Pursuing our Strategic Vision

Dear Colleagues,

I am honored to be asked by Dan Dooley and Mark Yudof to lead ANR, which has been my academic home for the past 25 years.

Over the last three years, the Division has endured dramatic changes:

• $5.2 million permanent budget cut
• $4 million in unfunded mandates
• $4 million cut in temporary funds
• Another $3.2 million cut FY 2011-12 to our permanent budget, plus unfunded liabilities including funding for merits, our portion of the retirement system re-start, and funding represented staff agreements.

We have survived by using our Strategic Vision as a guide for making budget cuts, largely protecting academics and programs; consolidating administrative units across regions, statewide programs, and competitive grants programs; and finding new homes for units that had been part of our Division for years.

But more importantly, we are using the Strategic Vision as our blueprint to rebuild for the future.

We are moving forward based on the strength and long-term vision of our academics and staff, and our collective belief that what we do in the research, education and public service continuum is imperative to the future success of the people of California.

ANR is composed of people who have extraordinary and diverse expertise and we are dispersed all over the state. But we share a passion in our belief that we can improve the quality of life for Californians.

I feel privileged to work with incredibly dedicated, hard-working, mission-oriented people who have borne the brunt of these cuts and still come to work motivated every day because they believe in ANR, the University of California, and the programs that they support and deliver.

In the next few years, together we will find ways to make our ANR continuum stronger, bridging the differences and distances between us. We will continue to build multi-county partnerships, focusing on those county relationships that make the most sense to combine. We will continue to re-invest in our academics, protecting funds saved from retirements, and hiring new advisors and specialists. We will continue to support our programs through our consolidated business services offices and program support unit, and we will make sure that the support is relevant, timely and sufficient to ensure that our programs thrive.

I look forward to working with all of you, as we work collectively to ensure UC’s Agricultural Experiment Station and Cooperative Extension system accomplishments continue to make California the envy of the world.

Sincerely,

Barbara Allen-Diaz
Associate Vice President - Academic Programs and Strategic Initiatives

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