MODERNIZING GOVERNANCE AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA: A Proposal that the Regents Create and Delegate Some Responsibilities to Campus Boards

The University of California (UC) needs to respond to the fundamental and ongoing changes that are occurring around it if it is to remain financially sustainable, accessible, and academically excellent. As the campuses that make up UC have matured in the past 50 years they have, rightly, developed unique strengths and challenges. The uniqueness of individual campuses has been a natural response to the increasing complexity of our world and the highly competitive nature of higher education. These differences have been compounded by the facts that a much lesser fraction of the university budget now comes from the state and that there has been a continual evolution in the missions of the university as a whole. We propose that the Regents create and delegate appropriate responsibilities to campus-based governing boards to enable more effective campus oversight and management, while retaining their university-wide policy and fiduciary responsibilities.