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
Thursday, December 22, 2011
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
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.
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.
Saturday, November 26, 2011
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
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:
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
Friday, November 25, 2011
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 ourprinciples 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
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
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
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
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
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
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
UCSC Senate Chair on Campus Protests and University Budget
Dear Colleagues,
The UC community has been horrified by the police violence we have seen exercised against student protestors at UC Davis as well as earlier against students and faculty at Berkeley. The system-wide Academic Senate has issued a statement (appended below).
For our campus, which has thus far seen only peaceful protest, I am concerned first and foremost to maintain the communication among the administration, students and faculty that will help us to avoid any escalation of violence at UCSC. Second, our campus should not lose sight of the focus of the student protest on state disinvestment in higher education.
To that end, please see the attached document from my Senate speech on November 9, which coincided with the statewide Day of Action. Our campus held a peaceful rally, followed by a march downtown to Occupy Santa Cruz,thanks to the collective efforts of the organizers and participants of our local ReFund California coalition (undergraduates, graduate students, unions) as well as those of Chancellor Blumenthal and CP/EVC Galloway.
As Senate Chair, I used the chance to speak to the faculty about the issue of "Rebenching," an effort at budgetary reform for the UC system as a whole that is currently underway at the Office of the President (OP). Both little-known and poorly publicized, Rebenching is the university's most significant response to the ongoing budget crisis--and the single largest element the university has in its direct control. Rebenching is the most important action the university will, or will not, take in the next few years.
For those who did not attend the November 9 Senate meeting, as well as for the general campus community, please see the attached excerpt from my speech on Rebenching. Students, faculty and administrators at UCSC must redouble efforts to complete the budgetary reform contingent on Rebenching.
Sincerely,
Susan Gillman, Chair
Academic Senate
Professor of Literature
The UC community has been horrified by the police violence we have seen exercised against student protestors at UC Davis as well as earlier against students and faculty at Berkeley. The system-wide Academic Senate has issued a statement (appended below).
For our campus, which has thus far seen only peaceful protest, I am concerned first and foremost to maintain the communication among the administration, students and faculty that will help us to avoid any escalation of violence at UCSC. Second, our campus should not lose sight of the focus of the student protest on state disinvestment in higher education.
To that end, please see the attached document from my Senate speech on November 9, which coincided with the statewide Day of Action. Our campus held a peaceful rally, followed by a march downtown to Occupy Santa Cruz,thanks to the collective efforts of the organizers and participants of our local ReFund California coalition (undergraduates, graduate students, unions) as well as those of Chancellor Blumenthal and CP/EVC Galloway.
As Senate Chair, I used the chance to speak to the faculty about the issue of "Rebenching," an effort at budgetary reform for the UC system as a whole that is currently underway at the Office of the President (OP). Both little-known and poorly publicized, Rebenching is the university's most significant response to the ongoing budget crisis--and the single largest element the university has in its direct control. Rebenching is the most important action the university will, or will not, take in the next few years.
For those who did not attend the November 9 Senate meeting, as well as for the general campus community, please see the attached excerpt from my speech on Rebenching. Students, faculty and administrators at UCSC must redouble efforts to complete the budgetary reform contingent on Rebenching.
Sincerely,
Susan Gillman, Chair
Academic Senate
Professor of Literature
Monday, November 21, 2011
UCSB Faculty Letter to Chancellor Yang on UC Davis Police Violence
Recent acts of police violence at UC Berkeley and UC Davis have left us disheartened and angry. In video footage of the November 9 police attacks at Berkeley, we see non-violent students and faculty beaten by truncheons. These students and faculty were hoping to improve access to education at their university; in return for this noble work, they were assaulted – on their own campus – by police officers in riot gear. The non-violent student protest at Davis was suppressed with comparable brutality on November 18. In video from Davis, we can see police in riot gear using pepper spray against non-violent student protestors who had the courage to stand in solidarity with the men and women who had been beaten at Berkeley the week before. Accounts from police attacks at Davis are harrowing where they detail the chemical burns and respiratory bleeding that are the hallmark of pepper spray.
We, the undersigned faculty, refuse to accept these acts of brutality against non-violent protestors at our sister campuses in the University of California system. Consequently, we call upon Chancellor Yang to make a public statement on our behalf.
First, we call upon Chancellor Yang to denounce unequivocally the recent acts of police violence at Berkeley and Davis. Chancellor Yang is our representative to the UC system, and we hope that he uses this position to make our anger heard.
Second, we call upon Chancellor Yang to declare that the violence we’ve seen on other UC campuses will not happen here. We call upon Chancellor Yang to declare that UCSB will never condone the use of police violence – including the use of pepper spray – against non-violent protests by members of our community. We call upon Chancellor Yang to make this statement into policy.
Chancellor Yang has a long record of protecting students and faculty at UCSB; we hope that he continues to be our strong advocate.
Sincerely,
Porter Abbot (English)
Linda Adler-Kassner (Writing Program)
Kevin Anderson (Sociology)
Stephanie Batiste (English)
Eileen Boris (Feminst Studies)
Maurizia Bocagli (English)
Julie Carlson (English)
Brian Donnelly (English)
Enda Duffy (English)
Richard Flacks (Sociology)
Claudio Fogu (French and Italian Studies)
John Foran (Sociology)
Aranye Fradenburg (English)
Patricia Fumerton (English)
Nancy Gallagher (History)
Catherine Gautier (Geography)
Bishnupriya Ghosh (English)
Andrew Griffin (English)
Peter Lackner (Theater and Dance)
Stephanie Lemenager (English)
Shirley Lim (English)
Alan Liu (English)
Christina McMahon (Theater and Dance)
Laurie Monahan (History of Art and Architecture)
Chris Newfield (English)
Michael O’Connell (English)
Carole Paul (Art History)
Russell Samolsky (English)
Bhaskar Sarkar (Film and Media Studies)
Scott Selisker (English)
Teresa Shewry (English)
Sven Spieker (Germanic, Slavic, and Semitic Studies)
Vera Tobin (English)
Candace Waid (English)
Elisabeth Weber (German and Comparative Literature)
Howard Winant (Sociology)
Richard Wittman (History of Art and Architecture)
Kay Young (English)
We, the undersigned faculty, refuse to accept these acts of brutality against non-violent protestors at our sister campuses in the University of California system. Consequently, we call upon Chancellor Yang to make a public statement on our behalf.
First, we call upon Chancellor Yang to denounce unequivocally the recent acts of police violence at Berkeley and Davis. Chancellor Yang is our representative to the UC system, and we hope that he uses this position to make our anger heard.
Second, we call upon Chancellor Yang to declare that the violence we’ve seen on other UC campuses will not happen here. We call upon Chancellor Yang to declare that UCSB will never condone the use of police violence – including the use of pepper spray – against non-violent protests by members of our community. We call upon Chancellor Yang to make this statement into policy.
Chancellor Yang has a long record of protecting students and faculty at UCSB; we hope that he continues to be our strong advocate.
Sincerely,
Porter Abbot (English)
Linda Adler-Kassner (Writing Program)
Kevin Anderson (Sociology)
Stephanie Batiste (English)
Eileen Boris (Feminst Studies)
Maurizia Bocagli (English)
Julie Carlson (English)
Brian Donnelly (English)
Enda Duffy (English)
Richard Flacks (Sociology)
Claudio Fogu (French and Italian Studies)
John Foran (Sociology)
Aranye Fradenburg (English)
Patricia Fumerton (English)
Nancy Gallagher (History)
Catherine Gautier (Geography)
Bishnupriya Ghosh (English)
Andrew Griffin (English)
Peter Lackner (Theater and Dance)
Stephanie Lemenager (English)
Shirley Lim (English)
Alan Liu (English)
Christina McMahon (Theater and Dance)
Laurie Monahan (History of Art and Architecture)
Chris Newfield (English)
Michael O’Connell (English)
Carole Paul (Art History)
Russell Samolsky (English)
Bhaskar Sarkar (Film and Media Studies)
Scott Selisker (English)
Teresa Shewry (English)
Sven Spieker (Germanic, Slavic, and Semitic Studies)
Vera Tobin (English)
Candace Waid (English)
Elisabeth Weber (German and Comparative Literature)
Howard Winant (Sociology)
Richard Wittman (History of Art and Architecture)
Kay Young (English)
Saturday, November 19, 2011
Music with its Sleeves Rolled UP (Thanks to Michael O'Hare)
Any crowd can learn this song after one chorus and one verse
Come all you Californians,
Here's news to give you cheer,
The ninety-nine percent who work
Are standing up right here.
Here's news to give you cheer,
The ninety-nine percent who work
Are standing up right here.
cho after each verse:
Which side are you on?
Which side are you on?
Which side are you on?
Which side are you on?
Which side are you on?
Which side are you on?
Which side are you on?
My grandpa paid his taxes,
He built the U of C,
I owe it to my children,
That knowledge should be free.
He built the U of C,
I owe it to my children,
That knowledge should be free.
It used to be that people
Could work and save some pay
To give their kids a better life
And see a brighter day.
There's work to do for all of us
Prop thirteen shut us down
We're taking back our government
For field and town and gown.
They say all down the valley,
There are no neutrals there.
You’ll either be a one of us,
Or die from poisoned air.
There are no neutrals there.
You’ll either be a one of us,
Or die from poisoned air.
Oh, people can you stand it?
Ten years and more of pain.
Get with the 99%
And board the people's train!
Ten years and more of pain.
Get with the 99%
And board the people's train!
The 1% are on Fox News ,
Don’t listen to their lies.
There's none of us that's got a chance,
Unless we organize.
Don’t listen to their lies.
There's none of us that's got a chance,
Unless we organize.
Friday, November 18, 2011
Nicole Lindhal Eyewitness Account of Police Attack on Occupy Cal November 9th
Dear friends, family, and colleagues,
For many of you it has been a long time since we were last in contact;
I wish that I was writing now in order to set up a long overdue
conversation, or to fill you in on happy developments in my life.
Instead, I am writing because I feel compelled to give you a first
hand account of some disturbing events which occurred on the UC
Berkeley campus this week.
This Wednesday, November 9, UC Berkeley students staged a rally and
march with the goals of protesting a proposed 81% fee hike and drawing
attention to the increasing fiscal crisis facing public education in
California. After the march, students held a General Assembly meeting
in which they formed a consensus to build an encampment (a la Occupy
Wall Street) on Sproul Plaza. Students made this decision with full
awareness that, earlier in the week, the UC Berkeley Chancellor had
issued a letter stating that camping constituted a violation of the
campus code.
Shortly after the tents were pitched, while students were playing
music on guitars, painting signs, and chit-chatting in true UC
Berkeley fashion, police forces began gathering. What ensued was
nothing less than two separate police attacks on non-violent student
protesters. Two police forces (UCPD and the Alameda County Sheriff's
Department) and hundreds of police officers in full riot gear advanced
on students who had linked arms to form a human barricade around the
tents. The riot police formed a line with batons drawn, held in both
hands across their bodies, and they moved forward as a block, jabbing
the batons towards the line of students in unison. Behind them were
several officers holding automatic weapons that looked like something
out of Grand Theft Auto--tear gas launchers? rubber bullet
guns?--which they sometimes pointed directly at students' heads and
bodies.
I witnessed a young woman on the ground being repeatedly attacked with
the end of a baton by a police lieutenant from the Alameda County
Sheriff's department. I saw two young men get tackled and arrested,
one as a tactic to break the line of locked-armed students, and the
other for trying to pick up a tent pole. I also saw two young women
get their hands stamped on by a policeman's boot when they tried to
pick up a bike light in between our line and the officers'. And this
was just in my small corner of the first and less intense standoff.
In the second, the police forces were more aggressive, and many
officers (as opposed to only a few in the earlier event), were--for
lack of a better word--rabid. They repeatedly attacked students with
batons with ZERO provocation. In total, 39 people were arrested in
both confrontations, and many more were beaten, including two students
in a class I am currently teaching and a fellow graduate student from
my department.
I was fortunate enough to escape these events with only minor scrapes
and bruises. I am shaken, however, and more angry than perhaps I've
even been in my life. On Thursday morning, I had visions of booting
police officers in the face while I was in the shower. For the rest
of the day, I intermittently cried and swelled with outrage. When I
saw police officers on Sproul plaza standing around in small groups, I
literally could not raise my eyes to look at them. Predictably
enough, I have been completely mobilized into action by Wednesday's
events, as have thousands of students and community members who have
been shocked and outraged by the videos they've seen (see below this
message for links to a few videos I hope you take the time time to
check out).
I am incredibly proud of Cal students who courageously held the line
and remained completely peaceful throughout the day and night. We
continuously shouted "peaceful! protest!" particularly when the police
were acting most aggressively. There was not a rock or bottle thrown,
and the chants consistently demonstrated empathy with or at least
respect for the humanity of the police ("We're doing this for your
children!" or "Stop beating students!" or "You are the 99%!").
The larger point here is that we live in a society in which this type
of police use of force is entirely normalized. It is expected, and in
fact justified, that the roll-out of police in riot gear is the first
response to non-violent student protesters. I mean, the students were
violating the law, right? They should have known that this is what
they would get. What did they expect?
I ask instead, in what world are militarized riot police an
appropriate response to students with tents????? And I challenge you
(and all of us) to think through what Wednesday afternoon might have
looked like if the use of force was OFF THE TABLE.
In the aftermath of these events, I had the urge to ask the Chancellor
to articulate the threat that the encampment posed that justified the
kind of response we saw on Wednesday. And in fact, he issued a letter
to the campus community doing just that on Thursday. It turns out,
while he supports marches and rallies as forms of protest, encampments
pose a threat to sanitation and hygiene, and he is worried about the
campus administration's ability to manage conflicts arising within
(Needless to say, I, too, am worried about the administration's
ability to manage conflict after Wednesday's events, but I digress).
I would argue that this standoff is not about hygiene, sanitation, or
conflict management; nor is it simply about a few students with tents,
as those of us who are sympathetic to the protests have argued. This
is about establishing a space within which dialogue across divisions
of race, class, gender, religion, and ideology is encouraged,
facilitated, and prioritized; within which any and all participants
are provided the consistent opportunity to give voice to their ideas
and concerns about the nature of the society they live in; a space in
which the creativity and imagination necessary to visualize inclusive
and egalitarian political, economic, and social systems are nurtured;
a space in which I, for one, feel like I can participate without
making ethical compromises. THIS is the threat that these encampments
represent. And this is also the reason that so many students,
including me, are willing to defend their construction with our
bodies.
With much love and, for the first time in my life, real hope for a
better future,
Nicole
Videos:
This site contains a video from the afternoon attack which has gone
viral, and a photo of the plaza an hour or so after the second attack,
when even more students gathered and held the second general assembly
meeting of the day (in which they formed a consensus to call for a
UC-wide strike on Tuesday, November 15):
This is a video from the first attack which I uploaded from the camera
on my phone. This advance occurred after the police had already torn
down the encampment, and resulted in them reclaiming a few feet of
dirt. It doesn't capture police beatings in as clear detail as the
previous video, but it gives you an up close and personal sense of the
atmosphere among the student protesters as well as what it was like to
be standing peacefully in a line, only to be advanced upon by a row of
riot police:
This video was taken by a stranger who was in a very similar position
to me during the clash in the evening. Since it's not clear, let me
remind you that students were gathered on the lawn distributing food
and hanging out before the police officers moved into formation and
formed the line you see here (in other words, the students did not
approach a line of riot cops, but rather were approached while
peacefully assembling). Whoever took this video got a much better
angle on the events that I was witnessing than I did with my camera
phone:
For more, search for "Occupy Cal" on YouTube.
For many of you it has been a long time since we were last in contact;
I wish that I was writing now in order to set up a long overdue
conversation, or to fill you in on happy developments in my life.
Instead, I am writing because I feel compelled to give you a first
hand account of some disturbing events which occurred on the UC
Berkeley campus this week.
This Wednesday, November 9, UC Berkeley students staged a rally and
march with the goals of protesting a proposed 81% fee hike and drawing
attention to the increasing fiscal crisis facing public education in
California. After the march, students held a General Assembly meeting
in which they formed a consensus to build an encampment (a la Occupy
Wall Street) on Sproul Plaza. Students made this decision with full
awareness that, earlier in the week, the UC Berkeley Chancellor had
issued a letter stating that camping constituted a violation of the
campus code.
Shortly after the tents were pitched, while students were playing
music on guitars, painting signs, and chit-chatting in true UC
Berkeley fashion, police forces began gathering. What ensued was
nothing less than two separate police attacks on non-violent student
protesters. Two police forces (UCPD and the Alameda County Sheriff's
Department) and hundreds of police officers in full riot gear advanced
on students who had linked arms to form a human barricade around the
tents. The riot police formed a line with batons drawn, held in both
hands across their bodies, and they moved forward as a block, jabbing
the batons towards the line of students in unison. Behind them were
several officers holding automatic weapons that looked like something
out of Grand Theft Auto--tear gas launchers? rubber bullet
guns?--which they sometimes pointed directly at students' heads and
bodies.
I witnessed a young woman on the ground being repeatedly attacked with
the end of a baton by a police lieutenant from the Alameda County
Sheriff's department. I saw two young men get tackled and arrested,
one as a tactic to break the line of locked-armed students, and the
other for trying to pick up a tent pole. I also saw two young women
get their hands stamped on by a policeman's boot when they tried to
pick up a bike light in between our line and the officers'. And this
was just in my small corner of the first and less intense standoff.
In the second, the police forces were more aggressive, and many
officers (as opposed to only a few in the earlier event), were--for
lack of a better word--rabid. They repeatedly attacked students with
batons with ZERO provocation. In total, 39 people were arrested in
both confrontations, and many more were beaten, including two students
in a class I am currently teaching and a fellow graduate student from
my department.
I was fortunate enough to escape these events with only minor scrapes
and bruises. I am shaken, however, and more angry than perhaps I've
even been in my life. On Thursday morning, I had visions of booting
police officers in the face while I was in the shower. For the rest
of the day, I intermittently cried and swelled with outrage. When I
saw police officers on Sproul plaza standing around in small groups, I
literally could not raise my eyes to look at them. Predictably
enough, I have been completely mobilized into action by Wednesday's
events, as have thousands of students and community members who have
been shocked and outraged by the videos they've seen (see below this
message for links to a few videos I hope you take the time time to
check out).
I am incredibly proud of Cal students who courageously held the line
and remained completely peaceful throughout the day and night. We
continuously shouted "peaceful! protest!" particularly when the police
were acting most aggressively. There was not a rock or bottle thrown,
and the chants consistently demonstrated empathy with or at least
respect for the humanity of the police ("We're doing this for your
children!" or "Stop beating students!" or "You are the 99%!").
The larger point here is that we live in a society in which this type
of police use of force is entirely normalized. It is expected, and in
fact justified, that the roll-out of police in riot gear is the first
response to non-violent student protesters. I mean, the students were
violating the law, right? They should have known that this is what
they would get. What did they expect?
I ask instead, in what world are militarized riot police an
appropriate response to students with tents????? And I challenge you
(and all of us) to think through what Wednesday afternoon might have
looked like if the use of force was OFF THE TABLE.
In the aftermath of these events, I had the urge to ask the Chancellor
to articulate the threat that the encampment posed that justified the
kind of response we saw on Wednesday. And in fact, he issued a letter
to the campus community doing just that on Thursday. It turns out,
while he supports marches and rallies as forms of protest, encampments
pose a threat to sanitation and hygiene, and he is worried about the
campus administration's ability to manage conflicts arising within
(Needless to say, I, too, am worried about the administration's
ability to manage conflict after Wednesday's events, but I digress).
I would argue that this standoff is not about hygiene, sanitation, or
conflict management; nor is it simply about a few students with tents,
as those of us who are sympathetic to the protests have argued. This
is about establishing a space within which dialogue across divisions
of race, class, gender, religion, and ideology is encouraged,
facilitated, and prioritized; within which any and all participants
are provided the consistent opportunity to give voice to their ideas
and concerns about the nature of the society they live in; a space in
which the creativity and imagination necessary to visualize inclusive
and egalitarian political, economic, and social systems are nurtured;
a space in which I, for one, feel like I can participate without
making ethical compromises. THIS is the threat that these encampments
represent. And this is also the reason that so many students,
including me, are willing to defend their construction with our
bodies.
With much love and, for the first time in my life, real hope for a
better future,
Nicole
Videos:
This site contains a video from the afternoon attack which has gone
viral, and a photo of the plaza an hour or so after the second attack,
when even more students gathered and held the second general assembly
meeting of the day (in which they formed a consensus to call for a
UC-wide strike on Tuesday, November 15):
This is a video from the first attack which I uploaded from the camera
on my phone. This advance occurred after the police had already torn
down the encampment, and resulted in them reclaiming a few feet of
dirt. It doesn't capture police beatings in as clear detail as the
previous video, but it gives you an up close and personal sense of the
atmosphere among the student protesters as well as what it was like to
be standing peacefully in a line, only to be advanced upon by a row of
riot police:
This video was taken by a stranger who was in a very similar position
to me during the clash in the evening. Since it's not clear, let me
remind you that students were gathered on the lawn distributing food
and hanging out before the police officers moved into formation and
formed the line you see here (in other words, the students did not
approach a line of riot cops, but rather were approached while
peacefully assembling). Whoever took this video got a much better
angle on the events that I was witnessing than I did with my camera
phone:
For more, search for "Occupy Cal" on YouTube.
Saturday, May 21, 2011
We are on a race to become a mediocre university at best
by Tom Lutz, Professor of Creative Writing, UC Riverside
cross-posted
Dear colleagues and students,
After a year and a half as Chair of the department, I am stepping down. Professor Andrew Winer will be taking my place, for which we should all be grateful.
As my last act as Chair, I would like to share with you my sense of the gravity of the situation we face. I spent most of my academic career doing what most of us do—teaching, writing, reading graduate applications and theses, having office hours, reading in my field, doing research. I didn’t pay much attention to the University and its administration. None of us have that luxury anymore. Budget cuts after budget cuts after budget cuts have left us all painfully aware of how the sausage is made, or not made.
Having served in administrative posts for most of the last five years, I have come to know the budget issues very well. We are now past the tipping point. We are on a rapid downhill slide that will have profound effects for our state, our families, our country, and our world.
In the space of less than a single lifetime, the University of California, Riverside went from being a small agricultural experiment station to being one of the top 100 universities in the world. An incredibly dense and elaborate web of specialists across all fields of scholarship, science, and the arts was developed, and it took enormous efforts by thousands of people over those years to make it happen. In less than the four years it used to take to graduate, it is being destroyed.
Our department is a great example of the breadth of vision and dogged effort that has made Riverside the exceptional place it has been. There are other creative writing programs in the country, but not a single one anywhere with the range across genres and fields, with the breadth of knowledge in world literatures, with the diversity of voices, methods, and styles that we have. And there is not another creative writing program anywhere—and certainly none with our caliber of professors—that is more truly dedicated to its pedagogical mission at every level. The faculty at Princeton is perhaps a bit more famous, but undergraduates there never meet them, much less have access to them in, before, and after class. I have now taught at every kind of school—fancy elite universities, small colleges, Big 10 universities, art schools, and universities abroad. I have never been part of a faculty this student-centered, this concerned about the educational experience and future prospects of its undergraduate and graduate students.
Three years ago I was offered a job at USC, which is much closer to my house, more prestigious as an academic address, and was offering me more money. UCR worked hard and did the best it could to match the salary and I stayed. I stayed because I wanted to be part of this project, I wanted to teach a student body that is over 85% first-generation college students, that comes not from the richest families in California but some of the poorest, a group of students that have a much greater likelihood than not of coming from immigrant families and from families that speak more than English. I wanted to remain part of one of the greatest democratic experiments in history, and certainly one of the few greatest experiments in public education in the history of the human race, the University of California.
If I got that offer today, though, I’m not sure I could turn it down, and in fact, many people are not turning down outside offers these days. There are people who have taught here for more than twenty years considering going somewhere else, somewhere the future is a bit more certain. These are people who are the best in their field—you don’t get such offers unless someone thinks you are among the best in your field—and UCR, and the educational experience at UCR, is diminished each time this happens, each time one of the best of our best leaves for a better job. We can’t blame them—they have kids of their own to put through college, they have research projects that require funding, they know that to teach the most complex subjects effectively, they need to run seminars with 15 students sitting around the table, not 150.
The budget cuts of recent years and the ones we know for certain are coming next year mean a gross deterioration of our school. Those faculty who leave for better jobs are not being replaced. Many of you know Yvonne Howard, who has been the chief administrator for our department since it was founded. This year her job was unceremoniously terminated. Staff people and faculty who retire are not being replaced. Next year students at UCR will have trouble getting the classes they need, and many of the classes they get will be crowded beyond responsible limits. Departments are being forced to abandon optimal class-size limits for classes two, three, and five times that size. The library has virtually stopped buying books. We are on a race to become a mediocre university at best, and if the $500 million of proposed cuts to UC turn into a billion dollars, as they are now discussing in Sacramento, we will be over. The billion dollar cut translates into thousands of classes across the system. It means creative writing workshops with 50 students. It means we will cease to be a real university, and will simply become another community-college-level institution. Then, maybe, after a few years, with tuition at $25,000 or $30,000 a year, we can begin the slow build back into a real university.
Why is this happening? Political demagoguery and corruption. Thirty years ago UC received 9% of the state budget and prisons 3%. Now UC gets 3% and the prison-industrial complex gets 9%. The legislature is taking the money that should be used to educate the best of its citizens and using it enrich the people who make a profit from the imprisoning the poorest. The percentage of the cost of higher education provided by the state has been cut in half, cut in half again, and is on the verge of getting cut in half a third time. The people in the legislature understand the value of public higher education—the vast majority of them have degrees from our state system, and many of them have multiple degrees—all made possible by the legislators who preceded them and had more courage. They do not protect the University for a very simple reason: because they risk a flow of conservative attacks and Tea Party racism if they stick up for anything that is directly devoted to the commonweal.
In my darkest moments, I think the monied interests working against reasonable taxation are doing so because they consciously, actively seek to make sure we do not have an informed, educated citizenry, the better to extract our collective labor and wealth unimpeded. But such intentionality isn’t necessary. Simple, short-sighted, grab-it-now, bottom-line greed explains their destruction of our culture, without recourse to any dystopian conspiracies.
The only thing that has a chance of turning this devastation around is student activism. We in higher education cannot spend millions of dollars on campaign contributions the way the prison profiteers or the medical and insurance and aerospace industries do, so we need to find other ways to provide a political counterweight. We need to make our voices heard. For you students, your own self-interest should be the catalyst, as you will, no matter what happens this year, have trouble finding the classes you need, much less than the ones you want, and the chance you will graduate in a reasonable amount of time is already gone. But you should also think of what this means for your families, your neighbors, your friends, your own kids when they come of age. And think what it means if California reduces its higher education budget to the levels of Missouri or West Virginia—we will become like those places. Because of its education system, a system that, until just a few years ago, has always been considered the best in the country, California has been among the most innovative and significant literary and cultural centers in the country, and because of this education system, too, California has been the economic powerhouse it has been—1000 research and development companies a year are formed out of the UC system, for instance, and four UC inventions a week are presented to the patent office. We had the best educational system because we were willing to pay for it, and our expenditures were among the highest in the nation, too. In a few short years we have dropped into the middle in state spending, and we are fast falling even farther. Only a political movement strong enough to buck the corporate money determining our tax policy can change this downward spiral. Only you can make that happen.
We have been told, from the top, not to expect a return to ‘the glory days.’ This year was not the glory days. This year we already have discussion sections that are not discussions, fewer classes, an exploded faculty:student ratio; we are very far from the glory days. Now that either 500 million or 1 billion more dollars are getting yanked out of the system, your favorite lecturer will be gone. The class you wanted won’t exist anymore. Your student advisor will have 800 or 1000 students to advise instead of the 300 we all agreed was an absolute maximum two short years ago. This is the end of quality. And why? Because a few very wealthy people are protecting their wealth from taxes, taxes considered reasonable not only everywhere else in the developed world, but considered reasonable in America until the last 20 years.
I hope you get angry. I hope you get active. Call and write your legislators, get out in the streets, take back your university, don’t let yourselves be the last people to have even this chance.
Tom Lutz
Professor and Chair, Department of Creative Writing
cross-posted
Dear colleagues and students,
After a year and a half as Chair of the department, I am stepping down. Professor Andrew Winer will be taking my place, for which we should all be grateful.
As my last act as Chair, I would like to share with you my sense of the gravity of the situation we face. I spent most of my academic career doing what most of us do—teaching, writing, reading graduate applications and theses, having office hours, reading in my field, doing research. I didn’t pay much attention to the University and its administration. None of us have that luxury anymore. Budget cuts after budget cuts after budget cuts have left us all painfully aware of how the sausage is made, or not made.
Having served in administrative posts for most of the last five years, I have come to know the budget issues very well. We are now past the tipping point. We are on a rapid downhill slide that will have profound effects for our state, our families, our country, and our world.
In the space of less than a single lifetime, the University of California, Riverside went from being a small agricultural experiment station to being one of the top 100 universities in the world. An incredibly dense and elaborate web of specialists across all fields of scholarship, science, and the arts was developed, and it took enormous efforts by thousands of people over those years to make it happen. In less than the four years it used to take to graduate, it is being destroyed.
Our department is a great example of the breadth of vision and dogged effort that has made Riverside the exceptional place it has been. There are other creative writing programs in the country, but not a single one anywhere with the range across genres and fields, with the breadth of knowledge in world literatures, with the diversity of voices, methods, and styles that we have. And there is not another creative writing program anywhere—and certainly none with our caliber of professors—that is more truly dedicated to its pedagogical mission at every level. The faculty at Princeton is perhaps a bit more famous, but undergraduates there never meet them, much less have access to them in, before, and after class. I have now taught at every kind of school—fancy elite universities, small colleges, Big 10 universities, art schools, and universities abroad. I have never been part of a faculty this student-centered, this concerned about the educational experience and future prospects of its undergraduate and graduate students.
Three years ago I was offered a job at USC, which is much closer to my house, more prestigious as an academic address, and was offering me more money. UCR worked hard and did the best it could to match the salary and I stayed. I stayed because I wanted to be part of this project, I wanted to teach a student body that is over 85% first-generation college students, that comes not from the richest families in California but some of the poorest, a group of students that have a much greater likelihood than not of coming from immigrant families and from families that speak more than English. I wanted to remain part of one of the greatest democratic experiments in history, and certainly one of the few greatest experiments in public education in the history of the human race, the University of California.
If I got that offer today, though, I’m not sure I could turn it down, and in fact, many people are not turning down outside offers these days. There are people who have taught here for more than twenty years considering going somewhere else, somewhere the future is a bit more certain. These are people who are the best in their field—you don’t get such offers unless someone thinks you are among the best in your field—and UCR, and the educational experience at UCR, is diminished each time this happens, each time one of the best of our best leaves for a better job. We can’t blame them—they have kids of their own to put through college, they have research projects that require funding, they know that to teach the most complex subjects effectively, they need to run seminars with 15 students sitting around the table, not 150.
The budget cuts of recent years and the ones we know for certain are coming next year mean a gross deterioration of our school. Those faculty who leave for better jobs are not being replaced. Many of you know Yvonne Howard, who has been the chief administrator for our department since it was founded. This year her job was unceremoniously terminated. Staff people and faculty who retire are not being replaced. Next year students at UCR will have trouble getting the classes they need, and many of the classes they get will be crowded beyond responsible limits. Departments are being forced to abandon optimal class-size limits for classes two, three, and five times that size. The library has virtually stopped buying books. We are on a race to become a mediocre university at best, and if the $500 million of proposed cuts to UC turn into a billion dollars, as they are now discussing in Sacramento, we will be over. The billion dollar cut translates into thousands of classes across the system. It means creative writing workshops with 50 students. It means we will cease to be a real university, and will simply become another community-college-level institution. Then, maybe, after a few years, with tuition at $25,000 or $30,000 a year, we can begin the slow build back into a real university.
Why is this happening? Political demagoguery and corruption. Thirty years ago UC received 9% of the state budget and prisons 3%. Now UC gets 3% and the prison-industrial complex gets 9%. The legislature is taking the money that should be used to educate the best of its citizens and using it enrich the people who make a profit from the imprisoning the poorest. The percentage of the cost of higher education provided by the state has been cut in half, cut in half again, and is on the verge of getting cut in half a third time. The people in the legislature understand the value of public higher education—the vast majority of them have degrees from our state system, and many of them have multiple degrees—all made possible by the legislators who preceded them and had more courage. They do not protect the University for a very simple reason: because they risk a flow of conservative attacks and Tea Party racism if they stick up for anything that is directly devoted to the commonweal.
In my darkest moments, I think the monied interests working against reasonable taxation are doing so because they consciously, actively seek to make sure we do not have an informed, educated citizenry, the better to extract our collective labor and wealth unimpeded. But such intentionality isn’t necessary. Simple, short-sighted, grab-it-now, bottom-line greed explains their destruction of our culture, without recourse to any dystopian conspiracies.
The only thing that has a chance of turning this devastation around is student activism. We in higher education cannot spend millions of dollars on campaign contributions the way the prison profiteers or the medical and insurance and aerospace industries do, so we need to find other ways to provide a political counterweight. We need to make our voices heard. For you students, your own self-interest should be the catalyst, as you will, no matter what happens this year, have trouble finding the classes you need, much less than the ones you want, and the chance you will graduate in a reasonable amount of time is already gone. But you should also think of what this means for your families, your neighbors, your friends, your own kids when they come of age. And think what it means if California reduces its higher education budget to the levels of Missouri or West Virginia—we will become like those places. Because of its education system, a system that, until just a few years ago, has always been considered the best in the country, California has been among the most innovative and significant literary and cultural centers in the country, and because of this education system, too, California has been the economic powerhouse it has been—1000 research and development companies a year are formed out of the UC system, for instance, and four UC inventions a week are presented to the patent office. We had the best educational system because we were willing to pay for it, and our expenditures were among the highest in the nation, too. In a few short years we have dropped into the middle in state spending, and we are fast falling even farther. Only a political movement strong enough to buck the corporate money determining our tax policy can change this downward spiral. Only you can make that happen.
We have been told, from the top, not to expect a return to ‘the glory days.’ This year was not the glory days. This year we already have discussion sections that are not discussions, fewer classes, an exploded faculty:student ratio; we are very far from the glory days. Now that either 500 million or 1 billion more dollars are getting yanked out of the system, your favorite lecturer will be gone. The class you wanted won’t exist anymore. Your student advisor will have 800 or 1000 students to advise instead of the 300 we all agreed was an absolute maximum two short years ago. This is the end of quality. And why? Because a few very wealthy people are protecting their wealth from taxes, taxes considered reasonable not only everywhere else in the developed world, but considered reasonable in America until the last 20 years.
I hope you get angry. I hope you get active. Call and write your legislators, get out in the streets, take back your university, don’t let yourselves be the last people to have even this chance.
Tom Lutz
Professor and Chair, Department of Creative Writing
Sunday, May 8, 2011
Academic Council Responds to Debt-Financing of Online Project (5/6/11)
May 6, 2011
PRESIDENT MARK G. YUDOF
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
Re: Online education pilot program
Dear Mark:
Last year the Academic Council endorsed the UC online education pilot program with the understanding that only private funding was to be used to support the program. At the time it was suggested that as much as $30M could be raised from extramural sources to support this program. Since then, 29 letters of intent from UC faculty were selected out of 70 submissions for the planning phase of the online pilot courses. Despite the optimistic funding projections, however, only $748K in private funding from Next Generation Learning Challenges (funded by the Gates and Hewlett foundations) has been secured, and that funding requires that course material be open-source, available to others to freely use and adapt. The majority of funds for the online pilot courses are to come from a loan that UC will make to the program of up to $6.9M. The loan is intended to be repaid with fees from non-UC students taking the pilot online courses.
The members of the Council have received multiple expressions of concern from faculty about the changes in both the funding and planning for the project compared with that originally was endorsed by the Council. I am instructed by the Council to communicate the scope of the concerns raised across the campuses.
The Council’s concerns reflect neither on the work of our colleagues in crafting pilot course proposals, nor on our support for experimenting with online education to produce educational flexibility and to improve access to UC-quality courses for prospective transfer students. Rather, the Council’s questions are raised in relation to the pilot program as a whole, as outlined in the Project Plan: UC Online Education (March 24, 2011). There are questions on oversight and evaluation of the program, the dependence of the budget model on enrollments of non-UC students, the corresponding focus on lower division requirements and possible competition with the Community College mission, and the financial feasibility of paying back the loan. The program description, as well as any program protocols and communications regarding the program, must be clear that there is no guarantee of UC undergraduate admission upon completion of the online courses and that there is as of yet no mechanism for establishing eligibility for transfer on the basis of the courses in the program description. Additionally, there is no coherent curriculum design reflected in the courses, nor has a transfer curriculum been proposed as part of the program. The fundamental question of whether an on-line curriculum can or should provide the basis of a transfer curriculum separate from a course of study at an accredited institution has not been raised and remains to be addressed. The Council also questions how non-UC students' qualifications are to be determined and, given other equally attractive and perhaps more affordable online courses, whether the enrollments will be sufficient to be able to pay back the loan. In short, while the pilot project was intended to enhance access and to generate revenue, it is now unclear whether these goals may be meshed and met.
Council also notes that while the project description indicates that courses will be offered beginning July 2011, to our knowledge no course proposals have yet been submitted to Senate course committees for approval as part of the pilot project. We understand that at this point courses may not be sufficiently developed to move forward as part of the project. Yet the project description lists as a program “risk” the possibility that Senate courses committees will be slow to grant course approval. The Council wants to be clear that delays in implementation of the program beyond what is contemplated in the program description are not attributable to a lack of Senate action, but to the fact that the program proponents underestimated the time required to put courses into place. Senate evaluation should necessarily encompass both the intellectual content of the class materials and the modality of delivery.
Given these concerns, the Council advises that no additional online pilot courses be developed, beyond those currently selected and funded, until the following takes place:
(1) The evaluation procedure contemplated in the proposal must be conducted and then subjected to independent rigorous review in order to assess online courses that are taught in this pilot program. We fully appreciate that evaluation tools to assess the online program are a significant element of the project and, when developed, these tools might be useful to assess the quality of other courses within the UC system. The quality and desirability of the courses as a means of producing a high-quality online component to UC education should be assessed. The efficacy of the technological aspects of the course delivery (appropriate platform, testing mechanism, etc.), the business model beyond the pilot program (profitability), and the pros and cons of this educational direction for UC should be assessed.
(2) Any full proposal for expanding the online pilot program would be developed on the basis of the findings in (1), defining the proposed expansion, its aims and objectives, the scope and impact on the system, and the funding model.
On behalf of the Academic Council,
Daniel L. Simmons, Chair
Academic Council
Copy: Lawrence Pitts, Provost and EVP
Daniel Greenstein, Vice Provost
Robert Anderson, Academic Council Vice Chair
Academic Council
Martha Winnacker, Academic Senate Executive Director
PRESIDENT MARK G. YUDOF
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
Re: Online education pilot program
Dear Mark:
Last year the Academic Council endorsed the UC online education pilot program with the understanding that only private funding was to be used to support the program. At the time it was suggested that as much as $30M could be raised from extramural sources to support this program. Since then, 29 letters of intent from UC faculty were selected out of 70 submissions for the planning phase of the online pilot courses. Despite the optimistic funding projections, however, only $748K in private funding from Next Generation Learning Challenges (funded by the Gates and Hewlett foundations) has been secured, and that funding requires that course material be open-source, available to others to freely use and adapt. The majority of funds for the online pilot courses are to come from a loan that UC will make to the program of up to $6.9M. The loan is intended to be repaid with fees from non-UC students taking the pilot online courses.
The members of the Council have received multiple expressions of concern from faculty about the changes in both the funding and planning for the project compared with that originally was endorsed by the Council. I am instructed by the Council to communicate the scope of the concerns raised across the campuses.
The Council’s concerns reflect neither on the work of our colleagues in crafting pilot course proposals, nor on our support for experimenting with online education to produce educational flexibility and to improve access to UC-quality courses for prospective transfer students. Rather, the Council’s questions are raised in relation to the pilot program as a whole, as outlined in the Project Plan: UC Online Education (March 24, 2011). There are questions on oversight and evaluation of the program, the dependence of the budget model on enrollments of non-UC students, the corresponding focus on lower division requirements and possible competition with the Community College mission, and the financial feasibility of paying back the loan. The program description, as well as any program protocols and communications regarding the program, must be clear that there is no guarantee of UC undergraduate admission upon completion of the online courses and that there is as of yet no mechanism for establishing eligibility for transfer on the basis of the courses in the program description. Additionally, there is no coherent curriculum design reflected in the courses, nor has a transfer curriculum been proposed as part of the program. The fundamental question of whether an on-line curriculum can or should provide the basis of a transfer curriculum separate from a course of study at an accredited institution has not been raised and remains to be addressed. The Council also questions how non-UC students' qualifications are to be determined and, given other equally attractive and perhaps more affordable online courses, whether the enrollments will be sufficient to be able to pay back the loan. In short, while the pilot project was intended to enhance access and to generate revenue, it is now unclear whether these goals may be meshed and met.
Council also notes that while the project description indicates that courses will be offered beginning July 2011, to our knowledge no course proposals have yet been submitted to Senate course committees for approval as part of the pilot project. We understand that at this point courses may not be sufficiently developed to move forward as part of the project. Yet the project description lists as a program “risk” the possibility that Senate courses committees will be slow to grant course approval. The Council wants to be clear that delays in implementation of the program beyond what is contemplated in the program description are not attributable to a lack of Senate action, but to the fact that the program proponents underestimated the time required to put courses into place. Senate evaluation should necessarily encompass both the intellectual content of the class materials and the modality of delivery.
Given these concerns, the Council advises that no additional online pilot courses be developed, beyond those currently selected and funded, until the following takes place:
(1) The evaluation procedure contemplated in the proposal must be conducted and then subjected to independent rigorous review in order to assess online courses that are taught in this pilot program. We fully appreciate that evaluation tools to assess the online program are a significant element of the project and, when developed, these tools might be useful to assess the quality of other courses within the UC system. The quality and desirability of the courses as a means of producing a high-quality online component to UC education should be assessed. The efficacy of the technological aspects of the course delivery (appropriate platform, testing mechanism, etc.), the business model beyond the pilot program (profitability), and the pros and cons of this educational direction for UC should be assessed.
(2) Any full proposal for expanding the online pilot program would be developed on the basis of the findings in (1), defining the proposed expansion, its aims and objectives, the scope and impact on the system, and the funding model.
On behalf of the Academic Council,
Daniel L. Simmons, Chair
Academic Council
Copy: Lawrence Pitts, Provost and EVP
Daniel Greenstein, Vice Provost
Robert Anderson, Academic Council Vice Chair
Academic Council
Martha Winnacker, Academic Senate Executive Director
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
100 UCI FACULTY CALL FOR D.A. TO DROP CHARGES AGAINST STUDENT PROTESTERS
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Feb. 9, 2011
Contact: Erwin Chemerinsky, Dean, School of Law: 949-824-7722
Jon Wiener, Professor of History: 310-558-0132; wiener@uci.edu
100 UC Irvine Faculty Call on D.A. to Drop Charges against Students who Disrupted Israeli Ambassador’s Speech
100 faculty members at UCI, including five deans and 14 Chancellor’s Professors and Distinguished Professors, have signed a letter to the Orange County District Attorney Tony Rackauckas calling on him to drop criminal charges against 11 students who disrupted a speech on the UCI campus by the Israeli Ambassador to the US last year.
The group includes Dean of the Law School Erwin Chemerinsky, Dean of Social Ecology Valerie Jenness, Dean of Humanities Vicki Ruiz, and Dean of Undergraduate Education Sharon Salinger, as well as Executive Vice Dean of the Medicine F. Allan Hubbell.
The students face criminal conspiracy charges and six months in jail if convicted.
“The students were wrong to prevent a speaker invited to the campus from speaking and being heard,” the faculty letter says. “But the individual students and the Muslim Student Union were disciplined for this conduct by the University, including the MSU being suspended from being a student organization for a quarter.” University discipline, the faculty members said, was “sufficient.”
The criminal charges are “detrimental to our campus,” the faculty letter argues, calling the D.A.’s action “a dangerous precedent for the use of the criminal law against non-violent protests on campus.” It also criticized Rackauckas for risking “undoing the healing process which has occurred over the last year.”
Among those who signed the statement were Pulitzer Prize-winning writers Jack Miles and Barry Siegel, neurobiology pioneer James McGaugh, Penelope Maddy, famous for her work in the philosophy of mathematics, and award-winning historian of China Kenneth Pomeranz. Seven law professors also joined the call.
FULL TEXT OF STATEMENT AND SIGNATURES FOLLOWS
As faculty of the University of California, Irvine we are deeply distressed by the decision of the Orange County District Attorney to file criminal charges against the students who disrupted Ambassador Michael Oren’s speech on campus. The students were wrong to prevent a speaker invited to the campus from speaking and being heard. And the Muslim Student Union acted inappropriately in coordinating this and in misrepresenting its involvement to University officials. But the individual students and the Muslim Student Union were disciplined for this conduct by the University, including the MSU being suspended from being a student organization for a quarter. This is sufficient punishment. There is no need for criminal prosecution and criminal sanctions. The use of the criminal justice system will be detrimental to our campus as it inherently will be divisive and risk undoing the healing process which has occurred over the last year. It also sets a dangerous precedent for the use of the criminal law against non-violent protests on campus.
We urge the District Attorney to dismiss the criminal charges. At the very least, we urge the District Attorney and the students to agree to resolve the charges with the students performing community service and a short probation, after which the matter will be expunged from the students’ records.
Frank D. Bean, Chancellor's Professor of Sociology
Kitty Calavita, Chancellor’s Professor of Criminology, Law and Society
Erwin Chemerinsky, Dean, School of Law
Joseph F. C. DiMento, Professor of Law and Policy, Planning & Design
Valerie Jenness, Dean, School of Social Ecology
Catherine Liu, Director, Humanities Center
Duncan Luce, Distinguished Research Professor of Cognitive Science
Penelope Maddy, Distinguished Professor of Logic & Philosophy of Science
George Marcus, Chancellor’s Professor of Anthropology
James M. McGaugh, Research Professor, Neurobiology and Behavior
Carrie Menkel-Meadow, Chancellor’s Professor of Law
Jack Miles, Distinguished Professor of English and Religious Studies
Mark Petracca, Chair, Dept. of Political Science
Kenneth Pomeranz, Chancellor’s Professor of History
Vicki Ruiz, Dean, School of Humanities
Sharon Salinger, Dean of Undergraduate Education
Barry Siegel, Director, Literary Journalism Program
Brook Thomas, Chancellor’s Professor of English
Jeffrey Wasserstrom, Chair, Dept. of History
Henry Weinstein, Senior Lecturer in Law and Literary Journalism
Jon Wiener, Professor of History
Dan L. Burk, Chancellor's Professor of Law
Catherine Fisk, Chancellor's Professor of Law
David A. Snow, Chancellor's Professor of Sociology
F. Allan Hubbell, Executive Vice Dean, School of Medicine
Ngugi wa Thiong'o, Distinguished Professor of English & Comparative Literature
Etienne Balibar, Distinguished Professor of Humanities
Greg Duncan, Distinguished Professor of Education
Grace C. Tonner, Associate Dean of Lawyering Skills
Ulrike Strasser, Associate Professor, History and Director, European Studies
Irene Tucker, Associate Professor of English
James Given, Professor of History
Dickson D. Bruce, Jr., Professor of History, Emeritus
Hugh Roberts, Assoc. Prof. Dept. of English
Robert Newsom, Professor Emeritus, Department of English
Mark Poster, Emeritus Professor, Film and Media Studies and History
Sharon Block, Associate Professor of History
Ann Van Sant, English
Jennifer Terry, Chair and Associate Professor of Women's Studies
Laura J. Mitchell, Associate Professor of History
Emily Rosenberg, Professor of History
R. Radhakrishnan, Chancellor's Professor of English and Comparative Literature
Eyal Amiran, Associate Professor, Comparative Literature and Film and Media Studies
Jerome Christensen, Professor of English
Susan Jarratt, Comparative Literature
Rebeca Helfer, English Department
Annette Schlichter, Associate Professor, Comparative Literature
Timothy Tackett, Professor of History
Touraj Daryaee, History Department
Carolyn P. Boyd, Professor Emerita, Department of History
Amy Wilentz, Professor of English and Literary Journalism
Victoria Silver, Associate Professor of English
Alice Fahs, Associate Professor of History
Anne Walthall, Professor of History
Laura Kang, Associate Professor of Women's Studies
Alexander Gelley, Professor, Dept. of Comparative Literature
Elizabeth Allen, Associate Professor of English
Rubén G. Rumbaut, Professor of Sociology
David A. Smith, Professor of Sociology and Planning, Policy and Design
Sarah Farmer, Associate Professor of History
Raul Fernandez, Social Sciences/Chicano Latino Studies
Keith Nelson, Professor Emeritus of History, Director, Program in Religious Studies
Estela Zarate, Assistant Professor, Department of Education
Leo Chavez, Anthropology
Deborah R. Vargas, Assistant Professor, Chicano/Latino Studies
Thurston Domina, Assistant Professor of Education and Sociology
, DeSipio, Chair, Department of Chicano/Latino Studies
Jutta Heckhausen, Professor, Psychology and Social Behavior
Heidi Tinsman, Associate Professor of History
Ellen Burt, Professor of French and Comparative Literature
Belinda Robnett-Olsen, Associate Professor, Department of Sociology
Robert Folkenflik, Edward A. Dickson Emeritus Professor of English
Ron Carlson, Professor of English
Edwin Amenta, Professor of Sociology and History
Francesca Polletta, Professor of Sociology
Susan K. Brown, Associate Professor of Sociology
Adriana Johnson, Comparative Literature
Rachel Sarah O'Toole, Assistant Professor, History Department
Nancy McLaughlin, Assistant Professor, History Department
Steven C. Topik, Professor of History
Gilbert G. Gonzalez, Professor, Chicano-Latino Studies
Judy Stepan-Norris, Sociology
Julia Reinhard Lupton, Professor of English and Comparative Literature
Spencer Olin, Professor Emeritus of History
Glen Mimura, Associate Dean of Graduate Study, School of Humanities
Ana Elizabeth Rosas, Assistant Professor, Chicana/o-Latina/o Studies and History
Robert Moeller, Department of History
Elizabeth M. Guthrie, French, retired
Cecile Whiting, Chair, Department of Art History
Cynthia Feliciano, Associate Professor, Sociology and Chicano/Latino Studies
David S. Meyer, Professor, Sociology
Charlie Chubb, Professor, Cognitive Sciences
Alejandro Morales, Professor, Department of Chicano/Latino Studies
Ian Munro, Associate Professor of Drama
Luke Hegel-Cantarella, Head of Scenic Design - Claire Trevor School of the Arts
David Igler, Associate Professor of History
Stephen Barker, Associate Dean, Claire Trevor School of the Arts
Cliff Faulkner, Senior Lecturer, Drama Department
Vincent Olivieri, Designer/Composer/Assistant Professor, Drama Department
Carol Burke, Professor, English
Contact: Erwin Chemerinsky, Dean, School of Law: 949-824-7722
Jon Wiener, Professor of History: 310-558-0132; wiener@uci.edu
100 UC Irvine Faculty Call on D.A. to Drop Charges against Students who Disrupted Israeli Ambassador’s Speech
100 faculty members at UCI, including five deans and 14 Chancellor’s Professors and Distinguished Professors, have signed a letter to the Orange County District Attorney Tony Rackauckas calling on him to drop criminal charges against 11 students who disrupted a speech on the UCI campus by the Israeli Ambassador to the US last year.
The group includes Dean of the Law School Erwin Chemerinsky, Dean of Social Ecology Valerie Jenness, Dean of Humanities Vicki Ruiz, and Dean of Undergraduate Education Sharon Salinger, as well as Executive Vice Dean of the Medicine F. Allan Hubbell.
The students face criminal conspiracy charges and six months in jail if convicted.
“The students were wrong to prevent a speaker invited to the campus from speaking and being heard,” the faculty letter says. “But the individual students and the Muslim Student Union were disciplined for this conduct by the University, including the MSU being suspended from being a student organization for a quarter.” University discipline, the faculty members said, was “sufficient.”
The criminal charges are “detrimental to our campus,” the faculty letter argues, calling the D.A.’s action “a dangerous precedent for the use of the criminal law against non-violent protests on campus.” It also criticized Rackauckas for risking “undoing the healing process which has occurred over the last year.”
Among those who signed the statement were Pulitzer Prize-winning writers Jack Miles and Barry Siegel, neurobiology pioneer James McGaugh, Penelope Maddy, famous for her work in the philosophy of mathematics, and award-winning historian of China Kenneth Pomeranz. Seven law professors also joined the call.
FULL TEXT OF STATEMENT AND SIGNATURES FOLLOWS
As faculty of the University of California, Irvine we are deeply distressed by the decision of the Orange County District Attorney to file criminal charges against the students who disrupted Ambassador Michael Oren’s speech on campus. The students were wrong to prevent a speaker invited to the campus from speaking and being heard. And the Muslim Student Union acted inappropriately in coordinating this and in misrepresenting its involvement to University officials. But the individual students and the Muslim Student Union were disciplined for this conduct by the University, including the MSU being suspended from being a student organization for a quarter. This is sufficient punishment. There is no need for criminal prosecution and criminal sanctions. The use of the criminal justice system will be detrimental to our campus as it inherently will be divisive and risk undoing the healing process which has occurred over the last year. It also sets a dangerous precedent for the use of the criminal law against non-violent protests on campus.
We urge the District Attorney to dismiss the criminal charges. At the very least, we urge the District Attorney and the students to agree to resolve the charges with the students performing community service and a short probation, after which the matter will be expunged from the students’ records.
Frank D. Bean, Chancellor's Professor of Sociology
Kitty Calavita, Chancellor’s Professor of Criminology, Law and Society
Erwin Chemerinsky, Dean, School of Law
Joseph F. C. DiMento, Professor of Law and Policy, Planning & Design
Valerie Jenness, Dean, School of Social Ecology
Catherine Liu, Director, Humanities Center
Duncan Luce, Distinguished Research Professor of Cognitive Science
Penelope Maddy, Distinguished Professor of Logic & Philosophy of Science
George Marcus, Chancellor’s Professor of Anthropology
James M. McGaugh, Research Professor, Neurobiology and Behavior
Carrie Menkel-Meadow, Chancellor’s Professor of Law
Jack Miles, Distinguished Professor of English and Religious Studies
Mark Petracca, Chair, Dept. of Political Science
Kenneth Pomeranz, Chancellor’s Professor of History
Vicki Ruiz, Dean, School of Humanities
Sharon Salinger, Dean of Undergraduate Education
Barry Siegel, Director, Literary Journalism Program
Brook Thomas, Chancellor’s Professor of English
Jeffrey Wasserstrom, Chair, Dept. of History
Henry Weinstein, Senior Lecturer in Law and Literary Journalism
Jon Wiener, Professor of History
Dan L. Burk, Chancellor's Professor of Law
Catherine Fisk, Chancellor's Professor of Law
David A. Snow, Chancellor's Professor of Sociology
F. Allan Hubbell, Executive Vice Dean, School of Medicine
Ngugi wa Thiong'o, Distinguished Professor of English & Comparative Literature
Etienne Balibar, Distinguished Professor of Humanities
Greg Duncan, Distinguished Professor of Education
Grace C. Tonner, Associate Dean of Lawyering Skills
Ulrike Strasser, Associate Professor, History and Director, European Studies
Irene Tucker, Associate Professor of English
James Given, Professor of History
Dickson D. Bruce, Jr., Professor of History, Emeritus
Hugh Roberts, Assoc. Prof. Dept. of English
Robert Newsom, Professor Emeritus, Department of English
Mark Poster, Emeritus Professor, Film and Media Studies and History
Sharon Block, Associate Professor of History
Ann Van Sant, English
Jennifer Terry, Chair and Associate Professor of Women's Studies
Laura J. Mitchell, Associate Professor of History
Emily Rosenberg, Professor of History
R. Radhakrishnan, Chancellor's Professor of English and Comparative Literature
Eyal Amiran, Associate Professor, Comparative Literature and Film and Media Studies
Jerome Christensen, Professor of English
Susan Jarratt, Comparative Literature
Rebeca Helfer, English Department
Annette Schlichter, Associate Professor, Comparative Literature
Timothy Tackett, Professor of History
Touraj Daryaee, History Department
Carolyn P. Boyd, Professor Emerita, Department of History
Amy Wilentz, Professor of English and Literary Journalism
Victoria Silver, Associate Professor of English
Alice Fahs, Associate Professor of History
Anne Walthall, Professor of History
Laura Kang, Associate Professor of Women's Studies
Alexander Gelley, Professor, Dept. of Comparative Literature
Elizabeth Allen, Associate Professor of English
Rubén G. Rumbaut, Professor of Sociology
David A. Smith, Professor of Sociology and Planning, Policy and Design
Sarah Farmer, Associate Professor of History
Raul Fernandez, Social Sciences/Chicano Latino Studies
Keith Nelson, Professor Emeritus of History, Director, Program in Religious Studies
Estela Zarate, Assistant Professor, Department of Education
Leo Chavez, Anthropology
Deborah R. Vargas, Assistant Professor, Chicano/Latino Studies
Thurston Domina, Assistant Professor of Education and Sociology
, DeSipio, Chair, Department of Chicano/Latino Studies
Jutta Heckhausen, Professor, Psychology and Social Behavior
Heidi Tinsman, Associate Professor of History
Ellen Burt, Professor of French and Comparative Literature
Belinda Robnett-Olsen, Associate Professor, Department of Sociology
Robert Folkenflik, Edward A. Dickson Emeritus Professor of English
Ron Carlson, Professor of English
Edwin Amenta, Professor of Sociology and History
Francesca Polletta, Professor of Sociology
Susan K. Brown, Associate Professor of Sociology
Adriana Johnson, Comparative Literature
Rachel Sarah O'Toole, Assistant Professor, History Department
Nancy McLaughlin, Assistant Professor, History Department
Steven C. Topik, Professor of History
Gilbert G. Gonzalez, Professor, Chicano-Latino Studies
Judy Stepan-Norris, Sociology
Julia Reinhard Lupton, Professor of English and Comparative Literature
Spencer Olin, Professor Emeritus of History
Glen Mimura, Associate Dean of Graduate Study, School of Humanities
Ana Elizabeth Rosas, Assistant Professor, Chicana/o-Latina/o Studies and History
Robert Moeller, Department of History
Elizabeth M. Guthrie, French, retired
Cecile Whiting, Chair, Department of Art History
Cynthia Feliciano, Associate Professor, Sociology and Chicano/Latino Studies
David S. Meyer, Professor, Sociology
Charlie Chubb, Professor, Cognitive Sciences
Alejandro Morales, Professor, Department of Chicano/Latino Studies
Ian Munro, Associate Professor of Drama
Luke Hegel-Cantarella, Head of Scenic Design - Claire Trevor School of the Arts
David Igler, Associate Professor of History
Stephen Barker, Associate Dean, Claire Trevor School of the Arts
Cliff Faulkner, Senior Lecturer, Drama Department
Vincent Olivieri, Designer/Composer/Assistant Professor, Drama Department
Carol Burke, Professor, English
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
Yudof Statement to the Legislature on the Proposed Budget Cuts (2/7/11)
Following is University of California President Mark G. Yudof's statement to the California Assembly Budget Subcommittee at the state Capitol in Sacramento on Monday, Feb. 7, 2011.
As prepared for delivery
Thank You, Madam Chair and Members of the Committee:
I am here today to offer my assessment – and answer any questions you might have – about the University of California’s immediate fiscal situation, especially as it relates to the reductions proposed by the governor.
But, before the wailing and gnashing of teeth begins, I’d first like to look beyond the horizon a bit, to talk about the needs of California and the role that the three systems of public higher education must be able to play if this state is to move forward and thrive.
California was given one great Gold Rush, and that was a long time ago. Since then, we climbed our way to the top by out-thinking and out-creating and out-innovating the world.
To succeed – (and I would say building the world’s eighth-largest economy is a pretty good marker of success) – has required topflight systems of education, public education.
And that will be even more critical in the future, as the world flattens and human capital becomes king. This is just a fact.
I know I don’t need to sell any of you on the importance of education and the need to invigorate our economy and society with an educated populace and game-changing research.
Madam Chair has taught school. Other committee members have led school districts. Most of you came up through the Cal State or community college systems.
So you know how the pieces that Chancellors Reed and Scott and I represent all fit together under the California Master Plan. And you know that Master Plan for 50 years has served as the state’s not-so-secret ingredient in its formula for success.
Of course, the Master Plan, for all its wonders, has a problem.
The problem is that it has not been adequately funded for years. Adjusting for inflation, state investment in UC students is less than half of what it was 20 years ago.
Here’s another way of looking at what’s happened: The governor’s proposed budget will ratchet back state support for UC to a level it last saw in fiscal year 1998-99 – and since that time we’ve added 73,000 more students to our universe. Same amount of money; enough additional students to fill UC Berkeley — twice.
Now the governor says that he wants to quit kicking cans down the road and instead engage Californians in an honest conversation about just what scale of government they are willing to support with their tax dollars.
I take him at his word and I am eager, along with my colleagues at the table, to join that conversation. We think we have a pretty good story to tell.
In the meantime, though, we must act. At UC, I’ve given our campuses targets for cutting their budgets. Our central office in Oakland also will be looking at significant cuts, even as it leads a systemwide effort to wring $500 million in savings through innovative operational efficiencies.
These proposed cuts will be put before our governing Board of Regents in mid-March. While this is still a work in progress, it’s already clear that this process won’t produce a pretty picture.
The low-hanging fruit was picked long ago. We are looking at layoffs. We are looking at program elimination, at shrinking the enterprise.
We undertake this exercise not to monger fear. We can’t scare anybody into giving us money that isn’t there. We also have to remember that, under the governor’s proposal, the numbers we are dealing with represent only the best-case scenario.
And the numbers don’t lie. When additional mandatory costs are factored in, along with what we are now paying into our pension system and the cost of educating 11,000 students who are unfunded by the state, the fact is that we will be looking to slice $1 billion out of our 10-campus system.
This will be the second time in three years we have done so.
The last time around, we looked to student fee increases and systemwide furloughs to squeak by. These will not be my first choices this time. But, as you know, the first rule in this environment is to never say never.
As a public university, we pride ourselves on access, affordability and excellence. These are our lodestars.
With the cuts as proposed, we are moving perilously close to the point where we can no longer do all three.
We can be accessible (with our doors wide open to all eligible students) and affordable (with tuition levels that compare well to those of our peers). But we cannot do so and ensure excellence.
We can be excellent and fully accessible, but it will mean chucking affordability out the door.
And we can be affordable and excellent, but we can’t do so and maintain the enrollment promises enshrined in the Master Plan.
Unless we find a way to reverse this trend of disinvestment, something simply must give.
In my view, we can’t give up on excellence. Generations of Californians invested in this university and watched it grow into an envy of the world. You can destroy what took 15 decades to build in a matter of a few short years, and never get it back.
I’m also not going to surrender on the question of preserving our standing as a public university.
Nearly 40 percent of our students come from families earning less than $50,000 a year, many of them the first in their family to attend a university.
The reach of our research stretches from strawberry fields to the farthest stars.
These sorts of things are what a public university must do, and I’m determined to do everything in my power to ensure that at the University of California this doesn’t change.
But consider this: If the governor’s proposed cuts are enacted, it will mean that for the first time in our shared history, the students and families of the University of California will be contributing more to our core operating budget than California taxpayers.
That should be worrisome to anyone who believes that what we provide is a public good, and not a private one.
So all this leads me to a pretty sobering conclusion. If we must preserve excellence, and we must strive to remain affordable, that leaves us with access.
If trends are not reversed, we will soon approach the day when we will be forced to tell qualified California high school graduates that there no longer is a place for them at a UC campus.
That is where we are headed.
So how can we avoid this?
Let me leave you with a few ideas.
First, we need to work out with you and your colleagues in Sacramento a long-term arrangement (compact, I know, has become a dirty word in this context.)
We will emerge from this budget process with a new floor and find a way to live with it. We will push a reset button.
In exchange, though, we need commitments going forward of stable, sustainable funding increases, so that we can plan and grow in an orderly fashion and prepare to serve a California populace that inevitably is going to grow and place greater pressure on our public universities.
Structured properly, this arrangement also could allow California families to make college plans with greater clarity when it comes to their costs.
The California Dream need not die with the baby boomers. There is a new California coming forward, and it deserves to be served.
More immediately, I ask for flexibility. Universities, especially research universities, are complicated. One size never fits all. So we ask for the legislature to support the governor’s request for an unallocated reduction to the UC Budget.
In this vein, I’d also ask for support of legislation that would leverage the university’s borrowing power and its $400 million in shovel-ready projects into a job stimulus initiative, providing a boost for a construction industry that faces 20 percent unemployment.
I ask for fairness. Should further cuts become necessary or, more happily, should fiscal conditions improve, I would ask you to compare proportionately the cuts made to higher education to those of other state entities.
As an aside, I would point out here that, for every dollar invested by the state in the University of California, we return four dollars in tax revenue to the state general fund. And for every dollar the state invests in our research, we generate another eight dollars from non-state sources.
Finally, I would ask you to engage with us, to consider us your partner in working through these dark and dreary times. With the expertise that populates our campuses, with alumni rolls filled with some of California’s most innovative minds and, of course, with the passion and people power that our 230,000 students represent, we can be an effective ally.
And we stand willing to serve.
Madam Chair, this concludes my testimony.
As prepared for delivery
Thank You, Madam Chair and Members of the Committee:
I am here today to offer my assessment – and answer any questions you might have – about the University of California’s immediate fiscal situation, especially as it relates to the reductions proposed by the governor.
But, before the wailing and gnashing of teeth begins, I’d first like to look beyond the horizon a bit, to talk about the needs of California and the role that the three systems of public higher education must be able to play if this state is to move forward and thrive.
California was given one great Gold Rush, and that was a long time ago. Since then, we climbed our way to the top by out-thinking and out-creating and out-innovating the world.
To succeed – (and I would say building the world’s eighth-largest economy is a pretty good marker of success) – has required topflight systems of education, public education.
And that will be even more critical in the future, as the world flattens and human capital becomes king. This is just a fact.
I know I don’t need to sell any of you on the importance of education and the need to invigorate our economy and society with an educated populace and game-changing research.
Madam Chair has taught school. Other committee members have led school districts. Most of you came up through the Cal State or community college systems.
So you know how the pieces that Chancellors Reed and Scott and I represent all fit together under the California Master Plan. And you know that Master Plan for 50 years has served as the state’s not-so-secret ingredient in its formula for success.
Of course, the Master Plan, for all its wonders, has a problem.
The problem is that it has not been adequately funded for years. Adjusting for inflation, state investment in UC students is less than half of what it was 20 years ago.
Here’s another way of looking at what’s happened: The governor’s proposed budget will ratchet back state support for UC to a level it last saw in fiscal year 1998-99 – and since that time we’ve added 73,000 more students to our universe. Same amount of money; enough additional students to fill UC Berkeley — twice.
Now the governor says that he wants to quit kicking cans down the road and instead engage Californians in an honest conversation about just what scale of government they are willing to support with their tax dollars.
I take him at his word and I am eager, along with my colleagues at the table, to join that conversation. We think we have a pretty good story to tell.
In the meantime, though, we must act. At UC, I’ve given our campuses targets for cutting their budgets. Our central office in Oakland also will be looking at significant cuts, even as it leads a systemwide effort to wring $500 million in savings through innovative operational efficiencies.
These proposed cuts will be put before our governing Board of Regents in mid-March. While this is still a work in progress, it’s already clear that this process won’t produce a pretty picture.
The low-hanging fruit was picked long ago. We are looking at layoffs. We are looking at program elimination, at shrinking the enterprise.
We undertake this exercise not to monger fear. We can’t scare anybody into giving us money that isn’t there. We also have to remember that, under the governor’s proposal, the numbers we are dealing with represent only the best-case scenario.
And the numbers don’t lie. When additional mandatory costs are factored in, along with what we are now paying into our pension system and the cost of educating 11,000 students who are unfunded by the state, the fact is that we will be looking to slice $1 billion out of our 10-campus system.
This will be the second time in three years we have done so.
The last time around, we looked to student fee increases and systemwide furloughs to squeak by. These will not be my first choices this time. But, as you know, the first rule in this environment is to never say never.
As a public university, we pride ourselves on access, affordability and excellence. These are our lodestars.
With the cuts as proposed, we are moving perilously close to the point where we can no longer do all three.
We can be accessible (with our doors wide open to all eligible students) and affordable (with tuition levels that compare well to those of our peers). But we cannot do so and ensure excellence.
We can be excellent and fully accessible, but it will mean chucking affordability out the door.
And we can be affordable and excellent, but we can’t do so and maintain the enrollment promises enshrined in the Master Plan.
Unless we find a way to reverse this trend of disinvestment, something simply must give.
In my view, we can’t give up on excellence. Generations of Californians invested in this university and watched it grow into an envy of the world. You can destroy what took 15 decades to build in a matter of a few short years, and never get it back.
I’m also not going to surrender on the question of preserving our standing as a public university.
Nearly 40 percent of our students come from families earning less than $50,000 a year, many of them the first in their family to attend a university.
The reach of our research stretches from strawberry fields to the farthest stars.
These sorts of things are what a public university must do, and I’m determined to do everything in my power to ensure that at the University of California this doesn’t change.
But consider this: If the governor’s proposed cuts are enacted, it will mean that for the first time in our shared history, the students and families of the University of California will be contributing more to our core operating budget than California taxpayers.
That should be worrisome to anyone who believes that what we provide is a public good, and not a private one.
So all this leads me to a pretty sobering conclusion. If we must preserve excellence, and we must strive to remain affordable, that leaves us with access.
If trends are not reversed, we will soon approach the day when we will be forced to tell qualified California high school graduates that there no longer is a place for them at a UC campus.
That is where we are headed.
So how can we avoid this?
Let me leave you with a few ideas.
First, we need to work out with you and your colleagues in Sacramento a long-term arrangement (compact, I know, has become a dirty word in this context.)
We will emerge from this budget process with a new floor and find a way to live with it. We will push a reset button.
In exchange, though, we need commitments going forward of stable, sustainable funding increases, so that we can plan and grow in an orderly fashion and prepare to serve a California populace that inevitably is going to grow and place greater pressure on our public universities.
Structured properly, this arrangement also could allow California families to make college plans with greater clarity when it comes to their costs.
The California Dream need not die with the baby boomers. There is a new California coming forward, and it deserves to be served.
More immediately, I ask for flexibility. Universities, especially research universities, are complicated. One size never fits all. So we ask for the legislature to support the governor’s request for an unallocated reduction to the UC Budget.
In this vein, I’d also ask for support of legislation that would leverage the university’s borrowing power and its $400 million in shovel-ready projects into a job stimulus initiative, providing a boost for a construction industry that faces 20 percent unemployment.
I ask for fairness. Should further cuts become necessary or, more happily, should fiscal conditions improve, I would ask you to compare proportionately the cuts made to higher education to those of other state entities.
As an aside, I would point out here that, for every dollar invested by the state in the University of California, we return four dollars in tax revenue to the state general fund. And for every dollar the state invests in our research, we generate another eight dollars from non-state sources.
Finally, I would ask you to engage with us, to consider us your partner in working through these dark and dreary times. With the expertise that populates our campuses, with alumni rolls filled with some of California’s most innovative minds and, of course, with the passion and people power that our 230,000 students represent, we can be an effective ally.
And we stand willing to serve.
Madam Chair, this concludes my testimony.
Thursday, January 20, 2011
UC Berkeley Hires New Vice Chancellor - Administration and Finance
From: "Robert J. Birgeneau, Chancellor"
Date: January 20, 2011 10:02:24 AM PST
To: "Staff, All Academic Titles
Subject: Appointment of the Vice-Chancellor Administration and Finance
It gives me very great pleasure to announce the appointment of John Wilton as Vice Chancellor - Administration and Finance. John was identified to fill this critical position for the Berkeley campus from a field of outstanding candidates in a nation-wide search following the move of Nathan Brostrom to the Office of the President. John is expected to begin his new position on February 1st.
John Wilton has extensive experience in both the public and private sector. For almost 25 years, he worked at the World Bank - a complex, global organization with an annual budget of $2Billion that provides low-interest loans, interest-free credits, grants and policy advice to developing countries for a wide array of purposes to assist their advancement, including in education. While there, he worked in most parts of the Bank, including operations in Africa, Asia and Eastern Europe as well as in the Economic Research and Treasury departments. He also undertook two overseas assignments working on specific economic policy issues in Indonesia and the broader set of issues related to the process of transition to a market economy in Eastern Europe. In 2002, he became Vice President for Strategy, Finance and Risk, and two years later was named Chief Financial Officer. During this time he was responsible for defining the Bank's overall business strategy, overseeing its financial policies and risk management functions, and ensuring that the administrative budget was consistent with the Bank's financial outlook and aligned with its strategic priorities. He oversaw a team of over 400 staff at the World Bank.
Since leaving the Bank in 2006, John has worked as a Managing Director and the Director of International Research for Farallon Capital Management LLC, a global multi-strategy US-based investment manager. He was also a consultant to Hellman & Friedman, a private equity firm. John provided these firms with global macroeconomic advice and research on specific issues.
John grew up and was educated in the United Kingdom, where he attended the University of Sussex, receiving his Bachelor's and Master's degrees in economics and statistics. He then spent two years working as an economist for the Government of Tanzania before returning to the UK to study at the University of Cambridge for his PhD in economics. He was working on his doctoral degree when he left to join the World Bank.
John will play an instrumental leadership role at UC Berkeley at a time of continuing and challenging resource constraints, partnering with the Chancellor and the Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost to set long-range administrative and financial goals, and in management of the campus, the development of campus policies, and the distribution and utilization of financial, capital and human resources.
This Vice Chancellor position has broadened to include leadership of increasingly urgent campus priorities: the continuing design and implementation of Operational Excellence, the campus's initiative to reduce costs and improve campus operations; stabilization of the budget; and the establishment of a sustainable financial model for the future. The focus on these goals as the immediate agenda led to a change in title from Vice Chancellor-Administration to Vice Chancellor-Administration and Finance. Associate Vice Chancellor Erin Gore will continue to serve as chief financial officer, reporting directly to John.
I am most grateful to Vice Chancellor Frank Yeary and Associate Vice Chancellor, Business and Administrative Services, Ron Coley, who have set aside some of their other priorities to help us manage this critical portfolio, while we searched to fill this position.
I also want to express my thanks to the search committee, which was aided by the consulting firm of Spencer Stuart, for their outstanding work in advising me on this appointment.
Please join me in warmly welcoming John Wilton to UC Berkeley.
A press release announcing the appointment will be posted later today on the campus NewsCenter
Robert J. Birgeneau
Chancellor
Date: January 20, 2011 10:02:24 AM PST
To: "Staff, All Academic Titles
Subject: Appointment of the Vice-Chancellor Administration and Finance
It gives me very great pleasure to announce the appointment of John Wilton as Vice Chancellor - Administration and Finance. John was identified to fill this critical position for the Berkeley campus from a field of outstanding candidates in a nation-wide search following the move of Nathan Brostrom to the Office of the President. John is expected to begin his new position on February 1st.
John Wilton has extensive experience in both the public and private sector. For almost 25 years, he worked at the World Bank - a complex, global organization with an annual budget of $2Billion that provides low-interest loans, interest-free credits, grants and policy advice to developing countries for a wide array of purposes to assist their advancement, including in education. While there, he worked in most parts of the Bank, including operations in Africa, Asia and Eastern Europe as well as in the Economic Research and Treasury departments. He also undertook two overseas assignments working on specific economic policy issues in Indonesia and the broader set of issues related to the process of transition to a market economy in Eastern Europe. In 2002, he became Vice President for Strategy, Finance and Risk, and two years later was named Chief Financial Officer. During this time he was responsible for defining the Bank's overall business strategy, overseeing its financial policies and risk management functions, and ensuring that the administrative budget was consistent with the Bank's financial outlook and aligned with its strategic priorities. He oversaw a team of over 400 staff at the World Bank.
Since leaving the Bank in 2006, John has worked as a Managing Director and the Director of International Research for Farallon Capital Management LLC, a global multi-strategy US-based investment manager. He was also a consultant to Hellman & Friedman, a private equity firm. John provided these firms with global macroeconomic advice and research on specific issues.
John grew up and was educated in the United Kingdom, where he attended the University of Sussex, receiving his Bachelor's and Master's degrees in economics and statistics. He then spent two years working as an economist for the Government of Tanzania before returning to the UK to study at the University of Cambridge for his PhD in economics. He was working on his doctoral degree when he left to join the World Bank.
John will play an instrumental leadership role at UC Berkeley at a time of continuing and challenging resource constraints, partnering with the Chancellor and the Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost to set long-range administrative and financial goals, and in management of the campus, the development of campus policies, and the distribution and utilization of financial, capital and human resources.
This Vice Chancellor position has broadened to include leadership of increasingly urgent campus priorities: the continuing design and implementation of Operational Excellence, the campus's initiative to reduce costs and improve campus operations; stabilization of the budget; and the establishment of a sustainable financial model for the future. The focus on these goals as the immediate agenda led to a change in title from Vice Chancellor-Administration to Vice Chancellor-Administration and Finance. Associate Vice Chancellor Erin Gore will continue to serve as chief financial officer, reporting directly to John.
I am most grateful to Vice Chancellor Frank Yeary and Associate Vice Chancellor, Business and Administrative Services, Ron Coley, who have set aside some of their other priorities to help us manage this critical portfolio, while we searched to fill this position.
I also want to express my thanks to the search committee, which was aided by the consulting firm of Spencer Stuart, for their outstanding work in advising me on this appointment.
Please join me in warmly welcoming John Wilton to UC Berkeley.
A press release announcing the appointment will be posted later today on the campus NewsCenter
Robert J. Birgeneau
Chancellor
Friday, January 14, 2011
Operation Excellence Memo
A message to members of the Berkeley campus community from the Operational Excellence Executive Committee
While we continue to absorb this week’s budget announcement from Governor Jerry Brown of a proposed $500 million reduction to the University of California state appropriation and study its implications for the Berkeley campus, we are more than ever convinced of the importance of the success of Operational Excellence (OE). We want to take this opportunity to update the campus about the progress of Operational Excellence and specifically, the results of one part of the organizational simplification initiative begun last fall that addresses our management structures.
We have for some time now been pursuing a number of different approaches to meet our budget challenges and reduce our reliance on state funding. Our plans have focused on both revenue increases and cost reductions and include both short- and long-term strategies. We have realized revenues through growing philanthropy, increasing research funding, higher student fees, and a rise in the number of students paying non-resident tuition.
Operational Excellence is a major strategy for reducing our administrative costs while simultaneously improving the quality of our operations. OE is designed to create efficiency, improve organizational performance, and reduce our costs over the next three years, on a recurring and ongoing basis, by at least $75 million dollars per year.
The Operational Excellence diagnostic report, completed and accepted in Spring 2010, identified that contrary to best practice in well-run organizations, we have too many supervisors who supervise only a few people and that elimination of management layers could save up to $20 million annually. In September, we set out to design new organizational structures across campus by asking our Deans and Vice-Chancellors, including the Chancellor’s office, to have unit restructuring plans ready to implement in early 2011 which would meet savings targets by creating higher spans of control, that is, having fewer supervisors manage more people.
While unit restructuring is never an easy or simple exercise, I am pleased to report that
our Deans and Vice Chancellors put forward extremely high quality submissions that collectively exceeded our expectations. In total, the plans prepared by the unit leaders will deliver savings of as much as $20 million. As importantly, we will create a flatter and healthier organizational structure which will have about one third fewer managers and will focus our best managers on developing talent and actively managing the organization.
The campus expects to eliminate approximately 280 full time positions, half involuntarily and half through removal of vacant positions, retirements and voluntary separations, mostly before June 2011. Although this is positive news for our cost savings effort, we are saddened to announce that nearly 150 staff on our campus will be laid off. The reductions in our staff workforce have already begun and will continue through this fiscal year and beyond. Those leaving will be notified by their managers, with appropriate severance arrangements for those who qualify, including training and counseling services. We want to express our thanks and recognition to the staff who are leaving for their service to the university.
The reductions in workforce span all levels of our organization, including mid-management levels; about one-quarter of the positions eliminated have salaries plus benefits of $100,000 and above. We have significantly reduced the number of managers who supervised fewer than three people. Prior to the restructuring about 45 percent of our supervisors had fewer than three direct reports. Now, this has been reduced to 20 percent, and the campus has achieved an over-all average span of seven direct reports per supervisor. This significant elimination of layers of reporting will make us more nimble and productive.
We are encouraged by these initial results that we will meet our overall goals for Operational Excellence. Wide engagement with the campus has taken place for the second phase of Organizational Simplification, the designing of shared service centers for the delivery of common administrative functions in Human Resources, Finance, and Information Technology. A draft report for campus comment will be published in the next month. The remaining six initiatives, Information Technology, Energy, High Performance Culture, Procurement, Finance, and Human Resources continue to evolve their business cases and plans.
As was stated last September in a Chancellor’s memo, these are particularly stressful times for our staff and for managers who are working to realize these changes. We repeat how important it is that we all acknowledge the critical role that Berkeley managers and staff play in the success of our teaching and research mission. We are committed to treating all of our employees with dignity, respect and fairness while recognizing that in the end, we will have fewer administrative positions on campus. In addition to crafting a somewhat smaller workforce, our goal is to rationalize policies and procedures such that many staff will find their jobs more rewarding and less frustrating. As the OE initiatives are implemented, staff will continue to have opportunities for career growth.
We want to thank all of the many initiative sponsors, managers and volunteers who are engaged in helping us develop our plans, and our campus community for its engagement with this important effort. Your unit heads will be able to answer questions you may have about your individual unit restructuring. The OE Program Office will continue to provide information and updates on progress on their website athttp://oe.berkeley.edu
Robert J. Birgeneau, Chancellor
George Breslauer, Executive Vice-Chancellor and Provost
Frank Yeary, Vice-Chancellor
Andrew Szeri, Operational Excellence Program Head and Dean of the Graduate Division
While we continue to absorb this week’s budget announcement from Governor Jerry Brown of a proposed $500 million reduction to the University of California state appropriation and study its implications for the Berkeley campus, we are more than ever convinced of the importance of the success of Operational Excellence (OE). We want to take this opportunity to update the campus about the progress of Operational Excellence and specifically, the results of one part of the organizational simplification initiative begun last fall that addresses our management structures.
We have for some time now been pursuing a number of different approaches to meet our budget challenges and reduce our reliance on state funding. Our plans have focused on both revenue increases and cost reductions and include both short- and long-term strategies. We have realized revenues through growing philanthropy, increasing research funding, higher student fees, and a rise in the number of students paying non-resident tuition.
Operational Excellence is a major strategy for reducing our administrative costs while simultaneously improving the quality of our operations. OE is designed to create efficiency, improve organizational performance, and reduce our costs over the next three years, on a recurring and ongoing basis, by at least $75 million dollars per year.
The Operational Excellence diagnostic report, completed and accepted in Spring 2010, identified that contrary to best practice in well-run organizations, we have too many supervisors who supervise only a few people and that elimination of management layers could save up to $20 million annually. In September, we set out to design new organizational structures across campus by asking our Deans and Vice-Chancellors, including the Chancellor’s office, to have unit restructuring plans ready to implement in early 2011 which would meet savings targets by creating higher spans of control, that is, having fewer supervisors manage more people.
While unit restructuring is never an easy or simple exercise, I am pleased to report that
our Deans and Vice Chancellors put forward extremely high quality submissions that collectively exceeded our expectations. In total, the plans prepared by the unit leaders will deliver savings of as much as $20 million. As importantly, we will create a flatter and healthier organizational structure which will have about one third fewer managers and will focus our best managers on developing talent and actively managing the organization.
The campus expects to eliminate approximately 280 full time positions, half involuntarily and half through removal of vacant positions, retirements and voluntary separations, mostly before June 2011. Although this is positive news for our cost savings effort, we are saddened to announce that nearly 150 staff on our campus will be laid off. The reductions in our staff workforce have already begun and will continue through this fiscal year and beyond. Those leaving will be notified by their managers, with appropriate severance arrangements for those who qualify, including training and counseling services. We want to express our thanks and recognition to the staff who are leaving for their service to the university.
The reductions in workforce span all levels of our organization, including mid-management levels; about one-quarter of the positions eliminated have salaries plus benefits of $100,000 and above. We have significantly reduced the number of managers who supervised fewer than three people. Prior to the restructuring about 45 percent of our supervisors had fewer than three direct reports. Now, this has been reduced to 20 percent, and the campus has achieved an over-all average span of seven direct reports per supervisor. This significant elimination of layers of reporting will make us more nimble and productive.
We are encouraged by these initial results that we will meet our overall goals for Operational Excellence. Wide engagement with the campus has taken place for the second phase of Organizational Simplification, the designing of shared service centers for the delivery of common administrative functions in Human Resources, Finance, and Information Technology. A draft report for campus comment will be published in the next month. The remaining six initiatives, Information Technology, Energy, High Performance Culture, Procurement, Finance, and Human Resources continue to evolve their business cases and plans.
As was stated last September in a Chancellor’s memo, these are particularly stressful times for our staff and for managers who are working to realize these changes. We repeat how important it is that we all acknowledge the critical role that Berkeley managers and staff play in the success of our teaching and research mission. We are committed to treating all of our employees with dignity, respect and fairness while recognizing that in the end, we will have fewer administrative positions on campus. In addition to crafting a somewhat smaller workforce, our goal is to rationalize policies and procedures such that many staff will find their jobs more rewarding and less frustrating. As the OE initiatives are implemented, staff will continue to have opportunities for career growth.
We want to thank all of the many initiative sponsors, managers and volunteers who are engaged in helping us develop our plans, and our campus community for its engagement with this important effort. Your unit heads will be able to answer questions you may have about your individual unit restructuring. The OE Program Office will continue to provide information and updates on progress on their website at
Robert J. Birgeneau, Chancellor
George Breslauer, Executive Vice-Chancellor and Provost
Frank Yeary, Vice-Chancellor
Andrew Szeri, Operational Excellence Program Head and Dean of the Graduate Division
Thursday, January 13, 2011
Berkeley's Operational Excellence: Layoffs and Retirements for Staff But not for Upper Administration (1/13/11)
A message to members of the Berkeley campus community from the Operational Excellence Executive Committee
While we continue to absorb this week’s budget announcement from Governor Jerry Brown of a proposed $500 million reduction to the University of California state appropriation and study its implications for the Berkeley campus, we are more than ever convinced of the importance of the success of Operational Excellence (OE). We want to take this opportunity to update the campus about the progress of Operational Excellence and specifically, the results of one part of the organizational simplification initiative begun last fall that addresses our management structures.
We have for some time now been pursuing a number of different approaches to meet our budget challenges and reduce our reliance on state funding. Our plans have focused on both revenue increases and cost reductions and include both short- and long-term strategies. We have realized revenues through growing philanthropy, increasing research funding, higher student fees, and a rise in the number of students paying non-resident tuition.
Operational Excellence is a major strategy for reducing our administrative costs while simultaneously improving the quality of our operations. OE is designed to create efficiency, improve organizational performance, and reduce our costs over the next three years, on a recurring and ongoing basis, by at least $75 million dollars per year.
The Operational Excellence diagnostic report, completed and accepted in Spring 2010, identified that contrary to best practice in well-run organizations, we have too many supervisors who supervise only a few people and that elimination of management layers could save up to $20 million annually. In September, we set out to design new organizational structures across campus by asking our Deans and Vice-Chancellors, including the Chancellor’s office, to have unit restructuring plans ready to implement in early 2011 which would meet savings targets by creating higher spans of control, that is, having fewer supervisors manage more people.
While unit restructuring is never an easy or simple exercise, I am pleased to report that our Deans and Vice Chancellors put forward extremely high quality submissions that collectively exceeded our expectations. In total, the plans prepared by the unit leaders will deliver savings of as much as $20 million. As importantly, we will create a flatter and healthier organizational structure which will have about one third fewer managers and will focus our best managers on developing talent and actively managing the organization.
The campus expects to eliminate approximately 280 full time positions, half involuntarily and half through removal of vacant positions, retirements and voluntary separations, mostly before June 2011. Although this is positive news for our cost savings effort, we are saddened to announce that nearly 150 staff on our campus will be laid off. The reductions in our staff workforce have already begun and will continue through this fiscal year and beyond. Those leaving will be notified by their managers, with appropriate severance arrangements for those who qualify, including training and counseling services. We want to express our thanks and recognition to the staff who are leaving for their service to the university.
The reductions in workforce span all levels of our organization, including mid-management levels; about one-quarter of the positions eliminated have salaries plus benefits of $100,000 and above. We have significantly reduced the number of managers who supervised fewer than three people. Prior to the restructuring about 45 percent of our supervisors had fewer than three direct reports. Now, this has been reduced to 20 percent, and the campus has achieved an over-all average span of seven direct reports per supervisor. This significant elimination of layers of reporting will make us more nimble and productive.
We are encouraged by these initial results that we will meet our overall goals for Operational Excellence. Wide engagement with the campus has taken place for the second phase of Organizational Simplification, the designing of shared service centers for the delivery of common administrative functions in Human Resources, Finance, and Information Technology. A draft report for campus comment will be published in the next month. The remaining six initiatives, Information Technology, Energy, High Performance Culture, Procurement, Finance, and Human Resources continue to evolve their business cases and plans.
As was stated last September in a Chancellor’s memo, these are particularly stressful times for our staff and for managers who are working to realize these changes. We repeat how important it is that we all acknowledge the critical role that Berkeley managers and staff play in the success of our teaching and research mission. We are committed to treating all of our employees with dignity, respect and fairness while recognizing that in the end, we will have fewer administrative positions on campus. In addition to crafting a somewhat smaller workforce, our goal is to rationalize policies and procedures such that many staff will find their jobs more rewarding and less frustrating. As the OE initiatives are implemented, staff will continue to have opportunities for career growth.
We want to thank all of the many initiative sponsors, managers and volunteers who are engaged in helping us develop our plans, and our campus community for its engagement with this important effort. Your unit heads will be able to answer questions you may have about your individual unit restructuring. The OE Program Office will continue to provide information and updates on progress on their website at http://oe.berkeley.edu
Robert J. Birgeneau, Chancellor
George Breslauer, Executive Vice-Chancellor and Provost
Frank Yeary, Vice-Chancellor
Andrew Szeri, Operational Excellence Program Head and Dean of the Graduate Division
While we continue to absorb this week’s budget announcement from Governor Jerry Brown of a proposed $500 million reduction to the University of California state appropriation and study its implications for the Berkeley campus, we are more than ever convinced of the importance of the success of Operational Excellence (OE). We want to take this opportunity to update the campus about the progress of Operational Excellence and specifically, the results of one part of the organizational simplification initiative begun last fall that addresses our management structures.
We have for some time now been pursuing a number of different approaches to meet our budget challenges and reduce our reliance on state funding. Our plans have focused on both revenue increases and cost reductions and include both short- and long-term strategies. We have realized revenues through growing philanthropy, increasing research funding, higher student fees, and a rise in the number of students paying non-resident tuition.
Operational Excellence is a major strategy for reducing our administrative costs while simultaneously improving the quality of our operations. OE is designed to create efficiency, improve organizational performance, and reduce our costs over the next three years, on a recurring and ongoing basis, by at least $75 million dollars per year.
The Operational Excellence diagnostic report, completed and accepted in Spring 2010, identified that contrary to best practice in well-run organizations, we have too many supervisors who supervise only a few people and that elimination of management layers could save up to $20 million annually. In September, we set out to design new organizational structures across campus by asking our Deans and Vice-Chancellors, including the Chancellor’s office, to have unit restructuring plans ready to implement in early 2011 which would meet savings targets by creating higher spans of control, that is, having fewer supervisors manage more people.
While unit restructuring is never an easy or simple exercise, I am pleased to report that our Deans and Vice Chancellors put forward extremely high quality submissions that collectively exceeded our expectations. In total, the plans prepared by the unit leaders will deliver savings of as much as $20 million. As importantly, we will create a flatter and healthier organizational structure which will have about one third fewer managers and will focus our best managers on developing talent and actively managing the organization.
The campus expects to eliminate approximately 280 full time positions, half involuntarily and half through removal of vacant positions, retirements and voluntary separations, mostly before June 2011. Although this is positive news for our cost savings effort, we are saddened to announce that nearly 150 staff on our campus will be laid off. The reductions in our staff workforce have already begun and will continue through this fiscal year and beyond. Those leaving will be notified by their managers, with appropriate severance arrangements for those who qualify, including training and counseling services. We want to express our thanks and recognition to the staff who are leaving for their service to the university.
The reductions in workforce span all levels of our organization, including mid-management levels; about one-quarter of the positions eliminated have salaries plus benefits of $100,000 and above. We have significantly reduced the number of managers who supervised fewer than three people. Prior to the restructuring about 45 percent of our supervisors had fewer than three direct reports. Now, this has been reduced to 20 percent, and the campus has achieved an over-all average span of seven direct reports per supervisor. This significant elimination of layers of reporting will make us more nimble and productive.
We are encouraged by these initial results that we will meet our overall goals for Operational Excellence. Wide engagement with the campus has taken place for the second phase of Organizational Simplification, the designing of shared service centers for the delivery of common administrative functions in Human Resources, Finance, and Information Technology. A draft report for campus comment will be published in the next month. The remaining six initiatives, Information Technology, Energy, High Performance Culture, Procurement, Finance, and Human Resources continue to evolve their business cases and plans.
As was stated last September in a Chancellor’s memo, these are particularly stressful times for our staff and for managers who are working to realize these changes. We repeat how important it is that we all acknowledge the critical role that Berkeley managers and staff play in the success of our teaching and research mission. We are committed to treating all of our employees with dignity, respect and fairness while recognizing that in the end, we will have fewer administrative positions on campus. In addition to crafting a somewhat smaller workforce, our goal is to rationalize policies and procedures such that many staff will find their jobs more rewarding and less frustrating. As the OE initiatives are implemented, staff will continue to have opportunities for career growth.
We want to thank all of the many initiative sponsors, managers and volunteers who are engaged in helping us develop our plans, and our campus community for its engagement with this important effort. Your unit heads will be able to answer questions you may have about your individual unit restructuring. The OE Program Office will continue to provide information and updates on progress on their website at http://oe.berkeley.edu
Robert J. Birgeneau, Chancellor
George Breslauer, Executive Vice-Chancellor and Provost
Frank Yeary, Vice-Chancellor
Andrew Szeri, Operational Excellence Program Head and Dean of the Graduate Division
Monday, January 10, 2011
California Community Colleges Respond to Brown's Budget Proposals (1/10/11)
January 10, 2011
California Community Colleges Impact of Gov. Brown’s2 011-12 Proposed State Budget (January 2011)
Impact to the California Community Colleges:
6.8% budget reduction ($400 million). This cut translates into approximately 400,000 students losing access to classes (200,000 students already in the system for which the colleges are receiving no state remuneration and roughly 200,000 additional students).
The proposed $10 per unit fee increase would generate $110 million for the colleges to support an additional 50,000 students.
With the fee increase as many as 350,000 students could lose access to a community college education.
$10 fee increase would raise student fees from $26 per credit unit to $36 (38.5% increase).
Impact of proposed budget cuts to community college students
When implementing budget cuts in prior years, community college CEOs were directed by state chancellor Jack Scott to retain courses that lead to job retraining, degrees, certificates, transfer, and that help increase basic English and math skills.
Total proposed cuts to three segments of higher education
University of California $500 million
California State University $500 million
California Community Colleges $400 million
$1.4 billion
Priorities and efficiencies
The California Community Colleges is the most cost-effective system of education in California. While the state revenue needed to support one community college full-time student is slightly more than $5,000 per year, that same student costs approximately $7,500 in the K-12 system and $20,000 and $11,000, respectively, at UC and CSU.
The community colleges have looked at every corner of the system to come up with efficiencies. Tactics implemented include course reductions, debt restructuring, administrative consolidations, energy savings programs, IT efficiencies, increased class sizes, reduced student services programs, furloughs, additional online instruction, increased industry partnerships and transfer coordination with the UCs and CSUs. The system is exhausting all options to free up additional funds and many college reserves are low.
California has been divesting in higher education in the past 15 years
Enrollment at the California Community Colleges has grown 44% in the last 15 years, yet per student funding in 2009-10 (adjusted for inflation) was lower than it was in 1995-96.
The demand for a community college education is continuing to outstrip resources. The California Community Colleges would have naturally grown by at least 5.5% in 2009-10. But instead, decreased funding caused the system to shrink by 4.8%.
In the 2009-10 academic year, the system sustained $520 million in budget cuts which equated to 8% of its overall budget. It is estimated that approximately 140,000 students were turned away from community college campuses in 2009-10 due to course reductions.
The California Community Colleges are serving 200,000 students for which the system is receiving no state remuneration.
For fall 2009, course sections were cut by 6.3% and enrollment dropped by 0.2% over fall 2008. While total headcount declined by only 0.2%, the system’s first-time community college student enrollments decreased by 12% indicating that the hardest hit by budget reductions are recent high school graduates and displaced workers because they do not have priority registration.
Economic benefits of higher education
If just 2% more of Californians earned associate degrees and 1% more earned a bachelor’s degree, our state’s economy would grow by $20 billion, state and local tax revenue would increase by $1.2 billion a year and 174,000 new jobs would be created.
The economic return on investment in California's higher education infrastructure is a win-win for the state and its taxpayers. For every $1 California spends on higher education, it receives $3 in return.
The California Community Colleges is the largest provider of workforce training in the state and nation.
Workforce skills gap
Undergraduate demand for the three public systems of higher education in California is expected to
grow by 387,000 students by 2019. To accommodate the increase it will take $1.5 billion more in revenue.
If current funding trends persist, the Public Policy Institute of California estimates by 2025 California will face a shortage of 1 million college degree and certificate holders needed to fuel its workforce.
Approximately 55% of CSU and 30% of UC bachelor’s degree recipients started at the California Community Colleges.
With baby boomers retiring as the best educated and most skilled workforce in U.S. history, labor experts are concerned that California will lack workers with the critical aptitude needed to replace them.
Estimated financial impact of fee increase to students
Under the current $26 per credit unit fee, full-time students enrolled in 15 units pay approximately $780 per academic year.
** With the proposed fee increase to $36 per credit unit, full-time students would pay 38.5% more or roughly $1,080 per academic year.
Fee history
Fiscal Year Fee (per unit)
1984-85 $5*
1991-92 $6
1993-94 $10
1994-95 $13
1998-99 $12
1999-00 $11
2003-04 $18
2004-05 $26
2006-07 $20
2009-10 $26
2011-12 $36 (proposed amount in Gov. Brown’s Jan. 2011 budget)
*Prior to 1984, community colleges charged no fee
© 2010 California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office. 1102 Q Street, Sacramento, California 95811, Fourth Floor | 916.445.8752
California Community Colleges Impact of Gov. Brown’s2 011-12 Proposed State Budget (January 2011)
Impact to the California Community Colleges:
6.8% budget reduction ($400 million). This cut translates into approximately 400,000 students losing access to classes (200,000 students already in the system for which the colleges are receiving no state remuneration and roughly 200,000 additional students).
The proposed $10 per unit fee increase would generate $110 million for the colleges to support an additional 50,000 students.
With the fee increase as many as 350,000 students could lose access to a community college education.
$10 fee increase would raise student fees from $26 per credit unit to $36 (38.5% increase).
Impact of proposed budget cuts to community college students
When implementing budget cuts in prior years, community college CEOs were directed by state chancellor Jack Scott to retain courses that lead to job retraining, degrees, certificates, transfer, and that help increase basic English and math skills.
Total proposed cuts to three segments of higher education
University of California $500 million
California State University $500 million
California Community Colleges $400 million
$1.4 billion
Priorities and efficiencies
The California Community Colleges is the most cost-effective system of education in California. While the state revenue needed to support one community college full-time student is slightly more than $5,000 per year, that same student costs approximately $7,500 in the K-12 system and $20,000 and $11,000, respectively, at UC and CSU.
The community colleges have looked at every corner of the system to come up with efficiencies. Tactics implemented include course reductions, debt restructuring, administrative consolidations, energy savings programs, IT efficiencies, increased class sizes, reduced student services programs, furloughs, additional online instruction, increased industry partnerships and transfer coordination with the UCs and CSUs. The system is exhausting all options to free up additional funds and many college reserves are low.
California has been divesting in higher education in the past 15 years
Enrollment at the California Community Colleges has grown 44% in the last 15 years, yet per student funding in 2009-10 (adjusted for inflation) was lower than it was in 1995-96.
The demand for a community college education is continuing to outstrip resources. The California Community Colleges would have naturally grown by at least 5.5% in 2009-10. But instead, decreased funding caused the system to shrink by 4.8%.
In the 2009-10 academic year, the system sustained $520 million in budget cuts which equated to 8% of its overall budget. It is estimated that approximately 140,000 students were turned away from community college campuses in 2009-10 due to course reductions.
The California Community Colleges are serving 200,000 students for which the system is receiving no state remuneration.
For fall 2009, course sections were cut by 6.3% and enrollment dropped by 0.2% over fall 2008. While total headcount declined by only 0.2%, the system’s first-time community college student enrollments decreased by 12% indicating that the hardest hit by budget reductions are recent high school graduates and displaced workers because they do not have priority registration.
Economic benefits of higher education
If just 2% more of Californians earned associate degrees and 1% more earned a bachelor’s degree, our state’s economy would grow by $20 billion, state and local tax revenue would increase by $1.2 billion a year and 174,000 new jobs would be created.
The economic return on investment in California's higher education infrastructure is a win-win for the state and its taxpayers. For every $1 California spends on higher education, it receives $3 in return.
The California Community Colleges is the largest provider of workforce training in the state and nation.
Workforce skills gap
Undergraduate demand for the three public systems of higher education in California is expected to
grow by 387,000 students by 2019. To accommodate the increase it will take $1.5 billion more in revenue.
If current funding trends persist, the Public Policy Institute of California estimates by 2025 California will face a shortage of 1 million college degree and certificate holders needed to fuel its workforce.
Approximately 55% of CSU and 30% of UC bachelor’s degree recipients started at the California Community Colleges.
With baby boomers retiring as the best educated and most skilled workforce in U.S. history, labor experts are concerned that California will lack workers with the critical aptitude needed to replace them.
Estimated financial impact of fee increase to students
Under the current $26 per credit unit fee, full-time students enrolled in 15 units pay approximately $780 per academic year.
** With the proposed fee increase to $36 per credit unit, full-time students would pay 38.5% more or roughly $1,080 per academic year.
Fee history
Fiscal Year Fee (per unit)
1984-85 $5*
1991-92 $6
1993-94 $10
1994-95 $13
1998-99 $12
1999-00 $11
2003-04 $18
2004-05 $26
2006-07 $20
2009-10 $26
2011-12 $36 (proposed amount in Gov. Brown’s Jan. 2011 budget)
*Prior to 1984, community colleges charged no fee
© 2010 California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office. 1102 Q Street, Sacramento, California 95811, Fourth Floor | 916.445.8752
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