State of the Campus 2012

George R. Blumenthal

State of the Campus 2012

UC Santa Cruz Media Theater

September 24, 2012

Good afternoon! Welcome! Thank you for coming.

I want to welcome all the community leaders who took the time to come up to campus today… including a number of elected officials: County Supervisor Mark Stone, Watsonville Mayor Daniel Dodge, Santa Cruz Vice Mayor Hilary Bryant, County Superintendent of Schools Michael Watkins, County Treasurer Fred Keeley, and Allyson Violante is here representing Congressman Sam Farr.

We're joined today by business, government, and media leaders, UC Santa Cruz Foundation trustees and alumni councilors, presidents of our campus Friends groups, and UCSC faculty, staff, and students.

We call this the State of the Campus 2012.

To me, this is the State of the Campus and the Community, because we are all in this together. We have so much in common, and there's so much at stake.

That's why we've come together today: To reflect on how we're doing as a campus and how that relates to the world around us-- here in Santa Cruz, and globally.

You live here because the central coast is such an amazing place, environmentally and culturally.

As a campus, UC Santa Cruz is deeply engaged in the community. It helps make us who we are in the world.

So today I want to talk about three things: UC Santa Cruz's global impact over the past year, our deep ties and relationship with you, the community, and the student experience we offer here at UC Santa Cruz.

I'll close with a few words about the challenges we face together, and what we can do about them. So let's dive in.

Here are five recent examples of UCSC's global reach.

First, we were ranked third in the world for the impact of our research. What does that mean? For our size, we are a research heavyweight: UC Santa Cruz is conducting pathbreaking work that influences researchers around the world.

Second, our pathbreaking work includes, of course, the completion of the human genome in 2000. Our work in genomics took a huge stride forward this spring when we partnered with the National Cancer Institute to launch the Cancer Genomics Hub.
We are the epicenter of the global push to develop new genetics-based personalized cancer treatment.

Third, UC Santa Cruz continues to lead the field of sustainable agriculture, with a new $2.6 million grant from the US Department of Agriculture. We are at the cutting edge of research, developing alternatives to pesticides like methyl bromide.

Fourth, we helped spearhead the search for the Higgs boson--the so-called "God particle." We took the lead on two key experiments. And did you know that our faculty and students built key instrumentation that was essential for those experiments?
Finally, we developed advanced robotic surgery systems for medical research. Here's what I particularly love: Computer Engineering Professor Jacob Rosen developed this technology--with the help of undergraduates--and even though he and a collaborator at the University of Washington spent more than a decade working on this, he gave away the results to competing labs, because a common research platform means the whole field will be able to advance more quickly.

This is quintessential UC Santa Cruz. If our genomics experts could analyze UCSC's genome, I bet they'd find genes for "contribution" and "collaboration."

When we talk about our campus values and a desire to contribute to the greater good, this is what we're talking about!

That's just a glimpse of what we've been up to. It leaves out other great news: We reopened our beautiful library, opened our new Biomedical Sciences Building, launched the Grateful Dead Archive, and broadened  the historical record with new books about Jewish culture and women in China, just to name two.

There's so much more, but I want to talk for a few minutes about our faculty.

Our international recognition speaks to the excellence of our faculty.

Dozens of UC Santa Cruz professors earned recognition last year, including two who received lifetime achievement awards:
Astronomer Jerry Nelson won the 2012 Benjamin Franklin Medal in Electrical Engineering. Astronomy professor Sandy Faber won the 2012 Bruce Medal from the Astronomical Society of the Pacific.

These two are super stars: Two years ago, Sandy won the Franklin. And Jerry won the Kavli Medal—astronomy's equivalent of a Nobel Prize. With records like these, I don't know if either of them has room on their mantle for another award!

There have been so many other accomplishments over just the past twelve months. We've put some in a video. Let's watch.

These are your neighbors. Part of the richness of our community is having these amazing people as neighbors and friends.

Of course, being UC Santa Cruz, we don't value only those who receive awards! We appreciate everyone who makes game-changing contributions! To mention just four: History professor Dana Frank has been briefing members of Congress on events in Honduras--and interpreting events for--and in--the media.

Psychology's Craig Haney testified before Congress about the perils of solitary confinement.

Sociologist Paul Lubeck provided media analysis of events in Nigeria.

And the team behind our ambitious production of The Thinning Veil, included writer Kirsten Brandt, producer Ted Warburton, and featured actress Patty Gallagher.

Let's give all of our scholars, performers, artists, and scientists a round of applause.

Of course, anyone who's been on campus for any length of time knows it's the staff who really run this place!

I have the honor each year of presenting the Alumni Association's Outstanding Staff Award. This year's recipient was Anne Callahan, the academic human resources manager for the Humanities Division!

I also want to thank members of the Staff Advisory Board for all their work this past year. They've been great partners lobbying in Sacramento. Many thanks to outgoing SAB Chair John Steele—and a warm welcome to incoming Chair Ebony Lewis!

I know a fair number of our staff are UC Santa Cruz graduates, too.

We are fortunate to have such extraordinarily talented, hard-working, and committed staff. You're a great team of professionals—thank you!

Great faculty. Great staff. I'll talk about our great students in a moment. Now let's talk about community engagement.

UC Santa Cruz attracts students, staff, and professors who care about the world around them and who want to make that world a better place—for everyone. We want to make a difference, and for many of us, that starts right here at home.

Locally, the UC Santa Cruz community contributes thousands of hours of volunteer time in the greater Santa Cruz community, organizing beach clean-ups, interning in medical offices, serving as docents in parks and museums, and helping out in K-12 classrooms, libraries, school gardens, and nursing homes.

The campus community gives generously to the United Way, and to the annual Second Harvest holiday food drive.

Students do an awful lot of this. They run the Student Volunteer Center. So if you have a need, get in touch with SVC!

The campus contributes to the local arts and cultural scene... from Shakespeare Santa Cruz to the Glow Festival at the Museum of Art and History. Students in our Shakespeare to Go program performed Shakespeare for nearly 8,000 students on the Central Coast this spring!

It's hard to calculate the impact of thousands of volunteer hours, but we know it makes a difference in the health of our community up and down the coast.

One measurable way we contribute is through the direct impact we have on the economy. Our campus is the top employer in Santa Cruz County. UC Santa Cruz generates $1.3 billion of economic activity in the region every year.

We are an incubator for real businesses that grow the local economy. Our joint Project on Innovation and Entrepreneurship places student interns in local companies. Several UCSC faculty have helped launch companies in fields that include solar energy, software, and genomics. And UC Santa Cruz graduates have opened businesses across the county and around the Bay, from New Leaf and Kelly's Bakery on the Westside to Earthbound Farm and the Monterey Bay Aquarium!

We know we're a big neighbor, and we've worked hard to be a good neighbor.

Traffic to and from campus has dropped dramatically—it's down 20 percent since 2005! And only 35 percent of people coming up the hill drive a single-occupant vehicle! That compares to 72 percent statewide, so we're way ahead—and still not done.

Water use is also way down—22 percent below what we used 10 years ago (and we have a lot more students today). UCSC uses just 6 percent of the water the city of Santa Cruz supplies.

Through our Good Neighbor Initiative, students are educating students on how to be respectful neighbors. Student interns Shane Liliedahl and Delphine Wartelle are here today—thank you!

We know off-campus parties are an issue, and we're helping the city pay for extra police patrols. We also contribute to the cost of enforcing the city's new rental property ordinance.

We're embarking on new partnerships with the city, as well, including joint management of our fire departments to see if we can save money and improve emergency responsiveness.

I also want to acknowledge our community partners who made the alternative energy demonstration project on the wharf possible—and so many other projects!

As we approach our 50th anniversary in 2015, UC Santa Cruz is as committed as ever to the community that welcomed us and continues to nourish us.

So, we are making significant impacts globally and playing a strong role in the community. Let's talk about students.

Since our founding in 1965, a core strength of this university has been the outstanding student experience we offer.

As we begin a new academic year, I'm proud that UCSC continues to attract students who want a rigorous education that will prepare them for meaningful careers in the 21st century.

I'm proud that our graduate programs are growing, drawing the best and brightest to UC Santa Cruz.

We have new graduate programs coming on line: PhD programs in Feminist Studies and Latin American and Latino Studies, and a new M.A. in theater arts, as well.

I'm proud that our enrollment today reflects the population of California more closely than ever: One-third of our students are from underrepresented groups. Half our incoming frosh are first-generation--students whose parents haven't earned a four-year degree. I was the first in my family to graduate from college. I am committed to the success of these students.

All of our students are among California's brightest, hardest-working high school graduates!

Some of you may be wondering how budget cuts have affected the student experience. Trust me, it has become increasingly difficult—actually very difficult—to continue to provide the extraordinary student experience that's been the hallmark of UC Santa Cruz.

Yet Campus Provost Alison Galloway and I, and our amazing faculty, have made it a top priority to protect and strengthen the undergraduate experience: We're updating our curriculum to ensure that students are getting a challenging and meaningful educational experience. And we want to make sure students can get the classes they need to graduate in four years—or less.

Here are three examples of students whose years at UC Santa Cruz will impact their lives forever.

First, Galen Pelzmann. A junior transfer from Cabrillo, Galen loves the natural world. But he was feeling overwhelmed—almost helpless—about the environmental degradation all around him.

Then he took an interdisciplinary course on ecology and conservation and got a taste of hands-on research. He had his own "ah ha!" moment. He realized there are projects he could do—things he could do—that would have a positive impact on the environment. Galen saw that he could contribute to significant change within his lifetime.

After graduating in June, he got a job in conservation biology. In Galen's own words, "That's pretty cool."

Second, Business Management Economics is one of our most popular majors. As a student, Heather Le landed a competitive internship with PricewaterhouseCoopers and was offered a job in their San Jose office when she graduated.

She was involved in auditing high-tech companies for five years. In November, she was hired by the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board! That's the agency that was created after Enron, when Congress realized self-regulation wasn't going to cut it.

I don't know about you, but I think that's just where UC Santa Cruz graduates belong—watching out for the public interest!

Third, Kathryn Marie Scott majored in marine biology and geology--and she did things as an undergraduate that most students don't do until graduate school. She worked in Professor Pete Raimondi's lab. She took a field study class and got hands-on research experience. She even helped on a graduate student's research project in Fiji!

You see, Kathryn got access to people and experience she couldn't have gotten anyplace else. She loved it, and all that work paid off. Today, she monitors commercial fishing operations to protect endangered species.

That's the sort of professional experience that matters—and will stand out when she applies to graduate school!

All of this—all of this: global impact, community engagement, student experience!—is jeopardized by what's happening at the state level.

State support of higher education has been declining for decades. Today, the state's contribution per student is about 45 percent what it was in 1990.

State funding for the university went into an absolute free fall four years ago. At UC Santa Cruz, our state funding has dropped by $59 million in just four years. We've lost staff, teaching assistants, and funding for faculty and campus operations.

Even the tuition increases you've all heard about haven't come close to filling the gap. We are losing ground.

At UC Santa Cruz, private individuals have been coming forward to help, and they are making an important difference. Christine and Robert Holo, who met right here as undergraduates, just pledged $1 million to help us expand the Center for Ocean Health. As a young campus, private philanthropy is important to our future.

In the near term, however, Proposition 30 on the November ballot could make or break us. Proposition 30 would temporarily raise the sales tax by a quarter-cent and increase personal income taxes for those who earn more than $250,000.

As you may know, fully 89 percent would go to K-12 schools. 11 percent would go to community colleges.

Why does that matter to UC Santa Cruz? By helping the state meet its obligation to fund K-12 education, Proposition 30 would free up funding for UC.

If voters approve it, Proposition 30 would protect UC and the California State University system from $625 million in automatic cuts. I can tell you right now, if we lose that state funding, we will see a hefty mid-year tuition increase.

There is a lot at stake--for our elementary schools, our high schools, Cabrillo, California State University-Monterey Bay, and for UC Santa Cruz. For students and families, for your neighbors and mine. For all of us.

It's not my place to tell you how to vote, only to encourage you to make an informed choice and to ask you to help get out the vote. Because every vote matters.

So, what is the "state of the campus" in 2012? We are living up to our ideals, and we're on track to make even greater contributions.

Santa Cruz is an engaged community. You turn out for concerts, lectures, and plays. You value education. You're active and healthy and concerned about the future. You want to protect the environment and preserve the uniqueness of this region.

We have so many shared values. Our best way forward is to walk the path together.

You can help us in three ways. First, share our story with your friends and family and co-workers. Tell them about the great opportunities we offer undergraduates and graduate students. Tell them about the great impacts you've heard about today--in genomics, organic farming, physics, engineering, and history.

And remember, these are just the highlights of the past year. There is so much more! UC Santa Cruz makes is in the news all the time. We played a key role in the breast cancer breakthrough that made headlines today. And there's more to come!

The next thing you can do is vote. I can't say that enough times: Vote, vote, vote! Please vote!

Third, support us financially, to whatever degree you're able.

All of this will make a difference!

Thank you all for coming today. Now, I've talked a lot and I'm sure you have questions, so let's hear from you!