Have you ever wanted to voice your opinion on the performance of UC Santa Cruz’s senior administration? Well, you have that opportunity right now. Here’s what you should know about Lori Kletzer’s assessment survey before it closes on Jan. 31.
Chancellor Cynthia Larive sent an email on Jan. 6 to administration, faculty, emeriti, staff, and students, inviting them to complete a survey assessing the performance of Lori Kletzer in her role as Campus Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor (CP/EVC).
To gauge student awareness of the survey, City on a Hill Press conducted random interviews around campus, asking 25 students if they had heard about the survey, if they felt prepared to answer a survey about the performance of the CP/EVC, and whether or not they felt that campus administration cared about their voice.
Of the students asked, 4 out of 25 knew about the survey, 3 out of 25 felt prepared to answer the survey, and 5 out of 25 felt that administration cared about their voice.
As CP/EVC, Kletzer is considered Senior Management and, per the University of California Regents Policy 7702, must undergo a review process every five years. This being her fifth year in the role, it is her first time being subject to this review.
Although Kletzer’s five-year assessment survey is open to the full campus community, Regents policy does not require it to be open to students. This means that UCSC students can voice input in an administrative process they are not required to be involved in.
Kletzer began her career in academia as an associate professor of economics at Williams College after receiving her doctorate from the University of California, Berkeley. In 1993, she was hired on as an economics professor at UCSC, a position she held for 19 years. After briefly leaving the university for Colby College, where she served as provost and dean of faculty, Kletzer returned to UCSC in 2018 as the vice provost and dean of graduate studies. She assumed the role of CP/EVC in June of 2020.
Part of Kletzer’s responsibility as CP/EVC is to be the acting chief budget officer. According to a position description linked in the survey email, this means she “oversees, directs, and administers the campus budget under general guidelines from the Chancellor.”
The CP/EVC also serves as chief academic advisor, which includes acting as a liaison between the Academic Senate and administration.
“Everything on the academic side of the house, everything related to teaching and learning, classrooms, faculty, libraries, all reports up to me,” Kletzer said in an informational video from 2022 about her role on campus. “I sit between and at the intersection of faculty and administration.”
Despite it being open to several different campus groups, the assessment results are not released publicly and do not get put into the UC-wide system that stores information on senior management, as their other evaluations sometimes are.
Five-year assessments are a summary of feedback collected from constituents, instead of an evaluation conducted by a supervisor. According to Regents Policy 7702, “[The survey is a] managerial coaching and development exercise, rather than an evaluation of achievement toward specific goals.”
Chancellor Larive stated something similar in her email to the campus, writing that Kletzer’s survey is “designed to allow confidential feedback regarding CP/EVC Kletzer’s past leadership performance and potential for future success.”
Survey responses will be reviewed and compiled by a confidential committee appointed by Chancellor Larive.
“The survey is confidential. Redacted and anonymized survey results are shared with the committee to help inform their review,” said Assistant Vice Chancellor of Communications and Marketing Scott Hernandez-Jason in an email to City on a Hill Press.
Despite this opportunity to assess the CP/EVC, some students interviewed communicated that opportunities such as these feel like empty gestures from administration.
“I don’t feel like there’s a response platform where we’re able to voice our opinions and I don’t feel like they’re heard,” said Winnie Chao, second-year neuroscience and psychology major interviewed by City on a Hill Press. “There’s usually no measures that are taken in response to whatever concerns or criticisms that we do have.”
