California State University trustees raised tuition by 9 percent today, even as CSU police used pepper spray and clashed violently with protesters who had been escorted from the university’s Long Beach headquarters. A glass door shattered when protesters tried to get back into the building and police inside pushed back. One officer was sent to the hospital, and four protesters, including three CSU students, were arrested, CSU officials said. The trustees raised tuition for the second time this year, voting 9-to-6 for the increase.
Read full article [here].
by Nanette Asimov, The San Francisco Chronicle.
Posted: November 16th, 2011, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.
As the Occupy movement grows across California and UC, protesters had called for a massive demonstration at the Wednesday meeting, claiming that regents with ties to banking “are the 1 percent” responsible for astronomical fee hikes and budget cuts. At least four regents have such ties, they said: Monica Lozano serves on the board of Bank of America, Dick Blum is head of Blum Capital Partners, Leslie Tang Schilling is an adviser at the Union Square Investment Company and Paul Wachter is CEO of Main Street Advisors… The agenda for this week’s meeting included no volatile issues, such as raising tuition. In the past, such votes have attracted large protests. Yet thousands of students from UC, California State University and community colleges across Northern California had signed up to go the regents meeting, activists said. They called the warning about “rogue elements” a cover-up.
Read full article [here].
by Nanette Asimov, The San Francisco Chonicle.
Posted: November 14th, 2011, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.
California State University trustees will vote Wednesday on raising fees by $498, or about 9 percent, for fall 2012. That would bring annual tuition for undergrads at CSU’s 23 campuses to $5,970, not including books, room or board. Most campuses charge an additional $1,000 in local fees. The tuition increase is part of the university’s larger plan for its 2012-13 budget. Trustees are also voting Wednesday on a proposal to ask the state for $2.4 billion in funding next year, an increase of $330 million over this year. If all of it comes through, CSU will not implement the tuition hike.
Read full article [here].
by Laurel Rosenhall, The Sacramento Bee.
Posted: November 14th, 2011, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.
A day after police forcibly removed an Occupy Cal encampment, several hundred students gathered on the steps at Sproul Plaza on Thursday evening to plan for a general strike at the university and decide whether to defy campus policy and set up new tents. The students voted to walk out of classes Tuesday in opposition to cuts in higher education and called on teachers and graduate students to join them… Birgeneau commended demonstrators who chose to be arrested peacefully. “These protesters were acting in the tradition of peaceful civil disobedience, and we honor them,” he said in the e-mail also signed by other campus administrators. On the other hand, he noted, other protesters formed a human chain by interlocking arms to prevent police from tearing down the tents. “This is not nonviolent civil disobedience,” he said. Many students weren’t buying it.
Read full article [here].
by Nanette Asimov and Jill Tucker, The San Francisco Chonicle.
Posted: November 11th, 2011, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.
Shifting tactics in a difficult budget situation, University of California President Mark G. Yudof said Tuesday that he would seek enough additional state funding to avoid a tuition hike next year and increase enrollment by 1%, or about 2,100 students. Yudof’s statement was a tactical retreat from a controversial plan floated in September in which UC said tuition could rise 8% to 16% annually over the next four years if state funding did not increase enough to offset increasing costs. Reaction from students and families in September was vociferously negative, and UC regents shelved the idea, at least for now.
Read full article [here].
by Larry Gordon, The Los Angeles Times.
Posted: November 9th, 2011, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.
The University of California will not raise tuition this school year even if state budget triggers are pulled next month and the system loses another $100 million, UC President Mark Yudof said today. His announcement puts UC in line with CSU and the community colleges, which earlier had waved off potential mid-year tuition increases if state budget triggers are activated… Yudof also said today that UC will ask the state for $2.8 billion in 2012-13, an 18 percent increase from the $2.37 billion it received this year. But UC officials acknowledged that their request is more of a wish-list than a figure they will actually plan on, saying it’s been more than 10 years since the state appropriated as much as UC requested in its annual ask.
Read full article [here].
by Laurel Rosenhall, The Sacramento Bee.
Posted: November 8th, 2011, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.
California State University’s faculty union voted Monday to strike on two campuses next week to protest the administration’s decision to withhold negotiated pay raises, an unprecedented job action leaders hope will draw attention to the plight of the state’s beleaguered public colleges. The California Faculty Association’s governing board voted to authorize a one-day strike at the East Bay and Dominguez Hills campuses after more than 90 percent of voting union members approved the move, said CFA president Lillian Taiz… The Nov. 17 walkout would be the first CSU faculty strike since collective bargaining began in 1983.
Read full article [here].
by Terence Chea, The San Jose Mercury News.
Posted: November 7th, 2011, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.
At least five will retire soon. Filling the raft of vacancies will be a challenge in the new fiscal era… The university’s leaders face the challenge of finding replacements during the state’s fiscal crisis and at a time when Cal State is also under scrutiny for recent hiring and compensation decisions… Cal State leaders were criticized this summer after they decided to pay Elliot Hirshman, the new president of San Diego State, an annual salary of $400,000, $100,000 more than his predecessor. That vote followed the board’s controversial decision in January to pay $380,000 to the new president of Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. Reed and other officials said the salaries were necessary to attract talented administrators for the jobs of running large campuses and raising millions of dollars in private funds.
Read full article [here].
by Carla Rivera, The Los Angeles Times.
Posted: November 6th, 2011, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.
The wave of anger at banks that has swept the country with the recent “Occupy” movement is coming to California college campuses next week. A union-backed group calling itself “Refund California” is organizing protests on Wednesday at more than a dozen college campuses, including Sacramento State and the University of California, Davis… The group sent letters Friday to University of California regents and trustees of the California State University, asking them to sign a pledge to support five items: Increasing income taxes on California’s wealthiest; changing Proposition 13 so that corporate property taxes could rise; implementing a federal sales tax on large-scale financial transactions; reducing underwater mortgage debt; reversing tuition increases, layoffs, and cuts to public education and essential services. University support for those demands is unlikely.
Read full article [here].
by Laurel Rosenhall, The Sacramento Bee.
Posted: November 4th, 2011, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.
Nearly 200 demonstrators marched to the University of California president’s office in downtown Oakland, but university police prevented them from entering the building… Protesters instead chanted outside, saying rising tuition at California’s public universities was hurting students. They also say the system’s Board of Regents is comprised of wealthy individuals who don’t represent their interests. Demonstrators say they plan to stage a sit-in to occupy the next regents’ meeting on Nov. 16.
Read full article [here].
by AP Wire, The Sacramento Bee.
Posted: November 2nd, 2011, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.
