State-Wide Day of Mobilization: January 19

1/19 California Statewide Mobilization for UC Regents Meeting At UC Riverside
California Statewide Mobilization for UC Regents Meeting
by Back2Kali

Friday Jan 13th, 2012 4:12 AM
We are writing to have our voices heard and to propose an action against the perpetually inflicted austerity measures and fee hikes rendering ourselves a lost generation. As the disaster capitalists liquidate our means of public education and healthcare, we face the repercussions - rampant unemployment, swollen student debt, prison expansion and a gutted public sector. The harsh reality of the austerity state. Our futures are being mortgaged in order to maintain bloated administrative salaries and the privatization of critical social services across the state, country, and around the world.

In the past decade alone the UC has seen a 342.2% increase in tuition and fees. This trend directly corresponds with a period of exorbitant administrative growth and devastating cuts to instruction, support services and staff, and other critical UC programs. On December 13, 2011 Governor Jerry Brown announced another $100 million in cuts to the UC system, which brings the total to $750 million this fiscal year alone.

The annual fees for attending a UC were $3,859 in 2001-2002; now they are $13,218, and estimated to increase substantially within the next four years. This trend runs completely contradictory to the 1960 CA Master Plan, which calls for tuition-free public higher education in this state. Quality, accessible public higher education is a cornerstone for establishing social and economic equality on local to global levels and as such demands our active support and protection.

Our public institutions of higher education are being actively privatized and glutted by regents, trustees and administrators who are deeply invested in large private business interests. These people and the interests they represent want to continue profiting from a drive to remake our public institutions in the image of private-for-profit models.

We are asking that all of us continue to take a stand and fight back to defend our public institutions against the betrayal of many of those charged with their protection. As the students, faculty, and staff who run California's public colleges and universities, it is our responsibility to assert every day that these are OUR SCHOOLS and that we are not powerless to further the mission of maintaining affordable, accessible and quality public higher education not only in this state, but around the world. An accessible educational experience is important for people everywhere to be able to obtain if they so choose that we might construct a more equitable, just and peaceful world for everyone.

The UC regents are invested with the responsibility of "managing" the UC system. They have insistently refused to engage in constructive dialogue with students, faculty and staff on critical issues that have been repeatedly brought to their attention. Some of them are personal friends and/or business partners of former Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger or other influential politicians and that is precisely how they obtained their initial appointment as regents. A vast majority of the current regents have no professional background in public education and a corresponding majority of them maintain direct ties to business interests that seek to develop financially profitable relationships with the UC and other public institutions.

Banks and other corporations get bailed out and we get sold out, time and again. The regents' silence in Sacramento fits the destructive model of privatization that they have in mind for the UC. As part of this agenda, it also fits their interests to raise the salaries of administrators even as they tell the rest of us that we need to "continue making sacrifices."

Enough is enough. We will continue to demand that the UC regents and administrators be held accountable for their actions. Please join us in protest at the regents' next meeting, scheduled to take place at UC Riverside on January 18-19, 2012.

A statewide mobilization against austerity and fee hikes is being called for Thursday, January 19. Students, educators and workers from across the state will be busing in as we continue defend quality and accessible public education. See you on the battlefield.

Sincerely,
Concerned Students, Faculty, Staff and Community Members of UC Riverside

December 14th--Joint Legislative Hearing Agenda

Joint Informational Hearing
Senate Committee on Education and Assembly Committee on Higher Education UC and CSU Policies, Procedures, and Responses: Campus Police and On-Campus Demonstrations
Wednesday, December 14, 2011 10:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. John L. Burton Hearing Room 4203

AGENDA
1. Welcome and Hearing Purpose
Are there tools/policies that the Legislature should support or implement to facilitate the effective management of non-violent campus demonstrations, while ensuring freedom of speech, assembly and public safety?
2. “Use of Force” Policies, Procedures, and Responses
• What are the standards/policies/training that govern the “use of force” by law enforcement entities?
• What are the bounds of legal free speech? What is an appropriate police response to nonviolent but illegal activity?
• Are there “best practices” for addressing non-violent campus demonstrations?

Michael Risher, Attorney American Civil Liberties Union
Barbara Attard, Police Practices Consultant, Accountability Associates
Formerly - San Jose Independent Police Auditor Chief Investigator, Berkeley Police Review Commission President, National Association of Civilian Oversight of Law Enforcement (NACOLE)
Calvin Handy, Chief of Police, Emeritus University of California, Davis
POST Crowd Management & Civil Disobedience Guidelines
http://lib.post.ca.gov/Publications/CrowdMgtGuidelines.pdf
Headwaters Forest Defense v. County of Humboldt
http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-9th-circuit/1178646.html (long) http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-9th-circuit/1332957.html (short)
Copley Press, Inc. v. Superior Court of San Diego County
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data2/californiastatecases/S128603.PDF (long) http://caselaw.findlaw.com/summary/opinion/ca-supreme-court/2006/08/31/143113.html (short)
3. UC and CSU Systemwide Policies and Procedures
• What systemwide and/or statewide programs/policies/tools are in place to address campus demonstrations?
• Are there systemwide “best practices” for addressing non-violent campus demonstrations?
• In what instances is “use of force” authorized and who makes that determination?
• What systemwide activity is being undertaken in response to recent campus incidents?

University of California
Mark G. Yudof, President
University of California
Charles Robinson, Counsel
University of California
California State University
Dr. Ben Quillian, Executive Vice Chancellor and Chief Business Officer Chancellors’ Office, California State University
Dr. Nate Johnson, Chief Law Enforcement Officer
California State University Systemwide
Universitywide Police Policies and Administrative Procedures


4. Campus Policies and Procedures
• What campus-based programs/policies/tools are in place to address campus demonstrations?
• Are there policies/standards/training in place for campus police to prevent non¬violent demonstrations from becoming violent?
• In what instances is “use of force” authorized and who makes that determination?
• What steps are being taken locally to respond to recent incidents on the UC Davis campus?

Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi, University of California, Davis
Dr. John Welty, President, California State University, Fresno
UC Davis Use of Force Policy

5. Student/Campus Organized Demonstration

• What policies/procedures are followed by student organizations when there is a decision to demonstrate?
• How is the protection of students assured?
• What are the controls for protesters who do not abide by your policies?

UC Student Association (UCSA)
Claudia Magaña, Student, University of California, Santa Cruz President, UCSA
California State Student Association (CSSA)
Aissa Canchola, Student, CSU Fullerton and Chair, CSSA Sean Richards, Student, Sonoma State Vice-President, CSSA.
UC Policies Applying to Campus Activities, Organizations and Students

UC Davis Campuswide Administrative Policies and Regulations

CSULB Regulations for Campus Activities, Student Organizations & the University Community


1. Public Comment
2. Closing Statements

UAW President: Statement to the Regents (11/28/11)

Public Comments to the Regents – 11/28/11

My name is Cheryl Deutsch. I’m a graduate student at UCLA and statewide President of UAW Local 2865, the union that represents student employees throughout the UC system.

Students have gathered on these and other campuses across the state today to demand that you make a choice. Will you continue to speak empty words while serving the interests of your class? Or will you act as the education leaders that the title of Regent would have us believe you are? Let’s be clear: you, as bankers and financiers, real estate developers and members of the corporate elite, are not representative of the people of California. You are not representative of the students of the UC. You are the 1%.

Now you’ve said today that you are going to ask the state for more funding. But you have no concrete proposals for where that money will come from or how it will get to the UC. You ought to be ashamed of yourselves.

The ReFund California Pledge offers these concrete alternatives. We are asking you today to make a choice: students have already paid more than our fair share for the economic crisis that your class created. It’s time that you – as the 1% - pay your share.

UC San Diego Statement on Police Responses to Protests

University of California
San Diego
CAMPUS NOTICE


                   OFFICE OF THE CHANCELLOR

            OFFICE OF THE EXECUTIVE VICE CHANCELLOR
                       ACADEMIC AFFAIRS

              ACADEMIC SENATE: SAN DIEGO DIVISION


November 23, 2011

ALL ACADEMICS AND STAFF
ALL STUDENTS

SUBJECT: Commitment to Free Speech and Peaceful Assembly

Dear Members of our UC San Diego Community:

We share the widely expressed outrage at the violent responses to peaceful
demonstrations on our sister University of California campuses. The alarming
images are a stark reminder of our need for vigilance in protecting the rights
of free speech and the freedom to conduct peaceful protests.  Our University
must guard those rights.

We fully endorse the UC Academic Council’s statements relayed to President
Mark Yudof and we strongly support the President’s actions to thoroughly
review policing policies and protocols.  UC Academic Council's statements
may be accessed at the following website address:

    http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/senate/reports/

A healthy intellectual climate at UC San Diego relies on civil discourse
and respectful behavior by all community members. Our campus is steadfast
in our resolve to protect the fundamental rights of free speech and peaceful
assembly.

Marye Anne Fox
Chancellor

Suresh Subramani
Executive Vice Chancellor

Joel Sobel
Academic Senate: San Diego Division
Chair

UCLA Chancellor and EVC Response to UC Davis Pepper Spray

     Office of the Chancellor
     Office of the Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost

To the Campus Community:

The images from events at UCB and UCD have shocked and troubled all of us on campus and across the system. Our hearts go out to the students, parents, faculty and staff at Berkeley and Davis during this trying time.

At UCLA, a small number of protesters identifying themselves as the Occupy UCLA movement established a camp last Thursday and were asked to disperse early Friday morning. They refused to disperse and preferred to be arrested. All the protesters that morning were peaceful and cooperative. The police worked with Student Affairs and the students to ensure that the process went forward smoothly and the encampment was removed without confrontation or injury. On Monday, after the actions at Davis, the protesters held a series of teach-ins, and decided to set up tents on the lawn in front of the Morgan Center. Under the circumstances and at the urging of faculty and the Senate leadership, we decided not to intervene. Today they have dismantled their tents on their own accord.

The peace and safety of the campus is a high concern for us, as is the freedom of expression. Our aim is to achieve both in a time when feelings are running extremely high. We have worked closely with Student Affairs, Legal Affairs, and UCLA PD to ensure that the campus adheres to our principles of community and that everyone acts with restraint, respect, and tolerance in all circumstances. The meeting of the Regents at UCLA this coming Monday may bring demonstrations, and we will work strenuously with all parties to ensure as far as we are able that they remain safe and peaceful. We have been in constant discussion with our students and campus leadership, and have stressed firmly that we all must act in a responsible manner that preserves the core values of the campus.

We are pleased that so far the UCLA community has managed to avoid the kinds of wrenching events that have torn our sister campuses. That we have done so is testimony to the civility and restraint shown by our students, faculty, police, and staff in difficult circumstances.

We will consult with the City Attorney next week concerning the charges against our students.

We wish you all a happy and safe Thanksgiving.

Gene D. Block
Chancellor



Scott L. Waugh
Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost

Chancellor Yang "Responds" to Police Violence (11/21/11)

November 21, 2011

Dear Members of our Campus Community,

Over the weekend I have received many expressions of concern from faculty, staff, and students about the importance of preserving academic freedom. I have very much appreciated these sentiments. I also have met with our colleagues in Student Affairs, the Police Department, and the Academic Senate.

I am writing now to reaffirm, on behalf of UC Santa Barbara, our campus commitment to civil discourse, freedom of expression, and non-violence. These are core values of our academic community, and we share a common responsibility to protect and safeguard them. Our students, faculty, and staff must continue to work together to discuss important issues and concerns in an environment of mutual respect, safety, and tolerance, even in difficult times.

Thank you for helping to ensure the values of our community.

I send my best wishes for the Thanksgiving holiday.

Sincerely,

Henry T. Yang
Chancellor

UCSC Senate Chair Speaks to Faculty on Budgetary Reform, aka, "Rebenching."

SANTA CRUZ: OFFICE OF THE ACADEMIC SENATE
From Senate Chair Susan Gillman’s Announcements, November 9, 2011 Senate Meeting:

FINALLY: REBENCHING

You’ll hear next from Chancellor Blumenthal, channeling EVC Galloway, who has wisely chosen to miss the Senate meeting so that she could be physically present at today’s campus rally at the Quarry in support of the statewide Day of Action. The Chancellor will fill us in on our own local multi-year approach to coping with the cuts. He will also comment on the parallel track at Office of the President (OP), where there is an effort at systemic reform of the UC budget, in the form of what are known as Funding Streams and Rebenching.

“Funding Streams” and “Rebenching” are inelegant terms for major systemwide reform of the budget. What problem does this reform address?

THE PROBLEM
OP uses an incremental budget process to determine annual budget amounts for each campus. This process consists of a permanent base amount, which varies by campus, and incremental adjustments made annually to the base amount. The budget process results in varying amounts per student distributed among campuses—in Fiscal Year 09-10, the range is of $12,309 (UCSB) to $55,186 (UCSF), with UCSC at $12,846. [Source: State Auditor Report, July 2011 http://www.bsa.ca.gov/pdfs/reports/2010-105.pdf ]

OP could not identify reasons for these differences or quantify them, other than to cite the cumulative outcome of a long history of incentives and disincentives, marginal increments and decrements, with the base budget permanent and all changes occurring only on the margins. Cross-subsidies thus reflect historic priorities and rationales that may have changed (e.g. weighting of graduate students by 3.5 FTE ended in 1996) but the subsidies themselves were built into the base budgets of each campus and have therefore become permanent.

THE SOLUTION: A TWO-PHASE APPROACH

Phase #1
Budget reform was launched with the first phase, called Funding Streams. This reform makes more transparent various revenue sources, or “funding streams,” in non-state portions of the budget, allocating them on the basic principle that revenues generated by a campus should be returned to the campus (whether from student tuition, including non-resident tuition, contracts and grants, other fundraising, etc.).

Next, in July 2011, the State Auditor Report came out in media res, when Phase 1, Funding Streams, had been completed, and Phase 2, Rebenching, was launched but shakily. President Yudof established the Budget Rebenching Task Force as an administrative group whose roster includes six chancellors, one EVC, vice-chancellors for planning and budget, OP budget managers, and five Senate representatives.

Phase #2: Not Yet

We are now operating under partially-completed budget reform. Phase 1, Funding Streams, depends for its intended outcomes on Phase 2, Rebenching, the second phase of UC’s own internal budgetary reform — the allocation of state funding to the campuses in a more transparent and equitable way. This situation promotes the status quo, which the President has publicly recognized as the leaderless outcome of a long history of ad hoc budgetary decisions. By permitting campuses to retain all the revenues they generate, Funding Streams locks in the competitive advantage of campuses that were historically advantaged by differential funding; by failing to move to Rebenching, the UC system locks in that competitive advantage. In addition, still uncompleted is the third pillar of budgetary reform, the funding for UCOP itself and how we address systemwide expenses.

The momentum in Rebenching is clearly in the direction of a formula linking systemwide allocation of core funds to current student numbers, with funding tiers for different classifications of students (undergraduate and graduate students including Masters, PhDs, professional degrees). Closing the per-student funding gap will bring the UC budgetary model in line with the long-held goal of a single public university with ten distinctive locations across California. This goal has been reaffirmed at multiple times and in multiple venues by the Senate, and it is now in jeopardy.

The Academic Council’s Rebenching proposal proposes a methodology for ensuring that each campus has the support it needs to meet the mission and Master Plan obligation of educating all qualified, state-funded students. The Council proposal is guided by the principle that all UC students of a particular classification, regardless of campus, should receive the same level of funding necessary to support a UC-quality education. It also includes a mechanism for funding PhD students that recognizes the centrality of doctoral education to the UC mission and the interdependence of graduate and undergraduate education at UC.

The principle has been nominally accepted in Rebenching discussions thus far, but it is unclear how, when, or even whether it will be implemented. Among the stumbling blocks to consensus, some are significant while others appear to be delaying tactics. A significant question remaining is how funding for health sciences, agriculture and other systemwide priorities should be treated. Less substantive questions include whether Rebenching should apply only to new state funds, or whether it should be implemented over a long transition period. A clear delaying tactic is a repeated objection that Rebenching will be divisive, pitting haves against have-nots, the flagships versus foundering ships, larger and older campuses versus the younger and smaller. These terms are simply synonyms for the fragmentation of the UC system by campus self-interest.

WHAT IS TO BE DONE?

Now is the time to proceed deliberately with budget reform. Both the Senate and the Administration, (the latter in the November, 2010 Commission on the Future Report, commissioned by President Yudof) have endorsed the value of UC as one university, and if we mean that we are one university, we need to stand by that value in defining principles for budgeting.

The whole Rebenching effort should be viewed as the UC systemwide version of “Let no budget crisis go to waste.” This is a moment when campuses will demonstrate that they set policy by principle, not by adherence to local needs and desires alone. How Rebenching will end, whether with greater transparency and equity in budgetary allocations across the system, and whether from any principled basis at all, is still an open question.

With student protests across campuses, UC may finally have the necessary conjunction of external and internal budget efforts: the ReFund California/student protests are looking to Sacramento, where the pattern of disinvestment in higher education originates and can be solved, while OP is looking inward through Rebenching to the single greatest choice in the university’s financial control, the allocation of our state funds. Together, these forces may finally be in sufficient alignment that real change can occur.

Susan Gillman Chair, Santa Cruz Division, Academic Senate