracts that we researchers have with data-providing organizations such as the NSF, the PSID, etc. In addition, the Office of Research has repeatedly made disproportionately large cuts to the budget of the Institute of Governmental Affairs (IGA). IGA is the only organized research unit on campus that actively supports the research of social scientists (from many departments) through its grant-support infrastructure and data processing facilities (the Social Science Data Service). Barry Klein has no understanding of the work that social scientists do and has displayed no interest in supporting social science research.
The particular grant officer that works with our department is excellent. But there is very little help in terms of management. For example in the EFRC proposal round from DOE last year, all of the groups on campus that wanted to submit proposals in the end collapsed because of lack of overview. The office of research should be working to provide overview on center proposals.
The performance is very uneven. The person working on my grants is dedicated, efficient, and responsive. Other aspects relating to my research including MTAs have been much less positive. On a broader scale, there appears to be no leadership, just status quo administration. Even the administrative part often does not work. The last problem in my area was a highly delayed and bungled response to the Keck Foundation, which resulted in loosing a grant of over S1 Mill.
The School of Veterinary Medicine has had many complains from faculty concerning the unhelpfulness of the Office of Research. More recently we invited members to meet with our Academic Council - all members from the school came away from that meeting with a sense of absolute hopelessness concerning this office and the ability to help faculty with grants.
Their attitude - one of my colleagues described them as viewing themselves as the border patrol - their job is to block things from going forward making sure all i's are dotted and t's crossed rather than facilitating applications. This has certainly been my experience with only a couple of exceptions. The definitely are not there to help and seem to feel the fewer grants they have to process the easier their job is. From an individual perspective this is likely true - the more work you can avoid the better, but this intolerable from a campus perspective. They should not take credit for the hard work and persistence of the faculty in obtaining funding and think they had any active role in that process.
They are slow, bureaucratic, and generally unhelpful.
They are unpleasant to work with - overall poor attitude. While grants go out - when awards come in they generally get very low priority and the Office of Research has had trouble figuring out who the PI is and how to notify them of the awards arrival. In addition, we were told that there would be a reorganization to deal with inefficiencies and poor attitudes, but this does not seem to have happened.
They support nothing that I do. Provide no useful information about funding opportunities, nothing about how funding calls should be addresses, etc.
Took over a year to process a simple MTA, leaving me without crucial reagent; ultimately processed without any significant change from original. Typically a hindrance rather than a help on grant applications- I have had grant applications needlessly delayed more than once. Lack of support going back to paper grant applications and continuing to electronic submissions today. Way too many personnel given lack of useful assistance.
tremendously inhibitory to interfacing with industry
Up until this last year, they were quite slow to answer even simple questions over email. I have noticed a marked improvement this past year. Responses this year (even by the same people as in the past) are generally faster, more polite, and helpful. I am fairly new here (this is only my 3rd year), but I perceive a real improvement this year over the previous two.
When trying to negotiate contracts with outside companies or groups they are very slow, non-responsive and are unable to meet deadlines. This results in others becoming frustrated with us, and lost opportunities to collaborate.
Work flow is very slow with, what appears to be no system in place to monitor timely response. The role of this unit is not clear. They appear to be acting as a gatekeeper with no consistency in actions or policy.


Check all that apply:
I have been treated fairly and honestly by the Office of Research   35.6% (16)
The Office of Research is too slow or inefficient   55.6% (25)
The Office of Research is arbitrarily managed   37.8% (17)
The Office of Research is not very service oriented   57.8% (26)
The Office of Research has met all expectations   8.9% (4)


Graduate Studies is effective and efficient in supporting graduate education and research at UC Davis:
Agree strongly   4.4% (2)
Agree   26.7% (12)
Disagree   40.0% (18)
Disagree strongly   20.0% (9)
TOTAL   91.1% 45


Give specific examples:
..except for imposing regulations and proving a small amount of financial support...it's not clear what they do...
According to the staff coordinator of my graduate group, there seem to be two major problems with the Office of Graduate Studies. Both were evident during this year’s admission process, but have been true for several years. First is communication—OGS staff are lax about informing graduate group staff of problems, for instance, the problem of letters of recommendation in the EMBARK data base not being transferred in a timely fashion to the GARD data base. They can also be, according to the coordinator, difficult to reach by phone. The problem may be aggravated by high turnover and sick leave in the staff. Second is rigidity in rules and deadlines. This is particularly frustrating when faculty recommenders find it impossible to file letters of recommendation in EMBARK (or the information does not move to GARD) and the application is denied, even though a paper copy of the recommendation has been received by the graduate program and could be available to OGS. Particularly desirable students cannot be awarded fellowships if they have not filled out all the appropriate forms, and the deadline for filling them out comes before the graduate group knows whether these students are desirable. The upshot is that admission decisions are delayed and opportunities are lost, because graduate programs cannot accommodate exceptional students.
As a graduate student, I have had minimal interaction - good or bad.
As a Master Advisor for a graduate group, I need to have staff in Grad Studies answer the phone. I need to have my phone messages returned promptly.
As chair of several graduate programs, I have recently dealt with Graduate Studies on a week-to-week basis for several years. The staff there gave good advice to me and the dean was supportive of both students and faculty. My main complaint is that the admissions process is still too efficient because the office has often been understaffed and documents have to be transferred by hand from one person/system to another. My main problems have been with Graduate Council (not Graduate Studies). Graduate Studies (or somebody) needs to have more oversight over Graduate Council which seems to attract overzealous faculty who create a lot of bureaucratic work for graduate program chairs and program staff (e.g. at program review) and take literally years to review and approve the work that they created for faculty and staff.
As in my statement concerning the Office of Research. I feel there is a driving force to bring everyone into "lock step." In the past I have had the good fortune to garner graduate support that would allow my students to spend a year at a gov't. lab to complete their MS research. This requires full, 100% RA funding. I am told that, in the future, this may not be approved by Office of Graduate Studies. Seems like we are subject to an ever crystallizing bureaucracy on this campus.
Funding limitations create a number of problems, from reduced block grant support to larger class sizes (and therefore, more onerous grading responsibilities) for TAs. But these issues are out of the control of grad studies, I realize. Probably the main comment I have is that the system is not well set up to handle students who need to be away from campus for extended periods while pursuing their research (e.g., fieldwork). At present, students must PELP, which is time limited and carries other complications. Students ought to be able to pay a nominal fee to keep their files open and remain registered while away (often out of the country, and often for extended periods- 1-2 years). As it is, PELPing and associated complications are real problems for students in my field.
Graduate Studies defines its tasks so as to encompass the concerns of scientists, but not of non-scientists. For example, for many years non-scientists had been stymied by the difficulties intrinsic to supporting foreign students. Grad Studies did not address this until the problem affected scientists. And then it "solved" the problem by taking money from the Bloc Grant and adding it to support of foreign students. However, since non-science disciplines' main source of support for grad students is the bloc grant, Grad Studies' "solution" to this problem actually exacerbated that problem for non-science disciplines. And then, to rub salt in the wound, Grad Studies actually boasts that it has solved the problem!
GS doesn't take into account the funding problems of non-science depts and acts as though it doesn't care. The dean in particular seems pretty indifferent to problems in how the funding formulae suit the humanities and social sciences.
I am neutral on grad studies. I think they do OK overall. However, like most everything else, they are getting increasingly bureaucratic and rule-centric.
I believe, based on my experiences (and one in particular) with Graduate Studies, that Dean Gibeling is not competent to administer Graduate Studies and make the tough and timely decisions that this job entails. I say this reluctantly since I like Jeff as a person and consider myself a longtime personal friend. But either he doesn’t have the manpower to staff the workload or he lacks the decisiveness required to do the job. (I am sorry I cannot be more specific about the details of the particular incident without identifying myself, since these comments will ultimately become public. I would be happy to do this on a confidential verbal basis.) This office is an extremely important one and the university deserves someone more competent than Dean Gibeling to run it. The university would benefit if he were replaced.
I feel that the support for graduate recruitment has gone down so quickly, and there has not been an obvious action taken by the Graduate Studies. When I heard from the dean about mainly targeting at Cal State campuses for graduate recruitment, I felt very disappointed. I agree there are good candidates from those campuses, but our eyes should be wide open for talents from research universities.
I have had very mixed experience with Grad Studies. Our department's graduate program was reviewed about five years ago, and the ad hoc committee did a terrible job, included a lot of false and misleading information, and refused to listen to the department's point of view. As a result we received a cautionary warning, namely that if we didn't improve the graduate program, we would lose the program. Three years later another review was conducted, this time with knowledgeable people who understand the problem of graduate studies in the humanities as UCD. As a result, the review was much more favorable, even though the program had not changed significantly. I blame some of the narrow-minded people on Grad Studies for this.
I like the new online portal for web-based graduate admissions. Last year the graduate studies office was slow in pushing out the admission letters, but this year has gone better.
I would really like to see a specific and well informed "go-to" person for all postdoc issues. Dean Gibeling is a smart guy who works hard at his job. He does, however, seem to be running Grad Council. This is Grad Council's fault, not his. They need to develop a little backbone. The Faculty Associate Deans and Grad Council seem move at a very slow pace hen developing policy. Perhaps there are mechanistic hurdles (check and balances) I don't understand.
It is not possible to see any progress in the quality of our graduate programs. This may simply reflect the fact that UCD is mired in 30's in many national ranking, driving better students to other places. Graduate Studies does not play a major role in my everyday work.
Jeff Gibling is a big improvement over the previous head. He seems to really care about the welfare of students and academic excellence. He has not micromanaged grad groups. When involved with the death of a graduate student he was wonderfully compasionate and caring. He has been proactive in helping training grants and program projects with competitive renewal.
Micromanages graduate groups with focus on mediocrity rather than excellence. Appears to refuse to appoint chairs of graduate groups who might push hard more support for graduate groups (I know of two specific examples). Does not treat graduate groups as equal partners.
No specific experience, but appears to have more hindrances than assistance.
Overall my interacations with graduate studies has been positive. They have supported students and seem to do a reasonable job with allocation of block grant funds. The one place I have a recurring problem with them - is with regard to dual degree (DVM/PhD) students. Grad studies does a poor job of notifying the graduate groups that there is a petition required for these students - and it has been my experience that graduate groups have arbitrarily withdrawn students from their programs as they aren't aware of the dual degree petitions.
Staff, Associate Deans and Deans are all great at rapidly addressing any and all questions and needs, and in counseling individual students through difficult circumstances.
The Graduate Deans have helped me with international student support (Dean Larry Andrews) and NSF IGERT proposal submissions (Jeff Gibeling),
The Office of Graduate studies could be providing leadership to generate more contemporary approaches to serving the wide range of potential graduate students and program. Instead it is mired in old models of graduate education, assuming all graduate students has as his/her only responsibility being a student. There is a need to develop models for working professionals and others whose profile is different from the tradition profile. Other institutions have developed these models and UCDavis continues to operate as tho it is 1960.
The Office of Graduate Studies is an impediment to Graduate Studies at UC Davis. I am member of four graduate groups, and have seen so many instances of disrespectful treatment of Graduate Group Chairs and Executive Committees, that it is little wonder, why so few people want to serve, because they do not want to work with Graduate Studies.
The role of Graduate Studies should be to foster the wellbeing of graduate training on the UCD campus. An important facet should be securing funds to defray the ever incresing NRT for out-of-state and foreign students. Since the demise of the NRT wiaver program, and the increase in graduate student stipend, the overall costs associated with training of graduate students has increased to the point where it is rapidly becoming cost ineffective relative to postdoctoral training. Graduate Studies should have been proactive in establishing a large endowment for fellowships to support outstanding local and foreign student training.
there is meager financial support for graduate students.....we are not a first class university in this category
There needs to be a better link between OVCR and Grad Studies. The current organization provides some structural support, but does little to be proactive in areas such as recruitment or generating new streams of support.
They appear to manage graduate groups to minimize effort on their part. When there is conflict within a graduate group, they don't do what is fair or what is implied by the regulations, but whatever causes them the least political trouble.
They put impediments with no value added, for example postdoc approval l before offers are made adds days to weeks with no purpose. Similarly, they do noting to actually help us recruit, deal with, or encourage graduate students. The whole operation could be eliminated and its few needed functions decentralized.
They seem to be primarily interested in imposing aribtrary edicts on graduate programs.
Very disorganized. When I was a graduate group chair we never really knew what our budget was. We would get allocations to the block grant that after we had committed them would be readjusted downward of course retroactively then we would be asked why we overspent - this is completely unacceptable fiscal management. Students frequently complain that the staff are not helpful and again seem to feel it is their job to prevent the students from getting assistance. I realize it is not practical to let every student who thinks they need to speak to the dean to do so, but the staff needs to handle this better. One student told me the staff person told him the dean did not want to meet with him implying someone had told the dean the student was just a trouble maker and the dean had believed it without giving the student a fair hearing. This is not good.The staff should be trained to be more tactful and not to make the dean appear to be so shallow. After all, it is his job to address graduate student issues.
We don't get adequate support for recruiting graduates students, especially non-residents. This is not necessarily the fault of Graduate Studies, considering the punitive treatment of foreign students and the fee structure for out-of-state Americans, but it puts departments that more dependent on intruamural funding at a disadvantage.
When a program in the humanities needed revamping, the current dean insisted that students take the courses sequentially, and would not approve the program until it was written up that way. But the courses are not offered sequentially, and one can read Shakespeare before one has read Beowulf or Chaucer. It was an unnecessary hurdle and delay, written into the program for unknown reasons, and is not followed.


Check all that apply:
I have been treated fairly and honestly by Graduate Studies   35.6% (16)
Graduate Studies is too slow or inefficient   31.1% (14)
Graduate Studies is arbitrarily managed   28.9% (13)
Graduate Studies is not very service oriented   33.3% (15)
Graduate Studies has met all expectations   4.4% (2)


General comments about the administration of UC Davis:
..out of touch...
Administrators need to be more answerable to the faculty. So far, it has been an inside club. The new Chancellor needs to make a clean sweep and change the culture in Mrak Hall. It has been too cushy.
appointees (Deans, AVC, etc) are appointed from within (well over 50%, probably as high as 70%); this results in an insular view of the university. They are process oriented and that leaves little room for innovation. Faculty governance is not a reality. It seems as if decisions are made by administrators and faculty are expected to endorce these decisions. UCD should be better than it is. We have clearly not reached our potential. There is no balance between teaching and research. We are after all, a research university. There is no sense that there are priorities in spending. It appears democratic but it shouldn't be because we cannot be excellent in all areas. Finally, the Chancellor and his appointees should be more active in fund raising. That is what I expect from an excellent university.
As far as I can tell, the UCD administrators are not accountable to anyone other than themselves, which is to say that they are not accountable to anyone. There are no benchmarks for "success" or "meaningful achievement" for the administration, other than keeping their heads down, and keeping faculty busy with more and more of (their) administrative work. For the benchmarks that are claimed to exist, evaluation is from the "top-down" and never from the faculty-level (which are clearly regarded as the the "bottom"). Just as an example, with the current bolus of federal stimulus funding becoming available, how many administrators actually submitted grant for facilities renovation from the NIH, of for funds to resume faculty searches that were halted? And how many of those proposals were funded?? And, last but not least, who evaluates whether the administrative individuals actually exerted enough effort to bring such stimulus money to the campus??? I look forward to an annual survey that evaluates the performance of all administrators at the level of Dean and "above". The should actually work for their retirement income.
Excessively dominated by scientists, who see to it that resources are disproportionately sent to to support their fields.
Far too incestuous and self-serving. The faculty are treated in an imperious and patronizing manner. Faculty morale is at an all-time low.
Generally the administration seems top-heavy and overpaid.
Has become an entity unto itself, aware less of the concerns of the constituencies it should be serving and attuned instead to its own self-interest.
I am glad to see the university trying to adhere to a stricter budget, however I hope that professor salaries will not be affected during this crunch. There is much more deadweight to cut in the administration before this should be necessary. I see examples of waste and inefficiency on campus every day, and their poor performance makes my job harder to do. If I had to deal with a lower salary (or not getting cost of living increases) on top of this, I would beging to seriously consider recruitment feelers from other universities.
I have been very impressed by reports written by the adman group on campus which is largely comprised of MSO's - one of their conclusions is that we have developed and adopted business practices that advantage the administration to the detriment of the departments and academic programs. These two units clearly support this position.
I never know what to anticipate when I deal with GS. Rules that apply in one incident dont seem to apply in others. Morale amoug staff seems low.
It is overly bureaucratic which wastes faculty time, results in lost research opportunities and money
Mediocre when times have been good and ineffectual when time are bad!
More dialogues between the administration and the faculty are going to be critical.
My general feeling is that the prime directive for the administration is to "manage" the faculty. He (or she) who "manages" most efficiently and consistently receives the kudos.
Outstanding, efficient, effective.
Overall I think that the administration is slow to respond to faculty's concerns. The promised reorganization of OVCR has not happened and they continue to be poorly run and unpleasant to deal with.
Overall, many more pluses than minuses, but in general very slow to recognize and address problems.
still bloated and serving its own purposes rather than those of the faculty. No leadership, with a few exceptions. Does not support excellence
The administration at UC Davis appears to be very inefficient and fails to be oriented toward the full development of the faculty. It is very biased toward the biological sciences, engineering and other STEM fields and attempts to mindlessly apply management models that appear to have worked for the STEM colleges and departments on campus to the social sciences and humanities. In my dealings with administrators, I find a very high degree of ignorance about the work that social scientists do and its value for society. In short, the administration has failed to invest in the social sciences and thereby it has failed to capitalize on the great deal of potential that the social science faculty embody.
The administration is losing touch with the purpose of liberal arts education in a public university.
The Campus, especially under Larry Vanderhoef's leadership, has been extremely active in facilitating excellence and growth in research, teaching, and outreach in our traditional programs and in new areas of endeavor.
The main problem at UC Davis is too much beaurocracy. Filing travel, peer review, corporate credit cards, graduate admissions etc. have all recently gained on-line systems that cost individual professors more time. Our administrators should be saving us time not setting up time consuming things for us to do. In addition facilities and construction management is particularly over burdened with excess charges. If anything on campus should be changed, this is it.
The online application system -EMBARK- is a very poor functioning system. It appears that the decision to adopt this system and vendor was made in a vacuum of information about Programs needs. In my program the result is a significant increase in staff work to manage this system for our admissions needs.
There has been a general view that there is management (baby dean and above) and workers. There is the concept that the university is in an US and THEM situation where the administration admiinisters the administrtion for the benefit of administrators rather than for the mission of research and transfer of knowledge.
There must be major changes at multiple levels of administration. Current administration culture is top down, arbitrary, and intolerant of internal dissent and faculty input. Best single suggestion for new chancellor: include in your inner circle people who disagree with you, and listen to their viewpoints before you make a final decision. Should also consider setting up an ombudsman to simply talk to different groups on campus and get ideas for improvements. Perhaps the chancellor should even meet with different departments (colleges?) at least once a year and NOT GIVE A SPEECH, but listen to what the faculty are saying.
They are inward looking, appear to care only for themselves and not the good of the campus. They hire sycophants and put excellence well below keeping their lives simple and carefree. They have not problem putting burdens on the faculty and staff, and don't appear to care how their actions impact the lives of the faculty and staff.
To many layers of administration. Culture of mistrust appears to be present.
Too big and too slow; unlikely to respond quickly and efficiently to time- sensitive needs.
Too many people getting paid too much.
Too much money for athletics at the expense of the campus's real purpose, and over the objections of the majority of the faculty.
UC Davis needs to look at how our top competitor schools are handling replacement and hiring of administrators (including what kind of credentials they have) and try to emulate their best practices.
UCD has grown past the point of economies of scale; we are now in the realm of diseconomies of scale. An increasing fraction of effort is going into administration. The campus is now simply too big and complex to be efficiently managed.
When Barry Klein was vice-provost for personnel, a case of suspected plagiarism by a faculty member was forwarded to him for judgment: no action could be taken unless plagiarism was officially determined. The department waited 2 years and never got a decision before the individual left voluntarily, making the issue moot.
When I came to the campus in 1998, there was excitement about academic initiatives, focus on new areas of research, and a general sense that the campus is going upwards. After the departure of Provost Grey, the University appeared to be fixated on vanity projects (Mondavi Center, Football Stadium, Division 1 sports) and expansion in areas of doubtful significance for a campus with the profile of UC Davis. A radical correction is needed.