Good Ideas - Archive
Below are selected comments received through the feedback page that share examples of good ideas and effective practices already in place at UCOP and the campuses, or that offer ideas on how we can operate more effectively at UCOP and as a system.
Personnel policy changes
One way to sustain administrative functions during period of limited resources is to allow employees to accrue vacation balance beyond the 24-month vacation accrual limit. This may allow administrative units to withstand shortages of human resources due a lack of funding for new positions or delays in hiring current positions. Of course, the new limit would have to be approved by the employee and department head. In addition, we may cap accrual limit to 36 months. Some of our most experienced employees are those who are near the limit.
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Institute tuition and fees remission on a vesting basis for employees and their dependents. One such schedule could be a 10-20% discount on tuition and fees for each year of employment. Allow staff to take advantage of tuition/fees benefits regardless of whether they are enrolled in a degree program or not.
Suggestion 2: Monthly drawing for extra day off.
Suggestion 3: Nominate employees for their service to the community - give awards of days off or monetary contribution to organization of their choice.
Suggestion 4: Matching funds for employee donations to various causes.
Suggestion 5: Use more grad students to start a night-time community college at Davis - use our facilities!
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Currently faculty appointments and the merit cycle are on a July-June cycle but range adjustments are in October. This means administrative staff have to renew appointments in the late spring, then come back 3 months later and change them all for range adjustments. If you made the renewal cycle the same as the range cycle, then we could do it all at once. The only time we'd need to do it 2x would be if the faculty member had a merit or promotion which could remain on the July-June cycle.
Systemwide solutions
The UC Police Department at each campus should be consolidated into one police department with one main leader. This new true UCPD should have consistent policies, procedures, and management practices to eliminate waste, conflicts, and discrepancies that currently exist with ten different chiefs, ten different policy manuals, etc. The California Highway Patrol should be an example. They do not have separate departments throughout the state; rather, they are one department with one commissioner. Each station has a commander, but ultimately each station is still part of the bigger system. Such a change with the systemwide UCPD should obviously involve some of the officers, sergeants, and administrative staff from the police departments at each of the UC campuses.
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I was amazed to learn that the campuses are so individual in the approach to admissions. Since the students don't really get to choose what campus they get into, and they apply to about three, the effort to inform parents and high school students about the UC system opportunities could be approached in a more complimentary way. Recruiters from each campus go to college fairs, and speak to groups of students, yes they work together, but duplication is high. You have recruiter staff for Davis who live in So. Calif. and those for Irvine living in the Bay Area. Certainly costs could be reduced if more cooperation and collaboration was implemented! I searched for a powerpoint about the UC system as a whole to present to parents in my town, and no one had one.
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It makes sense for 10 campuses to have academic autonomy, but it seems wasteful for each campus (and UCOP) to develop and maintain separate administrative systems. The UC could save tons of money over time, if all campuses identified and gradually transitioned to common applications (A/P, Payroll, Budgeting, etc.). We could also standardize the accounting codes to facilitate the publication of system-wide reports. Additionally, we could develop centralized (and consolidated) mainframe sites in some of the “cheaper” UC locations, which could free up campus resources without a huge amount of sacrifice.
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The UC system drastically needs one centralized, integrated IT solution.
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The one thing that struck me when I got here was that we do not have a systemwide contract for Microsoft Office and Adobe Products. We pay by the license for these items. With all our strategic sourcing efforts this would seem like a slam dunk to me but I've asked about it and was told we didn't have it because so many locations have their own contracts with varying terms and dissimilar expirations. I suspect the University could save millions if they just bit the bullet and put together a systemwide unlimited licensing agreement with Microsoft and Adobe. Not to mention it would become easier for staff and faculty to get access to the tools they need to get their jobs done.
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I continue to read with interest the recommendations that are being made for restructuring the University, and I agree with most of them wholeheartedly. I think of the entire effort as one of re-engineering the organization.
The glaring omission in my mind is the lack of either a strategic plan for the future of the University or even a stated vision. (If I explore the UC website, I am unable to find a written vision OR mission. Where are they? And what are they?) Without a strategic plan as an entity, UCOP lacks relevance. What is the purpose served by UCOP? If the intent is to hold the campuses and LBNL together and represent this incredible system, this is not clearly stated anywhere, and I don't think the campuses believe that UCOP serves any role of importance with respect to them. Where is the UCOP strategic plan, vision, and goals for OP specifically? We don't function as an entity since we have no joint goals.
One additional observation related to the above. When one goes to find the “cocktail table” book on the University of California--not an individual campus, but the University based on the combined strengths of all the campuses--there is no such book. It is almost as though the “system” does not exist, only separate campuses.
Examine business processes
Over the years, UC has grown and changed organically in response to varying programmatic needs. However, it seems that there hasn't been a business process analysis undertaken recently to look at workflows and hand-offs between departments, divisions, and units providing crucial business functions.
With the recent focus on effectiveness and efficiency at the Office of the President, it would seem prudent to begin an analysis to locate the inefficiencies and areas of suboptimal effectiveness of processes such as gaining approvals for routine business transactions. After a process has been mapped out and streamlined to eliminate the gaps and redundancies, UCOP might want to use what are now standard practices in organizations external to UC such as empowering staff to do their jobs and at the same time making them accountable for following University policy, rather than installing ever more layers of administrators to “coordinate” processes such as interaction with HR, the Budget Office and Facilities on the behalf of individual departments. The latter approach adds no value to the process and instead causes delays (at best) and frequently introduces confusion and errors that need to be rectified by the department. We've found that this current state of affairs contributes significantly to our department's workload and that of the service organizations with which we could better work directly without mediation. It is understandable that when UCOP is under significant pressure, it falls back on its old habits of focusing on compliance and adding layers of review and “coordination” at its upper levels. Instead, it would serve the organization to take a radical new approach by convening the mid-level “practitioners” to ask them to identify the gaps and redundancies in processes, recommend how to streamline them, agree upon the new (hopefully much more lightweight) procedures/processes, document them and then hold practitioners and department heads accountable for complying with UC policy.
Small savings add up
I have often wondered why UCOP doesn't have a central location of office supplies for all of UCOP. As of now, each department, and even units within a department, have “mini-supply” areas of office supplies. I think it would be better to have one central location (perhaps on the first floor with card key access). This could cut down the duplication of supplies and more control with the ordering of supplies - making sure that the contract prices are being used, etc.
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Could we avoid sending Dateline, University Extension, and other publications to staff in hard copy and instead have these accessible online? I scan mine within minutes and throw it in the recycle and know that others do the same.
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Start a UC policy regarding heat levels in buildings. It is way too cold in the summer requiring long sleeve shirts and jackets in the buildings and still hands get too cold to type. 68-70 is unreasonably cool during summer. I think 75-78 is more reasonable for building temps, though I set my home at 82 in summer.
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To help same a few trees and the cost to UC to print surpay statements, it might be a good idea to have those who wish a surpay statement to print them off from the website provided. I distribute surpay statements and checks and find that most in our department do not even want the surpay statements and think they're a waste of paper. Since it's online, those who do want them could just click and print.
Adopting sustainable practices
Since the implementation of our services [at UC Merced] we have tried to break new ground on the way we coordinate our Custodial Department. This is just a portion of our accomplishments, but there are a lot of innovative ideas in every aspect of our work activities. Good planning, coordination and innovation have made us one of the best units among services units in the UC system.
UC Merced Custodial Services presentation
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The University system represents a microcosm of the larger social structure, where future systems and institutions are born. A guiding principle of net zero, or near net zero ecological impact would provide for infinite growth possibility. With this paradigm in mind, the UC system must take the lead in engineering and experimentation of sustainable systems in energy, waste stream management, solar implementation, passive solar desalination, recycling, composting or use of food wastes as ethanol or methane feedstocks. This is in line with the mission and responsibility of the University. I cannot imagine a better system to take on this challenge than UC.
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I think we should switch campus lighting to LEDs. The city of Ann Arbor in Michigan has successfully lit its streets with LEDs ... why not UC campuses? There is potential for new projects and funding if UC partners with the suppliers/developers/manufacturers of LEDs, as this has been called the next revolution in lighting (since fluorescents). The bulbs are expensive up front. But! They last 40 years!! Embracing LEDs could position the University of California as a key role model to the state of California, and the rest of the nation.
A second item for consideration … when I receive office supply shipments, I’ve noticed a trend toward using a 9x6x13 inch box to ship a single set of pens (a 1x3x6 inch box) that could easily fit in a much smaller box or paper bag. We end up recycling the boxes, but it seems wasteful to use a box that big once, only to put it back into recycling. As a leader in environmental sustainability, I feel UC should have strict rules as to the shipping practices of their campus marketplaces and mail departments.
Thank you for the opportunity to add my 2 cents!
Opportunities to serve the campuses
In Student Financial Support, we seek “opportunities” to provide services to campuses whenever there are new legislative mandates for which no funding is provided and a centralized approach would be beneficial. An example of such an opportunity was when all higher education institutions were required to produce “tuition statements,” also known as “IRS 1098-T” statements. Rather than every campus building a full-blown process locally from the ground floor, a systemwide contract for 1098-T reporting and support services was negotiated, leveraging both campus and University Extension volume, to obtain high-level service for students and campuses at a very attractive rate. In working closely with our campus colleagues and serving as a liaison with the 1098-T vendor, we believe that this centralized approach is a “win-win” for the University in complying with the Internal Revenue Service’s reporting requirements as well as meeting campus and student needs in an efficient and cost-effective manner.