Aug 1, 2023
Dear colleagues,
As part of my winter campus financial update, I indicated that campuswide cost savings and operational efficiencies can be an important part of our financial stability plan. I write to provide more information about this effort and invite your participation.
As members of the Campus Budget Workgroup have spoken with faculty and staff colleagues, we have heard that schools and units would benefit from learning about examples of successful projects and how to pursue cost savings ideas. This message provides a couple of examples and additional information to help teams that have ideas for where UCI can lower costs, improve efficiency and eliminate unnecessary bureaucracy.
Several department-level activities are already underway and have demonstrated measurable benefits. For example, Summer Session and the International Center collaborated to automate processing of I-20 documents needed for international students to obtain an F1 visa. The previous system was primarily a manual process. The new automated system has reduced staff time to process a student from 20 hours to five hours. As another example, many schools are now using Enrollment Management Analytics tools for the review of students’ satisfactory academic progress. For one school, the use of the tools reduced the time required for this task from eight hours to 15 minutes. You can expect to see updates on other current and future projects in the months ahead.
We want to hear your ideas. Our colleagues in Human Resources, the Office of Information Technology, and the Business Transformation Office are available to assist schools and units with the following:
Assessments of organizational effectiveness
Evaluation and redesign of inefficient processes and workflows
Implementation of financial planning and forecasting tools
Providing access to and training for software and technologies to support efficiency
As part of this effort, the Division of Finance and Administration will also be working to improve efficiency in specific areas that would benefit the campus (e.g., UC Path).
Please contact the Business Transformation Office at bto@uci.edu to share suggestions or discuss next steps for a potential project for your school or unit.
Sincerely,
Hal Stern
Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor
Chancellor's Professor, Department of Statistics