Chancellor George Blumenthal: chancellor@...
EVC Dave Kliger: kliger@...
VP Academic Affairs Alison Galloway: gallow@...
He also sent as an example the following letter sent by UCSC
faculty. I'm
sure
some of you will also want to write in protest of this move by UCSC.
Jill
Memorandum
Date: September 3, 2009
To: Chancellor Blumenthal, Executive Vice Chancellor Kliger, Vice
Provost
Galloway
From: Karen Holl, Nathaniel Dominy, Laurel Fox, Greg Gilbert,
Kathleen
Kay, Jean
Langenheim, Michael Loik, Ingrid Parker, Jarmila Pitterman, Lincoln
Taiz,
Erika
Zavaleta
RE: Termination of Salaries for Arboretum Director Harder
We, several of the plant science faculty at UC Santa Cruz, are
writing to
express our alarm about
the recent, abrupt decision to end funding from the campus for the
only
state-funded position at
the UCSC Arboretum, that of Director Daniel Harder. We realize that
the
current
budget
situation has required unprecedented cuts across campus. We are
writing to
indicate that cutting
this position will put at risk an extremely valuable world-class
research
collection, teaching
resource, and public education asset to our surrounding community. We
seriously
question how
much savings this cut will actually achieve when considering some
of the
consequences.
The UCSC Arboretum is a unique world-renowned facility and is one
of the
resources for which
UCSC is best known, regionally, nationally and internationally. The
Arboretum
contributes to
the teaching and research mission of the University by supporting
faculty,
graduate, and
undergraduate research at UCSC, and also hosting several
undergraduate
classes
and sponsoring
internship students. It has provided unique plant material of the
earliest
flowering plant to
researchers and botanical gardens worldwide, partnered in plant and
habitat
research and
restoration regionally and internationally, and provided public
education and
outreach programs
in our region– recently receiving the Chuck Chuck Haugen
Conservation Fund Award
for over
forty years of service to regional conservation efforts.
Over the years, state support for the Arboretum has declined. At this
point the
only staff position
that is state-funded is that for Dr. Harder. By comparison the rest
of the
University of California
botanical gardens (e.g., Berkeley, Davis, Riverside) have 3.5-7
state-funded FTE
for their
Arboreta. So, in fact, the state-funded portion of the UCSC
Arboretum is
quite
modest in
comparison.
Dr. Harder was hired after an intensive international search and
was promised
that his salary
would continue to be state supported. Over the past several years,
Dr. Harder
has put an
enormous amount of energy into raising funds for the Arboretum
through
grants,
contracts, and
gifts, which support the staff who in turn raise additional funds and
supervise
the large group of
volunteers who donate their time to the Arboretum. This past year the
Arboretum
has raised
over $600,000 in grants, gifts, and revenue. We fear that cutting
state
funding
to the person who
has raised the funds for and supervised the operation of the
Arboretum,
particularly on short
notice, will result in the serious degradation or loss of this
valuable
collection that many of us
and our students use for research and teaching.
For a few reasons, we wonder whether cutting Dr. Harder's salary will
actually
result in cost
savings. First, many of the donors to the UC Arboretum are the same
people
that
donate
considerable sums to support other activities on the UCSC campus. The
Arboretum's collection
is the result of decades of community support, donations and
dedicated
volunteer
work – making
the Arboretum an enormous community gift to UCSC. Eliminating much
of the
little
remaining
campus funding to the Arboretum is certain to have negative effects
on the
campus relationship
with donors and the Santa Cruz community more broadly. As a
consequence,
cutting
his salary
may actually cost the campus more than it saves.
Second, Dr. Harder has brought in $55,000 in indirect costs to UCSC
this
year,
and those should
in part defray the cost of his salary. The University gets very good
returns on
the money
invested in Dr. Harder's salary since his work in large part raises
the funds
for the rest of this UC
facility. If state funding for his salary is cut it will force him
to cut
additional staff positions.
The cuts would come on top of the $390,000 in cuts he has already
made in the
past year. It
would require the permanent cut of other key revenue-generating
positions,
which
in practical
terms, almost assures that the Arboretum's efforts to continue to be
self-supporting will be
significantly crippled, if not eliminated entirely.
Third, the UC Arboretum collection has enormous value, although it is
difficult
to quantify this
value monetarily. Donors have given plants, millions of dollars in
gifts,
and $5
million to the
endowment with the understanding that it would be maintained by
UCSC for
use in
research,
education, and public service. By cutting funds for managing this
collection,
the campus puts at
risk years of investment of both money and incredible amounts of
staff time.
We also write to raise concern about the short-notice that Dr.
Harder was
given
about his salary
being cut. It is our understanding that in late August he was
notified that
immediately he would
have to raise his own salary. We realize that given the drastic
budget cuts
across the campus it
may be necessary to ask Dr. Harder to raise part of his own salary.
But, he
needs time to be able
to develop a fundraising strategy to compensate for the portion of
his salary
that would no longer
be covered by state-funding. This extremely short notice puts much
of the
work
and resources of
the Arboretum at risk. It also puts at risk the Arboretum being
able to
complete
grant and
contract work to which the Arboretum is already obligated.
We write to ask that you reconsider both the time frame and extent
of salary
cuts to the
Arboretum Director. We would greatly appreciate some information
for the
rationale underlying
this decision and a response to our concerns. We invite you to meet
with a
delegation of
signatories in a congenial setting to discuss how to better shift
the UCSC
Arboretum Director's
salary under the current budget crisis.
