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Look for an email on November 4 to vote to expand faculty voting rights systemwide.

Academic Senate Newsletter

Fall 2024 | Issue 10

In This Edition

Message from the Chair

Steve Hetts

Faculty Highlights

Spotlight Story: Jenny Liu, PhD, MPP

Accolades: Marya Zlatnik, MD

Policy Update

Local Voting Rules Expanded for Faculty

Open Awards & Nominations

Distinction in Mentoring 

Distinction in Teaching

Committee & Task Force Updates

COVID Faculty Support Committee

Affiliations Taskforce Guidelines

📣 Action Alert

Vote November 4-14 to Expand Systemwide Voting Rights

Join Us in Advocating Across UC Campuses

Events & Other News

IGHS Grand Rounds

Advance Health Care Planning 101

 Senate Faculty Research Lecture Series (Rita Redberg, MD, MS)

Meeting: Academic Senate San Francisco Division

UC Legislative Update

Antidiscrimination Training

 Prohibition on Harassment, Intimidation, and Discrimination 

Research Advisory Panel of California (RAPC)  

 $25 Minimum Wage Increase for Health Care Employees 

University of California Kern County Medical Education Endowment Fund

Message From the Chair

UCSF Faculty and Shared Governance Enthusiasts, 

2024 is not only a presidential election year, but it is also an important year for voting in the Academic Senate. On November 4, voting will begin on two Memorials to the Regents on expanding Senate membership to faculty in the Health Sciences Clinical and Adjunct series. Voting in favor of these Memorials is a vote to expand voting rights and the ability to fully participate in shared governance to thousands of faculty members across the University of California. Before voting, Academic Senate faculty will have the opportunity read arguments in favor of the Memorials (‘Pro’ statements), alongside arguments opposed to the passage of the Memorials (‘Con’ statements), per UCSF Senate Bylaw 63 and systemwide Senate Bylaw 90.”

There are approximately 24,622 faculty at the University of California, and 26.6% of the faculty do not have a voice in governance because they are in the Health Sciences Clinical or Adjunct series and are not members of the Academic Senate. UCSF has long had concerns about the exclusion of so many faculty members from shared governance.  

Over a decade ago, UCSF amended its Senate rules to allow faculty in the excluded series to vote on UCSF matters and to serve on UCSF committees. UCSF’s Schools and departments likewise allow faculty from all series to vote on local matters, but systemwide restrictions still limit participation, as illustrated in the following examples. 

• When UCSF faculty vote on systemwide issues, UCSF gathers and reports votes from all faculty, but UCSF must report those votes by series because the only votes that count are from the Ladder Rank, In Residence, and Clinical X faculty.  
• UCSF benefits from faculty from all series serving on its Committee on Academic Personnel (CAP), but if a question on a packet must be resolved by a vote, faculty in the Health Sciences Clinical and Adjunct series cannot vote because of systemwide requirements.  
• Similarly, systemwide restrictions prevent UCSF from appointing faculty in the Health Sciences Clinical and Adjunct series to its Privilege and Tenure (P&T) Committee or from sending faculty from these series to serve on systemwide committees or task forces, such as the Academic Advisory Committee for the Presidential Search, the Presidential Task Force on Instructional Modalities and UC Quality Undergraduate Degree Programs (IMOD TF), the Joint Senate-Administration Workgroup to Review Academic Personnel Manual Policy Language (APM 015 – Faculty Code of Conduct & APM 016 – Faculty Discipline), the Campus Climate Initiative (CCI), or the Systemwide Senate Workgroup on Artificial Intelligence – to name a few being convened this year.  

Systemwide, the restrictions on faculty in these series are more significant. UCSF is the only campus that allows faculty in all series to participate in their campus Senate.* At all other campuses, faculty in these series cannot vote and cannot participate in committees or governance because they are not in the “right” series. Their exclusion can range from department-level votes to campus-level hiring committees, and their exclusion increases the service burden on Senate series faculty, which can be especially heavy for underrepresented Senate faculty.  

After years of meetings, advocacy, and organizing, your Senate has decided to put this issue before all of the faculty of the University of California for consideration. There have been enough task forces and reports. It’s time to vote.  

A Memorial to the Regents is how faculty formally communicate to the Regents. Faculty need to communicate with the Regents about Senate membership because Regents Standing Order 105.1 sets Senate membership. By initiating two Memorials, one for each series, UCSF will ask all campuses to consider whether Senate membership should be expanded to include faculty who have appointments greater than 50% from the Health Sciences Clinical and Adjunct series.  

Per systemwide Senate Bylaw 90, if at least two other campuses that, combined with UCSF’s 12%, represent 35% of the faculty, the Memorials will qualify for a full Senate faculty vote. Then, all faculty in the Ladder Rank, In Residence, and Clinical X series, across the UC, will vote on whether to ask the Regents to extend Senate membership to faculty in the Adjunct and Health Sciences Clinical series. The Memorials will be accompanied by the count of votes, a brief account of its history, an explanation of its provisions, and a succinct statement of the arguments for and against it. If more than half of the faculty who choose to vote approve, the Chair of the systemwide Academic Senate/Assembly will send the Memorials to the UC President for submission to the Regents. 

I encourage UCSF faculty to vote in favor of these Memorials and to advocate for their approval at other campuses. All faculty contribute significantly to the University, and all faculty should have a voice in its governance. Your vote is your voice. 

 A more inclusive Senate will have a larger and more diverse pool of faculty to serve in the Senate and engage in shared governance. By expanding membership, the Senate and the University will have more opportunities to benefit from the perspective, service, and engagement of thousands of additional faculty members. 

The excluded faculty series are disproportionately female and disproportionately young. By expanding Senate membership to include faculty in the Health Sciences Clinical and Adjunct series, the University would break a structural barrier that unintentionally excludes women and younger faculty from governance. 

Excluded faculty members come from a diversity of academic disciplines and experiences, especially within the Adjunct series, but most of the excluded faculty are in the health sciences. If the University welcomed Adjunct and Health Sciences Clinical faculty to the Senate, there would be a significant increase in the number of health sciences faculty in the Senate. This would give the Senate much greater capacity to engage with the University on health sciences issues.  

The Senate of the future should do more, and it needs to be bigger and more representative of the faculty to do it. This is not about health sciences faculty taking over the Senate. This is about the entire faculty building a more robust and influential Senate. That Senate needs health sciences expertise, volunteers, and voices to partner with, challenge, and influence one of the largest academic health systems in the world. With broader membership, the Senate can do what it already does, and more. 



Voting in favor of the two membership Memorials to the Regents is a step toward creating the Senate of the future. Please join me in making the Academic Senate more inclusive and representative of the entire faculty. 

"Your voice in University governance matters, and this year, your vote can help give voice to others." 

—Chair Steve Hetts, MD

* UC Davis does have a parallel governing body called the Academic Federation that includes faculty from the Health Sciences Clinical and Adjunct series, but the Federation does not have the same power as the Senate.

Faculty Highlights

Faculty Voting Rights | SPECIAL EDITION STORY

"Expanding voting rights would not only amplify the voices of Adjunct and HS clinical faculty but also ensure that the University benefits from the full scope of our contributions to teaching, research, and service."

Expanding Voting Rights Recognizes Contributions of HS Clinical and Adjunct Faculty

Jenny Liu, PhD, MPP, Professor of Health Economics and Director of the Institute for Health & Aging, has spent nearly 8 years as an Adjunct professor in social and behavioral sciences. And for nearly 8 years, she has served in UCSF Academic Senate. Her substantial record of service includes four years on the School of Nursing Faculty Council (2016-20), the Committee on Faculty Welfare (2018-19), and one year on Executive Council when she was the Chair of CFW. She is currently a member of the Senate’s Committee on Research. 

One of her standout achievements was the faculty time use study (see below), which documented, evaluated, and quantified faculty time spent on various university-related activities, with a focus on the often-unrecognized 'invisible work' and systematic disparities affecting women and underrepresented individuals in health professions. 

This was only possible because UCSF Senate expanded UCSF voting rights locally for faculty in the Adjunct and Health Sciences Clinical series over a decade ago! 

Liu's Senate service has enabled her to initiate and lead efforts that address critical issues such as funding disparities, minority tax, and salary inequities—work that directly impacts both the professional environment and the ability of faculty (and staff!) to excel in teaching, research, and clinical practice. Without access to these governance platforms, she says, "My capacity to drive impactful policies and structural reforms in the field of health sciences, as well as within UCSF, would have been diminished."

Read on to learn about Liu's impact on teaching, research, and service and her call to action to vote on November 4-14 to expand voting rights and membership for Adjunct faculty like her across the UC system.

Q&A With Jenny Liu

"My own experience vividly illustrates the benefits of expanding faculty voting rights across the UC system, especially for faculty in non-Senate series. Despite being in the Adjunct faculty series, I have taken on substantial teaching and mentoring roles at UCSF and beyond, working with students and researchers globally, including in Australia, Europe, and Africa."

Thinking about your involvement in the Academic Senate, what are you most proud of?

During my tenure as Chair of the Senate Committee on Faculty Welfare, we launched a study with two primary goals: 1) to document, evaluate, and quantify faculty time spent across a range of university-related activities; and 2) to identify systematic disparities in the distribution of invisible work among UCSF faculty.

We presented the results at the Senate retreat last month:

• The 'minority tax' is very much present (also known as the cultural tax or extra responsibilities assumed by underrepresented groups). Black/African American and female respondents were significantly more likely to engage in invisible work.
•  While those engaged in uncompensated service reported higher job satisfaction, these same individuals also reported higher levels of burnout.

My research team is actively disseminating these findings with campus leaders and beyond. There has been significant interest, and we are collaborating with leadership to explore creative solutions. I’m optimistic that this effort will lead to meaningful change.

"If excluded from decision-making bodies, faculty like me would have limited opportunities to advocate for the needs of junior researchers, underrepresented faculty, and the global health community at large."

Please share a little bit about your trendsetting research in health economics:

First, my research aims to materially change the lives of vulnerable populations by finding ways to deliver high-impact public health products and services to those in need. With our teams of multidisciplinary researchers, government and private sector partners, and members of local communities, we are integrating human-centered design with behavioral economics, to co-design more equitable and highly promising interventions for women’s health — from adolescent girls in Tanzania to rural women in Malawi. We further leverage innovative health service delivery channels (e.g., community-based delivery programs, e-commerce and digital interfaces, private community drug shops and pharmacies) to reach these highly disempowered and unconnected populations and foster greater agency and self-care.

How does being excluded from systemwide Senate membership impact you?

As an Adjunct faculty member, I have engaged deeply in mentoring students worldwide and taken on significant teaching commitments, including co-developing open-access courses and guiding global health research projects. The exclusion implies that the critical work done by non-Senate faculty is not fully recognized or integrated into the broader mission of the University, which in turn affects how we advocate for resources, equity, and professional development opportunities for ourselves and the students and mentees we support. Expanding voting rights would affirm that all faculty contributions, regardless of series, are essential to advancing the institution’s goals and ensuring a more inclusive and equitable academic community.

"The inability to vote on important issues or participate in activities restricted to Senate series faculty sends a message that despite my substantial contributions to teaching, research, and mentoring, my voice is less valued in governance and decision-making processes."

By the Numbers

Liu's Mission Impact

8 years of UCSF Senate Service

10 mentees annually

24 graduate students annually

22 senior authorships

9 PI/Co-PI studies

2 research labs

Why should faculty vote "yes" on the upcoming Memorials to the Regents to expand faculty voting rights?

These faculty members play a vital role in research, teaching, and service, contributing significantly to the University’s mission. Including them ensures that their unique challenges and contributions are recognized in governance decisions, fostering better representation, and enabling the University to respond more effectively to the diverse needs of all its faculty. Expanding rights aligns with the goal of supporting professional development and equity across all faculty ranks.

"Teaching and mentoring are central to my professional mission. I co-instruct various health economics courses and have developed open-access tutorials for researchers worldwide, particularly in the Global South. I also mentor students across disciplines, helping them navigate the academic and practical challenges of global health research. These contributions have a broad impact, from advancing health workforce planning policies to developing junior researchers into leaders in their fields. "

—Jenny Liu, PhD, MPP

Marya Zlatnik, MD, clinical professor, UCSF Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Reproductive Sciences, and former Chair of the Senate Sustainability Committee, received an Annual Sustainability Award.

Zlatnik has spearheaded the Academic Senate's Theme Years on Decarbonizing UCSF. She led a Town Hall for the UCSF community to learn more about UCSF's ongoing sustainability efforts, including efforts toward campus decarbonization, and she has led discussions of UCSF’s sustainability efforts at multiple Senate leadership meetings to build support among the other Senate committees, Senate leadership, and the faculty more broadly.

Zlatnik has engaged leadership at the UCSF and system-wide levels by providing comments on four system-wide policies related to sustainability and representing the committee on other campus sustainability committees and in the decarbonization planning process.

Policy Updates

Faculty Voting Rights | SPECIAL EDITION UPDATE

Open Awards & Nominations

Committee & Task Force Updates

Action Alert

Faculty Voting Rights | SPECIAL CALL-TO-ACTION

Other News & Events

University of California Legislative Update