Ninety percent of colleges reported increases in financial aid applications this year, and 74 percent of colleges reported an increase in the number of students offered institutional grant aid, according to a survey being released today by the National Association for College Admission Counseling. Those numbers — from a survey of NACAC’s members, released at the association’s annual meeting here — are in some ways not surprising, as admissions officers have been saying for most of the last year that requests for aid were increasing and that their institutions were scrambling to add funds to help those hurt (or scared) by the collapsing national economy.
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by Scott Jaschik, Inside Higher Ed.
Posted: September 25th, 2009, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.
A day of action that started as a demonstration by faculty against details of UC’s furlough program quickly swelled to an all-out venting of frustration by students, professors and laborers. Across the state, they marched together to draw attention to the way budget cuts are affecting California’s premier university system: an $813 million deficit this summer led to layoffs and furloughs for employees, fee hikes for students and cutbacks in classes and services. Officials in UC’s Office of the President responded by acknowledging the university must be more aggressive in lobbying state government for funding. "There’s been a sea change here in the last year," said UC spokesman Peter King. "There’s an awareness that we need to roll up our sleeves and get in the game." Whether more lobbyists making the case can help remains to be seen. California is broke, and the economic recession will continue to take a toll on state programs, said H.D. Palmer, spokesman for the state Department of Finance. "No area in state government spending has been unaffected by this," he said. At best, Palmer said, next year "might be less worse."
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by Laurel Rosenhall and Julie Johnson , The Sacramento Bee.
Posted: September 25th, 2009, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.
On the first official day of the fall quarter for many campuses, UC professors – supported by union bosses – walked out on their classrooms to protest the Board of Regents’ decision to institute campuswide furloughs, fee hikes and other cutbacks to offset shortfalls in the UC budget. The biggest concern amongst the faculty orchestrating the protest seemed to be the administration’s announcement restricting teachers from taking furloughs on days they are supposed to teach. Instead, teachers would have to take furloughs on days they are not scheduled for in-class student instruction – days they have office ours, are doing research or are off-campus. This seems reasonable to us. Teaching should be the first priority of a teacher.
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by The Editors, The Orange County Register.
Posted: September 25th, 2009, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.
Although an estimated 5,000 students, faculty and staff gathered on UC Berkeley’s Upper Sproul Plaza yesterday, participation in the UC systemwide faculty walkout was much lower across the other nine campuses. The walkout was held on the first day of instruction for eight of the campuses, which may have led to a lower turnout than was hoped for by organizers. But overall, many characterized the systemwide walkout as a success. Ilgiz Khisamov, a fifth-year senior at UC Irvine, said in an e-mail that the unity shown at the rally on his campus was "amazing, albeit rare." "Having 500 to 600 people in attendance and vocalizing their disapproval with state government and UC administration is simply amazing," he said. But due to the lack of publicity associated with the beginning of the quarter, many campuses were not able to draw crowds as large as those at UC Berkeley.
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by Javier Panzar, Kelly Strickland and Jolene Xie, The Daily Californian.
Posted: September 25th, 2009, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.
An estimated 5,000 students, professors and other employees packed UC Berkeley’s Sproul Plaza on Thursday to protest budget cuts and fee hikes they said are decimating the university system. The two-hour rally — believed to be the largest Berkeley demonstration since the 1960s — coincided with a faculty walkout that moved many classes off campus for the day… "What’s really important is this is just the beginning," said senior NhuNhu Nguyen, a student government senator. "We should use our mobilization to hit the roots of the problem, which is legislative." Chancellor Robert Birgeneau, who did not attend the rally, said he understood the anger, but said that Sacramento and California residents — not the university — are to blame. "I don’t blame the students and staff for being angry," he said. "They have to direct their anger somewhere."
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by Matt Krupnick and Doug Oakley, The San Jose Mercury News.
Posted: September 25th, 2009, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.
U.C. Irvine Humanities Lecturer Keith Danner gave an idea of the cuts in his division alone. "On July 1, 2008 we had 80 full time support staff. On July 1, 2009, we had 67 full time staff and with another 26 layoffs coming we will have 41 staff or a 50% cut. These are the people that make departments run." There are rumblings among faculty and staff that the university is top heavy with administrators often paid more than $100,000. Yet while critical of the U.C. administration for not being more transparent in its approach to budgeting and for paying football coaches more than Nobel Prize winners, the protesters know the real problem lies in Sacramento. "It’s not just an economic crisis," says Shannon Steen, a U.C. Berkeley professor who helped form Save the University to protest cuts to the budget, "it’s really a political crisis around the two-thirds rule in the legislature that holds the state hostage to a minority of legislators who are not doing what the people of California want."
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by Kevin O'Leary, Time Magazine.
Posted: September 25th, 2009, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.
About 700 students, faculty and staff attended a noontime rally at UCLA’s Bruin Plaza today as part of a systemwide day of protests against UC fee hikes, class reductions and pay cuts… Among the speakers at the hourlong rally was English professor Jenny Sharpe, who like others denounced both UC President Mark G. Yudof and lawmakers in Sacramento for what she said was shifting the cost of public higher education from the state to the students. "State support for higher education has to be seen as a public good, not a private privilege," she told the crowd.
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by Larry Gordon, Tony Barboza and Maria LaGanga, The Los Angeles Times.
Posted: September 24th, 2009, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.
The Berkeley protest was one of many held across California in an unprecedented day of action directed at university authorities and state governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger as he attempts to curb the state’s multibillion-dollar budget crisis. Faculty, students and unions from the University of California’s 10 campuses including its two most prestigious, UCLA and Berkeley, joined forces in what was the biggest student protest for more than a generation. The scale of the protests has come as a shock to state authorities. What began as a marginal dispute in the summer between university faculty and their management over cuts in salaries has in recent weeks escalated into a statewide walkout by students and faculty as well as a day of strike action by campus technical workers against layoffs and diminished terms and conditions.
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by Mary O'Hara, The Guardian.
Posted: September 24th, 2009, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.
On the first day of classes at UC Santa Cruz, several hundred demonstrators rallied against budget cuts that have led to sharp fee student fee increases, employee furloughs and enrollment cuts. Dozens of faculty members participated alongside students in a planned walkout to protest actions taken by the university’s president and governing board to deal with $800 million cut in state funding. The University Professional and Technical Employees union also went on a one-day strike to bring attention to its unresolved contract with the university. Several similar demonstrations took place on UC campuses statewide. Many faculty planned to teach students about the budget cuts, while others chose to join the protest… Assemblymember Bill Monning, D-Carmel, joined the hourlong demonstration, saying the problem of UC budget cuts is just one example of a state government in need of an overhaul. He repeated calls for an end to the two-thirds majority rule…
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by J. M. Brown, The San Jose Mercury News.
Posted: September 24th, 2009, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.
What to do tomorrow, then? I agree passionately with the demands behind the strike. My sister-in-law is a custodian at UC Riverside, a single mother of three. Close friends work as clerical staff or in food service. Anyone who makes less than $40,000 a year should be insulated from the cuts. The faculty, the students and all of us who "own" UC should know precisely how it is spending its money. The faculty should not be powerless, and the latest tuition increases — 50% by the time this academic year is over — only make it all worse. And yet, what is the right thing to do? …On Thursday, I’m going to meet my students and ask them to vote. I will not tell them whose side I’m on, except that I’m on their side. I will not vote. If they decide to march around the bell tower, that’s how class will unfold. If they want to write a letter to President Yudof, we will. If they want to ignore the strike, we will…
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by Susan Straight, The Los Angeles Times.
Posted: September 23rd, 2009, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.
