Academic Senate Reaffirms Principles of Community, Rejects Discriminatory Acts

Paul K. Mueller | March 2, 2010

Responding to recent student behaviors that have tainted the campus with charges of racism, UCSD’s Academic Senate on Tuesday put a resolution reaffirming the Principles of Community and rejecting acts of discrimination at the top of its agenda, and passed the formal resolution unanimously.

Two of the planned guest speakers at the assembly’s fourth meeting of the academic year, Chancellor Marye Anne Fox and Vice Chancellor Gary Matthews, could not attend because they were consulting with San Diego community leaders in response to the accusations and student concerns. (Other aspects of the campuswide response can be found here.) 

Chair William Hodgkiss then invited former chair Dan Donoghue to summarize the recently completed Senate-Administration Task Force on Budget Report. Donoghue, who co-chaired the task force with Senior Vice Chancellor Paul Drake, noted that the campus faced a shortfall this year of at least $56 million, and so urged special attention to the “Increased Revenues” section of the report.

Several members of the faculty decried the amount of money absorbed by UC’s Office of the President and the lack of transparency associated with the office’s finances, while others asked if the campus could increase its share of indirect costs. Chair Hodgkiss noted that UCOP has promised greater transparency, and that UCSD has set some precedents for fairer indirect-cost recovery in the Stem Cell Initiative and recent federal-stimulus (ARRA) funding. Chancellor Fox, he said, led the other UC chancellors in successfully asking to keep more of the ARRA indirect costs. But, he said, the budgetary prospects for the university remain grim.

Related to the dire economic forecast, the senate passed another resolution establishing a Senate Task Force on Budget Transparency – to be established by March 15 – which would work with the administration to help ensure that the senate has accurate and understandable budget information every quarter.

In other business, the senate approved the appointments of Marianne McDonald, professor of theatre and dance, and J. Hampton Atkinson, professor of psychiatry, to the Committee on Committees; OK’d nominations for members of next year’s Committee on Committees; and allowed an amendment proposed by the Committee on Education Policy to update the “incomplete” grade policy – the “I” grade will now lapse into a “failing” or similar category rather than the previous “F.”

With no further business, the senate adjourned. The next meeting will be held on Tuesday, April 27, in the conference room of the Center for Molecular Genetics.