This post was updated September 7 at 8:14 p.m.
UCLA plans to consolidate campus human resources, finance, communications, marketing, event planning and academic personnel services to cut costs, according to internal documents acquired by the Daily Bruin.
The documents laid out Goal 5 of UCLA’s Strategic Plan, which aims to increase “institutional effectiveness and operational efficiency.”
The university announced part of the plan – including to consolidate campus information technology services – in an Aug. 20 email sent by two vice chancellors to faculty and staff. UCLA will further “streamline” services distributed across multiple campus units, they added in the email.
The vice chancellors also said the university will pause new faculty hiring following the suspension of about 800 of UCLA’s research grants.
[Related: UCLA pauses new faculty hiring, will consolidate IT teams following funding cuts]
Representatives from the UCLA Academic Senate’s Legislative Assembly alleged in an Aug. 26 letter to Chancellor Julio Frenk and Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost Darnell Hunt that the larger centralization initiative will likely “cripple” interdisciplinary research, reduce efficiency and accountability, as well as increase costs. The representatives – who were elected from the Department of Psychology – added that there has been an “erosion of shared governance” throughout the centralization proposal’s rollout.
The Department of Psychology – one of UCLA’s largest academic departments, supporting scholars from a broad range of subfields – requires specialized staff to assist their evolving needs, they said in the letter.
“When a centralized IT, HR, or finance system fails, the entire campus feels the impact,” the representatives said in the letter. “Delays in communication can jeopardize grant management, undermine compliance, derail entire studies, and reduce student support.”
[Related: ‘One timeline after the other was not met’ – UCLA’s $213 million project is failing]
UCLA Media Relations declined to comment on the larger centralization initiative, instead referring the Daily Bruin to a Bruin Post about IT centralization.
The federal government suspended $584 million of UCLA’s research funding from the National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Energy in late July. The agencies alleged that the university has allowed “antisemitism and bias,” illegal affirmative action practices and “men to participate in women’s sports” as reasons for the funding freeze.
The NSF grants – representing over a third of the frozen funds – were restored by a federal judge Aug. 12. While the NIH and DOE grants remain suspended, the same federal judge scheduled a Sept. 18 hearing to decide whether or not to grant a preliminary injunction on the NIH frozen funds, which would temporarily restore the funds while the merits of the freeze are determined.
[Related: District court judge to hear arguments on restoring suspended NIH grants to UCLA]
UCLA’s financial difficulties precede recent federal funding cuts, with the university implementing a 10% cut to administrative budgets and restrictions on travel and hiring prior to the funding suspension.
Saree Makdisi, the chair of the Department of English, said the centralization of campus services will reduce localized support for the academic units, adding that the lack of specialized staff would create delays.
“There’s a difference between the academic personnel being attached to a department – they were involved in the review of the faculty in that department, … they remember working for their classroom,” Makdisi said. “That would be lost if these functions are centralized.”
Planning a centralization initiative requires coordination between the administration and faculty because of the academic units’ specific concerns, said Gregory Leazer, an associate professor of information studies. He added that there are certain services that are more suitable to be handled at the department level instead of at the campus level, such as IT.
Representatives said in the letter that the Department of Psychology navigates unique challenges – including managing NIH salary caps, urgent purchases of research materials and specific grant mechanisms – which only experienced and “embedded” staff can address effectively.
“IT for English, IT for physics – that’s not the same, right?” Makdisi said. “None of us have the same IT. We have different research, we have different teaching, different projects, we have different installations.”
Makdisi said faculty members had already been experiencing delays with UCLA’s central services prior to the consolidation proposal. The larger centralization initiative would “accelerate departures” and incentivize faculty members to seek out external services that can provide more specialized support – which may lead to a reduction in indirect cost support for the university and less incentives for researchers to apply for new grants, representatives added in the letter.
Indirect costs are expenses that cover operational research costs, including facilities, maintenance and certain employees.
“The staff people, first of all, are part of the life of the department, or connect to the department. They share the department’s sense of culture, they know the department’s history,” Makdisi said. “This level of support will be given to central units that are totally disconnected from what the department does.”
Contributing reports from Josephine Murphy, national news and higher education editor.
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