University of Massachusetts Amherst - Index Yearbook (Amherst, MA)

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And what of state industry' s The Vice Chancellor for Academ- ic Affairs and Provost is the chief academic officer of the campus and is responsible for the entire range of campus academic programs. Spec- ifically, the responsibilities of the Vice Chancellor of Academic Affairs and Provost include: tal general academic development of the Am- herst Campus and standards of ex- cellence in instructional and scho- larly programsg tbl implementation of presidential and Trustee policies on academic matters including the primary responsibility for consulting with Deans, Department Heads! Chairpersons, and Program Direc- tors on matters of academic policyg fcl review and evaluation of college, school and departmental academic plans and budgets, appointments, promotions, and tenure recommen- dationsg proposals for new academ- ic programsg and suggestions and plans to increases the usefulness of the University in outreach activities and innovative service programs. At this level of administra- tion you're mostly dealing with money. You can't run the insti- tution without it, he says. He speaks slowly, chuckling occaisionally as he recounts his own history. He came to UMass seven years ago after teaching English full-time at the Univer- sity of Colorado. A tenured pro- fessor at UMass, he has held administrative positions since arriving here as associate prov- ost, teaching perhaps one course a semester. Does he still consider himself a member of the faculty? Oh, yes, he answers without hesitat- ing. He will be glad to get back to his position as Dean of Fine Arts and Humanities. You get iso- lated, he says, from the faculty, the research, the students. I've had a funny career as an administrator. Unlike a good many deans I've had campus- wide experience, he says refer- ring to his stint as associate pro- vost. After serving more than two years as provost, his atti- tudes toward University admini- stration have not really changed. In a recent interview, Allen talked about UMass, how the University currently operates, some of its problems, and what lies ahead. We're in for some difficult years --itfs an economic fact of life, he says as he talks about sections of Spanish that were cancelled and later rescheduled at the start of this semester. UMass currently appears to be in between the proverbial rock and a hard place, because, says the highest ranking academic of- ficial on campus, things are go- ing to get worse. The problem stems from bud- get allocation methods. Courses are listed for preregistration, but the University does not know what its allocation is until the end of January, this year two days before the classes were set to begin. At this particular public uni- versity we are treated by the state almost like other state agencies. You have to make con- tractual commitments in ad- vance, and then suddenly, we get a bad budget. But you've got to offer required courses, Allen says, yet the UMass budget shrinks even as it grows. All the departments will be affected, by budget cuts this year. We would try to protect our high priority units, he says. Double-digit inflation has also forced a gradual shift in enroll- ments and pressures from liberal arts to more career-oriented stu- dies, he says. There's been a growth in en- gineering and a corresponding drop in disciplines such as Eng- lish, history - although journal- ism has become more popular. It' s more career oriented. involvement with the Univer- sity? The engineering school re- cently began a drive to raise 555.5 million from private industry. The theory of the capital fund drive is'that it will provide added resources to make it less neces- sary to transfer resources from the other departments, he said. The money will go to the de- partment that does research for various companies, he said. When the fund drive first star- ted it was purely engineering - since then natural sciences have become involved. I don't think it will effect fine arts and humanit- ies or the social sciences. We've had a series of very tight budgets and the enrollment patterns have shifted away from those areas, ' he said, leaving the Uni- versity to expand in more de- manded disciplines. The shift is reflected in the declining number of faculty in the fine arts and humanities. The

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0 , emi? The Vice Chancellor for Adminis- tration and Finance is responsible for the management of the following di- visions: Administrative Services, Aux- iliary Services, Facilities Planning Fi- nancial Affairs, Grants and Contracts Administration, Human Resources and Physical Plant. In addition to coordin- ating the efforts of these divisions,the Vice Chancellor is responsible for de- veloping and implementing policies, planning the efficient use of resources and assuring compliance with applic- able regulations. The Division of Administrative Ser- vices provides the services of parking transit, and communications for the Amherst Campus. The Parking Office coordinates the utilization of the ga- rage and 90 acres of surface parking. The transit system offers transporta- tion both within the campus and to the adjacent communities of Amherst, Bel- chertown, Sunderland and South Deerfield. Communication services co- ordinated within this division include duplicating, mail and telephone. The Division of Auxiliary Services is composed of the Campus Center, Con- ference Services and Food Services. The Campus Center serves as a cen- tralized meeting place that offers a variety of amenities. Containing sixty meeting rooms and two auditoriums, the Campus Center is used extensively for meetings and conferences hosted by Faculty, students, administrators, community members and external or- ganizations. Over one hundred rooms are available for overnight accommo- dations. Food service can be obtained in the Center' s five restaurants or from a central catering department. Retail operations include the University Store, Print Shop, News and Sweet Shop, Games and Amusement area and a Post Office. The Department of Conference Services is concerned with planning, coordinating and maximiz- ing the use of campus facilities for conferences. It not only attends to needs of conference sponsors and par- ticipants, but also exerts marketing ef- forts to attract new clients to the Campus.The primary objective of the Department of Food Services is to pro- vide a well-balanced comprehensive meal plan that is tailored particularly to the needs of residential students. In addition to providing basic meals, this Department operates three snack bars, three mini-markets and a catering service. The primary purpose of Facilities Planning is to plan improvements of the buildings and the campus land- scaping. Specific functions include the development of capital outlay plans, the initial implementation of capital outlay projects and the planning for landscape improvements. The Division of Financial Affairs pro- vides accounting, procurement, and collection and coordination of audit services for the Campus. It develops and implements financial management and ensures compliance with regula- tions governing the expenditure of funds. The Accounting Department performs financial transactions, main- tains accounting records, disseminates accounting reports and coordinates in- ternal auditing functions. Procurement coordinates the purchasing of mater- ials and services, maintains accounting records, disseminates accounting re- ports and coordinates internal auditing functions. The Office of Grants and Contracts Administration is responsible for pre- award and post-award administration of grants and contracts and for pro- viding related support services to the faculty. The development of activities for locating funding sources is coordin- ated by the Graduate Dean's Office within the area of Academic Affairs. The Office of Grants and Contracts Administration ensures that internal and external regulations pertaining to submission and administration of grants and contracts are followed. The fiscal monitoring is provided by the Controllers Office. Grants and Con- tracts is kept informed on the financial status of the projects. .1 ,4 ,I f 1 The Division of Human Resources fosters the effective use of Campus personnel through its involvement in personnel operations, personnel re- search, and employee relations. The operational responsibilities of this di- vision span all phases of employment. The research activities include the col- lection and dissemination of statistics on personnel demographics, payroll projec-tions and personnel operating budgets. The Department of Em- ployee! Labor Relations maintains a li- aison with three major classified em- ployee unions, as well as individual employees. Involved with local, state and national levels of unions, this de- partment participates in collective bar- gaining, administers contracts, and processes union grievances. Addition- ally, it serves as a resource for the discussion and resolution of work re- lated programs. However, this office is not involved in any negotiations with the faculty collective bargaining unit, which are handled directly through the Chancellor's Office. The Physical Plant Division is re- sponsible for planning, constructing, maintaining and operating the physical facilities at the Campus and outlying research stations. These facilities in- clude building structures, roads, walks, grounds and utilities systems. Organ- izationally, the Division consists of five departments reporting to the Director of Physical Plant: The Maintenance Department, the Design! Construction Department, the Utilities Department, the GroundSfCustodial Services De- partment and the Administrative Department. ice-Chancellor for dmini tration 81 Finance

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number of faculty has declined from 406 in '1973 to 375 cur- rently. Because of declining enroll- ments in these departments, the student-faculty ratio has not changed. Ours is about 17, or 16 over- all fstudents to facultyJ, Allen says, comparing it to Amherst College's 12 to 1 ratio. I'd say we're about average nationally to similar universities this size. But, he cautions, those are aver- ages. You can't just compare. Some of the disciplines require a ljhigher number of faculty to stu- dents than others. Nursing is at about 3 or 4 to 1 while journalis- tic studies is 2O to 1. He says the social sciences and business courses have the highest num- ber of students per faculty. Sheer economics forces facul- it's recognition, he says. I don't think the quality of education will suffer -- everybodjfs in the same boat. There are very few institutions that have enough money to go out and raid other institutions. Allen says the opportunities for scientific research are far bet- ter at a large school such as UMass than at smaller places. And publishing and research are particularly importantf' in achieving recognition in the sci- ences. But what about the students here? Are they anti-intellect- ual as a recent self-study once charged? Students have changed, he says. During the 1960's stu- dents to a large extent became seemingly uninterested in jobs. Then, a period of high em- l'he gap between professors and students, between class- room experience and the dor- mitory or apartment is probab- ly a problem...We fdeans and department headsj talk about this alot. it's a matter of con- siderable concern to the chan- cellor .... Better communication, he says, is the key to cornbatting it. He brings up the subject of sexual harrassment. You get rumors, you get reports, but you have to get people to come out in the open. Reporting of this is getting better, he said, but I think we're going to have to develop some kind of procedure for dealing with this. He says work that the women's issues team of the Student Center for Educational Research and Ad- vocacy of the Student Govern- ty unions to negotiate for con- tracts that provide healthy salary increases, Allen said. Even so, if they get a 10 percent salary in- crease, it's probably been re- duced to 7 percent after taxes, he said. We're starting negotia- tions again soon. It doesn't exact- ly bring out the best in anyone. Allen says 'it's too early to say what the effect in the long run will be of faculty unionization on education. The faculty organ- ized for the first time in 1977. Does he ever feel torn between his role as a faculty member and administrator? Yes Another effect money, and perhaps prestige, has on aca- demic life at UMass is the loss of professors. We're beginning to lose a few to institutions that offer more money, better oppor- tunities for research, or more prestigious departments. When we lose people to better places, ployment: ifyou needed money, you went out and got a job. There were plenty of jobs avail- able. Now, high unemploy- ment makes job security more competitive and a college diplo- ma more a must, he said. .Xs a result of the changing demands, there has been grade inflation, he says, although, there's been less of it in the sciences. Engineers are the stiffest markers. People used to grade more on a strict bell curve, which meant not as many A's were given out. How would UMies fare at other, more competitive schools? Within the same field, you'd get similar grades. People move around and they take their ideas about grades with them. Which brings us to the image of Uivlass and its effect on aca- deinics. ment Association CSCERAJ has clone on this has been helpful It's the kind of behavior that's difficult to pinpoint. There are usually no witnesses. One per son says one thing, one says another. What does a provost do if this can be proven? If it's a case of grades and some kind of coer cion, I'd start dismissal proceed ings. That's the only thing we can do. I don t think we have fdis missed anyone for that reasonj since I've been here. With a PhD in English, Allen the father of five children whose ages range from 19 to 37 years old, says I wasn't a serious stu dent when I first started. He smiles. He might consider re turning to teaching and doesnt know when he'll retire. He's 60 but you don't have to retire now.