Yudof, who took office as UC president last month, on Thursday (July 17) told the Regents' Committee on Long Range Planning that he intends to bring the board an annual accountability report, which also will be available to the public on the Internet. The report will provide data on the university's performance in a wide variety of areas ranging from affordability and diversity to research success and graduation rates.
The first report is expected to be presented this fall and will expand and improve in subsequent years. Yudof said he intends to bring subreports focusing on particular elements of the accountability report to the board at its meetings over the course of each year.
"We should be accountable to the Legislature, the parents, the taxpayers, the students," Yudof told the Regents, meeting at UC Santa Barbara. "If someone says, did you have a good year at UC Santa Barbara, or did the Office of the President have a good year, or how is a particular research program doing, we ought not get away with, ‘We're doing great, we had a good year, and if you just sent more money we'd be in fabulous shape.' People deserve an honest answer to the question of how you're doing, and it needs to be backed up by statistical data."
Yudof noted that there currently are multiple layers of public accountability at the university and that UC campuses already collect and report public data in a wide variety of areas. But with an increasing national focus on accountability in higher education and many other sectors, he said, the university needs to present the data on its performance in a more comprehensive manner, benchmarked against comparable institutions where appropriate.
In addition to providing transparency and public accountability, Yudof told the Regents, an accountability framework will facilitate strategic planning, decision making, budgeting and management performance evaluation at the university. He also said it will help focus the Regents on the most important policy issues facing the university.
"I want the University of California to be a leader in this area. Frankly, I think we're going to have a very good story to tell," Yudof said. "Of course there's a danger it will be distorted. But on the whole, for America and for our institutions, transparency has worked better than trying to hide your dirty laundry or fearing someone will misinterpret the data."
Yudof emphasized that the accountability framework will focus on institutional, not individual, performance.
He also acknowledged that not all important things a university does can be captured quantitatively: The university's most important work is developing human capital, he said, and that product can be difficult to measure. A student taking an English class and getting turned on to poetry is an important accomplishment of the university, he said, and that kind of impact may not be captured in an accountability report.
"You can't measure everything," Yudof said. "But the fact you can't measure everything doesn't mean you don't measure anything."
Yudof noted that in national and California discussions of accountability, some of the strongest concerns have been in the area of measuring student learning outcomes. He acknowledged that the issue will require extensive discussion and consultation with faculty, and he noted that the Academic Senate and administration already are examining the issue in closer detail.
Regents at the meeting expressed support for the accountability initiative. "I speak I think for the entire committee and the board in saying that we are very excited about this effort," said Regent Joanne Kozberg, chair of the Regents' Long Range Planning Committee.
Yudof said he intends to locate responsibility for accountability in a unit in the Office of the President to be headed by Daniel Greenstein, vice provost in Academic Affairs.