Bridge funding bolsters budget at UCLA
By Shoshee Jau
March 7, 2010 10:54 p.m.
Campus divisions received bridge funding allocations for 2010-2011 last week, allowing them to anticipate curriculum plans and preliminary academic programs for the upcoming school year.
Totaling over $10 million, the bridge funding is a temporary source of aid from the Office of the Chancellor designed to bridge the gap in funding, allowing the campus to make a smoother transition in the face of budget cuts.
“Assuming that we hear no bad news from the state, I think we’re at a place where we can manage,” said Warren Thomas, assistant dean of physical sciences.
In developing plans to economize with a smaller budget, different departments and divisions are collaborating in a joint effort to save money across the board, said Julie Sina, dean of the UCLA College. She added that though they hope the budget will remain stable with no further cuts, administrators are in a much better position now that they know what resources they have to work with.
Administrators also have a better idea about what is available to students in terms of class availability and registration as there is more contact between departments, Sina said.
“It’s not a perfect system, but I think we’re better connected than we were in the past, driven by the situation,” she said.
This year, the primary use of the bridge funding will be to cover the costs of lecturers and teaching assistants, as well as maintain a consistent number of class seats for students, said Lianna Anderson, assistant dean of life and physical sciences.
“Our (bridge funding) request was the same this year and last year,” she said. “It was the same money that we received, and that was what we needed to be able to offer the amount of seats that we offered this year, which was consistent with what we offered last year.”
The bridge funding has also helped to keep important programs and teaching positions, Sina said. In addition to rescinding lecturer layoff notices, Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost Scott Waugh has committed to continue funding writing programs.
“Last July, we sent out 69 layoff notices, and one of the things we’re going through now is which ones of those notices can we rescind,” Sina said. “Most of those are in humanities, and in terms of languages, those letters have all been rescinded.”
However, the size of the academic faculty has decreased as a whole, Anderson said. The university does not plan to replace retired faculty and plans to hire fewer TAs in the upcoming year, as there will be fewer sections managed by TAs.
The smaller faculty parallels fewer course offerings within each division, said Elizabeth Landaw, assistant dean of social sciences.
“It’s a huge task when you think about it, to get all students into classes so that they don’t have to waste a whole year just to wait for a class,” she said. “We’re actually offering more seats than the year before, but fewer classes than the year before. The quality of choice suffers, but hopefully they can all graduate.”
During spring quarter, individual departments will be determining their course offerings, major requirements and faculty needs for the upcoming year.
Yet the bridge funding is not one of the main sources of funding for various campus divisions, Thomas said. Private funding from both ladder faculty, or permanent professors, and private donors serves to alleviate the impact of budget cuts on the university.
“In sciences, professors tend to have their own grant funding because in those disciplines, there is more opportunity to apply for research grants, but there are also funding opportunities in social sciences and humanities for research support,” he said.
With funding for the academic school year more difficult than before, departments are also looking to enhance and further develop the summer session, which runs on a more internalized budget, said David Unruh, assistant provost of academic program development.
“There is a much more centralized campus-wide approach in looking at summer because the scheduling and economy of summer is so different in that it really is based on student fees,” he said. “It has increasingly become a term and an area where the campus can be responsive to the needs of students.”
In the upcoming summer, a new Session C pilot program will be launched to provide a head start for up to 300 incoming freshmen, said Kathleen Micham, marketing manager of summer sessions. The session will include both freshman orientation, as well as three additional classes that are usually difficult to obtain during the school year.
“It’s a six-week program, and we’re inviting all first year admits to apply,” she said. “It’s orientation plus a GE class, a writing class and a civic engagement class, and there is a mechanism by which you can move into your academic year housing over that week between summer session and fall quarter.”
With contributing reports from Samantha Schaefer, Bruin senior staff.
