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Budget tool may empower UCLA faculty

By Daily Bruin Staff

April 16, 1996 9:00 p.m.

Wednesday, April 17, 1996

Some concerned with new process of academic planningBy Anne
Mai

Daily Bruin Contributor

Questions and concerns from faculty members are swirling around
the campus-wide implementation of Responsibility Center
Management.

A budget tool meant to decentralize responsibility from the
administration in Murphy Hall to the various colleges, its
implementation will follow the departure of Chancellor Charles
Young in 1997.

Responsibility Center Management (RCM) will make individual
departments more accountable by making them develop academic
planning and sticking to budgets which support those plans. By
making faculty more aware of funding sources and costs, heads of
academic units will be able to make better decisions regarding
their budgets, said Charles Kennel, UCLA’s executive vice
chancellor.

"(RCM) places responsibility closest to people who know the most
about the decisions," Kennel said in a town meeting with faculty.
"With responsibility and authority comes an (ability) to make
financial decisions."

However, the process involved in making those decisions is still
unclear. This ambiguity is what makes some faculty members
nervous.

"We’re in the process of acquainting faculty and students," said
Leslie Rothenberg, an associate professor of clinical medicine.
"Right now, it’s just alphabet soup to them."

"There isn’t a blueprint of RCM at this point," agreed Dwight
Reed, chair of the Ad Hoc Responsibility Center Management
Coordinating Committee in the Academic Senate. "It’s not 100
percent clear how decisions will be made."

Faculty members’ main concern with the management program is the
assessment of various academic units. One method of assessment will
be to determine their allocation of money in accordance with their
earnings.

The problem with this option, according to faculty, is that it
jeopardizes the existence of small departments which are unable to
generate a large amount of money due to their low student
enrollment. However, Kennel said that administration would take the
quality of the units into account as well as the revenue.

In order to safeguard small departments, Kennel believes that
"vigilance to understand the academic worth of that which is under
threat (is necessary)."

"There’s no notion of RCM that says it has to be all
quantitative," Reed agreed. "At present, everyone agrees on the
(importance) of quality. The problem is implementation (of this
agreement)."

Faculty are also concerned about who will make that decision of
what constitutes quality.

"There’s a lot of room for interpretation of what people think
RCM should be," Reed said, adding that "the model (of shared
governance) will carry forward into RCM as well."

Kennel also hoped to combine qualitative decision making with
creative problem solving.

"I’m looking for creativity wherever I can find it," Kennel
said.

Citing his experience at NASA, Kennel added that "in a time of
downsizing, there (arose) creative (solutions)."

Another potential problem that might arise is competition among
the different academic departments for funding. Although Kennel
said that administrators will examine each of these issues as they
come up, he believed that departments will work together because it
is in their best interest to do so.

"Do not overlook the degree of freedom that this (allows). We
might be able to create a new type of self-sufficient
organization," Kennel said.

Faculty members questioned how the new chancellor will approach
Responsibility Center Management.

"It’s one of those things people talk about in quiet. Will his
successor be as enthusiastic about RCM? (Or) will it be …
business as usual?" Lewis asked. "If I were the new chancellor, I
would want the option of deep-sixing this thing."

According to Lewis, faculty members might be apprehensive about
Responsibility Center Management because of its uncertain
future.

If faculty don’t participate, the implementation will go on
without the input of the Academic Senate, and if they do
participate, it may be a short-lived experiment, Lewis said.

"You’re damned if you do and you’re damned if you don’t," he
said.

The fate of other universities also casts doubts on the success
of the implementation.

"It’s great unless you look at the capacity of (other) schools
(to do this) in the past. There’s an enormous range," Lewis
continued. "That which is imagined hardly ever turns out to be the
case."

However, in spite of its ambiguity and potential problems,
faculty see it as an opportunity for campus heads to learn more
about their budget.

"If the only thing that come out of this is understanding our
budget process, then it’ll be worthwhile," Reed said.

Administrators agreed that increased communication is the main
benefit of the program.

"The dialogue of this breadth of this discussion is something
we’ve never had," Kennel said.

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