Archive
This March 4, for the first time in California history, all sectors of the state’s education system— K-12, community colleges, CSUs, and UCs— will rally together to fight for public education. With California confronting a $21 billion budget deficit this year — and with legislators likely to balance the budget on the back of public education — the stakes could not be higher.
Press Release, February 23, 2010
Over 750 people signed up!
Please sign up to join the “Educate the State” rally, to be held on the steps of the State Capitol Building in Sacramento on March 4 from 11 am to 1 pm. We aim to have a sizable UC presence at this event, and have arranged for free transportation for UC Berkeley, UCSF, and UC-Santa Cruz faculty, staff, and students who wish to attend.
Our message is simple: we need to stabilize and restore financial support for all levels of California’s public education system. A strong UC faculty showing at this event is critical to convincing state legislators from both parties to prioritize public education. Access to affordable, quality public education is the social and economic backbone of our state— and indeed the key to California’s future. UC faculty can, and should, play a productive role in this broader struggle.
The rally will bring together students, families, faculty, and staff as well as members of the legislature and broader community. There will be speakers from these constituencies, a UC faculty press conference, and meetings with key legislators, many of whom are themselves alumni of the UC, CSU, and community college systems. We ask you to join the Sacramento rally to demonstrate solidarity with our fellow public educators as the budget debates get underway in Sacramento.
Why are We Going to Sacramento on March 4? Three reasons:
1. March 4th is a day of statewide action for public education. It is not just a UC protest or even just a protest on behalf of higher education. High schools, elementary schools, community colleges, CSUs— all and more are taking to the streets, the capitol and civic centers that day to decry what has happened to public education in California and to insist that the state can and mus do better. Those of us going to Sacramento are joining demonstrators and speakers from the CSUs, the Community Colleges, and the K-12 schools.
2. It is important to address our ire over the budget crisis in one of the places where it began, the seat of state government, and to some of the bodies who can help solve it—legislators, the governor, and the taxpayers of California. Driven by neoliberal politics of tax-cuts, law-and-order, and undemocratic voting, California's government has become dysfunctional. Anti-tax sentiment has brought us close to ruin: education has suffered along with other public goods.
3. This action, like all others on March 4th, is in the spirit of “marching forth” on March 4th. We affirm all non-violent actions on behalf of education on that day, including rallies planned for downtown Oakland and San Francisco.
— SAVE Coordinating Committee
For Bay Area Actions, see the following sites:
AgainstCuts.org http://againstcuts.org/
March 4 Day of Action and Strike in Defense of Public Education – California http://defendcapubliceducation.wordpress.com/
We also encourage everyone to send hard copy letters to their legislators!
To find the address of your legislators, go to:
http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/yourleg.html
Enter your zip code. You will be shown your senator and assembly member. If you click on their names, you will be sent directly to their homepage. On your legislator’s homepage, you’ll find address/contact info for two offices: one in Sacramento and one in your district.
See also The Rolling University, UC Berkeley Feb. 22-25
Don't Miss the Decolonizing the University Conference, UC Berkeley, Feb. 26-27
Download the Flier for March Fourth
If you would like to order "Educate the State" buttons for yourself or your group, here's how: Go to this website:
http://www.speedybuttons.com/store/cart.php?m=product_detail&p=48&c=35
Select a size (I ordered 1.75 inches, but you can alter the size).
Select a backing option ("safety pin" is standard).
In the "Special instructions" box, state the following:
I would like to order button design #1265766979-123
"March 4th - Educate the State - Sacramento"
Then just decide how many you want, how fast you want them, give them payment information, and you're set.
See you in Sacramento!
[ Posted December 23 ]
Letter to UC, CSU, and Community College Faculty from George Lakoff
[ Posted December 22 ]
We on the coordinating council of SAVE condemn acts of violence taken against persons or property on our campus. We were shocked by police violence on campus a few weeks ago and by the attack upon the Chancellor's residence by a small group of protesters yesterday night. This is our campus by virtue of our shared responsibility to the rights of free speech and personal safety for all. Actions that address the terrible crisis we currently face through violence are in our view fundamentally at odds with our goal of protecting and enhancing public education as itself a fundamental public right. As we have noted, there are reasons for feelings of shock, dismay, and sadness in response to events of the past weeks, but we ask the campus community, as we ask ourselves, to consider deeply what violence means on and around our campus. We urge peaceful discussion, debate, and negotiation as we try to work through the problems facing UC and beyond. The question of violence itself should be part of these discussions, as should ways to address the corrosive divisions felt by many across campus.
Coordinating Council
[ Posted December 15 ]
National Call for March 4 Strike and Day of Action To Defend Public Education
California has recently seen a massive movement erupt in defense of public education -- but layoffs, fee hikes, cuts, and the re-segregation of public education are attacks taking place throughout the country. A nationwide resistance movement is needed.
We call on all students, workers, teachers, parents, and their organizations and communities across the country to massively mobilize for a Strike and Day of Action in Defense of Public Education on March 4, 2010. Education cuts are attacks against all of us, particularly in working-class communities and communities of color.
The politicians and administrators say there is no money for education and social services. They say that "there is no alternative" to the cuts. But if there's money for wars, bank bailouts, and prisons, why is there no money for public education?
We can beat back the cuts if we unite students, workers, and teachers across all sectors of public education — Pre K-12, adult education, community colleges, and state-funded universities. We appeal to the leaders of the trade union movement to support and organize strikes and/or mass actions on March 4. The weight of workers and students united in strikes and mobilizations would shift the balance of forces entirely against the current agenda of cuts and make victory possible.
Building a powerful movement to defend public education will, in turn, advance the struggle in defense of all public-sector workers and services and will be an inspiration to all those fighting against the wars, for immigrants rights, in defense of jobs, for single-payer health care, and other progressive causes.
Why March 4? On October 24, 2009 more than 800 students, workers, and teachers converged at UC Berkeley at the Mobilizing Conference to Save Public Education. This massive meeting brought together representatives from over 100 different schools, unions, and organizations from all across California and from all sectors of public education. After hours of open collective discussion, the participants voted democratically, as their main decision, to call for a Strike and Day of Action on March 4, 2010. All schools, unions and organizations are free to choose their specific demands and tactics -- such as strikes, rallies, walkouts, occupations, sit-ins, teach-ins, etc. -- as well as the duration of such actions.
Let's make March 4 an historic turning point in the struggle against the cuts, layoffs, fee hikes, and the re-segregation of public education.
The California Coordinating Committee
[ Posted December 9 ]
Public Policy Institute of California: Report on Workforce Demand Outstripping Educational System
THE HUMAN FACE OF BUDGET CUTS, by David Bacon
Perspective, December 2009
OAKLAND, CA (12/2/09) -- Cesar Cota was the first in his family to attend college. "Now it's hard to achieve my dream," he says, "because the state put higher fees on us, and cut services and classes." Cota, a student at LA City College, was encouraged by the internship program of the LA College Faculty Guild to describe the human cost of budget cuts in he community college system.
David Robinson, who's worked since he was 14, hoped he'd get automotive mechanic training, and a good job at the end of it. "But by cutting these programs and raising fees," he says, "you're cutting opportunity for a lot of people who need it."
Another endangered student is Tina Vinaja, a mother of three teenagers whose husband took a weekend job to help pay her tuition hikes. Monica Mejia, a single mom, wants to get out of the low-wage trap. "Without community college," she says, "I'll end up getting paid minimum wage. I can't afford the fee hikes. I can barely make ends meet now."
LA City College even suspended its sports programs for a year. The school had a legendary basketball program that gave low-income students a pathway out of poverty. JaQay Carlyle says city college basketball sent him to UC Davis and on to law school.
These students make up a small part of the picture of suffering engendered by the economic crisis in California's community college system. According to Marty Hittelman, president of the California Federation of Teachers, and a former community college instructor, the system will turn away over 250,000 students this year alone. "Where can they go?" he asks. "UC? CSU? The workforce? None is a viable option-for both economic and political reasons." California has a 12% unemployment rate, one of the nation's highest. UC enrollment plunged by 2300 students this fall, and the regents plan 10% tuition hikes in each of the next two years. The state universities dropped 40,000 students this year alone. UC fees have gone up 215% since 2000, and CSU fees 280%. Community college fees, once non-existent, rose 30% just last year.
"As a result," Hittelman says, "hundreds of thousands of students enrolled in California community colleges are unable to get the classes they need and thousands of temporary faculty are without classes to teach. So, as in the universities, the student returns for paying higher fees are increased class size and fewer available classes."
Brenna Fluitt will face an especially difficult situation because of class cuts. Fluitt is a homeless student at Cuesta College in San Luis Obispo. "I'm not the only one," she says. "I see them on the campus a lot, although to most people, we tend to be kind of invisible."
Fluitt's been on the streets for three years. Part of what keeps her there is anxiety itself, which is so serious that she's classified as a disabled student. Clearly budget cuts produce even more anxiety. The two programs she depends on to keep in school, DSPS and EOPS, are both facing cuts. "The reality is that people who need these services won't be able to get them," she predicts. While she often says that a homeless life doesn't bother her, she sometimes lets the reality reveal itself. "I'm sick and tired of being homeless," she declares. "The cops harass you here, and its' a very expensive community to live in."
Fluitt sees education as her pathway to a good job, permanent housing, and a life off the streets. Right now, though, she lives in a van. She gets her mail at her parents' home, while other homeless students receive theirs at two local agencies that offer mail-receiving services to people who don't have a fixed address. "I need school," she explains. "Before I started, I felt I had a label on my forehead saying 'I'm homeless.' I just wanted to be by myself, and stay in the car."
Fluitt wants to study accounting, and knows that she could make a living with an AA degree if she can get through the next two years at Cuesta. "I like math and I'm good at it," she says, "and I find computer science easy for me as well." But when she went to get her classes this fall, she couldn't pre-register and had to add them as she could get them. And she was lucky. Many other students found themselves turned away from overflowing classrooms. "I don't know what classes they'll cut next," she says. "One class I need is only given this fall, and they're cutting it next spring. I don't know if I'll be able to get what I need."
That insecurity is shared with teachers and classified workers as well. Emily Haraldson, a freeway flyer who teaches art history, found herself without one of her two jobs when the fall semester began. She got her first position as an instructor at Mount San Antonio College near Los Angeles in 2004, after getting her degree at Cal State Northridge. That gave her two classes. Then, in 2005, she got another three classes at Glendale Community College.
She tried working at the Carnegie Museum in Oxnard three years ago, but living in Los Angeles, curating in Oxnard, and teaching in Walnut led to putting 20,000 miles a year on her car. And she found that part time community college positions, for all their problems, pay a lot better than museums.
This summer she got a letter from her department chair at Mount San Antonio College, noting that the college "was cutting 5% off the top," and telling her she might not get as many classes as she wanted. After sending her schedule in to her supervisor, however, she was told there were no classes available for her at all.
"That cut my income by a third right away," she says. "We fell a month behind on our mortgage, so we don't eat out, go to movies or rent DVDs. I didn't buy new clothes for my two boys, and don't have the money for preschool for the youngest." Fortunately, Haraldson's husband is a musician with a steady gig. That helped make up for the lack of preschool, and even more important, for the lack of money. "As it is, we're considering selling my car," she notes.
Haraldson sees students suffering the consequences as well. "At Glendale, I've had students begging to get into my classes. We can only accept 3-5 over our cap, and it's next to impossible to accommodate everybody."
It's hard to envision a future as a teacher in these circumstances, she says. "Teaching will always be part of my life - I'm called to do it. But I may not be doing it here. Full time jobs are next to impossible to find, and now adjunct jobs are getting cut. Still, I can't complain. A lot of other people have it worse off."
One of them might be Karen Schadel, an administrative assistant to the dean of social sciences at Yuba College in Marysville, a farm town in the Sacramento River Valley. Schadel has not only done that job for 14 years - she practically invented it, or "massaged it," as she puts it. "I schedule 200 classes every semester," she explains. "I work with 15 full faculty members, and over 30 part time instructors. The relations you form in this job are very strong. Now I've been told this job can be done by a secretary."
Schadel says the decision to eliminate jobs was very sudden. District administration announced they were cutting the positions of 56 classified employees and two managers. The Board of Trustees "rubberstamped" the decision on October 14, she says.
These positions account for 590 years of service. There won't be a cashier, or an interpreter for disabled students, or a science lab technician. The transfer center career counselor, who's been there for 24 years and is fighting cancer, will be gone. The athletic facilities maintenance person, with 35 years, will be eliminated, along with three custodians. "This place is already dirty, and without them, it will be filthy," she predicts. "And if you call to get something cleaned, there won't be anyone to answer the phone." The district has eliminated 56 units of classes this semester, and cut 59 units last semester, a process called "schedule compression."
Increasing the frustration, the district has refused to release any budget information in negotiations with Schadel's union, the California School Employees Association. "They tell us we don't need to see it," Schadel fumes. And while the state only mandates a 5% reserve, the district is insisting on upping that to 7%. "They're balancing their budget on classified employees," she declares. "I don't feel any confidence in their ability to made good decisions. If they won't show us the budget numbers, how do we know they're telling us the truth about the need to do all this?"
Susan Downing, the campus operation specialist for the college site located on nearby Beale Air Force Base, has similar doubts. "They're laying off all the staff that provide the services to a thousand students here," she says. "When I asked them what the plan was for continuing, they said there was none."
That could lead to elimination of the program itself, since the district has a memorandum of understanding with the military specifying the kinds of services it will provide to the currently enlisted personnel, their families, veterans, and other civilians who take courses at the base. Some soldiers even take classes online, while they're serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. The district pays nothing for the buildings and facilities it uses on base.
"I'm 57 years old, and I've been doing this job for 22 years," Downing says. "I have no retirement rights, so I'll be put on the street. My husband is a veteran disabled since 1990, and I survived cancer a year ago. It took all we had. Economically, this will put us in a very bad position. They're not only breaking our hearts with this, but they're breaking our spirit."
While Schadel will be able to bump a less senior employee, she has no guarantee that the second job won't be eliminated as well. "Bumping someone out makes me feel crummy to begin with," she says. "But my husband is disabled, and if that job goes away, we'll lose our house and car. Everything is up in the air right now. I'm a wreck. You can't talk to anyone for five minutes around here without them breaking down and crying. Morale is below zero."
That describes pretty well the feelings of community college teachers, workers and students throughout California. It is the human cost of budget cuts.
David Bacon,
Photographs and Stories (http://dbacon.igc.org)
[ Posted December 2 ]
THE NOVEMBER 20 PROTEST: WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?
[ Posted December 1 ]
Mr. Navarrette-
I am not going to lie, when I read your article, I was appalled. I thought, you obviously do not get it. You do not get our generation, nor do you get our fight or struggle.
Let me start out by introducing myself. My name is Jenn Lerner, and I am a 4th year at Cal. Almost all of my friends have at least one job to pay for their schooling, some have two. In fact, the majority of people here are working. Some of the working students are doing unpaid internships - while taking a full load - so they can get a better shot at getting a good job, should they be so fortunate enough to graduate from here. Many are also doing volunteer and community service work because they believe in helping to make the world a better place, even if that means sacrificing monetary compensation. Acting as if you are the expert on our generation because you talked to a couple of HR friends is ridiculous. We are not lazy, nor apathetic. We work because, well, even without these fee increases, school is expensive. Many don't qualify for state grants, yet attending Cal puts a huge dent in our family's, and our, income.
So, Mr. Navarette, saying that my generation does not work is not only insulting, it's just straight up wrong.
It is also important to note that when you went to school, tuition was a lot cheaper. For example, just a mere ten years ago, tuition at the UCs was less than $5000; it will now soon be double that.
Not only that, but just focusing on the tuition hikes is not looking at this problem holistically. One of the main problems that I have with journalists reporting on the UC and CSU protests is that they say we are principally protesting the tuition increases, which oversimplifies and hides the totality of the reasons we are fighting.
Tuition hikes are only the tip of the iceberg. We are fighting for the principle of things. We are fighting for the fact that the UC President Yudof and the Regents have unilaterally decided how to re-allocate our money. Yes, we have a problem with Sacramento and its systemic underfunding of our jewel of public education, but they are not the only ones contributing to our "crisis". Receiving less money from the state does not justify letting the most vulnerable suffer. Yes, Yudof claims that families under $70,000 will receive financial aid, but what about to the rest that do not qualify on paper? And who's to say that this "Blue & Gold Plan" that we have will continue to exist in the future, even as tuition continues to rise? Nor does systemic underfunding justify laying off dozens of workers, and implementing a 10% cut to those that remain, slashing even more of their already poverty wages. Nor does it justify giving GSIs less pay while making them take on more students. Nor does it justify drastically cutting classes, including ones that are required - yes, REQUIRED - to graduate. Nor does it justify not being able to offer Spanish 1 next semester. We are the #1 public university in the nation and we can't even offer Spanish 1?? What is this world coming to?!?
We fight in part because we want a say in how the budget is being reorganized, yet the budget remains hidden. If the budget is released and we collectively determine that the way these officials organized the budget was the best way to do so, then fine. But they have not even given us that opportunity.
Yudof, the Regents, and others tell us to go to Sacramento, but their actions demand otherwise. How can we fix the problem from the state when we can't even accomplish internal reform? What good will a little bit more money from Sacramento do if They continue to re-allocate the money unfairly??
We have our sights set on Sacramento, but our battle starts right here. We are not just fighting for ourselves, we are fighting for OUR (including your) kids, our grandkids, and the generations to come. We are not just fighting against tuition increases, we are fighting for fairness, transparency, accessibility, and equality.
You call us spoiled, I call us fighting for justice. Jenn
Jennifer Lerner
University of California, Berkeley B.A. American Studies '10
[ Posted November 25 ]
Capitol Alert: Bass names members for new joint committee on higher education
[ Posted November 23 ]
Open Letter from Concerned Members of the Faculty to Chancellor Robert J. Birgeneau
We, the undersigned faculty, are writing to voice our strenuous objection to the use of unwarranted violence by the police forces enlisted by the University of California at Berkeley to patrol the student demonstration outside of Wheeler Hall on Friday, November 20th. It is now abundantly clear that in addition to UC Police, there were squads from the City of Berkeley and Alameda County, and that some of these police forces acted with undue violence at various points during the day, most conspicuously at mid-day and then again in late afternoon when they used batons against students and a faculty member. In some cases this occurred to defenseless people who had already been pushed to the ground, among them several who sustained injuries to hands, heads, and stomachs, and were forced to seek urgent medical care. These abuses of police power were captured on video recordings and in photographs, corroborated by numerous witnesses. They have now been widely circulated on the web and throughout the national and international media. We will send you a composite of those websites and testimonies under separate cover.
These documents clearly show that the students were acting in a non-violent manner when their civil rights were abrogated by police harassment and assault. Such instances of unprovoked police brutality would be appalling and objectionable anywhere, but we find it most painful for these events to have taken place on the UC Berkeley campus, given the important tradition of protecting free speech that you, Chancellor Birgeneau, have only very recently defended. Hence we regard with dismay and astonishment your euphemistic reference to these Friday’s violence: “a few members of our campus community may have found themselves in conflict with law enforcement officers.” There is no doubt that our students and colleagues did find themselves subject to unwarranted and illegal police brutality. It is therefore incumbent on the Chancellor of UC Berkeley to condemn such actions unequivocally and to make sure that such actions are subject to comprehensive review and disciplinary action.
Accordingly, we the undersigned demand that the university assume full accountability for the actions of the police forces active on campus on Friday, November 20th. We call for the administration immediately to convene an impartial and comprehensive investigation of the abuse of police power that resulted, making broad use of available testimony on the part of victims and observers, including photographic images, video and personal narration of those at the scene in order to establish a clear record of the facts. We ask as well that you speak directly and honestly to the students about what has happened. They are entitled to know that the university does not condone acts of police violence such as these; as of this writing, they have received no word from the administration acknowledging accountability for such appalling actions. Indeed, the administration was markedly unreachable on Friday, when faculty were most pressed to take on a mediating role.
We ask that you widely publicize the current protocols governing police conduct at demonstrations, and ascertain whether protocol was followed or abrogated on Friday. The entire community is also surely entitled to know that clear steps will be taken to revise protocols regarding police conduct at student demonstrations--protocols that will be binding on any police force brought on campus. It should also make clear that disciplinary actions will be taken against police officers found guilty of assault. Finally we ask for a public statement reconfirming the University’s commitment to protect the rights of free expression and assembly for students on the Berkeley campus.
We want to underscore how important it is for the campus for you to convene an investigation and to take administrative responsibility for protecting the safety of students as well as their rights of assembly and expression. Friday’s failure to do so is a most painful public display of how far UC Berkeley has strayed from its historical responsibility as a national and international institution pledged to rights of free speech and assembly and to the ideals of social justice. It is surely difficult enough to see our reputation as an excellent and affordable university jeopardized through budget cuts and fee hikes. Must we see as well the dissolution of the ideal of protecting free speech for students for whom the very future of their education is at stake?
Signed:
Elizabeth Abel, English
Alice Merner Agogino, Mechanical Engineering
Norma Alarcon, Ethnic Studies
Albert Russell Ascoli, Italian
Paola Bacchetta, Gender and Women’s Studies
Jeanne Bamberger, Music and Urban Education
Patricia Baquedano-López, Graduate School of Education
Joi Barrios-Leblanc, South and Southeast Asian Studies
Brian Barsky, Computer Science
Lisa Bedolla, Education
Emilie Bergmann, Spanish and Portuguese
John Bishop, English
Déborah Blocker, French
Jean-Paul Bourdier, Architecture
Daniel Boyarin, Near Easteren Studies and Rhetoric
Karl Britto, French and Comparative Literature
Natalie Brizuela. Spanish and Portuguese
Wendy Brown, Political Science
Michael Burawoy, Sociology
Judith Butler, Rhetoric and Comparative Literature
Brandi Wilkins Catanese, Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies
Timothy Clark, History of Art
Catherine Cole, Theatre, Dance and Performance Studies
Vasudha Dalmia, South and Southeast Studies
Prachi Delpande, History
Clelia Donovan, Spanish and Portuguese
Beshara Doumani, History
Robert Dudley, Integrative Biology
Laurent El Ghaoui, Engineering
Peter Evans, Sociology
Jerry Feldman, EECS
Keith Feldman, Ethnic Studies
Mariane Ferme, Anthropology
Mia Fuller, Italian
Peter Glazer, Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies
Evelyn Nakano Glenn, Ethnic Studies, Gender and Women’s Studies
Steven Goldsmith, English
Ramón Grosfoguel, Ethnic Studies
Suzanne Guerlac, French
Andrew Paul Gutierrez, Ecosystem Science
Angela Harris, Boalt School of Law
Gillian Hart, Geography
Cori Hayden, Anthropology
Tyrone Hayes, Integrative Biology
Lyn Hejinian, English
David Henkin, History
Charles Hirschkind, Anthropology
John Hurst, Graduate School of Education
Toni Johnston, Education
Andrew Jones, East Asian Languages and Culture
Alan Karras, IAS
Elaine Kim, Ethnic Studies
Patrick Kirsch, Anthropology and Integrative Biology
Georgia Kleege, English
Jake Kosek, Geography
Claire Kramsch, German
Chana Kronfeld, Near Eastern and Comparative Literature
George Lakoff, Linguistics
Katherine Lee, College Writing
Gregory Levine, History of Art
Michael Lucey, French and Comparative Literature
Colleen Lye, English
Richard Norgaard, Energy and Resources
Saba Mahmood, Anthropology
Francine Masiello, Spanish and Comparative Literature
Susan Maslan, French
Minoo Moallem, Gender and Women’s Studies
Davitt Moroney, Music
Carlos Muos, Ethnic Studies
Ramona Naddaff, Rhetoric
Rasmus Nielsen, Integrative Biology
Dan O’Neill, East Asian Languages and Literatures
Abena Dore Osseo-Asare, History
Stefania Pandolfo, Anthropology
Nancy Peluso, Environmental Science
Della Peretti, Education
Daniel Perlstein, Graduate School of Education
Kevin Padian, Integrative Biology
Kent Puckett, English
Robert Rhew, Geography
Christine Rosen, Haas School of Business
Ananya Roy, City and Regional Planning
Jeff Salbin, Boalt School of Law
Debarati Sanyal, French
Scott Saul, English
Nancy Scheper-Hughes, Anthropology
Sue Schweik, English
Ingrid Seyer-Ochi, Education
Katherine Sherwood, Art Practice
Kaja Silverman, Rhetoric and Film Studies
Jeffrey Skoller, Film Studies
Sandra Smith, Sociology
Katherine Snyder, College Writing
Janet Sorensen, English
Ann Smock, French
Shannon Steen, Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies
Alan Tansman, East Asian Languages
Estelle Tarica, Spanish and Portuguese
Barrie Thorne, Sociology, Gender and Women’s Studies
Sylvia Tiwon, South and Southeast Asian Studies
Soraya Tlatli, French
Linda Tredway, Education
Trinh Minh-Ha, Rhetoric, Gender and Women’s Studies
David Tse, EECS
Susan Ubbelohde, Architecture
Paula Varsano, East Asian Languages
Sophie Volpp, Comparative Literature
Anne Wagner, History of Art
L. Ling-Chi Wang, Ethnic Studies
Michael Watts, Geography
Leon Wofsy, Molecular and Cell Biology
Alexei Yurchak, Anthropology
[ Posted November 21 ]
Reading between the lines: Legislature's fiscal advisors endorse privatizing UC
[ Posted November 19 ]
Eroded Pension Funding and Employer-Employee Contributions
[ Posted November 16 ]
California Cuts: Documenting the crisis in California's universities and colleges
[ Posted November 15 ]
Nanette Asimov's last three articles on UC fees, master plan & lack of funding.
- UC plan to raise fees breaks its own rules
- Higher education master plan getting ignored
- State thinks highly of college, not funding
They will also be posted on the BFA website
[ Posted November 14 ]
Upcoming event: "Cliff Odet's Waiting for Lefty" Tuesday, November 17th, 8pm
[ Posted November 14 ]
Nanette Asimov, "UC Plan to Raise Fees Breaks its Own Rules"
[ Posted November 13 ]
Richard Evans, On the disproportionate growth of administrators at UC
[ Posted November 13 ]
SUPPORT ACCESSIBLE HIGH QUALITY PUBLIC EDUCATION IN CALIFORNIA
California's public higher education is at a turning point due to the state's systematic defunding of the Community College, Cal State, and University of California systems. Most immediately, the University of California Regents will vote at their November 17-19 meeting on a proposal to increase student fees by 32% over the next year. This fee increase would be in addition to the 9.3% increase that took effect at the beginning of the 2009/2010 academic year. UC student fees have more than doubled in the last decade, and with the proposed increase the cost to attend the UC will have tripled since 2000/2001. Meanwhile, in all three systems, class sizes are increasing, programs and departments are at risk, and student debt is rising. As student fees increase, students receive a lower quality education for a higher price.
The Santa Cruz Faculty Association has created three petitions. One is addressed to the UC Regents and demands that they vote against the proposed student fee hikes and that they aggressively pursue the restoration of public funding to the levels laid out in the 1960 California Master Plan for Higher Education. A second is addressed to California state legislators and demands that they vote to restore state funding of public higher education in California to the levels laid out in the 1960 California Master Plan for Higher Education. A third, addressed to the Governor, demands that he submit a budget that restores state funding of public higher education in California to the levels laid out in the Master Plan.
The Regents meeting is Nov. 17-19. The battle over public higher education is NOW! We need your signatures NOW!
After signing the three petitions below, forward this message to your friends, parents, colleagues, neighbors, to the cashier in the grocery store, tell everyone you know that we need to act now to restore quality, affordable and accessible public education to the State of California.
Tell the UC Regents to stop the fee hikes!
Tell your Legislator to restore state funding for public higher education!
Tell the Governor to restore state funding for public higher education!
[ Posted November 13 ]
UC Santa Cruz Faculty Association Petitions to Protect Higher Education
Public Policy Institute of California "Statewide Survey: Californians and Higher Education," Nov. 2009[ Posted November 11 ]
Bob Meister, "Where Does UC Tuition Go?" Reclamations, Nov. 10. 2009
[ Posted November 5 ]
Faculty Organizing Group: Ten-Point Program
The Faculty Organizing Group at UC Santa Cruz is committed to the defense of the public character of the University of California. We advocate a strengthened version of the 1960 Master Plan, founded on the idea of the Californian people’s free access to education at a high-quality research university. We believe a university of this kind will produce new and important knowledge and will lead to the betterment of life for the people of our state
We are opposed to the privatization of the university. Privatization, in our view, has two fundamental dimensions:
- Limiting access to the university to those who can pay.
- Orienting the university’s basic values toward sources of revenue, be these federal, private, or other funds, rather than towards knowledge and the social good as a whole.
In the defense of the public university, we support efforts toward a stable and predictable source of State funds, gradually increasing to earlier high levels. We want the Regents and UCOP to define a minimum “investment per student” amount, and to obligate the university to maintain per-student funding above that amount. We support AB 656, the oil extraction tax, as well as other progressive taxes aimed at raising revenue from the wealthiest sectors of our state, and we want the Regents and UCOP to lobby aggressively for these efforts. This is a longer-term political effort, and will require the support of students, their families, alumni, faculty, staff, and the University administration. The Regents and the UCOP (Office of the President) need to aggressively advocate for and enlist support for the public university-- from the public, from the legislature, and from the governor. There can be no repeat of the odious 2004 “HIGHER EDUCATION COMPACT: Agreement Between Governor Schwarzenegger, the University of California, and the California State University 2005-06 through 2010-11,” an agreement that Governor Schwarzenegger broke a few years later. UCOP and the Regents also need to pressure gubernatorial candidates to publicly commit to restoration of the pre-Compact University of California, so that voters can know which candidates hold these values, and which do not.
In the shorter term, as we all know, the university faces tremendous budget shortfalls. But budgets are expressions of values, and we disagree with some of the values evident in responses to the cuts at UCOP and at UCSC. The values expressed in current budget priorities disproportionately disadvantage students and lower-income workers, and this we find unacceptable. In the shorter term, while awaiting more favorable arrangements at the state level, we advocate the following positions:
- The Regents should not vote for a 32% tuition/fee increase, which places the bulk of the burden of cuts on students, their families, and their debt-ridden futures. The Regents should first look for savings from other sources, some of which are detailed below. In addition, any discussion of tuition/fees must begin with full disclosure of the system-wide formula for distributing tuition (education fees) to the campuses, and of all uses of those revenues at the campus level.
- We insist that any discussion of tuition/fee increase needs to provide details showing that such an increase would result in zero rise in average student family income and zero effect on average student indebtedness. Studies have shown that the “high tuition-high aid” model negatively affects lower-income student access to the university. This burden falls most heavily on students of color. If some feel that students from high-income/high wealth families should not have their educations effectively “subsidized” by low tuition and fees, we advocate that this perceived inequity be remedied in a progressive state tax structure, rather than through tuition increases.
- We call on UCOP and the Regents to examine all possible prudent uses of reserve or carry-forward funds in order to compensate for short-term budget shortfalls.
- We advocate that the number of higher administrative positions at UCOP and at UCSC be reduced, so that proportions of higher administrators to faculty be returned to 1990 levels. We advocate that salary differentials between higher administration and faculty also be reduced to the 1990 level. We advocate streamlining and simplification of procedures that require levels of administrative oversight that might contribute to administrative bloat.
- We call for a moratorium on all new construction, with the exception of seismic retrofitting necessary for safety, and a redirection of those funds to the core mission of the university. We call for a moratorium on new bond issues to pay for construction.
- We call for an end to public-private partnerships with businesses unless they pay full indirect costs.
- We call on UCOP to selectively examine assets that could be sold without undermining the university’s instruction and research mission, and to consider selling said assets in order to avoid tuition/fee increase.
- We call for all cuts to fall heaviest in those areas furthest from the core missions of instruction and research. We advocate examination of and possible termination of support for all those auxiliary enterprises that are not self-supporting. We advocate examination of and possible termination of UC’s relationship with the Livermore Laboratories and the Los Alamos National Laboratories, if it is shown that these units divert funds from our core mission and are not self-supporting.
- We call for a renewed commitment to principles of shared governance, so that Senate and Academic Council recommendations are not so casually contravened as in the case of the Pitts letter on furloughs.
- We call for extensive Senate consultation to remedy or prevent unintended consequences of current budget policy, and to make explicit what might be the implicit values in the current administration of budget cuts at UCSC. For example, whereas the Social Sciences and Humanities Divisions have cut over 35 faculty lines in response to the budget cuts, the different budgetary situations of Physical and Biological Sciences and Engineering have left them with under five cuts in faculty lines. The likely long-term effects of the disproportionate cuts in FTE among different divisions need to be publicly acknowledged and openly discussed. Policy should be created and implemented in such a way that, if the university is to be reshaped, it will be done deliberately, and with wide faculty involvement, rather than in ways unanticipated and unintended by the faculty.
As Chancellor Blumenthal so eloquently stated, in his opposition to the cuts: “California is fundamentally disinvesting in higher education. We must be creative and focused - there's too much at stake to do anything less.”
We call on the creativity and focus throughout our campus community in support of public higher education. We call for creative and innovative proposals for long-term and short-term actions. We call on the university to be especially tolerant of student activism and dissent, for it is often out of the unruliness and messiness of dissent that creative solutions emerge. We are all in this together, and we will find a way forward.
[ Posted November 2 ]
Rebecca Solnit, "California's Deficit of Common Sense," L.A. Times Nov. 1, 2009
