Departments prepare for a major shift in budget distribution as administration tightens reigns on departmental funds.
With the university facing a $107 million deficit and layoffs in the upcoming year, the campus community is preparing for a drastic shift in operations to compensate for the deficit that will continue to grow if left unaddressed.
The Fresh Academic Instructional Resources (AIR) model is one of many budgetary changes being implemented this year.
Redefining the relationship between departmental funds and central funds, the Fresh AIR model relies on a variety of metrics, such as teaching assistant (TA) employment averages from previous years, to calculate how much money departments need to operate on a yearly basis. “Through this model, [central funds] get allocated to those disciplinary divisions,” said college provost and executive vice chancellor Lori Kletzer in an interview with City on a Hill Press on April 25. “That is the money they have available to spend.”
Kletzer is UC Santa Cruz’s chief budget officer and contributed to the Fresh AIR model’s development.
University spokesperson Scott Hernandez-Jason declined a request for a follow-up interview on behalf of CPEVC Lori Kletzer when City on a Hill Press reached out for further comment, saying “CPEVC is not available for an additional interview and there haven’t been any changes” regarding Fresh AIR since the initial interview.
The university’s Committee on Planning and Budget (CPB), made up of 11 members of the UCSC Academic Senate, first reviewed the Fresh AIR model on Jan. 12, 2023. In their annual report that same year, the committee raised concerns regarding the metrics-based approach, noting a lack of freedom with how the departments can use their allocated funds, as well as missing “explicit connection to a curricular model and pedagogical goals.”
“Allocating funds from a central pool may have the unintended consequence of limiting new or trial initiatives and reducing flexibility at the divisional and departmental level … Related to this general concern we note that there may be unintended incentives to be less fiscally prudent,” the report states.
In the report, Senate Faculty casts doubt on the model’s proposition that funds not spent at the end of the year would be implemented as reductions in the next year’s budget.
By taking a projection of undergraduate student enrollment and necessary instructional personnel in previous years, the administration’s metric-based approach uses algorithms to determine how many instructors are needed in the upcoming year. Once this is calculated, departments are allocated the funds to hire course instructors accordingly.
“This has the effect of itemizing department budgets and it doesn’t really allow for departments to use the money as needed. The department knows best what it needs to use its money for,” said Rebecca Gross, a PhD student in the literature department and UAW 4811 unit chair. UAW 4811 is the union representing lecturers and academic student employees.
Before departmental funds were centralized by the Fresh AIR model, departments were allowed a sum of money with which they could hire the necessary variety of instructors for
the upcoming year. Now, the money is centralized with administration and given out to departments via Fresh AIR.
While the Fresh AIR model was put together, university administration released various budget updates after announcing a structural budget deficit on Feb. 12. Despite restructuring how funds move around campus, the Fresh AIR model isn’t mentioned in any of the updates as a
solution or result of the deficit.
“So do I want [academic divisions] thinking hard about their discretionary spending? Yes,” Kletzer said in the same April 25 interview with City on a Hill Press. “But there’s nothing really that directly links the allocation model to the budget challenge.”
The Fresh AIR Model’s Introduction
Since Kletzer and her team developed the new plan, the Fresh AIR model has caused departments and programs around campus to adjust their budgets to compensate for the financial changes. The creative writing program is one of many altering its courses to mitigate Fresh AIR’s impact, changing its introduction courses to maintain the Intermediate Creative Writing courses.
“This new budget model doesn’t support the number of GSI-led (graduate student instructor) sections that creative writing has relied on in the past,” said Micah Perks, associate dean of faculty affairs and former creative writing director, in an email to City on a Hill Press.
Before Fresh AIR, Introduction to Creative Writing courses were taught by a tenure track faculty member and GSIs, while Intermediate Creative Writing courses were mostly taught by GSIs.
“For the past ten years or so, our program has delivered almost all of our introductory and intermediate undergrad classes with graduate student instructors,” Perks said in the email to City on a Hill Press. “The department has worked with the division to figure out a new model that works with Fresh AIR, which is that we have ‘saved’ the intermediate classes…The advanced undergrad creative writing classes will continue to be taught by tenure faculty
and continuing lectures. [Introduction to Creative Writing] will be taught as a lecture and section model, incorporating Living Writers into the lectures.”
According to the CPB annual report, there should be enough Senate faculty to teach about 70 percent of full-time undergraduate students. The committee also recognizes meeting this goal and keeping small classroom sizes will be challenging as the amount of Senate faculty available to teach this 70 percent has been declining.
“These are crucial numbers which represent both Senate faculty instructional workload and articulate values regarding appropriate class sizes and the quality of faculty/undergraduate relationships,” the report states. “Therefore, these numbers should be actively discussed rather than simply calculated based on recent practices.”
“An overarching concern raised by CPB, however, is the lack of direct connection between the AIR models and campus values,” the report states. “Specifically, it would be beneficial if the documents contextualized the AIR model as implementation of the goals and values that are being articulated as part of the current Strategic Plan themes.”
The Strategic Plan is a yearly-made outline of the university’s goals. Written by administrators and committee members, the plan details the steps it will take in the upcoming academic year to best meet its goals, which include “improving operational efficiency, sustainability, and resilience.” While the Fresh AIR model is in line to be one of the most significant budgetary developments in the upcoming academic year, there is no mention of it in the 2023 Strategic Plan, which was written the same year as the CPB annual report.
Rather than giving departments budgetary freedom, the AIR model chains departments to calculated budgets based on the most pared-down necessities — preventing the cultivation of imaginative learning environments at UCSC.
