March 10, 1999
TO MEMBERS OF THE SPECIAL COMMITTEE ON UC MERCED:

ITEM FOR DISCUSSION

For Meeting of March 18, 1999

UPDATE ON PLANNING FOR UC MERCED

This report summarizes significant developments that have occurred since the November meeting of the Special Committee on UC Merced. The report will be augmented by oral presentations by Carol Tomlinson-Keasey, Vice Provost for Academic Initiatives and Senior Associate to the President for UC Merced, and Trudis Heinecke, Director of Physical Planning and Budget, UC Merced.

Appointment of Academic Senate Task Force on UC Merced

An Academic Senate Task Force on UC Merced has been appointed and has held its first two meetings. The Task Force represents a vital step in the continuation of academic planning for UC Merced. The Regents have delegated to the Academic Senate responsibility for curriculum development, as well as a range of advisory responsibilities, including advice on recruitment of faculty. The Task Force will help develop the structure by which these critical activities will be undertaken for UC Merced, until the campus has its own divisional Senate.

The Task Force is chaired by San Diego Professor Emeritus Fred Spiess. Dr. Spiess served as Director of Scripps Institution of Oceanography during the transitional period when UC San Diego was being planned and built, and was Chair of the Academic Council during the planning of the tenth campus in the early 1990s. Task Force membership includes a representative from each of the nine campus Senate divisions, the Vice Chair of the Academic Council, and leaders from the five University-wide Academic Senate Committees on Graduate Affairs, Academic Personnel, Educational Policy, Planning and Budget, and Research Policy.

The UC Merced Task Force has completed its review and report on academic planning to date for UC Merced. It has also initiated a discussion of planning for general education, humanities, and arts at UC Merced; and in the process of formulating a proposed structure for reviewing UC Merced faculty appointments. The next Task Force meeting is planned for late March or early April, tentatively in Merced.

Academic Planning

Current academic planning activities have as a goal the creation of a set of assets that can attract excellent faculty. To date, three groups have been formed to advise on research initiatives that can support faculty recruitment and, ultimately, can serve as a base on which academic programs can be initiated. The UC Merced presentation at the November 1998 meeting of the Special Committee focused on the first of those efforts, the Sierra Nevada Research Initiative. Two additional groups are described below: the Community and Policy Advisory Group and the Engineering Advisory Group. Senate UC Merced Task Force members now sit on all these advisory groups. In addition, in cooperation with the Task Force, June workshops are being planned to recommend curricular directions in agricultural biotechnology and the humanities.

1. The Sierra Nevada Research Initiative

This initiative capitalizes on existing networks within UC and envisions potential partnerships as a basis for supporting faculty scholarship. It also builds on the natural laboratory created by the San Joaquin Valley-Sierra Nevada region. Two demonstration projects are well advanced. The first focuses on transportation to and in Yosemite National Park; the second is translating scientific findings of the massive three-year Sierra Nevada Ecosystem Project into readily accessible electronic forms that can be used by natural resource agency and county planners. These have been joined to a third related effort, to locate one or more Natural Reserve System sites in proximity to UC Merced.

Planning for a Sierra Nevada Research Institute has led to many potential partnerships with the state and federal agencies that manage Sierra lands, particularly those responsible for the three National Parks located near UC Merced -- Yosemite, Sequoia, and Kings Canyon. These partnerships have the potential to expand educational and research resources for UC Merced, both through collaborative relationships with working scientists and resource managers and through the intrinsic value of these public lands as natural classrooms and laboratories. In addition, the National Parks in particular are prepared to collaborate with UC's K-12 outreach initiatives in the San Joaquin Valley, and to explore with UC Merced faculty options in undergraduate education, including internships that combine academic and work experience.

The Sierra Nevada Research Initiative Advisory Group will complete its proposed structure for the Institute this spring. UC Merced founders will be able to select early curricular emphases from among a wide range of biological sciences, environmental sciences, computational sciences, physical sciences, social sciences, policy studies, and regional planning, with the expectation that the Sierra Nevada Research Institute will be a potential magnet for attracting excellent individuals and even groups of faculty in those fields.

2. Community and Policy Advisory Group: Support for Social Sciences, Humanities, and Arts Programming

A second advisory group representing several social sciences and policy studies-oriented units, the UC Humanities Research Institute in Irvine and the Inter-campus Arts Program is working on an initiative that would support the development of programs in selected social sciences, policy studies, arts, and humanities. The group will hold its second meeting shortly.

3. UC Merced Engineering Advisory Group

A UC Merced Engineering Advisory Group will make recommendations for starting strong engineering, computer science, information sciences, and related science programs. Among its members are past and current UC deans of engineering and representatives of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. The group will advise on ways in which a UC Merced-Livermore partnership can effectively make a contribution to development of technology-oriented fields. This spring, the Advisory Group will meet with the President's Engineering Advisory Council, which includes CEOs of several California companies. The Group will consult the Council on strategies for developing UC Merced relationships with industry.

Academic Programs

The UC Merced campus will be the hub of a network of distributed learning centers throughout the San Joaquin Valley. This network will enable the campus to broaden access to qualified students and to extend the benefits of the University throughout the Valley, both before and after UC Merced opens for residential campus instruction in 2005.

At the UC Center in Fresno, over 1,000 students will be served this year through extension programming offered in cooperation with existing campuses. A new set of business courses that use an interactive CD-ROM for instruction and a new precision agriculture class have been very well received. This spring and summer, the Center will cosponsor with the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and Valley school districts a series of professional development workshops on laser and optics for K-12 teachers. These workshops will help to strengthen science curricula in Valley schools. In addition, the Center will co-host with the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Education a professional development program for K-12 teachers that focuses on new strategies to work more effectively with limited English proficient students.

The second of UC Merced's network of centers, the Merced Tri-College Center, opened in February. The Tri-College Center is the only one of its kind in California and houses programs from UC Merced, CSU Stanislaus, and Merced College. A primary focus of the Center will be to facilitate transfer of Merced area students from Merced College to either CSU or UC. UC is also providing extension programming at the Center through the UC Merced Division of Professional Studies, as well as student outreach programs and professional development workshops for K-12 teachers in the area.

Two other centers are being planned at this time. A UC Center in Modesto is scheduled to open in summer 1999 at the Stanislaus Agricultural Center. A UC Center in Bakersfield is scheduled to open in early 2000 at the downtown facility of the Kern County Office of Education. A wide variety of academic programming is being planned for these centers.

Student Planning

In spring 1998, a UC Merced Student Planning Advisory Committee, consisting of senior student affairs officers from several UC campuses and representatives from a Valley high school and a Community College, was appointed to advise on outreach to K-12 students, especially in the San Joaquin Valley; student recruitment; enrollment estimates; physical planning for student life, on and off campus; and co-curricular planning that can enhance student success. Two Senate UC Merced Task Force representatives have also become members. The Committee has finished a working paper on principles to guide planning for student life at UC Merced, with an emphasis on three major themes: integration, flexibility, and community. The Committee also has endorsed the creation of a "passport program," a new approach to encourage Valley children to prepare for college and to provide continuing information about programs at UC and qualifications for admission to UC.

This spring, the Committee will hold focus groups with Valley students and parents, and with coastal students, to gather their views on what would make UC Merced most attractive to them. The Committee will also develop a detailed set of recommendations to campus physical planners on the range of student services that need to be planned on and off campus and will recommend a staffing plan with timetable for UC Merced student academic services. The initial work of the Committee should be completed by summer 1999.

Physical Planning

1. University Community Development Concept

The Merced campus site (2,000 acres) is a part of a larger area known as the University Community (10,300 acres), currently undeveloped grazing land which the County of Merced has designated for urban development. Over the last year, physical planning activities have focused on articulating a development concept for the University Community in collaboration with the County of Merced, the Virginia Smith Trust and the Cyril Smith Trust which own the land, the City of Merced, and the Merced Irrigation District. The development concept is close to completion. It includes a projection of the overall development capacity and land use for the new community, assumptions about infrastructure and transportation solutions and costs, and principles related to preservation of open space, and stewardship of natural resources.

The development concept will serve as the foundation for the next phases of planning, including (a) preparation of the campus Long Range Development Plan by the University, (b) preparation of the Community Plan (General Plan amendment) and capital improvement plans for infrastructure development by the County of Merced, and (c) joint environmental preservation and mitigation planning by the University and the County to support both planning efforts. An integrated planning schedule has been developed, recognizing the need for continued collaborative planning and calling for the completion and approval of both the LRDP and the Community Plan in November 2000. Attached is a February 1999 update report which provides a summary of the development concept.

2. Long Range Development Plan and Environmental Impact Report

Formal work on the campus Long Range Development Plan and its related Environmental Impact Report will commence this spring. Technical site studies to support this work have been initiated on a jointly funded basis with the County of Merced, including field surveys for potential endangered species crustaceans and amphibians associated with wetlands, endangered plant species associated with wetlands, and endangered species mammals, using study protocols approved by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Several phases of aerial photography are underway to support boundary surveys, produce digitized topographic data for detailed mapping, and provide tools for delineation of federal jurisdictional wetlands. Additional studies related to site hydrology and geology will begin in spring 1999.

The LRDP will include the major elements of the master physical plan for the campus, including patterns of development and open space, conservation principles, circulation patterns and systems, backbone infrastructure and utility systems, and aesthetic character in terms of urban design, density, and landscaping. The preparation of the EIR for the LRDP will be closely coordinated with the EIR for the Community Plan, to assure a common data base and compatible development and mitigation standards.

At the same time that the LRDP is being developed, parallel efforts will be undertaken to develop a master utilities and infrastructure plan for the campus, in coordination with the County's efforts to develop a master infrastructure and capital financing plan for the University Community. Other studies will be undertaken related to the sequence of construction activities, assessment of space needs, packaging of individual capital projects, and development of a multi-year capital program.

For attachment see:
http://www.ucmerced.edu/physplan/concept/concept.htm.

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