UCSB Department Chairs in Support of March 4th Events

SUPPORT FOR MARCH 4 DAY OF EDUCATION

We, as Department Chairs in the Social Sciences and Humanities and Fine Arts at the University of California, Santa Barbara, endorse the statewide Day of Education on March 4, 2010. We support the efforts, organized by representatives of the entire educational community--administrators,teachers, staff, students, alumni, and concerned parents and students of the UC, CSU, CC and K-12 systems--to demonstrate the need for a renewed commitment to public education. As UC faculty, we struggle with increased workloads and reduced pay. We see austere student fee hikes, overcrowded classes, graduate students squeezed, overworked and demoralized staff, worker layoffs, shrinking departmental and curriculum budgets, and eroding funding to student services. How long can the UC maintain itself as a top quality, Tier I research university? Meanwhile, K-12 schools face severe budget cuts and curricular pressures created by the demands for standardized testing, a situation of concern to us since the products of the K-12 system become our students and the country's future citizenry. It's time to stop and reverse this steady defunding and degradation of our educational system and to defend a first-rate public education.

We urge you to support our students' organizing efforts in support of the statewide March on Sacramento on Thursday, March 4.

In Santa Barbara on March 4, there are two events:

- 12 noon: Rally at Storke Plaza, UCSB

- 4 PM: March down State Street, downtown Santa Barbara

We encourage you to participate in whatever ways you can, such as:
- Announcing the events in class
- Allowing students to participate in these activities without any penalty
- Teaching about the current crisis in public education
- Bringing your students to the rallies/marches.


Signed:
Department Chairs, Humanities and Fine Arts and Social Science, UCSB

Diane Fujino, Chair, Asian American Studies
Eileen Boris, Chair, Feminist Studies
Francisco Lomeli, Chair, Spanish and Portuguese
Patricia Clancy, Chair, Linguistics
Ulrich Keller, Chair, History of Art and Architecture
Howard Winant, Chair, Law and Society program
Verta Taylor, Chair, Sociology
Simon Williams, Chair, Theater and Dance
Elisabeth Saatjian Weber, Chair, German, Slavic and Semitic Studies and
Comparative Literature
Lisa Parks, Chair, Film and Media Studies
Jon Snyder, Chair, French and Italian
Jeffrey Stewart, Chair, Black Studies
Colin Gardner, Chair, Art
Francis Dunn, Chair, Classics
Bill Powell, Chair, East Asian Languages and Cultural Studies
Alan Liu, Chair, English
Ann Bermingham, Director, Interdisciplinary Humanities Center
Michael Stohl, Chair, Communication
John Majewski, Chair, History
Aida Hurtado, Chair, Chicana and Chicano Studies
Katharina Schreiber, Chair, Anthropology
Giles Gunn, Chair, Global and International Studies
John Woolley, Chair, Political Science
Matthew Turk, Chair, Media Arts and Technology
Paul Berkowitz, Chair, Music