Report 2021-047 Recommendation 4 Responses

Report 2021-047: Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act: Despite Some Recent Improvements, the University of California Has Not Yet Taken Adequate Action to Ensure Its Timely Return of Native American Remains and Cultural Items (Release Date: November 2022)

Recommendation #4 To: University of California

To ensure that Santa Barbara has identified all the items in its NAGPRA collection, the Office of the President should monitor Santa Barbara's efforts to review its collection and ensure that the campus completes this process by July 2023.

1-Year Agency Response

All of UC Santa Barbara's inventories and summaries are now accessible to tribes through NAHC's Tribal Resource: Collections Inventories and Summaries Database. Copies of the inventories and summaries have also been sent to potentially culturally affiliated tribes to initiate consultation.

California State Auditor's Assessment of 1-Year Status: Fully Implemented

6-Month Agency Response

UCOP's Systemwide Repatriation Coordinator (SRC) visited UCSB on April 26, 2023 to assess the collection and meet with campus repatriation staff. As advised by the UCOP SRC, by July 2023, UCSB will submit general descriptions of the materials to NAHC so that NAHC can add them to their tribally accessible library. UCSB will also simultaneously notify all potentially culturally affiliated tribes to initiate consultation, first on handling, as required by CalNAGPRA, followed by consultation to identify additional cultural items and determine cultural affiliation. This will bring UCSB in line with other campuses, which have reported their collections to NAHC and begun consultation to finalize NAGPRA and CalNAGPRA inventories and summaries.

California State Auditor's Assessment of 6-Month Status: Pending

60-Day Agency Response

UCOP's new Systemwide Repatriation Coordinator is set to start on February 6, 2023. Soon thereafter, she will visit UC Santa Barbara to review their collection and efforts to identify all NAGPRA/CalNAGPRA eligible items.

In addition to these actions, we note as an information item that UCOP regularly meets with all campus Repatriation Coordinators, and individually as needed. UCOP previously provided $4.4 million to all campuses over the last two years in support of repatriation efforts, and requested fy23-24 budgets to review the need for ongoing support. UCSB received $435,600 over the last two years to ramp up their repatriation program. This allowed UCSB to hire a NAGPRA project manager and a curator. The campus has hosted multiple listening sessions with the California tribes. These sessions have focused on providing campus updates, while also soliciting input and questions from tribal partners. The campus is consulting on multiple accessions.

California State Auditor's Assessment of 60-Day Status: Pending

All Recommendations in 2021-047

Agency responses received are posted verbatim.