Comments on: Financial Crisis Hits Home: Berkeley Struggles to Maintain Academic Quality

By: Transparency

Transparency — Fri, 14 Jan 2011 23:48:31 +0000

Can University of California be saved from Chancellor Birgeneau ($500,000 salary)?
UC adamantly rejects Calif. Gov. Brown’s Budget.
Deeds speak louder than words.
Gov. inauguration $100,000.
UC Chancellor Birgeneau $3,000,000 for consultants to do WORK of his job & of his MANY vice-chancellors
Take that Gov!…says UC Berkeley Chancellor Birgeneau’s action
University of California

By: Transparency

Transparency — Sat, 25 Dec 2010 02:53:20 +0000

University of California Berkeley (Cal) ranking drops. In 2004, for example, the London-based Times Higher Education ranked Cal the second leading research university in the world, just behind Harvard; in 2009 that ranking had tumbled to 39th place

By: Transparency

Transparency — Sat, 16 Oct 2010 00:22:03 +0000

UC Berkeley’s recent elimination of popular sports programs highlighted endemic problems in the university’s management. Chancellor Robert Birgeneau’s eight-year fiscal track record is dismal indeed. He would like to blame the politicians in Sacramento, since they stopped giving him every dollar he has asked for, and the state legislators do share some responsibility for the financial crisis. But not in the sense he means.

A competent chancellor would have been on top of identifying inefficiencies in the system and then crafting a plan to fix them. Compentent oversight by the Board of Regents and the legislature would have required him to provide data on problems and on what steps he was taking to solve them. Instead, every year Birgeneau would request a budget increase, the regents would agree to it, and the legislature would provide. The hard questions were avoided by all concerned, and the problems just piled up….until there was no money left.

It’s not that Birgeneau was unaware that there were, in fact, waste and inefficiencies in the system. Faculty and staff have raised issues with senior management, but when they failed to see relevant action taken, they stopped. Finally, Birgeneau engaged some expensive ($3 million) consultants, Bain & Company, to tell him what he should have been able to find out from the bright, engaged people in his own organization.

From time to time, a whistleblower would bring some glaring problem to light, but the chancellor’s response was to dig in and defend rather than listen and act. Since UC has been exempted from most whistleblower lawsuits, there are ultimately no negative consequences for maintaining inefficiencies.

In short, there is plenty of blame to go around. But you never want a serious crisis to go to waste. An opportunity now exists for the UC president, Board of Regents, and California legislators to jolt UC Berkeley back to life, applying some simple check-and-balance management principles. Increasing the budget is not enough; transforming senior management is necessary. The faculty, students, staff, academic senate, Cal. alumni, and taxpayers await the transformation.

By: Doye O Sivils

Doye O Sivils — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 19:57:34 +0000

ACT NOW! Contact Chairwoman Budget Sub-committee on Education Finance Assemblywoman Carter 916.319.2062 and tell her to stop the $3,000,000 spending by Chancellor Birgeneau for consultants.

By: Doye O Sivils

Doye O Sivils — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 02:25:59 +0000

Why does one of the top universities in the world have to spend $3 million of taxpayer money for consultants to do what should be done internally by UCB Chancellor Birgeneau?
Who teaches auditors how to audit? Do UC professors not have the knowledge to perform what they teach?
Having firsthand knowledge of consulting, I know one cardinal rule, “Don’t bite the hand that pays you.”
In a nutshell, we have a high-paid, skilled UCB Chancellor who is unable or unwilling to do the job he is paid to do. Why do we wonder that UC and California are in a financial crisis!
I’m sure taxpayers would not object to the $3 million payout if the money is reimbursed by taking money from the UCB Chancellor’s salary over the next 10 years.
Stop the spending of $3,000,000 on consultants by President Yudof and the UCB Chancellor and do the job impartially and internally These days ever dollar in higher education counts!
Respectfully

By: Milan Moravec

Milan Moravec — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 20:30:58 +0000

$3 Million Extravagant Spending On Consultants By UCB Chancellor Birgeneau: Work Can be Done Internally. UC President YUdof has a UCB Chancellor that should do the high paid work he is paid for job. ‘World class’ smart executives like Chancellor Birgeneau need to do the analysis, hard work and make the difficult decisions of their executive job to trim $150 million.
Where do consulting firms like Bain ($3,000,000 consultants) get their recommendations?
From interviewing the senior management that hired them and will be approving their monthly consultant fees and expense reports. Remember the nationally known auditing firm who said the right things and submitted recommendations that senior management wanted to hear and fooled government oversight agencies and the public?
Mr. Birgeneau’s executive officer performance management responsibilities include “inspiring innovation and leading change.” This involves “defining outcomes, energizing others at all levels and ensuring continuing commitment.” Instead of demonstrating his capacity to fulfill his executive accountabilities, Mr. Birgeneau outsourced them. Doesn’t he engage University of California and University of California Berkeley (UCB) people at all levels to help examine the budget and recommend the necessary trims? Hasn’t he talked to Cornell and the University of North Carolina – which also hired Bain — about best practices and recommendations that might apply to UCB cuts?
No wonder the faculty and staff are angry and suspicious. Three million dollars is a high price for Californians to pay when a knowledgeable ‘world-class’ Chancellor is not doing his job.
Stop the freewheeling 3,000,000 spending on consultants and do the work of your job President Yudof & UCB Chancellor Birgeneau: work for your pay

By: Showle

Showle — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 06:13:55 +0000

I’m disgusted with Chancellor Birgeneau’s diversity pledges to insure that low income will continue to get their free rides. I am repelled with the discrimination against middle-class white males. Prop 209 makes that illegal….state funds should be with held until he practices equal treatment & equal opportunity for all. Many middle class parents are suffering with reduced jobs that don’t allow for helping with college. It’s not fair to those kids who like the opportunity to attend too. Discriminating against middle class white males is both disgusting & illegal…their parents current situation is not of their doing. I have 3 college age males who have the grades & would like to attend & study MATH & science…but they aren’t fortunate enough to be poor enough to satisfy Birgeneau’s goal of providing navel studies to others. We pay him SO much, he has NO IDEA of what it is for middle class to survive in the BAY AREA today. He’ll have plenty of rich who’ll pay the freight for themselves & the ‘poor’….hut sadly, the middle-class white males get tossed aside. Society will suffer for that discrimination.