Saving UCSB Requests Real-Time Budget Information, Administrative Statements

December 12, 2009

THIS MEMORANDUM HAS BEEN APPROVED BY SAVING UCSB





To:      Chancellor Yang

            Executive Vice-Chancellor Lucas

            Deans Marshall, Oliver, and Wiltzius

            Joel Michaelsen, Academic Senate



From:  Saving UCSB



Re:       Updates


The faculty’s need of, and right to, “real-time” updates on our downward trajectory and the efforts our campus is making to halt it have been affirmed recently in a number of venues and conversations.  But we had to learn from a blog that, on Dec. 7—just when classes were ending--the CA State Assembly had begun hearings on the viability of the UC Master Plan.  The pipeline is still clogged—exactly where, we do not know, but we hope you will explain to us how best we can learn of such developments in time to respond appropriately.  We further request the following updates and actions from you:


1.    We would like to know about UCSB’s involvement in the Hearings.  Also we would like to know anything you can tell us about why and how they were initiated.

2.    We ask that you immediately convey to the Hearing conveners and the legislature at large your wholehearted support of the Master Plan and belief in its continuing relevance.  Our students more than ever need to know the languages of the world, understand different cultures, and develop their creativity.  If our state is in difficulty because of the Master Plan, that’s because it has been ignored for twenty years, not because it is obsolete.

3.    In a recent interview, Yudof claimed that UC had to raise fees because it had to pay the salaries of humanities and social science professors.  His remarks went something like this:


“Many of our, if I can put it this way, businesses are in good shape. . . Our hospitals are full, our medical business, our medical research, the patient care?-so we have this core problem, who’s gonna pay the salary of the English Department? We have to have it. Who’s gonna pay for it, and Sociology, and the humanities, and that’s where we’re running into trouble.” [1]


As you know, the Humanities and Social Sciences are not the reason the Regents are raising fees.  We ask that you immediately clarify the budgetary realities with UCOP and the state legislature.


4.    Similarly, with respect to the article “The Bonfire of the Humanities":  it makes mistakes, but we are curious about the merits of its main point: that UC is abandoning the principle of enrollment-based distributions of resources, with the implication that students’ wishes about what they study are no longer important and the “tuition dollar” may soon become a meaningless measure.  This seems like a pretty indirect way to affirm market values.  Please explain to us your position(s) on this issue, and immediately impress upon UCOP and the legislature the financial contributions made by the Humanities and Social Sciences to the University.  They are the product two-thirds of our students want to buy.

5.    We also ask that you immediately defend, in the strongest possible terms, pure research science (no strings attached!) If we do not defeat shortsighted notions of what is and is not profitable, it will not be long before the sciences, too, are told their work is valueless unless the probability of its future profitability can be demonstrated up front.  Pure science is in the end responsible for much more innovation and economic opportunity than is research directed by special interests or considerations of utility.  We ask that you maintain this point with UCOP and the State Assembly.  There is plenty of research to prove it.



6.    To your knowledge, how many of our faculty are currently on the market and/or being recruited?  How many resigned last year to take positions elsewhere, and how many retired?  How do these figures compare with the situation two years ago?



7.    We ask that the Administrative Support Reconfiguration Plans for the Sciences and Social Sciences Divisions be released immediately to all Senate faculty.



Thank you very much in advance for your response(s) to these requests.

NOTES

[1]  Aranye Fradenburg requested the Administration’s views on this on Dec. 9.

UCSD Prof Notes Precedent for Drastic Humanities Cuts

This situation is reminding me more and more of what happened while I was at UNSW [University of New South Wales].  When our chair mentioned the "justification of existence" letter that Literature will be obliged to produce, it went from being déja vu to just plain uncanny.  At UNSW, it began with a budget crisis and allocations of state funding that meant humanities would have to take the hardest hit.  Our division of the university, originally called the School of Modern Language Studies, was one of the biggest and most diverse in all of Australia - although not a division dedicated specifically to literary studies (or Comparative Literature), it had in common with our department the comradeship of scholars in all different area studies under one roof, and a cultural studies focus.  When I arrived in 2003, I taught almost exclusively cultural studies and literature courses, as I do here.  Unlike UCSD, my division at UNSW already had language-study merged together with it, but generally the language programs were taught by lecturers and coordinated on a rotating basis by professors, who otherwise didn't have too much to do with language-teaching except to teach upper-level or literature courses.  When the budget crisis hit, at first we were told not to worry, no cuts would be made and nobody would lose their job.  But within a year, a number of lecturers were let go, class sizes were increased, TA's were nearly eliminated, and office budgets were slashed.  The University started to debate the distribution of funds, whether to increase local tuition and recruit more overseas students, and how to capitalize on the University's public image and original "strengths" as a "scientific and technical” university.  A new Chancellor and Vice-Chancellor with backgrounds as corporate CEOs were recruited.  A task force was formed, composed of high-level administrators and senior humanities toadies.  The new Chancellor and the new task force asked the School of Modern Languages submit a letter justifying its existence and speaking to the particular needs of UNSW.   One approach taken in responding to this request was to look at other language-and-culture-studies models around the world as examples/justifications.  At the time, a number of people argued passionately that we shouldn't have to reinvent the wheel, or argue for the importance of literature and cultural studies since the fight to "justify" literature and culture studies is as old as the university itself - a battle that could not be won or lost.  

We were asked to produce statistics about class sizes and subject-spreads.  By the second year, the central admin declared that the School of Modern Language Studies would be "restructured" and it was renamed the "School of Languages and Linguistics."   Based on several (?) years' of enrollment records, admin. decided to cut any courses with enrollments of fewer than 20 students.  Language-teaching proved to be most profitable (of course) based on what Australians called the "bums on seats" method of calculating a class's value, so the language-program was expanded - but, they cut expensive lecturers and asked professors to do more of it instead.  By the time I left UNSW in 2007, I was teaching mostly language courses (along with everyone else, although it varied).  Cultural Studies courses had to be approved by the administration and risked being cancelled after the term had already begun if there weren't enough enrollments; professors had to advertise the classes and try to attract students in advance of the enrollment period or try to create classes modeled closely on those that had high enrollments in other departments.  Area-studies groups with low enrollments were let go or moved to other departments (for example the Russianists were let go and the Russian major dissolved).  There was a huge brain drain:  everyone who could leave, left; and some simply quit altogether.  In all of this, the literature and culture studies side of the humanities suffered extra; history, sociology, media studies fared better due to good connections (some would argue), to better enrollments in film courses, and/or to some “scientific” justification for the social sciences.

I can't help but think this latest request for justification of the Department's existence is basically just a pro-forma prelude to an all-out gutting of the Department (I hope I'm wrong).  But I'm sure that statistics about enrollments will play a major role (if they haven't already) in determining our Department's future, and that using such data will put smaller area-studies groups at risk of being phased out or rolled into another program.  If we do merge with languages, I wouldn't be surprised if the same sort of thing happens that happened at UNSW, although the infrastructure was arguably already in place at UNSW while it is not, here:  language classes will always be profitable (and justifiable) at UCSD and I doubt they'd be threatened, but to save money, the University could fire non-tenured language-teachers and reallocate Literature professors to do that work (I'm not saying this is bad, just a frustrating misuse of our talents and training, not to mention a great divergence from the job description!).  Of course it's been a long time and I wasn't directly involved in the process (except for gathering some data about Literature departments around the world) and I'm sure there were many compromises made and many disasters averted.  But from the "user" perspective, I see strong parallels.

But don't mind me.  Sorry for the rant.  I'm just concerned that we are not really being asked for a "justification" but rather that the justification is merely a document on the way to a complete restructuring, as I experienced first-hand in Oz.

Public Colleges Brace for Expected Drop in Out-of-State Students (Chronicle, Aug 10)

Public Colleges Brace for Expected Drop in Out-of-State Students and the Revenue They Provide

By Jay Premack for the Chronicle of Higher Education

For each in-state student, George Mason U. has to find more than $2,000 in its budget to cover the difference between what it costs to educate the student and what tuition and state money cover, says Provost Peter N. Stearns.

By Austin Wright

Students like Matthew Paauw may have administrators at some public colleges on edge.

The 18-year-old from North Bend, Wash., applied to seven colleges, including private ones and public campuses out of state. But Mr. Paauw has chosen to attend Washington State University, a public institution about half as expensive as any of his other choices.

"My dad has been saving for quite a few years for my college and had much of it in stocks," he says. "When the stocks turned, he lost a bit of money, which definitely played into my decision."

Some cash-strapped public colleges this year hope to raise the percentage of out-of-state students in their freshman classes. Those students often pay twice as much as their in-state counterparts. But, like Mr. Paauw, many high-school graduates are staying in state during the economic downturn and reaping the benefits of a low-cost, publicly subsidized college education.

Few colleges have released fall-enrollment data yet, but administrators and high-school guidance counselors are already predicting that public colleges are likely to see a decline this year in the ratio of out-of-state to in-state students. Even a slight decline can translate to million-dollar revenue losses.

"I do think that, anecdotally speaking, one can assume that out-of-state enrollment will be impacted" by the economic downturn, says Daniel J. Hurley, director of state relations and policy analysis at the American Association of State Colleges and Universities. It will be a few months before widespread data will be available to measure changes in out-of-state enrollments, he says, but "there's a lot of info showing that students are scaling back their expectations of what their families can afford."

George Mason University, which has increased the proportion of out-of-state students in its freshman classes over the past five years from about 13 percent to about 25 percent, is bracing for a decline in that ratio this year.

The number of admitted in-state students choosing to enroll at George Mason is rising faster than the number of admitted out-of-state students choosing to enroll, according to Peter N. Stearns, the university's provost. The number of admitted in-state students choosing to enroll, he says, is up about 7 percent over last year, while the number of admitted out-of-state students choosing to enroll is up only about 1 percent.

That trend is problematic for a regionally oriented public university like his, which counts on higher-paying out-of-state students to help bolster revenues. The dwindling proportion of out-of-state students hits especially hard when public colleges like George Mason are grappling with other budget restrictions in the economic downturn.

At George Mason, the full cost to the university of providing an education to a single student is about $15,000, says Mr. Stearns. Out-of-state students will pay $24,008 in tuition and fees this fall. But in-state students will pay $8,024, a rate well below the actual cost of their education.

And the state support George Mason receives for each full-time student doesn't make up the gap. For each in-state student who enrolls, the university has to find more than $2,000 in its own budget to cover the difference between what it costs to educate the student and what tuition and state money cover, Mr. Stearns says.

State support as a percentage of public colleges' budgets has dwindled in Virginia over the past decade. Appropriations to George Mason have declined by $27-million, or 21 percent of the state portion of its budget, over the last two years.

Public colleges in the commonwealth that have pushed to raise enrollment of out-of-state students have faced criticism from Virginia lawmakers and parents worried that such efforts would prevent their own children from being admitted. But legislation capping out-of-state enrollment at public colleges has failed to pass in the state's General Assembly, largely because such a restriction would cost colleges millions of dollars.

"It's an interesting dilemma," Mr. Stearns says. "We're excited at having more in-state students, but we do face some harsh economic realities. We'll have to have larger class sizes, and there will be other cost-cutting measures."
A Shift in Students' Focus

High-school guidance counselors are also reporting an uptick in interest among their students in attending college in state.

In her nine years at North Shore Hebrew Academy High School helping seniors choose colleges, Laura J. Miller has never seen so many students opting to apply to public colleges in New York state. Ms. Miller, director of college guidance at the school, in Great Neck, says that this year the cost of college came up again and again as a major concern during counseling sessions with parents.

"Cost is an issue for everybody now because of the recession," she says. "We're in a very different climate."

This year, she says, students were less eager to apply to New England's elite private colleges than past classes have been. Instead, more students were asking about campuses like those of the State University of New York and the City University of New York's William E. Macaulay Honors College, in-state options that she didn't talk about as much with her students even just a year earlier.

Last year 55 percent of North Shore's 67 graduating seniors chose private colleges, and 4 percent chose campuses in the SUNY system. This year 47 percent of the 85 graduating seniors have chosen to attend private colleges and 12 percent chose SUNY campuses.

Ms. Miller says she spoke this year with an admissions officer at one out-of-state public college, which she declined to name, who told her that the college hoped more students from North Shore would apply. The officer, she says, told her that the college hoped to raise its percentage of out-of-state students this year in order to make up for lost revenues elsewhere. At North Shore, Ms. Miller says, several students each year typically choose to attend that college.

The shifts she is seeing in the market for college freshmen, though, could have a silver lining for some of her seniors: "I actually found that our students were in a better position to get into a lot of the competitive out-of-state public schools," she says.

In Florida, public colleges already bursting at the seams could have trouble dealing with enrollment increases that would come if even more residents choose to stay in the state for college.

Mandee Heller Adler, a guidance counselor at Donna Klein Jewish Academy, a high school in Boca Raton, says admissions officers in the state could be in for a shock this year. Ms. Adler says that she counsels a number of families with relatively high incomes, and that even among those, "I have very few who do not have Florida public colleges at the top of their list this year."

"Because of the financial crisis, a lot of middle-class families that might have taken loans or made the stretch for an out-of-state or private college are now deciding that the value is just not there," she says. The number of students deciding to stay in state this year, she adds, "could bankrupt the system."
Different Approaches

Some public colleges, such as the University of Alabama, have said that they are working to increase their out-of-state student populations this fall. They hope their efforts to recruit out-of-state students will generate revenue that could allow them to avoid layoffs or other budget cuts.

Florida State University ramped up its out-of-state recruiting this year, hoping to increase its percentage of out-of-state freshman from 7 percent last year to 8 percent this year.

Other institutions, though, say they remain committed to keeping the ratio of out-of-state to in-state students low, despite tight budgets.

The University of California, for example, plans to hold constant its relatively low percentage of out-of-state students at about 5 percent, even as budget shortfalls have led the system to raise in-state tuition and cut enrollment. Lawmakers have attached stipulations to state funds encouraging California's colleges to admit few out-of-state students.

As for Mr. Paauw, the rising freshman at Washington State, the choice to stay in state has taken some financial pressure off him and his family.

He says two private colleges offered him generous financial-aid packages to try to lure him out of state. But his in-state option was still a much better financial deal.

"My dad wasn't pushing me to go to a public or private; he just told me that the privates might be a little harder to pay for, and that I might have to take out some loans," Mr. Paauw says. "The decision I made was a good one."

State Senator Loni Handcock on Budget Impasse (July 10)

Subject: Senator Hancock's Budget Update
Date: Fri, 10 Jul 2009 17:00:34 -0700
From: Senator.Hancock@senate.ca.gov

Dear Friend,

Last week, as California's budget collapsed, the state Controller began issuing IOUs. This week, California's largest banks say they will soon stop accepting them. We have been brought to this place by the reckless and unnecessary choices made by Governor Schwarzenegger.

In June, Democrats passed a $23 billion budget reduction package - the Governor vetoed it. The package had more than $11 billion in heartbreaking cuts which no Democrat wanted to make. However, we refused to shred the safety net for millions of human beings, as the Governor demanded. We recognized the crisis and made more than a good-faith attempt to address hard economic times and meet the Governor halfway.

After the veto, Democrats attempted a second compromise. We proposed a $23 billion package, this time without taxes - just as he demanded. It included cuts to almost every health and welfare program but still protected the safety net for millions of Californians, although at a very
minimal level. We were able to do this without new revenue by re-allocating $1 billion of redevelopment funds and using $1 billion of reserve funds. A rainy day fund of $3 billion remained. Once again, the Governor refused to meet us half-way.

Then, as June came to a close, the Governor rejected the Legislature's attempt at a short-term solution that would have taken us through the summer and avoided the need to resort to IOUs. With that irresponsible act the Governor dug the state into an even deeper hole, adding at least $3 billion to the deficit. That means that more money will need to be cut from schools, cities, parks and health care.

Now the Governor is demanding long-term policy changes that have been repeatedly turned down by voters through the initiative process and that he cannot get approved through legislation. The Governor is insisting on his way or the highway, and refusing to compromise.

As a result millions of Californians will suffer - and I'm learning that it takes a lot of human suffering to reach even $1 billion in cuts. It didn't have to come to this. California has reasonable and legitimate options to raise revenues: An oil extraction tax (California is the only oil producing state without one) and a tobacco tax, for example, are two such options.

Additionally, we have the largest cash reserve the state has had in 20 years. If reserves are meant to be used on a "rainy day", now is certainly the time to use them. But, the Governor says no.

Rather than move toward compromise, the Governor's position seems to have hardened in recent days, veering away from working together to find a reasonable solution. As a result, we will pay millions more in interest payments and families and small business people throughout the state will face hardship and an uncertain future.

If you would like to see more detailed information about the inaccuracy of the Governor's statements regarding the state's safety net programs, I recommend an analysis prepared by the California State Association of Counties. [loads in Safari but not in Firefox]

Additionally, Assemblywoman Noreen Evans, Chair of the Assembly Budget Committee, has provided a comprehensive analysis of what's wrong with the Governor's so-called "reform" proposals.

I hope that you will continue to make your views known to the Governor on this crucial matter. As always, I look forward to hearing your comments and suggestions.

Sincerely,

Senator Hancock
9th District, California State Senate

Budget Analysis: A Headnote

To one of my friends who thought some of the discussion was too technical:

there's a bit of geek material on the blog, but if faculty, staff, and students are going to push the university onto a better path we need to understand it. I try to make it as accessible as possible, and am willing to work on it until the material makes sense to absolutely everyone. People are more than welcome to send specific questions to me about any of this stuff.

For example, this entry shows why the Regents' and UCOP's failure to protect public funding for UC and CSU requires far larger tuition hikes than they currently admit, or major degradations of operations, or both. I have long opposed fee hikes, but the main point here is not to be lulled by claims that research funding or philanthropy or other private partnerships could ever save us from them.


The entry you were referring to explains why the plan Yudof is bringing to the Regents - to cut state-paid employees but not 100% soft-money employees - isn't fair.

It also addresses another issue: the state gave UC about $10,000 per student in 2008-09, and students brought about $8000 in fees. The public might want to know why we can't educate someone on $18,000 a year (or 3x what public universities get in Germany with its successful high-tech economy). The answer: that money is used for all sorts of things besides instruction and related expenses, including (the topic of the entry) subsidizing federal and corporate research.

If more of us understand the money, it will be much harder for them to play games with it. And the games they've been playing are at the root of the mess we're in.

California's problem is spending? That's a myth

MIchael Hiltzik, Los Angeles Times

May 28, 2009

A reader writes:

" California's problem is mainly on the spending side. If we stuck to a budget increase of inflation plus population growth over the last 10 years, we would probably be in fairly decent shape."

Sounds right, doesn't it? The same perfectly reasonable supposition was expressed in scores of e-mails I received following last week's budget ballot debacle.

Indeed, the idea that California's budget has been out of control as measured against inflation and population growth is a deeply cherished talking point in the debate over the state's fiscal deficit.

---

FOR THE RECORD: Michael Hiltzik's Tuesday column on the California budget cited an incorrect estimate of 30% for state population growth from 1998 through 2009. The correct figure, based on population estimates from the state Department of Finance, is about 15%. But the finding by the legislative analyst's office that the state budget remained in line with population growth and inflation during that period, on which the column was based, relied on the correct multiplier of population growth.

---

Unfortunately, it turns out to be yet another infectious myth. The truth is that over the last 10 years, California's spending has tracked population growth and price increases almost to the penny.

This finding comes from the nonpartisan legislative analyst's office, which subjects the state budget to more careful scrutiny than almost anyone else in Sacramento.

Analyzing the 2008-09 budget bill last year, the legislative analyst determined that since 1998-99, spending in the general fund and state special funds -- the latter comes from special levies like gasoline and tobacco taxes -- had risen to $128.8 billion from $72.6 billion, or 77%.

During this time frame, which embraced two booms (dot-com and housing) and two busts (ditto), the state's population grew about 30% to about 38 million, and inflation charged ahead by 50%. The budget's growth, the legislative analyst found, exceeded these factors by only an average of 0.2% a year.

My calculations show that the combined growth factors would have allowed the budget to grow even more. But for the purpose of argument, let's use the legislative analyst's more conservative number. That punctures the notion that the state has been on a drunken spending spree out of proportion to these common multipliers.

A couple of caveats are in order. These budget figures don't include federally backed spending. Gov. Schwarzenegger's '08-09 budget included $56 billion in federal funds, mostly for health and social services programs such as Medi-Cal.

Nor do they include spending of bond proceeds or the various borrowing scams the governor and Legislature implemented, such as dipping into local government coffers.

The inflation factor, further, isn't the consumer price index, which rose about 35% over the period, but a separate federal index of state and local purchases. This makes sense because the state buys relatively less of what's measured by the CPI, like bread and hamburger meat, and relatively more of what's measured by the government index, like healthcare, heavy equipment and educated workers.

That said, it's worth examining where the state does spend money, and why.

To dispense with a common bugaboo, yes, the state spends plenty on illegal immigrants. How much is impossible to specify because no one knows how many live in the state or what services they use.

My colleague George Skelton recently estimated this cost, net of the federal government's skinflint contribution, at some $5 billion a year. As he observed, undocumented workers contribute plenty in taxes, too.

I would further add that we employ these people to tend our farms and gardens, build our homes and help raise our children.

In any event, far more blame for the deficit belongs to California voters. Year in, year out, they enact spending mandates at the polls, often without endowing a revenue source.

"Budget management really is in the hands of the voters," says Assembly Budget Committee Chairwoman Noreen Evans (D-Santa Rosa), who recently posted a video online cogently outlining the dysfunctional budget process.

Some of these programs have hidden costs -- well, not so deeply hidden. The three-strikes law saddled the state with hundreds of millions in costs to prosecute and jail thousands of innocuous defendants. After Proposition 63 expanded mental health services in 2004, the Mental Health Department's budget expanded from $370 million to $1.5 billion.

From 1998 to the present, by my count, voters passed 27 separate bond issues to pay for school buildings, libraries, hospitals, highways, a high-speed rail system, stem cell research, veterans facilities, clean water and air, and more. These may be mostly worthy amenities, but that doesn't mean they pay for themselves.

Since 2000, the legislative analyst's office reports, $85 billion in such borrowing has been authorized at the ballot box -- half of it in 2006 alone. Annual payments on these bonds have climbed from $2.5 billion in 1998 to more than $5 billion this year.

Then there's budgetary borrowing, those little subterfuges so favored by our political leaders, which include the $15-billion deficit bond issue of 2004, the governor's version of a credit card max-out binge.

Debt service on those borrowings rings in at more than $4.2 billion this year and next.

Every one of these items was approved at the polls. But here's the real scandal of the California budget: Not a single one received the support of a majority of eligible voters.

That's because most voters are harder to get off their duffs than Homer Simpson. The California voter's default approach to the ballot is a sort of militant apathy.

Only about 70% of eligible voters even register, and it's rare for even 40% of the eligible to turn out. Undoubtedly many of them have better things to do with their time on election day, like shriek about politicians on talk radio and write profane e-mails to the newspapers.

The share of all eligible voters who cast a ballot on May 19 was 19%. Do the math on the 65% "no" vote on the key measures, and you find that it translates to about 12.5% of the California electorate.

This makes a mockery of Schwarzenegger's claim that the election delivered a "loud and clear" message. What message? Proposition 1A, if passed, would have extended a parcel of tax increases for an additional two years. Who's to say that the 81% of eligible voters who just stayed home didn't intend to endorse the tax increase?

But rather than blame the state's fiscal condition on illegal immigrants or unthrifty politicians, they should blame their own stupefied -- or is it embarrassed? -- silence.

UC San Diego Faculty Statement on Budget Crisis

June 15, 2009
Dear

I write on behalf of an array of departmental chairs from all parts of the campus – the physical and biological sciences, the social sciences, engineering, the humanities, and the arts, plus the chair of the department of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, to express our collective sense of dismay, frustration, and anger at what is being done to the University of California. For years our budget has lagged behind our needs, and the university has suffered from a slow degradation in its quality, and in the quality of education it offers to the citizens of California. The cuts to our operating budget have essentially been spread equally across campuses and units, without much pretense at selectivity, depriving the excellent along with the less so, damaging morale and the very fabric of an institution that makes extraordinary contributions to our state and nation. The plans we have heard outlined for 2009‐10, 2010‐11, and the next five years, go far beyond what we have experienced so far. We believe that if these plans are implemented, the University of California as we know it will be dead – reduced to a mediocre shell of what it once was. If we are lucky, we will end up as just one of many mediocre state university systems.

The proposed actions presented to us at the June General Campus chairs’ meeting essentially amounted to throwing in the towel. Rather than discussing entrepreneurial solutions that might mitigate the budget damage, coupled with intelligent and selective cuts designed to protect the core mission of the university, these proposals continued the policy of incremental pain under the guise of “everything is on the table”, ratcheted up to the point where excellence will vanish at the university. These proposals guarantee that as soon as the economy improves private universities will take our very best faculty, save those close to retirement, and those contemplating retirement will do so. That will, of course, have permanent and catastrophic effects on our academic reputation, from which we shall never recover. To recover from this blow would require, in the first instance, attracting the best people to what will (rightly) be seen as an inferior institution, which will require paying over the odds (financially and otherwise) – and we know that will be impossible. In any event, the plans to shrink permanent faculty by almost 25 per cent to balance the books means that these people will simply not be replaced.

Such an outcome will produce a steadily tightening vicious circle, because we shall simultaneously be experiencing a reverse multiplier effect: our best and brightest will take their major grants with them, so indirect cost recovery will diminish sharply, which will further exacerbate both the reputational and budgetary problems, which will further the exodus of the next tier of faculty. That problem will intensify as services on campus are cut, damaging the necessary support for research, affecting our teaching mission, worsening the day‐to‐day environment, and impelling those of us who have choices to bail out. It does no good to point to others’ current misery, and suggest that as a result all will be well. The depressed state of the economy and the stock market is not permanent, but our losses will be. As soon as we see an economic rebound, the exodus will begin . And the excellence that has always characterized the University of California will slowly (or not‐so slowly) erode into mediocrity.

The first option that was laid before us was a possible 5 per cent pay cut, which, so we were told, would net the campus $20million, and Academic Affairs half that, or $10million, out of $90million. (Today, rumors suggest that cut may be as much as 10 per cent.) It is well known that UC faculty are already 20‐30 per cent behind our peers in compensation even before such a cut, and will take a 2 per cent pay cut soon when contributions to our unstable pension system resume (another reason to leave). More importantly, as was pointed out at our meeting, to begin at pay cuts as the first solution is to admit defeat and invite the vicious circle. Add in the proposal that the faculty/student ratio decline by a third and the prospect of increasing numbers of graduate students will disappear and our predictions of faculty departures probably err on the low side.

We know the response to all this will be “we live in hard times, and politically difficult times, so what do you propose instead?” We propose that we engage in some radical rethinking. What follows are a few such ideas, some of which may require refinement or could be replaced by better ones.

1. Immediately enroll 500 more out of state students per year for the next four or more years. The increased tuition money would stay on this campus, and four years out would amount to $44 million per annum, almost half our deficit. This step should not be done stealthily. It is very important, to the contrary, that we proceed transparently. We must explain to the California taxpayers why we are forced to take this step, and educate them about the magnitude of the cuts we have taken in state support over the last decade; the potentially fatal impact of these new rounds of cuts on the very thing that makes a UC education special for their children, the opportunity to be taught by world‐class research faculty; and the contributions such a step can make to keeping the university in the forefront of knowledge creation and in preparing the highly educated workforce that is the state's ultimate salvation. We note that in fall 2008 only 5.9% of our undergraduates were non‐resident, compared to 9.7% at Berkeley and 9.5% at UCLA.

We also note that in fall 2008 at the well‐regarded University of Michigan, 35% of undergraduates were non‐resident. Admitting more out‐of‐state students will cross‐subsidize California residents by helping to maintain professor‐to‐student ratios and to reduce or eliminate the planned cuts to teaching assistant and temporary (lecturer) funds. Admitting more students from other states would also enhance UCSD's national reputation and it will benefit California in the long run since a significant number of American students who go to university out of state end up settling in the state where they attended university. It is in California's interest to attract some of the best and the brightest high school graduates from around the country, to provide them with a world‐class education and then to reap the tax revenues that result when these university graduates enter California's workforce. We recommend that over the summer you convene a committee to develop a plan to enroll significantly more out‐of‐state undergraduates next year.

2. Generate defensible estimates of our strictly economic contribution to the state’s economy, via an educated workforce, spin‐off companies, federal funds attracted, etc, etc, and repeat that number relentlessly to force it into the consciousness of the public and the politicians. That is the golden egg that is in jeopardy. We find it surprising that this has not been done already. Every official in the UC system, every media report, every media release should have included this same number over the last year. To drive home the point the numbers begin to make, the campus could also compile a list of 5‐10 pieces of faculty research in the past decade that have transformed our knowledge and improved human welfare, and supplement that with a similar list of spin‐off corporations and technologies (Qualcomm obviously prominent among them) that have transformed the economy of the region and the state. Again, these lists must be hammered home over and over again, like an annoying advertisement that enters everyone’s consciousness.

3. Establish different budget priorities for the profiles of different UC campuses. Every state system of public education save California manages to sustain (at best) one flagship campus. Many, including such states as New York, New Jersey, and Massachusetts, do not manage even that. We pretend we have ten such campuses. In better times, there were in reality four flagships (Berkeley, UCLA, UCSD, and – in its highly specialized way, UCSF). Rather than destroying the distinctiveness and excellence at Berkeley, UCLA, and UCSD by hiring temporary lecturers to do most of the teaching (and contribute nothing to original research, nothing to our reputation, nothing to the engine of economic growth a first rate research university represents), we propose that you urge the President and Regents to acknowledge that UCSC, UCR, and UC Merced are in substantial measure teaching institutions (with some exceptions – programs that have genuinely achieved national and international excellence and thus deserve separate treatment), whose funding levels and budgets should be reorganized to match that reality.

We suggest, more generally, that in discussions systemwide, you drop the pretence that all campuses are equal, and argue for a selective reallocation of funds to preserve excellence, not the current disastrous blunderbuss policy of even, across the board cuts. Or, if that is too hard, we suggest that what ought to be done is to shut one or more of these campuses down, in whole or in part. We have suffered more than a 30 per cent cut in our funding from the state, and we can thus no longer afford to be a ten campus system – only a nine, or an eight (and a half) campus system. Corporations faced with similar problems eliminate or sell off their least profitable, least promising divisions. Even General Motors, which for decades resisted this logic, to its near‐fatal cost, is lopping off Hummer, Buick, GMC, Opel, Saab and who knows what else.

On a systemwide level, more substantial sums could be raised, though not immediately, by expanding an existing resource: the UC Education Abroad Program has been highly successful academically, and study abroad is increasingly attractive to this generation of students. Yet this asset, built up over decades, now seems increasingly neglected and run down. It could, with a modicum of entrepreneurship, be translated into a source of revenue. Syracuse University, for instance, which opens its programs to outside students, charges very profitable fees to those it enrolls. Why can’t UC do the same? We suspect that, if the ingenuity and knowledge of the faculty were tapped, other sources of raising revenue or cutting costs could be uncovered. Why not ask for ideas, and actively investigate those that seem promising? We are, after all, in this together, and collectively the intellectual resources of this university are almost unmatched. Some final remarks: when the previous budget cuts were announced, we were told that priority was being given to protecting the core academic mission of the university. That presumably is the faculty, teaching, and the necessary library resources that are the domain of Academic Affairs (plus Scripps). Yet it transpires that Academic Affairs, which accounts for 49 per cent of the campus budget, absorbed 49.5 per cent of the previous rounds of cuts. This is clearly not protecting the core academic mission of the university! Specifically, we recommend that the percentage of cuts to academic affairs (including the department of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography) be decreased significantly to protect the core academic mission of the university. If this does not happen, talk of protecting the core is essentially meaningless. We would also like a better understanding of why this decision was made in the first place.

We suggest that all professional schools have to stand on their own, raising fees as they need to and can, with no subsidy from Academic Affairs. We know that, despite assurances to the contrary, both Skaggs pharmacy and the Rady business schools had to be funded in part by subventions from Academic Affairs. However desirable and worthy those enterprises are, they cannot be regarded as the central mission of the University of California, and they ought, if necessary, to charge market rate tuition to fund their operations.

In sum, we urge you to break from the pattern of across the board, incremental cuts. Politicians typically choose this option to avoid complaint. It is far easier to announce a certain percentage cut across units rather than to make the hard decisions of eliminating something completely. It is simply not the case that all campus entities are of equal value to our goals. But such an across the board strategy strikes a mortal blow to a university. The core – not 65% of everything ‐‐ must be saved at all costs; without it, the University of California as we know it, will die.

We respect the fact that dozens if not hundreds of University employees have been working hard to create solutions to this crisis. We also know that many discussions may have centered on the ideas that we have expressed here. But the actions we have seen implemented and proposed to date are extremely troubling to the faculty. We are told that “everything is on the table” but that is only a half truth: what is on the table seems to have already been prioritized, and simply awaits to be implemented in an order that the faculty are kept in the dark about, and to which we have no input.

The faculty knows that the fiscal crisis is real. The faculty knows that things cannot move forward as before. And the faculty knows that they will be required to make some difficult choices in their own institutions. But the faculty do not know the overall strategy being implemented by the University, and are deeply troubled by positions and actions that do not seem to protect the core mission of the university, despite assurances of the contrary. What they see is that the future of this great institution is in peril, and that this institution is likely to die a slow death from a thousand cuts, the inevitable result of continuing down the pathways we have heard outlined to date.

Instead, we must genuinely make it a priority to maintain UCSD (and UC) as world class institutions; explore ways to generate new resources, which obviously will not be forthcoming from the state and taxpayers; and insist that cuts must be targeted rather the result of a meataxe approach, focused on sustaining the things that make this an institution to which many of us have devoted our careers. It is time to fight for our future.

Yours sincerely,
Andrew Scull
Distinguished Professor and Chair, Sociology

Supported and endorsed by the following General Campus chairs:

Rand Steiger
Chair, Department of Music
Anirvan Ghosh
Chair, Neurobiology Section
Director, Neurosciences Graduate Program
Paul Linden
Chair, Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
Clark Gibson
Chair, Department of Political Science
Director of International Studies
John Wixted
Chair, Department of Psychology
Lawrence Larson
Chair, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Kenneth Vecchio
Chair, Department of NanoEngineering
Robert Continetti
Chair, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry
John Moore
Chair, Department of Linguistics
Rick Firtel
Associate Dean for Operations
Division of Biological Sciences
Gilbert Hegemier
Chair, Department of Structural Engineering
David O. Brink
Chair, Department of Philosophy
Shankar Subramaniam
Chair, Department of Bioengineering
Julian Betts
Chair, Department of Economics
John Marino
Chair, Department of History
Stephen Hedrick
Chair, Section of Molecular Biology
Brian Maple
Chair, Department of Physics
Dan Hallin
Chair, Department of Communication
Marta Kutas
Chair, Department of Cognitive Science
Douglas Bartlett
Chair, Scripps Institution of Oceanography
Keith Marzullo
Chair, Department of Computer Science and Engineering
Amanda Datnow
Professor and Director, Education Studies

UC Berkeley faculty opposing current UCOP Salary Cut Proposals

June 29, 2009

Dear Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost George W. Breslauer:

We write in response to the invitation to comment on President Yudof's draft options for furloughs and/or salary reductions. We are aware of the magnitude of the financial challenges confronting the University and are committed to working with the President to surmount them.

We applaud his commitment to the principles of broad consultation and responding to the crisis in the most equitable manner possible.

However, we find ourselves unable to support any of the three presented options. We have not been provided with sufficient information, nor given adequate time for meaningful consultation with the Office of the President, the Berkeley administration, or our colleagues.

Informal discussions with colleagues have left us with many questions and concerns:

• Compliance: The Standing Order authorizing the President to implement a furlough/salary reduction plan in a state of financial emergency requires, among five conditions, that “other reductions of University expenditures through established University regulations and procedures are insufficient to stabilize the financial position,” and that “the contemplated actions are an essential element of financial savings under the current conditions.” In the absence of a full and transparent account of the budget and of all possible cost-cutting measures, how can we know whether these conditions have been met?

• Duration: Although the furloughs/salary reductions are proposed for a one-year term, they are subject to renewal by the Regents. By what process would a decision to extend these furloughs/salary reductions take place?

• Equity: We are concerned that the proposed cuts are not as progressively structured as they would have to be to realize the stated goal of equitability. Why are structures of multiple tiers, slowly graduated rises between tiers, and a threshold for total exemption from furloughs/salary reductions not considered? In light of the high cost of living in the Bay Area, and the fact that many employees are barely scraping by to pay their mortgage/rent, why should a cap on reductions for our highest earning employees come at the expense of a living wage for our lowest earning employees?

• Other consequences of reduced compensation: What are the implications of furloughs/salary reductions for our pensions and other benefits? The University's website says that “it may not be possible in all situations… to protect benefits and leave accruals… [T]his issue continues to be evaluated and no final decisions have been made yet.” In the absence of such information, how can we adjudicate the options?

• Deferred compensation: Are there alternatives that could be considered in lieu of either furloughs or salary reductions? For example, could savings gained from a salary reduction be treated as an advance from employees whose lost earnings would be restored upon recovery of the economy?

• Workload and tenure/promotions criteria: Under the furlough proposal, how are teaching and administrative duties reduced to achieve a workload commensurate with reduced pay? Are tenure, promotion, and job performance criteria adjusted accordingly?

• Recruitment/retention of faculty: Academic careers are exceptional in that they typically involve enormous early financial sacrifice (for graduate students), early job insecurity (for junior faculty), and forfeiture of high salaries and easy mobility in exchange for job security (for senior faculty). Furloughs/salary reductions would undermine prospective faculty's confidence that terms of employment that are offered will be honored. How would this affect our future ability to recruit the best scholars from around the world?

• Maintaining educational excellence: Our dedication to teaching at Berkeley also depends upon its unmatched (and historical) combination of academic excellence, its diverse student population, and its tradition as a public university. The proposed furloughs/salary reductions are coupled with a raising of student fees, which endangers that tradition.

We are fully committed to our University and its mission, and we would like to participate meaningfully in decisions about the University’s budget and explore alternatives that do not endanger faculty excellence and student access.

We realize that the roots of the budget crisis ultimately lie in precarious public support for public education and that, in the last instance, we are accountable to the residents of California. What is the University doing to persuade California taxpayers, legislators, and the media to support UC? Two bills currently before the California legislature—ACA 24 and SCA 21—would place before voters a constitutional amendment repealing UC’s historic constitutional autonomy.

What is the University doing in response to these bills? How might we move from a reactive stance to a pro-active strategy?

We need to respond to the current budget crisis in a way that respects and draws upon the good will of students, staff, faculty, donors, and alumnae. Their expertise, energy, and devotion to the University are its best resource.

Yours sincerely,

Elizabeth Abel, Professor, English
David Ackerly, Associate Professor, Integrative Biology
Robert Allen, Adjunct Professor, African American Studies/Ethnic Studies
Robert Alter, Class of 1937 Professor in Hebrew and Comparative Literature, Department of Comparative Literature
Charles Altieri, Professor, English
Miguel A. Altieri, Professor, Environmental Science, Policy & Management
Paola Bacchetta, Associate Professor, Gender & Women Studies
Ann Banfield, Professor, English
Patricia Baquedano-Lopez, Associate Professor, Graduate School of Education
Patricia Berger, Associate Professor, History of Art
Irene Bloemraad, Assistant Professor, Sociology
Jean-Paul Bourdier, Professor, Architecture
Mark Brilliant, Assistant Professor, History/ Program in American Studies
Karl Ashoka Britto, Associate Professor, French/Comparative Literature
Thomas F. Budinger, Professor, Bioengineering
Judith P. Butler, Maxine Elliott Professor, Rhetoric/Comparative Literature
Richard Candida Smith, Professor, History
Claudia J. Carr, Associate Professor, Environmental Science, Policy & Management
Marianne Constable, Professor, Rhetoric
Kiren Chaudhry, Associate Professor, Political Science
Pheng Cheah, Professor, Rhetoric
Raveevarn Choksombatchai, Associate Professor, Architecture
Renée Y. Chow, Associate Professor, Architecture and Urban Design
Margaret Chowning, Professor, History
Timothy J. Clark, George C. and Helen N. Pardee Chair, History of Art
Catherine Cole, Professor, Theater, Dance & Performance Studies
John Connelly, Associate Professor, History
Galen Cranz, Professor, Architecture
René Davids, Professor, Architecture and Urban Design
Prachi Deshpande, Associate Professor, History
Robert Dudley, Professor, Integrative Biology
Vasudha Dalmia, Catherine and William L. Magistretti Distinguished Professor, South & Southeast Asian Studies
Ian Duncan, Professor, English
John M. Efron, Koret Chair in Jewish History, Department of History
Laura Enriquez, Associate Professor, Sociology
Marian Feldman, Associate Professor, History of Art/Near Eastern Studies
Louise Fortmann, Professor, Environmental Science, Policy, & Management
Anne-Lise Francois, Associate Professor, English
Catherine Gallagher, Eggers Professor, English
Hannah Ginsborg, Professor, Philosophy
Peter Glazer, Associate Professor, Theater, Dance & Performance Studies
Evelyn Nakano Glenn, Professor, Ethnic Studies/Gender & Women's Studies
Mark Goble, Associate Professor, English
Steven Goldsmith, Associate Professor, English
Marcial Gonzalez, Associate Professor, English
Kevis Goodman, Associate Professor, English
Darcy Grimaldo Grigsby, Associate Professor, History of Art
Suzanne Guerlac, Professor, French
Chris Hallett, Associate Professor and Chair, History of Art
Timothy Hampton, Professor, French/Comparative Literature; Acting Chair, French
Kristin Hanson, Associate Professor, English
Gillian Hart, Professor, Geography
Cori Hayden, Associate Professor, Anthropology
Mark Healey, Assistant Professor, History
Lyn Hejinian, Professor, English
Ronald Hendel, Norma and Sam Dabby Professor of Hebrew Bible and Jewish Studies, Department of Near Eastern Studies
David Henkin, Professor, History
Charles Hirschkind, Associate Professor, Anthropology
Elizabeth Honig, Associate Professor, History of Art
You-tien Hsing, Associate Professor, Geography
Lynn Huntsinger, Professor, Environmental Science, Policy, & Management
Michael Iarocci, Associate Professor, Spanish and Portuguese
Alastair Iles, Assistant Professor, Environmental Science, Policy, & Management
Shannon Jackson, Professor & Chair, Theater, Dance and Performance Studies
Sheri L. Johnson, Professor, Psychology; Director, Cal Mania (CALM) Program
Andrew F. Jones, Associate Professor, East Asian Languages & Cultures
Victoria Kahn, Professor, Comparative Literature/English
Elaine H. Kim, Professor, Ethnic and Asian American Studies
Niko Kolodny, Associate Professor, Philosophy
Jake Kosek, Assistant Professor, Geography
George Lakoff, Professor, Linguistics
Jean Lave, Professor Emerita, Graduate School of Education
Gregory Levine, Associate Professor, History of Art
Song Li, Associate Professor, Bioengineering
Samuel R. Lucas, Associate Professor, Sociology
Colleen Lye, Associate Professor, English
Saba Mahmood, Associate Professor, Anthropology
Nelson Maldonado-Torres, Associate Professor, Ethnic Studies
Beatriz Manz, Professor, Geography/Ethnic Studies
Leslie Martin, Lecturer, French and Comparative Literature
Waldo E. Martin, Jr., Professor, History
Francine Masiello, Professor, Spanish and Portuguese/ Comparative Literature
Rebecca McLennan, Associate Professor, History
Line Mikkelsen, Assistant Professor, Linguistics
Trinh T. Minh-ha, Professor, Rhetoric and Gender & Women's Studies
Minoo Moallem, Professor, Gender & Women's Studies
Kathleen Moran, Senior Lecturer, Program in American Studies
Rachel Morello-Frosch, Associate Professor, Environmental Science, Policy & Management
Davitt Moroney, Professor, Music; University Organist
Alva Noe, Professor, Philosophy
Richard B. Norgaard, Professor, Energy & Resources Group
Geoffrey G. O’Brien, Assistant Professor, English
Todd P. Olson, Associate Professor, History of Art
Aihwa Ong, Professor, Anthropology/Southeast Asian Studies
Samuel Otter, Professor and Chair, English
Kevin Padian, Professor, Integrative Biology; Curator, Museum of Paleontology
Céline Pallud, Assistant Professor, Environmental Science, Policy & Management
Beth Piatote, Assistant Professor, Ethnic and Native American Studies
Joanna Picciotto, Associate Professor, English
Gautam Premnath, Assistant Professor, English
Kent Puckett, Associate Professor, English
Paul Rabinow, Professor, Anthropology
Leigh Raiford, Assistant Professor, African American Studies
Harsha Ram, Associate Professor, Slavic Languages and Literatures/ Comparative Literature
Isha Ray, Assistant Professor, Energy & Resources Group
Raka Ray, Sarah Kailath Chair of India Studies, Sociology
José David Saldívar, Class of 1942 Professor, English/Ethnic Studies
Debarati Sanyal, Associate Professor, French
Alex Saragoza, Associate Professor, Ethnic Studies
Daniel Sargent, Assistant Professor, History
Scott Saul, Associate Professor, English
Nancy Scheper-Hughes, Chancellor's Professor of Anthropology; Head, Doctoral Program in Medical Anthropology, Department of Anthropology
Ingrid Seyer-Ochi, Assistant Professor, Graduate School of Education
Katherine Sherwood, Professor, Art Practice
Whendee Silver, Professor, Environmental Science, Policy, & Management
Jeffrey Skoller, Associate Professor, Film Studies
Mary Ann Smart, Gladyce Arata Terrill Professor, Music
Sandra Susan Smith, Associate Professor, Sociology
Katherine Snyder, Associate Professor, English
Janet Sorensen, Associate Professor, English
Dan Stamper-Kurn, Associate Professor, Physics
Andrew Stewart, Nicholas C. Petris Professor of Greek Studies, History of Art and Classics
Laura Stoker, Associate Professor, Political Science
Jill Stoner, Associate Professor, Architecture
Chenxi Tang, Associate Professor, German
Elisa Tamarkin, Associate Professor, English
Alan Tansman, Professor, East Asian Languages & Cultures
Barrie Thorne, Professor, Sociology/Gender & Women's Studies
Charis Thompson, Associate Professor, Gender & Women's Studies
Khatharya Um, Associate Professor, Ethnic and Asian American Studies
Kate Van Orden, Professor, Music
Paula Varsano, Associate Professor, East Asian Languages & Cultures
Sophie Volpp, Associate Professor, Comparative Literature/East Asian Languages and Cultures
Anne Wagner, Professor and Class of 1936 Chair, History of Art
Richard Walker, Professor, Geography
Anne Walsh, Associate Professor, Art Practice
Michael Watts, Class of '63 Professor, Geography
Laurie A. Wilkie, Professor, Anthropology
Robb Willer, Assistant Professor, Sociology
Joanna Williams, Professor, History of Art and South/Southeast Asian Studies
Sau-Ling Wong, Professor, Ethnic and Asian American Studies