At least four Southwestern College instructors have been suspended with pay following a rally to protest the elimination of more than 400 course selections and to show dissatisfaction with the administration… When Rempt’s students showed up to an empty classroom yesterday morning, they headed to the president’s office for an explanation. Campus police officers intervened and accused them of participating in "a misdemeanor unlawful assembly," said Cori Mendez, who was chosen by her classmates to inquire in Chopra’s office. "The whole thing is weird and kind of scary," said Mendez… The latest in a string of controversies is Southwestern governing board’s recent decision to cut 429 course selections for the spring semester. The cuts represent an estimated 25 percent of all offerings. College officials blame the cuts on state reductions in education spending. Other community colleges throughout California also have eliminated classes.
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by Maureen Magee, San Diego Union-Tribune.
Posted: October 24th, 2009, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.
As California’s students headed back to school this fall, thousands fewer school employees returned with them. The number of jobs in public educational services – which includes jobs at public schools from the elementary to the university level, as well as jobs at the California Department of Education and California State Library – fell by 12,100 (1.1 percent) between September 2008 and September 2009, according to the latest Employment Development Department data.
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by Alissa Anderson, The California Budget Project.
Posted: October 23rd, 2009, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.
According to the UC Commission on the Future Web site, UC President Mark G. Yudof and UC Board of Regents Chairman created the commission in July to "develop a vision for the future of the state’s public research university." The commission will present their recommendations to the Board of Regents in March of 2010. However, amongst other concerns, participants at yesterday’s forum emphasized fears that the Commission — which professes on its mission statement a goal to employ new operational strategies at the UC — may be steering the university away from the Master Plan it has followed, in its many versions, for decades. UCSB economics professor Henning Bohn said this apprehension that the Commission has nefarious goals is a common sentiment.
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by Elliott Rosenfeld, The Daily Nexus.
Posted: October 23rd, 2009, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.
"What we can do as students is have our voices heard," said Andrew Lopez, 21, a communications and advertising major and ASI representative. "We’re telling lawmakers that they need to make higher education a priority. Go out there and find the money. This is where the next generation of . . . leaders . . . is being educated." Claudia Pinedo, 19, a sophomore nursing major, held the whiteboard with her message: "Now my parents will have to work double shifts to be able to afford my education." She hurried away to a student study group that was going to tackle amino acids, the subject of Chapter 19 in her chemistry book. "On Monday, the chemistry teacher told us that we’re going to have to learn a whole chapter on our own" because of the furlough, Pinedo said. "I could tell he felt bad. He felt frustrated."
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by Mike Anton, The Los Angeles Times.
Posted: October 22nd, 2009, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.
This Wednesday, October 21st, Fresno State saw one of it’s largest mobilizations since the 60s. The Student Walkout was in protest to the most recent fee increase of 32% (fees go up almost every year by around 10% usually), class furloughs (pay more get less!), over-crowded classrooms, faculty lay-offs, staff layoffs, corrupt administration, corrupt ASI who refuses to represent the students, really to challenge the entire CSU system… After the march there was a post-rally followed by a group of the students taking the list of demands to Welty’s office on the 4th floor of the library (in the rally there were many references to Welty’s tower where he could look down on his subjects and maintain inaccessibility)… VP Olario came out and we had "dialogue" with him for over an hour until Welty actually came back and agreed to a public meeting on Nov. 3 in the peace garden at noon. This is where he will respond to our demands (which he has previously ignored repeatedly) and hear directly from the students in front of media.
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by CSU Walkout Coalition, The San Francisco Bay Area Independent Media Center.
Posted: October 22nd, 2009, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.
The effects of state funding cuts were a focus of the forum, but those who commented also questioned UC leadership and the commission’s intentions in the bigger picture of the campus’ future. Stakeholders made it clear that they don’t believe their voices are being heard. The absence of the Board of Regents and Yudof was strongly felt by many… Professors stressed that the UC system needs its leadership to stand up for it on a state level. "Who will make the case for the UC if our leaders will not?" Physics Department chair Mark Srednicki said. "We cannot look to the future without first understanding the past." Overall, the faculty and staff urged the commission to reject the idea of privatization and any changes that would make the university a lesser institution, or "education light."
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by Giana Magnoli, Noozhawk Santa Barbara.
Posted: October 22nd, 2009, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.
Chancellor Robert Birgeneau said Tuesday that his campus will be admitting as many as 600 fewer "unfunded" California students a year to offset a 20 percent cut from Sacramento. Those slots will instead go to out-of-staters. The problem is that the state picks up much of the university’s cost of educating California students – only it’s not paying for as many students as it used to. Nonresidents, on the other hand, pay their own, higher tuitions that actually cover UC’s cost of educating them.State Sen. Leland Yee, D-San Francisco, who has been a persistent critic of UC spending policies, called the move "extremely frustrating" and said it was time for the university to stop blaming Sacramento for all its problems. "All of us taxpayers thought we would have UC to educate our children," Yee said. "But more and more, it seems to take care of other individuals – be it high-paid executives or out-of-state students."
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by Phillip Matier and Andrew Ross, The San Francisco Chronicle.
Posted: October 21st, 2009, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.
Now that we are picking up the pieces, we need to understand that it is not only our financial system that needs a reboot and an upgrade, but also our public school system. Otherwise, the jobless recovery won’t be just a passing phase, but our future. "Our education failure is the largest contributing factor to the decline of the American worker’s global competitiveness, particularly at the middle and bottom ranges," argued Martin, a former global executive with PepsiCo and Kraft Europe and now an international investor. "This loss of competitiveness has weakened the American worker’s production of wealth, precisely when technology brought global competition much closer to home"
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by Thomas L. Friedman, The New York Times.
Posted: October 20th, 2009, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.
But I fear that no defense of academic practices, however nuanced and moderate, will be successful because, on the evidence of the comments, the anti-academic animus that depresses Thomas Zaslavsky is deep and pervasive. There is a general sense that academics have cushy jobs they don’t even perform, that they inhabit a wonderland of "privileged sleaze" and display an "overweening sense of entitlement" (Victor Edwards). dan1138 speaks for many when he proclaims, "We simply don’t need a cosseted privileged class able to demand lifetime job security in exchange for some hypothetical intellectual function." They just don’t believe that the yield of maintaining us in a protected enclave is worth the enormous cost.
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by Stanley Fish, The New York Times.
Posted: October 19th, 2009, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.
University of California officials have decided to shelve, at least for now, a controversial proposal to charge undergraduate engineering and business students $900 more a year than those in other majors. The plan, which had been scheduled for discussion and a possible vote at next month’s regents meeting, has been postponed for further study, a university spokesman said Thursday. UC administrators "felt they wanted to take more time to examine it," spokesman Ricardo Vazquez said. But he said the idea was not dead and could be brought to the regents in a revised form at a later date… Lt. Gov. John Garamendi, a UC regent by virtue of his office, opposes the differential fees and welcomed news of the delay. "A permanent postponement of a really stupid policy is in order here," said Garamendi, who also plans to argue against the general fee increase.
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by Larry Gordon, The Los Angeles Times.
Posted: October 16th, 2009, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.
