Email Exchange on Faculty Center Issue

Below is an exchange of emails between Ann Karagozian, chair of the Academic Senate, and various faculty members who wrote to her and others expressing concern about the proposed demolition of the Faculty Center and its replacement by a conference center/hotel. Various document links are noted in the email below.

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Dear Prof. Costa and other Senate colleagues,

Thank you for your email message, below. As you are aware, the Senate has received a number of presentations from the administration regarding the proposal to build a Residential Conference Center/Faculty Club on the site of the present Faculty Center. Presentations that were given over the past year are documented at our Senate website at http://www.senate.ucla.edu/ProposedRCC-FC.htm.

As you also may be aware, at the “Save the Faculty Center” meeting on January 24, I publicly issued an invitation for the UCLA administration as well as to Prof. Dick Weiss, the President of the Faculty Center Association, to provide our Senate’s Council on Planning and Budget with presentations on the financial feasibility plans for both entities. Our regulations are such that CPB “specifically reviews and formally articulates a Senate view regarding the campus budget and each major campus space-use and building project at each project's proposal, planning, and building stages” (http://www.senate.ucla.edu/FormsDocs/bylaws/ch4-4-3.htm#b65_3 ). We are following our normal Senate procedures in having these presentations take place, so that all the financial information presently available is made known to the appropriate Senate body. Because of the relevance of this proposal to our Faculty Welfare Committee (FWC) and to our University Emeriti and Pre-Retirement Relations Committee (UEPRRC), the chairs of these committees, in addition to the Senate leadership (Andy Leuchter, Robin Garrell, and I) were also invited to attend the presentations with CPB. Both parties accepted my invitation to make presentations, and they took place at the CPB meeting on Monday, February 28, 2011. A large number of questions were posed at that meeting, and answers provided; these will be documented in the CPB meeting minutes when they are approved at the Council’s next meeting.

CPB is now in the process of evaluating the materials provided at the meeting, in addition to new materials, in order to articulate the Senate view on this proposed project. Most of the materials that were considered by CPB at the February 28 meeting are now posted on the Senate website at http://www.senate.ucla.edu/ProposedRCC-FC.htm . Just a few minutes ago, the Faculty Center Board requested that some materials considered by CPB on their current and recent budgets not be posted for public viewing, and we are respecting that request, although these data are being considered by CPB in their present deliberations. A letter dated November, 2008, from the Faculty Center Board President John Edmond to Chancellor Block, indicating support for the proposed Conference Center, is also included on the Senate website; this too is being discussed by CPB. A report by a consulting firm that UCLA employed to be able to provide estimates of cost projections, occupancy rates, and the like, which formed the basis for the financial pro formas in the administration’s presentation, is currently being redacted before dissemination. That process should be completed within the next 10 days and the report will be made available not only to CPB, but will be posted on our Senate website as soon as it is released. Some of the non-sensitive data from that report are in the process of being made available to CPB right now.

I hope that the above discussion is helpful to all of you in understanding the Senate process that we are following in evaluating this proposed building project for this campus. There have been a great many proposals that have come before the UCLA Academic Senate this year, some of them with profound implications for the future of our University and the way it operates. In evaluating these proposals, like the RCC/FC proposal, we follow procedures that have served UCLA well for over 90 years. More information on these many issues may be found on our Senate website at http://www.senate.ucla.edu/ .

Sincerely,

Ann Karagozian

Chair, UCLA Academic Senate

From: Dora Costa [mailto:costa@econ.ucla.edu]

Sent: Sunday, February 27, 2011 9:07 PM
To: karagozian@senate.ucla.edu; dlopez@soc.ucla.edu; Michael Shin; aberbach@polisci.ucla.edu; cochran@ucla.edu; tdrake@mednet.ucla.edu; ngarrett@dentistry.ucla.edu; bhayes@humnet.ucla.edu; Rosa Matzkin; morris@astro.ucla.edu; jfnagy@humnet.ucla.edu; jrichard@ucla.edu; avanidhar.subrahmanyam@anderson.ucla.edu; kntu@ucla.edu; wazzan@seas.ucla.edu
Cc: snwhite@dentistry.ucla.edu; ncacalano@mednet.ucla.edu; lieber@ucla.edu; markap@ucla.edu; shoup@ucla.edu; Megan Sweeney; lvavreck@polisci.ucla.edu; romannguyen@gmail.com; tran.malina@gmail.com; mckinney2012@lawnet.ucla.edu; seinenu@ucla.edu; lkruger@ucla.edu; junrdizon@gmail.com; dkmucla@yahoo.com

Subject: petition to CPB and FW on proposed RCC/hotel

The current faculty center is scheduled to be demolished in April 2012 to make room for a 282 room residential conference facility/hotel. The faculty center has been instructed to accept no reservations after December 2011.

The financial feasibility report on the residential conference facility has not yet been released, nor has the university released information on the nightly cost of a room. A recent gift of $40 million will go to construction but the remaining $120 million will be financed by bonds that are expected to be repaid through rental and room revenue.

The current faculty center has been a remarkably effective tool in recruiting new faculty and in fostering department cohesion. There are few other universities where department members regularly go as a group to lunch, and even fewer where potential junior and senior recruits can eat outside in January and February.

There has been no public discussion of what temporary space for the faculty center would look like, what space in the new faculty center would look like, and whether the proposed residential conference facility makes financial sense.

We are proposing that there be a period of open public discussion with all financial data and plans available on the web for viewing and commenting. To maintain the faculty center on a sound financial footing, we are asking that the faculty center be allowed to accept reservations until a faculty vote in the Academic Senate decides in favor of the Residential Learning/conference center. We risk losing one of the most effective parts of UCLA for a future financial drain. In this era of budget cuts and increased student fees it is incumbent on the faculty to be proactive in leading this debate. The Academic Senate must allow a public discussion for its members and it must let the Faculty Center resume operations until all concerned parties have come to an informed decision.

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