Dear Colleagues
I am pleased to inform you of the creation of a unit, “New Academic Ventures at Berkeley (NAV-B),” dedicated to considering and advancing academic revenue generation initiatives for our campus. The new unit will report to Dean Diana Wu, who also has responsibility for University Extension and the Berkeley Resource Center for Online Education (BRCOE).
While the campus has a well-defined and strong academic approval process in place to review self-supporting graduate professional degree programs (SSGPDPs), there is a need for an integrated process to review the economic feasibility of these ideas as well as other academic revenue generation proposals. To this end, I have asked Diana to build and oversee an independent and separately funded unit --- leveraging key strengths of the existing Extension and BRCOE models --- to objectively identify, review and report on all units’ academic revenue generation plans.
This New Academic Ventures team will be led by Scott Shireman. In addition to working with schools, departments and colleges, Diana and Scott will work collaboratively with Vice Chancellor Cathy Koshland on undergraduate revenue programming, Graduate Dean Fiona Doyle on graduate degree programs, and with Chief Financial Officer Rosemarie Rae on the 2017-18 budget goals as well as strategies for long-term financial goals for the campus.
In developing this New Academic Ventures unit, the Revenue Generation Program Office (originally part of the Operational Excellence Program Office) will be dissolved as a free standing unit and its academic program related work will shift to the new team. Key members of the old office will continue to manage current non-academic program related revenue generating projects and other continuing work through the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Administration and Finance.
The work of the new unit begins immediately and with urgency as we enter the 2017-18 budget cycle. Because of the importance of revenue to our financial sustainability, Cathy and I have agreed to change Diana’s reporting line directly to me. I want to thank and acknowledge Cathy for her visionary and energetic leadership in building the foundation that now allows us to take more ambitious steps in our revenue generation efforts.
Please join me in supporting the mission, intent, and work of the New Academic Ventures group.
Sincerely,
Carol Christ
Interim Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost