What defines quality at a major research university? While there are no agreed-upon standards in the higher education community for determining quality, there are clear metrics that are commonly used when rating great universities. They include maintaining an outstanding faculty, measured in terms of individual achievements as well as adequate numbers to teach and train; recruiting and educating outstanding undergraduate and graduate students, as well as graduating them expeditiously; and sustaining or enhancing those activities that receive positive evaluations from students and faculty with respect to the quality of education provided. Key indicators of instructional performance show that to date the University has managed to sustain and even improve outcomes for its students. Maintaining these outcomes, however, is a challenge the University must address, given the reality of diminished State resources.
A Distinguished Faculty
The quality of the University of California is founded on its distinguished faculty, who lead the world in research excellence and productivity as compared to those at other higher education institutions. UC faculty members provide stellar instructional programs, research and creative work, professional leadership, and public service. The faculty fulfill the University’s goals on behalf of the State of California by:
delivering excellence in teaching;
driving intellectual engagement, discovery, community
health, economic vitality, and cultural vibrancy;
educating the workforce to keep the California economy
competitive; and
attracting billions of research dollars, creating new
products, technologies, jobs, companies, advances in healthcare, and improvements in the quality of life. In Fall 2012, UC employed over 9,200 faculty with appointments in the Ladder Rank Professorial series, the core faculty series charged with the tripartite mission of teaching, research, and public service. In addition, the University employs lecturers, adjuncts, visiting faculty, and others, including retired faculty recalled to part-time service, to provide depth and breadth in fulfilling UC’s mission. In 2012-13, expenditures on base salaries for appointments in all faculty series (from all revenue sources including State funds, student tuition and fees, contracts and grants, gifts and endowments, and clinical services) totaled close to $2 billion.
Current data reveal continuing faculty achievement at the same time that recruitment and retention challenges have increased:
Faculty continue to perform at top levels marked by
career awards for both established and early career faculty.
Over the last two decades, student enrollment has grown
at nearly twice the rate as faculty. Over the last five years, despite considerable enrollment increases since 2007-08, the size and composition of the faculty have remained relatively constant, with the notable exception of increases in the number of non-Senate faculty in the health sciences. In 2010-11 and 2011-12, the University experienced a decrease of 270 general campus ladder and equivalent rank faculty. While campuses have increased their faculty hiring in the last year, this growing imbalance between enrollment growth and little or no growth in the number of faculty is deeply troubling and must be addressed in the coming years.
The distribution of faculty by age has shifted, with more
faculty members in older age cohorts. In 2012, over 7% of ladder rank faculty were age 70 or above. In 2012, approximately 23% of faculty in General Campus departments who had not yet retired were at or above age 62, which is the age at which an individual may usually start receiving Social Security retirement benefits.
In the last five years, UC hired 2,105 ladder rank faculty,
or 22% of the current total. With nearly a quarter of UC’s faculty 62 years of age or older, the University will face a
Cross-Cutting Issues
major challenge hiring enough new faculty just to replace current faculty who will be retiring over the next decade.
Average UC salaries remain lower than at peer
universities, with competition for faculty particularly intense from private universities, where faculty salaries have continued to rise.
Challenges of hiring a diverse faculty vary by discipline.
Campus efforts to increase the representation of women and underrepresented minorities among the faculty have yielded limited progress.
Since 1994, the University’s budgeted student-faculty ratio has been 18.7:1. However, the actual student-faculty ratio has deteriorated dramatically in the recent fiscal crisis, currently standing at about 21:1. Improving the
student-faculty ratio at the University has been among the highest priorities of the Regents. Doing so would permit the University to:
offer smaller class sizes where possible,
improve the quality of the educational experience and
richness of course offerings, and
help students complete requirements and graduate more
quickly.
A lower student-faculty ratio also increases opportunities for contact outside the classroom, guidance in internships and placements, and undergraduate participation in research and public service.
Though decreasing the student-faculty ratio has been an important goal of the University for many years, funding for these efforts has rarely been available, particularly during fiscal crises. One of the University’s quality initiatives is to decrease the student-faculty ratio over the next several years.
Display III-1: General Campus Student-Faculty Ratio
State cuts have led to increases in the budgeted student- faculty ratio. The University’s long-term goal is to improve the ratio to 18.7:1 or lower.
Maintaining the quality of the faculty is critical to both the University and the State. As mentioned above, due to the significant decline in State support during the last several years, campuses have recruited fewer new faculty. For the past two years, more faculty left UC than were hired. Instead, some positions are being held open until the funding resources to support faculty are identified. This means that campuses have fewer faculty to teach courses, and in turn are eliminating course sections, narrowing course offerings, and increasing class sizes. Faculty resources are further diluted due to departmental and campuswide academic leadership responsibilities being shared by a smaller faculty workforce. As the fiscal situation improves, campuses are increasing recruitment.
Timely Graduation
The University remains committed to ensuring that undergraduate students are able to complete their degrees on time and to maintaining its excellent record of improving persistence and graduation rates among all students. Accordingly, campuses have developed advising and administrative initiatives to facilitate persistence and timely degree completion. Campuses continue to ensure course availability by sustaining increases in faculty teaching effort, creatively managing the curriculum and its delivery (for example, through targeted and broader summer offerings), and expanding the use of instructional technology.
For UC undergraduates, the average number of terms enrolled has dropped from 13.4 enrolled quarters (where a four-year degree equals 12 quarters) for the 1984 freshman class to 12.4 for the 2005 cohort. Over 60% of UC freshmen graduate in 12 or fewer registered quarters; they are able to do this by taking full academic loads each year and by not exceeding the 180 units required for graduation. Students may take more total units or take longer to graduate if they change majors, undertake a double major, major in a field with a higher unit requirement, or take a lighter load some terms, often to accommodate working part-time. In recent years, campuses have worked to increase the average number of units taken during a term, but reduce excess units taken over a student’s career, enabling more students to graduate in four years, thereby making room for others.
13 15 17 19 21 1966-67 2012-13 Regents' Goal 18.7:1 State Proposals to Increase Ratio Budgeted Ratio
Cross-Cutting Issues
Display III-2: Time to Degree among Freshmen by Cohort
Time to degree, measured in quarters enrolled, has declined from 13.4 to 12.4 among recent freshman cohorts. Display III-3: Graduation Rates among Freshmen by Cohort
Approximately 60% of freshman entrants complete their degree program within four years and over 80% finish within six years.
Display III-4: Graduation Rates among Upper Division CCC Transfer Students by Cohort
CCC transfers to UC also exhibit strong graduation rates, with more than half finishing in two years and 85% graduating within four years of transfer.
Freshman and transfer persistence and graduation rates have steadily risen over time. Among recent freshman cohorts, about 93% of students persist into the second year and over 60% graduate within four years. Those who do not graduate in four years typically require only one more academic quarter to earn their degree; 80% of the 2006 entering freshmen earned a baccalaureate degree within five years and 84% within six years. UC graduation rates far exceed the national average; among first-time students entering four-year institutions nationwide, only about 59% earn bachelor’s degrees within six years.
Students beginning their higher education at a community college have historically done very well after transferring to UC. Among CCC transfer students, 93% persist to a second year and over 85% earn a UC degree within four years, taking on average seven quarters to complete their degrees. Transfer students’ UC grade point averages upon graduation are about the same as those of students who entered as freshmen.
Among graduate academic doctoral students, a special study by the National Research Council found that the percentage of UC students finishing in six years (or eight years for arts and humanities) was overall higher than for UC’s four comparison American Association of Universities (AAU) publics for three of five disciplinary areas, and that average time to degree for the academic doctoral degree is exactly the same – 5.7 years – for UC as for its eight AAU comparison institutions. Moreover, the number of doctoral degrees per UC ladder faculty member has increased from 0.4 in 2005-06 to 0.5 in 2010-11, a higher number than UC’s public AAU comparison institutions.
Student Satisfaction
Undergraduates continue to be satisfied with their overall academic experience and the quality of faculty instruction. As students indicated in UC’s biennial survey of
undergraduates, UCUES, a very high percentage of students from 2006 through 2012 have been satisfied with their overall academic experience and with the quality of faculty instruction: 82% report that they are very satisfied, satisfied, or at least somewhat satisfied with their
experiences at UC in terms of overall academic excellence and 89% in terms of quality of faculty instruction. Most importantly, the percentage has not decreased despite the
12.0 12.2 12.4 12.6 12.8 13.0 1995 1997 1999 2001 2003 2005 % 25% 50% 75% 100% 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006 2008
Four years Five years Six years
0 % 25% 50% 75% 100% 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010
Two years Three years Four years
Cross-Cutting Issues
many changes campuses have had to make as funding has decreased.
Performance Outcome Measures
The University believes that quality is better measured in terms of outcomes than in terms of inputs in evaluating instruction at UC. The Governor has placed a major emphasis on the need to develop performance outcome measures for both UC and CSU. The University is working with the Department of Finance to identify quantifiable performance outcome measures to benchmark its current performance and track its improvement over the coming years. Currently, the University is developing
methodologies to provide data (most of which are already collected and reported on by the University) on the following performance outcome measures, as required by of budget trailer language (AB 94):
Number and percentage of transfer entrants; Number and percentage of low-income students; Number of Pell Grant recipients;
Four-year graduation rates for the total freshman class
and for low-income freshman entrants;
Two-year graduation rates for the total transfer class and
for low-income transfer entrants;
Annual degrees completed for the total student
population and for freshmen entrants, transfer entrants, graduate students, and low-income students;
The percentage of first-year undergraduates who have
earned sufficient course credits by the end of their first year of enrollment to indicate they will complete a degree in four years;
Total State funds divided by total degrees awarded; Total State funds expended on undergraduate education
divided by undergraduate degrees awarded;
Average course credits at graduation for freshmen and
transfers; and
Degree completions in STEM for undergraduates,
graduates, and low-income students.