From discussions about the University of California’s budget woes to protests against the executive handling of the crisis, yesterday’s teach-in offered a variety of takes on the current fiscal climate. Dubbed "Defending the University: A ‘Teach-in’ on the Current Crisis," the event featured a series of lectures and panels promoting alternate ways to offset the UC’s budget gap other than imposing fee hikes and furloughs… "The key prime directive, the core mantra, [of the Regents] — and this predates Yudof — is to keep the governor happy," Glantz said. Robert Meister, president of the Council of UC Faculty Associations, said UC president Mark G. Yudof’s decision to declare a state of financial emergency for the UC was a tactic to raise tuition fees and cut faculty salaries while convincing investors and bond buyers of the UC’s financial vitality.

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by Richard Lau, The Daily Nexus.

Posted: October 15th, 2009, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

A Central Coast dust-up between prominent Valley beef businessmen and a public university is raising concerns over academic freedom and donor influence. Top executives at Harris Ranch Beef Company threatened to pull $500,000 in pledges to California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, after nationally known agribusiness critic Michael Pollan was invited to speak. Campus officials acknowledge revamping the format of Pollan’s Thursday appearance, but deny bowing to donor pressure. Now, the Harris Ranch pledges remain in limbo as others question whether high-profile contributors unfairly influenced academics.

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by Cyndee Fontana and Robert Rodriguez, The Fresno Bee.

Posted: October 15th, 2009, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

"Berkeley is really a glorious place," Williamson said Monday. "The commitment to excellence is extraordinary." But will it last? Berkeley is the flagship campus of a UC system that is being squeezed dangerously tight. The governor and Legislature cut roughly $1 billion out of UC’s budget. Regents are expected to raise student fees nearly 40 percent over the next year. Thousands of faculty and staff positions have been eliminated. "There is real jeopardy," Williamson said. "And the longer it goes on, the more we’re at risk."… State officials must seriously address California government’s fiscal meltdown and more rationally prioritize funding. We shouldn’t be spending more on prisons than higher education. Cal and the entire UC system are vital to our future. If we don’t save them, the next generation of students and research could be lost.

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by The Editors, The Contra Costa Times.

Posted: October 14th, 2009, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

History professor Nelson Lichtenstein offered historical context and talked about Clark Kerr, UC’s 12th president who expanded the system greatly to support the influx of baby boomers. "Under Kerr’s tenure, UC students had no tuition and almost no fees," he said, eliciting cheers from the audience. Kerr saw to it that the university resisted privatization and remained subsidized by taxpayers, "safe and accountable to democratic policies." Stan Glantz, a professor at UC San Francisco and a past chairman of the system’s committee on planning and budget, spoke about UC’s budget woes and their origins within the political landscape, taking specific issue with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s cuts of higher education. Glantz was equally scathing in his treatment of former Gov. Gray Davis, and said no one was looking out for the interests of students and faculty. "There’s no one that I see — not President Yudof, not the Regents, not the chancellors — whose out there defending the idea of public education," he said.

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by Lara Cooper, The Santa Barbara Noozhawk.

Posted: October 14th, 2009, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

Despite overwhelming bipartisan support in the Legislature, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger (R-Los Angeles) vetoed legislation that would have prohibited executive pay raises during bad budget years at the University of California and the California State University… "There is absolutely no justification for these bloated salaries," said Yee. "Unfortunately for students and California taxpayers, the Governor is not nearly as concerned about stopping the excessive student fee hikes as he is with protecting the exorbitant salaries of university executives. Unlike Governor Schwarzenegger, I believe it is the students, faculty and workers that make our universities special, not ‘high level personnel.’"

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by Staff, The California Chronicle.

Posted: October 13th, 2009, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

No matter how squeezed the University of California is, it makes no sense to single out students our economy will need — such as its future engineers — and levy a surcharge on them for their chosen major. That’s the latest scheme for raising revenue at UC. Undergraduates in engineering and business would be charged $900 more a year than other students, who already are facing a probable fee increase of more than $2,500 next fall. The rationale is that the faculty in these two fields earn significantly higher salaries, raising the cost of education, and that students from those majors will make enough money after graduation to pay off the bigger loans… UC is hurting, and we know that it cannot operate exactly as it did before. But California should not be ready to abandon the idea that a top-quality, subsidized undergraduate education is good for the state’s young people and the state’s future.

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by The Editors, The Los Angeles Times.

Posted: October 13th, 2009, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

A plan proposed by The Chronicle in a Sept. 18 editorial to find new revenues for the University of California could mean only the rich and well-connected would be able to attend the state’s best public universities. The Chronicle chastised University of California students and faculty for protesting a proposed 44 percent student fee increase and faculty/staff furloughs to offset state budget cuts. The editorial said, "We need new thinking, not outbursts."

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by Harrison J. Chastang III, The San Francisco Chronicle.

Posted: October 12th, 2009, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

Choosing special interests over much needed reform in California´s floundering colleges and universities, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed Senator Leland Yee´s (D-SF) SB 218 on Sunday. SB 218 would have required foundations and other auxiliary non-profits connected with the state’s public universities and colleges to make their handling of money and other operations more transparent and accountable to the public.

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by Staff, The California Chronicle.

Posted: October 12th, 2009, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

Teach-ins on Tuesday and Thursday at Sacramento State will try to give students and professors hope for the future, Canton said. For the faculty union, that hope lies in Assembly Bill 656. The bill is sponsored by the California Faculty Association, the union that represents CSU professors and librarians. It calls for taxing oil and natural gas drawn from California soil or waters and devoting the money to CSU, UC and community colleges. It would raise $1 billion a year, with the majority of the money going to CSU, said the bill’s author, Alberto Torrico, D-Fremont.

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by Laurel Rosenhall, The Sacramento Bee.

Posted: October 12th, 2009, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

As part of a plan to plug UC’s battered budget, the regents may vote as early as next month on the controversial, tradition-breaking proposal to require engineering undergraduates, along with those studying business, to pay $900 more a year than the rest of the student body. That would be in addition to the $2,514 systemwide fee increase all students are likely to see by next fall. Revenue-hungry UC officials say the two fields were chosen because salaries for their faculty members are significantly higher than the rest and because students majoring in those subjects tend to land well-paid jobs after graduation. And they point out that nearly half of all U.S. public universities have taken similar steps, with many joining the trend recently because state funding for higher education has declined during the recession… Other colleges have considered two-tier pricing but decided against it. At the College of William and Mary, a public university in Virginia, officials did not want tuition levels to influence a student’s choice of major, according to Samuel Jones, vice president of finance.

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by Larry Gordon, The Los Angeles Times.

Posted: October 12th, 2009, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.