ACADEMIC SENATE: SAN DIEGO DIVISION

November 13, 2025

MEMBERS OF THE ACADEMIC SENATE, SAN DIEGO DIVISION

Dear Colleagues,

On Monday, the Academic Senate posted the just-completed report of a Senate-Administration Workgroup (SAWG) on Admissions, which has been meeting since last March. The report focuses largely on problems with math preparedness among our first-year matriculates. Because it has already garnered significant attention, I wanted to address it in my second newsletter to you.

Since the pandemic, and especially in the past few years, departments with math-intensive majors have faced a rise in the proportion of students entering UC San Diego without the math skills necessary to succeed in their desired majors. Most students pursuing degrees from departments in the School of Arts & Humanities, as well as many in programs in the School of Social Sciences, face no special math requirements. But for many majors, math is a foundational part of the curriculum. The need to bring students up to speed quickly has placed our Math Department under extraordinary strain. The department has introduced courses that had not previously been taught at UC San Diego covering high school and even elementary and middle school math. High DFW rates in these introductory courses have left both professors and students feeling demoralized.

The SAWG report reckons with the complex factors that have led to this situation and offers recommendations for moving forward. The Regental decision to stop using the SAT for admissions; a rise in our admissions rate from LCFF+ schools (those eligible for supplemental funding under California's Local Control Funding Formula); the effects of Covid-19, which hit students at under-resourced schools especially hard; and a general increase in the number of students admitted all factor into the equation. But central to the problem is that the grades we now receive from high schools too often bear little relationship to student abilities: a student may have graduated with an A in calculus, while still struggling to solve simple algebraic equations. While Enrollment Management introduced efforts last Spring to begin to address the problem, the results proved disappointing.

The SAWG on Admissions has studied the problem extensively and proposed ways to move forward to address it in a constructive and comprehensive manner. I would like to emphasize two points. First and foremost, every student currently attending UC San Diego belongs here and brings unique attributes and talents to our campus. It is our privilege and obligation to help our students succeed to the utmost of our abilities, and it is critical that all feel supported. Second, while there are UCSD-specific aspects to our conundrum, we need to recognize that this is a problem more widely shared across the UC system and the nation as a whole. At UC San Diego, we have an excellent math placement system — one that is now being copied by some of our sister campuses — and are therefore particularly strong in diagnosing deficiencies in math preparation. In other words, the report exposes issues that are likely flying under the radar elsewhere.

I also want to remind faculty: we have done what great public institutions are supposed to do. Faculty in large numbers identified a new and concerning trend and pushed for solutions. The SAWG on Admissions carefully studied the problem, produced a report with recommendations, and made it available on the Senate website for faculty review and comment.

We need to stand together and remind ourselves and those who may scrutinize us what an extraordinary thing we are doing here. We are a top-tier research institution AND a public university that serves as a powerful engine of social mobility. Both are and must remain central to UC San Diego’s identity as the campus moves forward to address this difficult issue.

The report will be reviewed by various Senate committees and Senate Council in the coming weeks. Individual faculty are also invited to submit their comments via the Senate website.

Upcoming Senate-Sponsored Events

Representative Assembly: The second Representative Assembly meeting is on Tuesday, November 18, 3:45 to 5:15 p.m. in the Garren Auditorium of the Biomedical Sciences Building. The agenda is posted on the Senate website.

First Academic Senate Seminar in Our Series on Generative AI: We are all trying to adjust to how Generative AI is changing what it means to be a professor, and most of us are seeking to understand its effects on our disciplines as well. For our first seminar in this online series, we will feature two Senate faculty, Professor David Danks (HDSI and Philosophy) and Professor Gail Heyman (Psychology) who have respectively co-chaired Senate-Administration Workgroups that produced reports on “The Impact of Generative AI on Research at UC San Diego” and “The Impact of Generative AI on Education at UC San Diego.” They will present their groups’ recommendations and discuss what they learned in the process of studying these issues. We will then open up a broader conversation about the steps that departments, the Senate, and the University should be taking to address the risks and opportunities posed by Generative AI. The Seminar will take place from 12:15 to 1:45 p.m. on Tuesday, December 2. Please keep your eye out for a forthcoming email with more details and a Zoom link.

Faculty Club Happy Hour: Akos and I plan to be at the Faculty Club Happy Hour on December 4 from 4:00 to 6:00 p.m. We encourage all Senate faculty to drop in and join us! No sign up required.

Campus-wide Initiatives Impacting Faculty

Triton Student System: Scheduled for launch in Summer 2026, the Triton Student System (TSS) is a new student information system that will replace the current Integrated Student Information System (ISIS), which dates back to the 1980s. This transition to TSS will affect faculty, because it encompasses key academic systems — from course rosters and grade submission to advising tools and enrollment management. (A list of applications and online tools shows what will be affected.) Because of the switch to TSS, the period when continuing students enroll for Fall 2026 will be shifted back a few months, from May to mid-July 2026.

E-locks: In response to faculty concerns, Facilities Management has been installing e-lock devices in classrooms across general campus. These devices allow faculty to lock classroom doors from the inside in the event of an emergency lockdown. All classrooms and lecture halls in Center and Warren Halls are now equipped with e-locks, with user guides soon to be installed. In the meantime, faculty teaching in these buildings may wish to review this online user guide. Operations Management and Capital Programs (OMCP), which is overseeing this effort, is now working to install e-locks in 19 other buildings across campus. Faculty appreciate this attempt to enhance classroom safety, even as we lament the need for such precautions.

Systemwide Developments

Much has transpired in the five weeks since my last newsletter, yet the climate of uncertainty persists. For now, the prospect of UC San Diego facing an abrupt freezing of federal grants on the scale that UCLA experienced appears to have receded. There is still great chaos and uncertainty, but in the end, most federal grant money for FY2025 was restored. It appears increasingly unlikely that the draconian cuts to the NIH will materialize, although the situation of the NSF is more precarious. What will happen in regard to IDC rates remains unclear, although here, too, the outlook is potentially less bleak than just a few months ago. We may be looking at a potential shift to the proposed FAIR model (Financial Accountability in Research), which would be difficult to implement but less financially damaging than a drop to a flat 15%.

Nevertheless, the UC system is still contending with the demands directed at UCLA, and the status of investigations at the other nine campuses has not been made public. So far, litigation has provided the most effective defense. A lawsuit brought by the AAUP, UC Faculty Associations, and labor unions in mid-September is seeking to block the Trump Administration “from using the threat of legal and financial sanctions in retaliation for the exercise of free speech rights.” Judge Rita F. Lin (Northern District of California) appears favorably disposed to this argument, noting that court filings show that faculty are altering their teaching and research because they “don’t want to trigger more grant denials or other types of funding cuts.” She suggests this may amount to “a classic, predictable First Amendment injury.”

Where is the Academic Senate in all this? While applauding these efforts to defend the UC, the Senate is legally part of the University itself and cannot bring or enter into lawsuits on its own. At our next Representative Assembly, Steven Constable, former Divisional Senate chair and current parliamentarian and chair of the Committee on Rules and Jurisdiction, will offer an overview of the Academic Senate’s role in shared governance.

The systemwide Senate’s Academic Council has focused on advocating for Senate representation in negotiations with the federal government, speaking out against the release of Personally Identifying Information (PII) to federal investigators, and pushing for greater consultation and transparency. Most recently, Academic Council has been questioning how the decision to end the hiring component of the Presidential Postdoctoral Fellowship Program was made, and why it was not adequately communicated to faculty and current fellows.

Helpful Information on Protecting Your Course Material

The systemwide University Committee on Educational Policy (UCEP) has issued recommendations concerning the online posting of copyrighted course materials on for-profit platforms like Course Hero. The key point: you may want to include a copyright notice, along with the following sentence in the header or footer of your course documents: “This content is protected and may not be shared, uploaded, or distributed.” Also, you should inform students that sharing course materials with these companies absent your permission potentially violates both academic integrity and your intellectual property rights.

Support Our Students on CalFresh

Recent messages from Executive Vice Chancellor Elizabeth Simmons and Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs and Campus Life Alysson Satterlund have highlighted the food and nutritional needs of the 5,731 UC San Diego students who rely on CalFresh. Benefits for the month of November were delayed due to the government shutdown but have now gone out to California residents. Given the hardships that many of our students continue to face, faculty are encouraged to donate to the Basic Needs Hub.

Closing Thoughts

Akos and I have been enjoying our departmental visits, which so far include Economics; Ecology, Behavior, and Evolution (EBE); Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering (MAE); Music; Cellular and Developmental Biology (CDB); and Bioengineering. (Please reach out to senatechair@ucsd.edu if you’d like to schedule a department visit.) I will be reporting on some of the feedback we have received in a future newsletter. But one thing we have heard consistently is that, in this time of straitened resources, faculty want to have a clearer understanding of the budget and our future prospects. Chancellor Khosla has agreed to join Senate faculty in an online Town Hall, date still to be determined, to answer people’s questions.

Thanks, as always, for all the great work you do. I will continue to share updates on what the Academic Senate is doing and how current events are impacting faculty throughout the year. You are always welcome to reach out to me at senatechair@ucsd.edu.

All best,

Rebecca Jo Plant
Chair, Academic Senate, San Diego Division