Regents Ponder Questions (With the aid of a management consultant)

At the upcoming Regents session scheduled for the Ides of March, the Regents have invited a management consultant to help them ponder questions such as those below:

* How can a more diverse student body be supported during a period of flattening or declining federal/or state appropriation?

* How do we attract target students with the capacity to provide competitive tuition subsidization that is competitive with peer institutions?

* Is the University effectively evaluating alternatives to traditional education practices (e.g. three year degrees, a multi-year tuition schedule) to help address student access and affordability issues?

* How robustly is the institution evaluating its academic programs to determine whether to scale-back or discontinue non-strategic and financially under-performing programs?

* Is student access being effectively messaged in the institution’s development activities?

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* Are there new or additional opportunities to identify non-value added or duplicate tasks that are performed within or between departments and central functions?

* Are there shared service or outsourcing opportunities for administrative tasks?

* Are there cost saving opportunities due to high level of decentralization within the institution and level of spending outside the central procurement function?

* Have we performed robust analytics around preferred vendors to identify potential cost reductions?

* Has technology been appropriately leveraged to gain efficiencies within certain processes, such as pre- and post-award administration?

* Has information technology spending been rationalized across the institution?

* Is there effective monitoring in place to ensure that implemented cost reduction measures do not adversely impact internal controls?

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* What is the impact on operations of a research funding scenario at 2007/2008 levels?

* Do we have the qualified staff in key Research Funding & Administrative positions that not only understand and enforce various requirements, but can also identify new opportunities for funding? How responsive is our Research Funding & Administration group to changing rules, regulations and requirements?

* Are we strategically recruiting faculty who are considered attractive candidates for sponsored award funding?

* Are we taking advantage of collaboration opportunities across disciplines and with other institutions?

* Do we have effective research conflict of interest policies for faculty and the institution?

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* How does the institution address significant post-retirement and healthcare cost increases given recent budgetary reductions that have impacted employee salaries, government funding pressures, and projected revenue and expenses?

* Are post-retirement pension and healthcare liabilities adequately funded?

* What is the plan to fund these liabilities if they are currently underfunded? Are these accurately reflected in the financial statements?

* Are the accounting obligations related to post-retirement and healthcare benefits effectively calculated, scrutinized and periodically monitored?

* What is the Accumulated Post Retirement Medical Benefit Obligation projected to be in ten, fifteen, and twenty years?

* What is the impact of projected post-retirement benefit costs on sponsored research fringe benefit rates?

Full set of slides is available at http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/regents/regmeet/mar11/a5.pdf

So many questions! Maybe it's better not to ask: