[CED/CD/EAT] Fwd: Intersection of the Arizona Constitution and Lean Process Improvement

Wed Feb 1 06:43:10 MST 2017

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From: "Ratje, Jeffrey M - (jmratje)" <jmratje at email.arizona.edu<mailto:jmratje at email.arizona.edu>>
Date: February 1, 2017 at 6:33:36 AM MST
To: "'calsbusofficers at list.arizona.edu<mailto:calsbusofficers at list.arizona.edu>'" <calsbusofficers at list.arizona.edu<mailto:calsbusofficers at list.arizona.edu>>
Cc: "Mcginley, Susan - (mcginley)" <mcginley at ag.arizona.edu<mailto:mcginley at ag.arizona.edu>>, "Lanza, Robert K - (lanza)" <lanza at email.arizona.edu<mailto:lanza at email.arizona.edu>>, "Limesand, Kirsten H - (limesank)" <limesank at email.arizona.edu<mailto:limesank at email.arizona.edu>>, "Smith, Steven E - (sesmith)" <sesmith at email.arizona.edu<mailto:sesmith at email.arizona.edu>>, "Arnold, Anne E - (fungi)" <Arnold at ag.arizona.edu<mailto:Arnold at ag.arizona.edu>>, "Antin, Parker B - (pba)" <pba at email.arizona.edu<mailto:pba at email.arizona.edu>>, "Burgess, Shane C - (shaneburgess)" <sburgess at cals.arizona.edu<mailto:sburgess at cals.arizona.edu>>, "Silvertooth, Jeffrey C - (silverto)" <Silver at ag.arizona.edu<mailto:Silver at ag.arizona.edu>>, "Staten, Michael E - (statenm)" <statenm at email.arizona.edu<mailto:statenm at email.arizona.edu>>, "Chorover, Jon - (chorover)" <chorover at email.arizona.edu<mailto:chorover at email.arizona.edu>>, "Farrell-Poe, Kathryn L - (kittfp)" <kittfp at email.arizona.edu<mailto:kittfp at email.arizona.edu>>, "Going, Scott B - (going)" <going at email.arizona.edu<mailto:going at email.arizona.edu>>, "Hawley, Jana - (hawleyj)" <hawleyj at email.arizona.edu<mailto:hawleyj at email.arizona.edu>>, "Marsh, Stuart E - (smarsh)" <smarsh at email.arizona.edu<mailto:smarsh at email.arizona.edu>>, "Schumaker, Karen S - (schumake)" <schumake at email.arizona.edu<mailto:schumake at email.arizona.edu>>, "Tabashnik, Bruce E - (tabashnb)" <BruceT at cals.arizona.edu<mailto:BruceT at cals.arizona.edu>>, "Thompson, Gary D - (gdthomps)" <GaryT at ag.arizona.edu<mailto:GaryT at ag.arizona.edu>>, "Torres, Robert Matthew - (rtorres1)" <rtorres1 at email.arizona.edu<mailto:rtorres1 at email.arizona.edu>>, "Wright, Andre-Denis Girard - (adwright)" <adwright at email.arizona.edu<mailto:adwright at email.arizona.edu>>
Subject: Intersection of the Arizona Constitution and Lean Process Improvement

Where does our authority to charge students tuition come from?  Where does our public status to receive state general fund appropriation come from?  The same place – the Arizona Constitution<http://www.azleg.gov/const/arizona_constitution.pdf>, Article XI, Section 6.  It is found in the phrase “the instruction furnished shall be as nearly free as possible.”

Legal scholars have been arguing what this phrase means since the founding of the state on February 14, 1912 (Valentine’s Day – Happy Birthday, Arizona – 105 years young!).  What I believe it means relates directly to the conversation we had at the January 31st Business Office Meeting regarding Lean Process Improvement.

Through our actions to reduce unnecessary waste, eliminate steps, and improve processes, as business officers, we are driving down the costs of providing education, research, and extension at the University of Arizona.  Through cost reductions, we reduce the pressure to charge more tuition to students and reduce the burden to taxpayers – in other words, live up to the Arizona Constitution.  To be clear, not all process is bad; only the unnecessary or wasteful.  This requires zooming wider than your day-to-day workload.

Every cost (and most are salary and benefits), if not funded from increased student population or soft fund sources, is additional pressure on tuition rates or the state taxpayer.  Employee time is our most precious and most costly asset.  Spent doing unnecessary process is a tremendous waste.

Clearly, this is a magnified argument involving a great deal of indirect interactions.  Nonetheless, without your continuous improvement as business professionals, costs and processes could swing the opposite way and push the costs to students and taxpayers ever higher.

As public and legislative scrutiny of tuition prices increases we must do our part, as strategic partners alongside our academic colleagues, to:

1)     recognize the important role we play in hampering the growth of red tape;

2)     stay attune to the challenges facing higher education and understand their relationship to the various parts of the mission;

3)     seek out and apply best practices;

4)     measure the impact of the actions taken, and;

5)     seek feedback to improve the process.

This is similar to the Deming Circle discussed yesterday: Plan – Do – Check/Study – Act.

To this end, Linda Heffernan raised an important question – What can we do to improve systems, process, and reduce red tape at the university-level?  Attached is an example that I am very proud of.  Ashley Stewart from SNRE and I have been working on an HR process improvement.  It is fitting of the spirit of Linda’s question and has started an important conversation at HR and Workforce Systems.  Our argument uses both logic and emotion to encourage cultural change within the UA.  Has the suggested improvement been implemented yet?  No, but part of culture change is starting a dialogue and being tenacious in our resolve for improvement.  In that measure, it has been terrifically successful.  CALS is seen as the place with fresh and constructive ideas.

Change in higher education often moves in punctuated evolutionary terms (can feel like geologically evolutionary terms, though).  Our role as business professionals is to never stop working to find better, faster, and more sustainable solutions to operate and facilitate mission delivery.

Jeffrey Ratje
Associate Dean, Finance and Administration | Treasurer, Arizona Experiment Station
College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS) | The University of Arizona
PO Box 210036, Forbes Building, Rm 314C
1140 E. So. Campus Drive | Tucson, AZ  85721
Phone: (520) 621-1468 | Fax: (520) 621-8558

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