Staff advisors to the UC regents share staff concerns
Bill Johansen, left, and Edward Abeyta explain the role of being staff advisor to the UC regents. Photos by Reed Hutchinson
Two UC staff members who serve as advisors to the UC regents visited UCLA on April 27 to discuss key issues and take questions from campus staff at a Learn-at-Lunch sponsored by Staff Assembly at the J.D. Morgan Center.
Staff Advisor Bill Johansen, a senior business manager in the Life Sciences Division at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and Staff Advisor Designate Edward Abeyta, registrar and director of academic services at UC San Diego Extension, are appointed by UC President Mark Yudof and serve on a consultative, non-voting basis.
“Years ago, the staff advisor role was just conceptual,” said Abeyta. When a pilot program was set in place in 2005 to “bring the whole family to the table,” he said, “there was still a lot of uncertainty about what would actually occur if you brought staff in.”
It turned out that including a staff perspective in regental business was so successful that the regents voted in 2007 to formally include staff advisors as participants in their meetings and on selected committees. Abeyta credited the first staff advisor to the regents, UCLA’s David Miller, who currently serves as deputy assistant chancellor to Chancellor Gene Block, with building bridges between the regents and the staff.
“We like to say that David Miller seduced the board with knowledge and insight,” Abeyta said.
Of top concern to the regents is the weak state economy and its impact on UC’s budget, Johansen and Abeyta said.
“The regents see that academics are being affected,” said Johansen. “That has started a dialogue about how we’re going to make the best decisions about programs to eliminate.”
Johansen talks to a UCLA staff member following the meeting hosted by UCLA Staff Assembly.
The restart of state contributions to the UC retirement system as well as staff salaries top the list of staff concerns, Johansen said.
“We’re still double-digit percentages away from average market wages,” he said. And while the current financial climate doesn’t lend itself to increases, “In the meantime, we’re looking at non-financial ways to make sure that UC continues to be the best employer for its employees. A lot of these are things that don’t cost a lot … things like expanding the definition of maternity leave to include leave while adopting a child.”
Johansen said that he and Abeyta want to make sure that staff are represented in President Mark Yudof’s new accountability program, aimed at providing better information to the public and policy-makers about the performance of the UC system for the people of California
. “In addition to information like how many students graduate, we want to really look at how UCLA is as an employer,” Johansen said. One measure of that, for example, is staff diversity.
“Everything the regents decide has some impact on staff somewhere in the system,” said Johansen. “It impacts us as employees, and sometimes as alumni or parents of students.”
Johansen and Abeyta invite input from staff members, particularly suggestions for cost savings at UCLA and UC, at the
staff advisor website. Click on the "What's On Your Mind?" feature to share your ideas and concerns with them.
They have also just e-mailed out their inaugural
quarterly newsletter featuring relevant information about UC initiatives, especially those that impact staff. You can sign up to receive future copies of the newsletter
here.
