Letter to the campus community from Vice Chancellor Marc Fisher
I am pleased to present the 2024 Annual Report for the administrative division of the University of California, Berkeley. Our division delivers essential services and resources that enable academic excellence at UC Berkeley. Through the work of nearly two thousand employees in thirteen departments, the Administration ensures that people, materials, buildings, and equipment all function properly when and where needed to support our students, instructors, researchers and staff. (Read on below.)
Providing service to the University in a changing world
At our core, our division is a service organization. The departments of our division provide service to faculty, students, and staff with the objective of enabling them to pursue their academic and professional goals. While we certainly depend on tools to perform our duties, we primarily depend on staff to provide service. Attracting and retaining a qualified workforce is essential to the University’s mission and one that requires critical attention is a changing working world. The advent of hybrid- and remote-work in our post-pandemic economy, the phenomena of graduate student researchers becoming represented employees, and increasing state regulation of labor issues all have profound impacts on delivering service and how the University operates.
Transparent service delivery
It’s an adage in business that customers seek service that is better, faster, and cheaper than what they are accustomed to receiving. Meanwhile, service providers can deliver on two of those attributes but not all three.
The reality of delivering service in a large, complex, and public university is further constrained. Faster service is difficult to achieve when our practices are regulated by campus, systemwide, and state policies and laws. Cheaper service is not possible to attain when our division does not currently charge campaign units for our service. The perception of better service can be further challenged by our campus colleagues who compare their experience to that of sophisticated online services they receive at home from well-financed private corporations.
One solution is to focus on better transparency of our service requests so campus colleagues know where in the process their HR requests, financial, and purchasing requests are and how long until they can be completed. Going forward, expect to see better dashboards and ticket-tracking that engages our campus constituents and, hopefully, gives them the information they need to better manage their service expectations.
New buildings on campus
After a decade with relatively few new buildings, the Berkeley campus is enjoying a burst of new building activity. Projects currently under construction include: Anchor House, a new dormitory for transfer students on the corner of University and Oxford Avenues; Graduate student housing at Albany Village three miles northwest of campus; Gateway, the new home of the College of Computing, Data Science, and Society, on the former site of Tolman Hall; a new undergraduate instruction building on the site of the parking lot behind Dwinelle Hall; and an expansion of the Bechtel Engineering building. Projects soon to break ground include People’s Park Housing, an1,100 bed undergraduate dormitory; Heathcock Hall, a multidisciplinary research building in the College of Chemistry; and a Bancroft parking structure replacement near Hearst Gymnasium on Bancroft Avenue.
Sound stewardship of public resources
I am proud of the fiscal discipline our divisional leaders exercise in managing their departments. Rigorous fiscal discipline is critical to providing service to the University without creating unplanned deficits. While adherence to financial projections is evidence of sound fiscal management, it can come at the cost of diminished service. Years of deferred maintenance supporting the University will delay – but not avoid – reinvesting in our physical plant, systems, and tools.
Looking ahead
Since our last Annual Report, Chancellor Carol Christ has announced her planned retirement and a search for her successor is underway. It is hoped that Berkeley’s next Chancellor will be announced by the Regents this Spring and be on campus in July.
When the history of UC Berkeley is written, Chancellor Christ will be featured as one of the more consequential leaders of all time for her steadfast commitment to the idea that excellent higher education should be available to all, her navigating the campus through critical budget challenges, her management of the Covid pandemic, her successful completion of the Light the Way campaign, and her indefatigable spirit in keeping Berkeley the number one public university in the world.
While any change in campus leadership will have an impact on campus operations, the departments of the administration division are well positioned to continue to provide service that enables faculty to conduct world-leading research and teach; for students to learn; and for staff to continue to grow in their careers.
Thank you for your support.
Cordially,
Marc Fisher
Vice Chancellor, Administration