A growing chorus of voices is calling for the firing of a UC Berkeley administrator who helped triple her secret sex partner’s pay over five years. Calling Diane Leite’s punishment “an affront” to the university, several UC Berkeley professors have asked the school’s provost to investigate how the matter was handled. They are aghast that, instead of firing her, the university reassigned Leite from her assistant vice chancellor post and will still pay her $175,000 a year.

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by Matt Krupnick, The San Jose Mercury News.

Posted: March 15th, 2012, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

Dear Governor Brown: We are writing you with deep concern about the state’s continuing disinvestment from public higher education, and your lack of direct communication with students. When you were elected in 2010, many students hoped that your election would usher in a new era for public higher education in California and reverse the approach taken by your predecessor. Thus far, things have not improved, and in fact, in many ways they have worsened… you have not made yourself available to meet directly with students. Students from the three segments have not been involved in any negotiations that your office is having with representatives from our administrations. We find it problematic that these critical discussions, which may result in a “compact” that includes repeated fee increases in future years…

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by Claudia Magaña, Gregory Washington and Kevin Feliciano, California Progress Report.

Posted: March 15th, 2012, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

How do you ruin a state? Gut its education system. How do you get away with it? Quick knife work. A small group of political appointees in Sacramento who have mounted an unprecedented attack on California’s incomparable community college system is carving fast. By May, unless we defeat some nefarious bills, we will be inaugurating a new era of inequity and social upheaval… It’s heartbreaking to see tough but temporary budget problems used to permanently, disastrously change a great system. The reality is that these proposals are part of a larger movement of educational reformers to enact a college version of No Child Left Behind, which penalizes schools for students’ performance. The college version will endanger California’s economic future just as community colleges gear up to train the new workforce.

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by Leah Halper, The San Jose Mercury News.

Posted: March 15th, 2012, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

Great education institutions are being decimated through budget cuts in this state… You cannot fix any of this in a state more inclined to build prisons than schools, despite projections of a huge shortage of college-educated workers by 2025. You can’t fix it when you’re the only major oil-producing state with no excise tax, and you refuse to correct the huge property tax advantage Proposition 13 extended to corporations. You can’t fix it without modest concessions from public employees, including teachers, on pensions and benefits. And you certainly can’t fix it with three competing and unimaginative tax-increase proposals — one by Gov. Jerry Brown — that would restore some school funding, but are likely to do each other in come November. We used to be able to brag about our schools, and maybe we took quality for granted. That’s all behind us now, and even mediocrity is fading from sight in the rearview mirror.

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by Steve Lopez, The Los Angeles Times.

Posted: March 14th, 2012, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

Many students said they view the board’s action as a move toward privatizing programs while relieving the state of its responsibility to adequately fund public higher education. “It’s creating a two-tiered system of wealthier students who can afford classes and struggling working-class and low-income students competing for the scraps of what’s left; it’s definitely a move in the wrong direction,” said student government President Harrison Wills. Wills was among dozens of students who urged the seven-member Board of Trustees last weekto reject the plan. Only board Chairwoman Margaret Quinones-Perez and student trustee Joshua Scuteri, whose vote is advisory, opposed it. Trustee Louise Jaffe dismissed fears that the plan would shut out low-income students, arguing that they already are being driven to expensive for-profit institutions where they are amassing huge debt.

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by Carla Rivera, The Los Angeles Times.

Posted: March 14th, 2012, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

Birgeneau became the ninth chancellor of the 144-year-old Berkeley campus after serving as president of the University of Toronto and science school dean at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he spent 25 years on the faculty. “The chancellor has aimed high in his efforts to make UC Berkeley a truly global force in higher education and research, but he also has managed to preserve its historic standing in California as a beacon of hope and opportunity for all prospective students,” said Mark Yudof, president of the 10-campus University of California system. Yudof said a committee will conduct a nationwide search for a new chancellor of the 36,000-student campus. Birgeneau, a native of Toronto, said after he leaves the chancellor’s office he also hopes to “have one more truly significant physics/materials science experiment still to come in my academic career.” Asked what he could have done better, he said he wished he had more success in staving off the state budget cuts and convincing people in California to make education a higher priority.

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by Terence Chea, The Sacramento Bee.

Posted: March 13th, 2012, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

It is not surprising that some defenders of Israeli state policies try to portray criticism of these policies as hate speech against Jews. This tactic has been used very effectively in this matter for many years. What is surprising and shocking is that the president of the University of California would echo this view uncritically. It seems like President Yudof could benefit from some basic undergraduate classes on the campuses over which he presides.

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by Bob Ostertag, The Huffington Post.

Posted: March 13th, 2012, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

With anger bubbling on college campuses, spending on higher education is expected to remain a flash point as California lawmakers hash out this year’s state budget… the UC system’s $22.5-billion budget for the current academic year is only 11% state spending. But university officials point out that 73% of that spending is restricted to things such as medical facilities and other operations, and can’t be used to offset tuition increases… Last Wednesday, an Assembly subcommittee rejected Brown’s effort to cut more than $300 million from Cal Grants, the state’s financial aid program. It also voted down his proposal to shift $736.4 million in federal funds from welfare to scholarships. H.D. Palmer, a spokesman for Brown’s Department of Finance, said that means lawmakers will need to find more than $1 billion in other cuts in order to close an estimated $9.2-billion budget deficit by June 30.

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by Chris Megerian, The Los Angeles Times.

Posted: March 12th, 2012, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

Five people have been charged in connection with an Occupy protest at UC Berkeley in November that attracted national attention after a YouTube video showed police jabbing their batons at screaming students… Some of the defendants said they were upset that prosecutors had filed charges after Chancellor Robert Birgeneau said officials would not seek disciplinary action against those arrested. The charges “seem odd, given the evidence of what I think was excessive force and irregular arrest procedures,” said English Professor Celeste Langan, 54, one of those charged. A video of the protest showed police grabbing her by the hair and yanking her to the ground. Drenick said she couldn’t comment on why Langan and the others had been charged. “What is brought to us for purposes of review is the evidence gathered by the police officers,” she said.

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by Will Kane, The San Francisco Chronicle.

Posted: March 12th, 2012, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

“Public higher education in California is really in a crisis, probably the most severe crisis that most of us have seen in a generation,” said Jaime Regalado, emeritus professor of political science at Cal State L.A. As more students take to the streets, he said, “it’s going to become harder and harder and harder for the politicians to ignore.” … The slice into Cal Grants that lawmakers rejected — not for the first time — is the largest chunk of Brown’s proposed 3.6% reduction in higher education funding for the next fiscal year.

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by Chris Megerian, The Los Angeles Times.

Posted: March 11th, 2012, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.