Photo by Sal Ingram.

UCSC Chancellor George Blumenthal and executive vice chancellor Alison Galloway sat down with student media organizations on Feb. 6 to discuss issues facing the university.

CHP: The UC system accepted the highest number of students who didn’t meet the UC requirements this year — was that decision made for monetary reasons?

Blumenthal: By policy, UC is supposed to accept from among the top 12.5 percent of high school graduates in California. And by policy, non-resident students’ minimum requirements have to be at least the average of what California requirements are. The regents have, for a long time, agreed to set aside six percent of slots for students who might not meet the entrance requirements of the university. Historically I think we’ve accepted something like two to three percent of our entering class as not meeting the standard UC requirements. Oftentimes on this campus it’s if somebody hasn’t taken a particular test. On some campuses the reason for that is they want to accept athletes, so they recruit some football player who doesn’t meet the entrance requirements and they fall under that 6 percent. Sometimes it’s because of another special skill — a potential student who is a super-duper violin player and is really achieving a lot in that, but who doesn’t meet the normal requirements for admissions, that would be another example. I do think the campuses have the right to do this, up to 6 percent, and traditionally most of the campuses have not exercised that right. So why has that number gone up? My only speculation is some campuses have decided to do that more than they have in the past.

CHP: Why are the regents necessary?

B: Once you set up a university system, there has to be somebody or some group in charge. The regents serve that role as the people who bear the responsibility, financially and managerially, for the University of California system. I think if you look at any university or university system in the country, they all have something like a board of regents. Our board of regents has another unique aspect to it, namely constitutional autonomy — the regents can make decisions with regard to the university without the kind of legislative oversight that some other systems, for example the CSU system, have. And we can have a discussion about whether that’s the best possible model, but whatever you do there is going to have to be somebody in charge taking responsibility.

Photo by Sal Ingram.

CHP: Monica Lozano, one of the regents, sits on the board of Bank of America, which has been a massive provider of student loans — do you think that is a conflict of interest?

B: As a public university, I think we have to be more sensitive to potential conflicts of interests than any other organization in the country. On the other hand, the specific example of Monica Lozano and the Bank of America, I’m not particularly concerned [about] for a couple of reasons. One, Bank of America no longer does student loans —student loans are now federalized, so it’s not an issue anymore. Secondly, Monica actually has been an opponent of raising student tuition, so if she’s got the conflict of interest she did a very poor job of pushing it. I actually think she is very supportive of students and student financial concerns. Looking at potential conflicts of interest is important, but … the regents span a huge range, from people who are billionaires, who have amounts of money that you and I couldn’t even imagine, to people like Odessa Johnson, who is a retired schoolteacher.

CHP: With regard to the [upcoming] March 1 Day of Action, in terms of student interest, do you think that boycotting classes is an effective strategy for mobilizing students?

B: I think it’s not as effective as it could be, because if the only issue is closing down the campus, then the debate becomes closing down campus — the rights of students who want to close down the campus versus the students who [don’t], and then it becomes a student versus student issue … I think a much more helpful thing would be if we could use a day like that to actually have meaningful debate and discussions about the future of the university and the future of public higher education.

Photo by Sal Ingram.

CHP: How do you think students could initiate meaningful debate or open lines of communication with regents or chancellors to instigate the change they are hoping for?

Galloway: I think a lot about this. We were hoping to have the budget forum before March 1 so at least we could be on the same page in terms of what we’re looking at. I think you’ll find most of the administration is equally distressed by the budget cuts and tuition increases — it’s not an avenue we would like to be pursuing. But on the other hand, we’re faced with a situation where we have to provide a level of education which we feel at least that we can support, that it’s UC quality. And I’m looking forward — if those tax measures don’t go through, that’s a $200 million cut to the campus. We have mandatory cost increases as well, and we could be looking at more budget cuts, and I don’t know where I’m going to take that.

B: And to put it in perspective, if you look over the last four years [at] all of the budget cuts we’ve taken from the state and add to that the mandatory cost increases, things like union contracts, if you add those together and ask how much of that has been made up for by tuition increases, the answer is less than half. So in terms of the cuts that we’ve taken, we’ve taken some of them with tuition increases, but the majority has been real-live cuts — people losing jobs, classes not offered. That’s the situation we find ourselves facing.

Twanas: You said you were preparing based on what you know of March 1. What is expected of students, and how are we sure to feel the support of administration, not only on that day but also at regents meetings overall, that sometimes end up closing their doors?

G: March 1, we have heard [everything] from major demonstrations to a hard strike in closing the campus. So we are monitoring those to see what kinds of reaction and what the scale of that is going to be, and what kinds of preparations we need to make … And there are students who are paying a lot of money and want classes to continue and I have to take that part into consideration at the same time … It’s a difficult road to navigate. The demonstration advisory group has been meeting and helped us come out with a list of principles about how we’re going to manage that, and also looking at the student judicial procedures around protests, and we’re also looking at the processes we take in preparation for major protests.

B: I would just emphasize there isn’t unanimity on campus when someone decides to close the campus, and it is our responsibility to keep the campus and classes available for students who are paying a lot of money for it … our goal is to minimalize conflict and certainly minimalize any potential for violent conflict, either with police or among individual stakeholders on campus – safety has got to be our primary concern.

CHP: What is your prediction for the future of public higher education?

B: We need to think about this as a country, I think. When you look at other countries, one of the most striking things is that most countries support public higher education through their national budgets and national governments, rather than entities like states. We are now living in a time when some countries are making huge, huge investments in higher education. China is spending a lot of money on higher education. When I was in Beijing a year and a half ago talking to presidents of Chinese universities, I was struck that when they talked about some of the programs they wanted to put in place. I said, “That’s expensive.” Their reaction was, “Money isn’t the issue for us.” And I was thinking, “Gee, wouldn’t that be great if I could ever say money isn’t the issue for us?”… In California we have this long tradition of the Master Plan for higher education being a great success for the last 50 years. We should be proud of the fact that in California the Master Plan has worked so well, and I believe the economy grew dramatically as a result of that. But we’ve let the Master Plan go by the wayside by not funding education adequately … We have not kept up the commitment with the Master Plan, and the Master Plan said higher education should be free. Well, for those of you whose parents write $13,000 checks, I can assure you it is not free.

---- (C) 2011 City on a Hill Press. All Rights Reserved. View online at Q&A With Chancellor Blumenthal

Illustration by Jamie Morton

For students looking to connect with their peers, Colleges Nine and Ten are hosting a “speed meeting event.” For three years, the colleges have hosted speed dating just before Valentine’s Day. Last year, over 200 students attended the event and this year, the colleges are hosting a similar event — with a more all-inclusive spin.

The event will be held Feb. 10, with sign-ups beginning at 6:40 p.m. Participants will mingle with one another without restrictions of gender or orientation. Organizers hope to encourage connections of all kinds, romantic or otherwise.

“We’re not calling it a speed dating event, it’s a speed meeting event — we are giving students an opportunity to make connections not just for romantic relationships, but also for friendship,” said Kyoko Freeman, college programs coordinator for Colleges Nine and Ten. “Our feeling is, this campus is large and you want to find people you have common interests with.”

Similar meet-ups have traditionally attracted an eclectic group of people — students of all genders and orientations hoping to find someone compatible with their interests, but they only have two minutes in which to do so.

The event is made possible by the Colleges Nine and Ten activities office and spearheaded by a LGBT student.

“We had a student here who happened to be interested in hosting a speed dating event and he happened to be a member of the LGBT community and said, ‘I want to do this, but I want to make it inclusive for everybody,’” Freeman said. “So it was a really a student-initiated idea.”

Second-year Marco Suarez was among those who attended last year, moving tables and meeting UC Santa Cruz students.

“I feel like speed dating is one of those things you have to do before you die,” Suarez said.

Tables were labeled as “boy meets boy,” “boy meets girl,” and “girl meets girl.” Suarez tried his luck at both the “boy meets boy” and “boy meets girl” tables.

“I’m gay, so I went to the gay tables, and there were only like six people,” Suarez said. “So I went to do my rounds with the girls, and it was a lot of fun.”

Although Suarez enjoyed the event, he said he found more platonic friendships than potential love interests.

“I don’t know if the girls detected I was gay, but I got a lot of matches, which was pretty cool,” he said.

This year, attendees will not be divided by gender or orientation.

“We basically wanted to create an environment where people of all genders and orientations felt comfortable coming to meet people,” said event organizer third-year Katelyn Peterson. “It wouldn’t segregate them based on genders or orientations.”

Programs coordinator Freeman said the speed meeting event is a great resource for students to interact in ways they normally would not.

“I think students should always find something interesting to do on campus, but they have to put themselves out there in a way that says, ‘I’m willing to try something,’” Freeman said. “Whatever it is that makes you feel like you have a community, you should participate in.”

For students considering attending the Friday event, topic cards will be supplied to reduce the chances of awkward silences. One conversation starter poses the question, “Have you ever thought about a world without clocks?”

---- (C) 2011 City on a Hill Press. All Rights Reserved. View online at Slug at First Sight

Illustration by Christine Hipp

Though Valentine’s Day may not be Counseling and Psychological Services’ (CAPS) busiest day of the year, relationships are one of the top five reasons students seek counseling services on campus.

Love and relationships are a major concern students seek support for this time of the year. Those who request counseling must first fill out a form to identify their top three reasons for seeking help from CAPS. While depression and sadness are the most common of the top five reasons, concerns about intimate relationships are the fifth top concern, up from sixth last school year.

Gary Dunn, CAPS director at Cowell Health Center, gave recommendations for coping with depression — on Valentine’s Day or otherwise.

“Get involved in activities, clubs, teams, campus groups,” Dunn said. “Do things with a group of people. Those [experiences] can become friendships, social relationships.”

CAPS offers solutions for those who need help or need that extra push to get comfortable and learn the skills to help them socialize. Several therapy groups, including a women’s therapy group and a stress group, exist to help people cope with their problems.

“From these, [people] can increase their social opportunities,” Dunn said.

CAPS offers many other services as well, including couples’ counseling, available even if your partner is not a UC Santa Cruz student.

Dunn said time and emotional honesty are both important for those who may be feeling poorly on Valentine’s Day due to a recently ended relationship.

“Give yourself some time to grieve over it,” he said. “It is a loss, and it takes some time to work it through.”

CAPS encourages those students distraught about their relationships to avoid making brash choices.

“We don’t tend to make our best decisions when we are emotionally distraught,” Dunn said. “Also, avoid medicating your feelings with drugs and alcohol. Never be afraid to reach out for help.”

CAPS also helps those questioning or coming to terms with their sexuality. They often give help to students wrestling with coming out to their peers, family and friends.

In addition, the Student Health and Outreach Promotion center (SHOP) offers services, including free HIV testing.

“Our peer test counselors are all students; they do test and risk assessment counseling immediately afterwards,” said the director of SHOP, Meg Kobe.

SHOP has 3 main branches of services that they offer to students.

“I like to think of our office as a place where you’re not afraid to ask a question, [where] no one will laugh or make fun,” said Kobe. “If we can’t help you using our resources, we will help you find and get the resources you need.”

For those considering seeking counseling services, Dunn said he and his colleagues are happy to listen and offer guidance.

“I sought out this job because I was interested in college counseling,” Dunn said. “This is a terrific opportunity [for me] to impact people in a meaningful way.”

---- (C) 2011 City on a Hill Press. All Rights Reserved. View online at Beating the Valentine’s Day Blues

UC Santa Cruz, which enrolled a class of around 3,500 students in 2011, admitted 100 by exception, according to a UC Office of the President (UCOP) press release.

“To the extent which we admit students by exception — and we admit very few that way — it is almost always because of some technical shortcomings in their application,” said UCSC campus spokesperson Jim Burns.

Recent reports indicate admission by exception rates in the UC climbed recently, with a total of around 780 students admitted throughout the ten-campus system in 2011.

“Any student we admit by exception still exhibits the potential to be a successful UCSC student,” said Michael McCawley, UCSC director of student admissions. “Admission by exception provides a way for the UC to consider students who did not meet requirements but still looked like successful students.”

UC admission guidelines state applicants must complete a minimum of 15 college preparatory classes by the end of high school, earn a 3.0 grade point average (3.4 for out-of-state students) and take the SAT or ACT by no later than December of their senior year.

Admission by exception has been a part of UC policy for decades, and current university procedure allows the enrollment of 6 percent of incoming students through the process.

“We would never make exceptions in English or math — those two areas are sacred to faculty,” McCawley said.

Prior to 2011, UCSC employed an admissions process that relied on a fixed-points scale, where 14 separate criteria were weighted with point scores. UCSC has since adopted a holistic process in which applications are examined by humans rather than computers.

“We want to look at both academic and home environment, and look at the students and their peers and see what kind of high school they went to,” McCawley said. “This way, it is more of a contextualized review — there are no fixed weights or points that rate the student.’’

International students are also considered for admission by exception, as they often do not adhere to important UC exam deadlines.

“International students are not as savvy about when to take exams, and if they are done after high school, then they do not technically meet UC requirements,” McCawley said.

According to the statistics released by UCOP, almost 90 percent of students admitted to UCSC in 2011 were California residents.

Home-schooled students, who do not meet all of the technical UC requirements, are also considered by admission by exception.

“The only way we can consider them is by admission by exception, and some are top-notch students,” McCawley said.

Factors like low family income, geographical location, learning disabilities, and student responsibility during high school are taken into account in the decision-making process, McCawley said.

“Many students from [certain] socioeconomic backgrounds or from low-performing high schools are looked at,” he said. “We try to make sure that they are on par with other students, but in a technical sense, it is a way of evening the playing field.”

For students who exhibit academic readiness but attend schools with limited resources or college preparatory courses, admission by exception can provide an educational opportunity that would otherwise be unavailable.

“If we want to admit a student who comes from a school district that doesn’t provide him or her with every single course that UC requires, we have to admit this student by exception,” UCSC spokesperson Jim Burns said. “The bottom line is, we want to admit students who deserve a chance to succeed here.”

---- (C) 2011 City on a Hill Press. All Rights Reserved. View online at Hundreds Admitted to UC Don’t Meet Requirements

Illustration by Leigh Douglas

Following UC-wide attempts to diversify the undergraduate population, business and management school deans and executives gathered to announce the unveiling of a fellowship for students from historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) on Tuesday.

Together, Robert S. Sullivan of the Rady School of Management and Rich Lyons, dean of UC Berkeley Haas School of Business, announced the fellowship’s inauguration. The fellowship will seek to introduce “business curriculum in an exciting format,” to first-year students who have never been exposed to business and management studies, Lyons said.

Over time, Lyons hopes this fellowship will “bring the kind of diversity, creativity, and innovation our programs are built on and that California is built on.”

By bringing students from HBCUs, which are primarily located in the southeastern United States, Lyons and his fellow administrators hope to “attract as diverse as a population as we possibly can.”

The fellowship is geared toward students from HBCUs outside of California in efforts to entice them to join the UC student body.

“HBCUs are a terrific pool of talent,” Lyons said of the decision to focus on HBCUs in the first stages of the fellowship.

The goal of the HBCU fellowship, said Lyons, is to get first-year students to begin thinking about their futures.

“We want to excite them about the world of business and their potential, their role as leaders,” Lyons said.

The program itself will be offered to 25 recipients who will be awarded an all-expenses-paid two week Summer Institute for Emerging Managers and Leaders session at one of the six UC business schools. The six schools include the UC Berkeley, UC San Diego, UC Davis, UC Irvine, UCLA and UC Riverside business and management schools.

This year the inaugural session will be held at the UC Berkeley Haas School of Business. Berkeley has been a hub for start-up companies and focal point for recruiting new talent, making it an apt location for the fellowship.

“You’ve never seen anything like this — it’s a kind of a beehive for enterprise,” Lyons said. “Why not give them a taste of what we’re best at?”

Anthem Blue Cross and Wells Fargo are funding the fellowship. They will cover the roughly $100,000 a year required for the two-week sessions.

“We have been very excited about how much support we’re getting from the private sector — we know we need it because it’s not coming from the public sector,” Lyons said, predicting a trend in increased university donations from non-federal monies.

Erika Walker, executive director of Undergraduate Program Haas School of Business, has been working with a similar program for business training, the Business for Arts, Sciences, and Engineering (BASE) program. BASE has been running every summer for the past 15 years, and served as a template for the HBCU fellowship.

Walker will be implementing the inaugural program at Haas-Berkeley this summer. She hopes the program will spur students into eventually pursuing an MBA at one of the UC campuses.

“We’re looking for that kind of transformative change,” Walker said. “We’re just trying to excite them and energize them about what these various opportunities [in business] are.”

Jacqui Smollett, a first-year global economics major and SUA representative for African/Black Student Alliance, said while the program is a step in the right direction, diversity among UC faculty needs to be addressed.

“There are currently very few faculty of color at UC Santa Cruz,” Smollett said. “It is nice to be taught by a diverse community.”

At UC business schools, the major itself is also highly impacted. Of HBCU graduates, 49-64 percent are business majors, according to the Journal of Blacks in Higher Education.

With classes filled to the brim, Smollett says it is important to have “different viewpoints from different people on how we do business.”

---- (C) 2011 City on a Hill Press. All Rights Reserved. View online at HBCU Fellowship Comes to UC

Less than 10 years ago, campus email was handled in-house with the school’s own servers and IT infrastructure, which was called CruzMail. But as the campus population expanded, the home-grown system groaned underneath the added e-traffic.

Lisa Bono, communications manager at Information Technology Services, said that the pathway to using Google as a vendor has been long and complex one.

“A few years ago, we needed $1 million for the handling of CruzMail. We did do a lot of upgrades to keep up [with the increasing traffic], but really, it was very clogged,” Bono said. “Then a few years ago, Davis moved its students to Gmail. That move of some 18,000 accounts really relieved their servers … CruzMail was just getting old. We couldn’t keep up with the new technology.”

To relieve their traffic, the school created a Gmail account and called it SlugMail, which all student accounts were migrated onto. Faculty and staff remained on the CruzMail server.

“Last year, we surveyed the faculty and staff and they voted to switch to Gmail,” Bono said. “There was no way [CruzMail] could compete with all the capabilities Gmail has.”

Faculty and staff migrated onto a new UCSC Gmail domain last November.

“Those were two separate domains [for students and faculty/staff] … it caused a lot of buildup,” Bono said. “Having one domain is more reliable … just better infrastructure all around, and Google prefers [it].”

Rather than switching the smaller population of faculty and staff to the SlugMail domain, ITS decided to switch students onto the UCSC Gmail domain.

“Faculty did not want to jump onto the student email system,” Bono said. “We talked about that … we emailed the professors and asked them what they thought we should do. Overall, leadership wanted to move the students rather than the faculty and staff. It would have confused a lot of staff.”

Because SlugMail is a Gmail account, switching students to the UCSC Google domain is expected to be much simpler than the earlier switch from CruzMail (in-house) to SlugMail (Google).

Google offers their Gmail service to the school, with support, free of charge and advertisements. Bono spoke about the alternative rewards Google stands to gain from UCSC’s use of Gmail.

“What they get out of it is they get you for life,” Bono said. “I think they really want us to be loyal Gmail users. And the more people, the better for them.”

As per negotiations between UC Office of the President and Google, a contract signed in June of last year commits the entire UC system to an eventual transition to Gmail.

Google has the final rights to this service, but they do not own the data, and usernames and passwords of UCSC accounts are encrypted.

“Overall, its a win-win … Gmail is more efficient, more modern, more cost-effective,” Bono said. “We’re giving up some control. Everything has to follow their policy. But how likely is an email outage beyond one or two hours? That would be a global problem.”

With the free service, the multi-million dollar funding model once devoted to email infrastructure across the university is no longer needed.

“It does help us out financially,” Bono said. “Those funds can be allocated elsewhere and more efficiently.”

All positions at ITS are being re-evaluated. Certain staff members may not be replaced when they leave.

“We still have an email infrastructure crew, but they’re more in the networking field … and we still manage email traffic through the servers, but we don’t house the software,” Bono said.

UCSC is the first UC to switch its faculty and staff to Gmail, and will be the second to switch its students, after Davis.

Come Feb. 22, students will need to log into the Gmail domain. As this is a new account, previous mail stored in SlugMail will not be there.

“We have a tool to migrate it which we will link [students] to,” Bono said. “It’s a super easy tool that works very quickly. Mobile devices will also need to be updated.”

---- (C) 2011 City on a Hill Press. All Rights Reserved. View online at New Email Accounts for Students

Jacob Rosen, UCSC computer engineering professor and chief investigator of the project, said the Raven II will follow an “open source” model, which enables the sharing of robotic software among the various robotics research institutions and will result in higher frequencies of communication during experiments.

“We are collaborating with our peers to create a common platform,” Rosen said.

Ji Ma, a postdoctoral researcher at UCSC who assisted Rosen on the project, also acknowledged the significance of using an “open source” model.

“When all these leading labs have a common research platform for doing robotic surgery, the whole field will be able to advance more quickly,” Ma said in an email.

Robotic surgery is a commonly utilized tool in procedures such as prostate surgery.

Rosen, who has directed the bionics lab at UCSC since 2008, was assisted by Blake Hannaford of the University of Washington bio-robotics department in creating the Raven II, which was funded with a grant from the National Science Fund.

Raven II is equipped with two robotic arms and a camera for viewing the operational field. This also allows for the possibility of online telesurgery, an advanced process which enables doctors to conduct surgical procedures utilizing robotic technology while in remote locations.

Rosen thinks collaboration among research institutions is integral to the development of advanced research mechanisms like Raven II.

“Sometimes we need to collaborate in order to survive — even though this isn’t a matter of survival, we can still progress science.” Rosen said. “This [collaboration] is not just with the University of Washington, but all in our field. We are creating new knowledge that will allow us to move forward.”

---- (C) 2011 City on a Hill Press. All Rights Reserved. View online at Bionics Lab Develops Advanced Surgical Robot

Photo by Morgan Grana.

UC President Mark Yudof has announced that all UC campuses will become smoke-free by January 2014. In a letter released Jan. 9 to all UC chancellors, Yudof outlined a plan giving each campus two years to enact a strategy to ensure a smoke-free environment by the 2014 deadline.

According to a press release from the UC Office of the President (UCOP), the ban will prohibit the use of tobacco products on campus, which will include parking lots. The ban will also prohibit the sale and advertisement of tobacco products by campus vendors.

“Smoking is the leading cause of preventable and premature death,” said Grace Crickette, UC chief risk officer in the UCOP press release. “Making all of our campuses smoke-free provides a healthy environment for our students, faculty, staff, patients and visitors. It is the right thing to do.”

In the letter released to UC chancellors, Yudof said individual campus committees would be responsible for implementing the smoking ban. UC Santa Cruz has yet to determine its course of action.

“At this point in time, we have not yet developed a process for implementing this by the January 2014 deadline,” said Jim Burns, UCSC public affairs correspondent. “But we expect to do so soon.”

UCSC implemented smoking restrictions in 1997, but their current scope is minimal compared to the proposed 2014 ban.

“This is obviously more rigid than our current policies,” Burns said.

Under the smoking regulations in effect at UCSC since 1990, the sale of tobacco products by campus vending machines or establishments is banned. Smoking is also banned in all buildings on campus, within 25 feet of windows and doorways, and on all campus shuttles and transportation.

A 1996 status report from the university called compliance with the regulations “sporadic,” and noted a student with multiple chemical sensitivities had filed an informal grievance against the campus under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).

“The student was suffering serious physical effects from walking through groups of smokers to get to classes,” according to the 1996 report, signed by ADA compliance officer Susan Willats. “The basis of the grievance was that UCSC is not enforcing its own smoking policy.”

The ban has been met with mixed reviews. The 2010 proposal cites several studies finding university students largely in support of similar bans, while other individuals and some publications say the new policy oversteps boundaries.

“You’d have to take a bus [to smoke off-campus],” said third-year Sean McGowen when asked for the previous issue of City on a Hill Press what he thinks of the ban. “I don’t think it’s fair. It’s an imposition on our liberties and freedoms … it won’t stop smoking on campus. Especially for the students who live on campus — they’re 18, they have rights.”

Nearly 585 colleges and universities nationwide have active campus smoking bans. Studies cited in the 2011 Smoke-Free Policy Proposal find the number of students and UC employees below national averages, at 8 and 10 percent, respectively. Still, tension remains while some students — like McGowen — oppose an all-out ban.

“It all comes down to liberties,” McGowen said. “We pay to come to this school. I’m a 27-year-old student and I deserve freedom of choice at the very least.”

---- (C) 2011 City on a Hill Press. All Rights Reserved. View online at UC Campuses to be Smoke Free by 2014

Illustration by Leigh Douglas

A thinktank of students at UC Riverside have taken on the perennial problem of tuition hikes with a revolutionary funding model.

Released to the public on Jan. 10, FixUC’s Student Investment Proposal outlines a tuition plan under which students would no longer pay up-front tuition costs. Rather, upon entering a career, graduates would instead pay 5 percent of their annual salary to the university for a total of 20 years.

According to the FixUC website, this will generate “nearly three times” the revenue of the current tuition system, and “allow the University of California to reduce its dependency on unreliable state funding.”

Drafting began last April, when editorial board members of UCR’s student-run newspaper The Highlander decided they had had enough of the consequences of California’s budget crisis.

“Every week, we published an editorial [about the state cutting from UC ] … we called on the regents and the student body to change their response strategy,” said FixUC president Chris LoCascio. “Ultimately, it got to a point where we ended up meeting one to two times a week to brainstorm and come up with a plan ourselves.”

The proposal was initially kept under wraps to prevent premature criticism.

“Once we had the core ideas, we essentially poked holes in it, and kept thinking about how it wouldn’t work,” LoCascio said. “We spent a lot of time coming [up] with solutions for [the complexities].”

Although the group initially didn’t present the plan to the general UC Riverside student body, the group approached several administrators and professors for input, and pursued research of their own.

Alex Abelson, a FixUC Data analyst and fourth-year economics major, obtained statistics from UC, IRS and U.S. Department of Labor records, and used some of his own field data.

“I took the core idea of [a fixed-percentage graduate contribution] and found the numbers,” Abelson said. “I went through what the university was making, and what would be a reliable amount of contribution that would sustain the university.”

Erik Green, UCSC’s Graduate Student Association president, said he supports students looking for solutions.

“’I’m really encouraged to see a truly radical funding model,” Green said. “Rather than the system we have now, which is based on the assumption that students will graduate and get jobs … It moves towards actual statistics and data.”

Repeatedly referencing a “worst-case scenario,” the proposal assumes a mere 60 percent employment rate at $50,000 annual salary for the first 10 years of employment.

“If you look closely at our figures, you will see we were very conservative,” LoCascio said.

Stephen Lee, Riverside’s Associate Student Body president, teamed up with FixUC in the fall to help with outreach. He arranged a meeting with Chancellor Timothy P. White, and has contacted the student leadership of other campuses. All, he said, have been very encouraging and have urged them to “keep going.”

“I can’t say I support every detail in the proposal,” said UC student regent Jonathan Stein in an email. “But it’s awesome that students have begun to think outside the box about budget solutions at the UC, and have stopped waiting for the administration to come up with all the answers for them.”

The proposal has already met scrutiny and skepticism, but its authors stress the importance of open dialogue and honest compromise.

“I think this is really the highest level of student that UC was created for,” Lee said, “to not only be very educated … but to really understand all of that knowledge, and stand up for it and fight.”

---- (C) 2011 City on a Hill Press. All Rights Reserved. View online at A Proposal to FixUC

Illustration by Jamie Morton

With 40,000 undergraduate applicants for the upcoming fall quarter, UC Santa Cruz broke its own application records and saw a 17.2 percent increase in freshman applications. UCSC is now second only to UCLA in application figures.

The diversity of applicants to UCSC also rose sharply, with wide variances in socioeconomic background, ethnicity, and country of origin. African-American, Chicano and Asian-American applications rose 17 percent, 22.3 percent, and 15.6 percent, respectively.

“UCSC is committed to attracting, admitting and enrolling students who are truly reflective of the diversity of the state of California,” said UCSC director of admissions Michael McCawley in a Jan. 12 press release.

SUA chair Amanda Buchanan said this speaks to the efficacy of UCSC’s outreach programs.

“An applicant profile like this goes to show how important our Student-Initiated Outreach programs are,” Buchanan said. “Specifically, Destination Higher Education, Orale and A Step Forward did amazing work this past spring in bringing in students from African-American, Chicano and Asian-American communities to see what life is like on our campus.”

Buchanan has some reservations about the campus’s shaky financial situation and how it will affect these new students.

“As we present opportunities to our students, we need to make sure that the campus is prepared to offer any resources they may need,” Buchanan said. “This becomes increasingly difficult in times of budget reductions. We need to make it clear to campus administration that prioritizing the needs of students outside of academics is equally as important for retention and quality.”

The university needs to preserve institutions that serve students from varying backgrounds, she said.

“Our Ethnic Resource Centers need to be reinvested in to preserve the amazing work that they do,” she said.

Applications from Chicano and Latino students amounted to 29.6 percent of the total, bringing UCSC closer to being a Hispanic Serving Institution (HIS). To be considered a Hispanic Serving Institution, the university’s undergraduate population must be at least 25 percent Latino. This designation provides schools with grants and support services.

“It’s a source of revenue that would be very, very helpful,” said Patricia Zavella, professor of Latin American and Latino studies (LALS) and department chair, about the HIS distinction, in a 2011 interview.

Jonathan Fox, department chair of UCSC’s Latin American and Latino studies program, said these statistics demonstrate the success of campus admissions policy.

“In fall 2005, 75 percent of incoming frosh came from households where only English was spoken,” he said. “In fall 2011, only 54 percent of UCSC frosh came from households where only English was spoken. These changes were not driven by demographics alone. Our campus admissions policies take into account a wide range of indicators for understanding students’ achievement and potential.”

In addition, out-of-state and international student applications saw similar spikes, both in numbers and percentage. McCawley said UCSC’s recent recognition by Times Higher Education as a world-class research school is at least partially responsible for this jump.

“Recognitions like these speak to students around the world about the important role our faculty play on an international stage,” McCawley said in reference to UCSC’s current ranking as third-best worldwide in terms of research impact, behind only MIT and Princeton.

With all of these numbers in mind, one thing may be true: This fall, UCSC may begin to reflect the diversity of its home state even more.

“Our student body is looking more like California,” Fox said.

---- (C) 2011 City on a Hill Press. All Rights Reserved. View online at Fall Applicants Break Records

Former mayor and UCSC community studies lecturer Michael Rotkin announced his retirement in December, after 38 years as a university lecturer and community studies field study coordinator. He plans to return in a part-time position. Photo by Sal Ingram.

Since the birth of community studies at UC Santa Cruz, Michael Rotkin has supported the innovative program — the two have gone hand in hand. But this year he has stepped out, dismayed at its decay.

“I’m not ready to retire,” Rotkin said. “I’m going to come back and teach part-time.”

Five-time former Santa Cruz mayor Rotkin said the decline of community studies is part of “a bad set of priorities.”

“The effect on the students and the communities that these students serve is really a crime…me personally, I’m fine — in fact it’s embarrassing to whine about my situation,” Rotkin said. “But I’m outraged that they closed down this program.”

Rotkin had planned to resign earlier. He received a layoff notice two years ago in the fall, and was prepared to retire given the program’s condition. But in May, Rotkin learned of the university’s plan to increase summer student fees from $1,010 to $3,640, and did the math.

“I had 111 students going out on field study that summer … that comes to almost $400,000 [in student fees],” Rotkin explained.  “I am the total university for these students while they are out on field-study. They don’t have the benefit of the [campus services/amenities] … if I don’t do this work, these students aren’t going to pay these fees.”

Rotkin filed a grievance declaring the university’s layoff decision arbitrary, capricious and unreasonable. He won the grievance, and worked one more year at full-time, and another year at three–quarters time.

“It was good for me personally, since your retirement is based on your highest three years of salary.”

This worked out for Rotkin to the tune of a $20,000 higher annual pension.

Rotkin originally came to Santa Cruz as a Cornell undergraduate, pursuing a summer program. He decided to apply to the graduate program in history of consciousness, and fell in love with the city.

A teaching assistant for community studies during his graduate work, Rotkin was then hired for the Extended University program. After four years of traveling to Fresno each week to teach, Rotkin became a full-time lecturer. In 1979, he applied to be field-study coordinator of the department.

“I did what unions call ‘rate-busting’ — taking two jobs and making them into one,” Rotkin said. “But I liked the job so much I didn’t care about being overworked.”

Twice every year, Rotkin was responsible for the arrangements, travel, safety and related affairs for roughly 130 students, as well as over 1,000 pages of field notes to be read and commented on.

“They’ve gone all around the world,” Rotkin said, listing France, Australia, New Zealand, Ghana, Latin America, West Africa and the British Isles as a few examples.

“I’ve gotten an education from my students as much as they’ve gotten from me all these years,” Rotkin said. “It’s really been kind of a vicarious field study for me.”

Rotkin’s academic background is broad.

“I’ve taught … almost anything you can imagine that involves issues of social change or social justice,” he said.

While the loss of community studies is a complex issue, Rotkin firmly believes it is the result of a fundamental shift in the purpose of a university, toward profit and away from accessible education.

“Community studies didn’t make money — professors would get grants for their research, but those were small … compared to what you get for patents and things you can sell.”

For Rotkin, the evidence supporting community studies’ place at Santa Cruz was clear. Along with challenging the faculty’s theories of social systems and directly benefiting the communities students served, the program turned out model students.

“Most of our theses are masters-level quality work … our undergraduates often win the Deans’ and the Steck Awards for their senior projects, disproportionately to the number of students we have.”

Rotkin referenced the role both students and faculty played in creating community studies, and indicated the fight both must continue to save the program.

“People are capable of change. That’s a pretty fundamental belief of mine,” Rotkin said. “Of course they may not … this may totally tank, but I’m not persuaded that’s the way things are going.”

The former lecturer had a sign on his door: “Politics is the art of getting morally indifferent people to do good things for bad reasons.”

Rotkin is aware much of the program’s future may still come down to “dollars and cents,” but argues that such a value system will never fulfill the mission of the university.

“Let’s train students who think there must be a way to change this,” he said. “Things are not going to fix themselves, but if enough people get organized it is possible to turn things around.”

Though he has left community studies, Rotkin will be teaching a Marxist theory class this summer.

---- (C) 2011 City on a Hill Press. All Rights Reserved. View online at Former Mayor Michael Rotkin Resigns from UCSC

With state revenues falling more than $2.2 billion short of projections, Brown enacted the June state budget’s planned trigger cuts to both education and social services.

The cuts to UC would not be passed on to individual campuses, according to UC spokesperson Steve Montiel, and would instead by absorbed by the UC Office of the President.

“These cuts, they’re not good,” Brown said in a press conference. “This is not the way we’d like to run California, but we have to live within our means.”

In more recent news, the cut to the UC budget (permanent or not) could see some relief to the tune of $90 million in state funding if Brown’s budget proposal, released last week, is enacted.

This increase would rely on Californians voting yes on a tax measure that would enact an income tax surcharge on the state’s highest earners and a half-cent sales tax boost, generating about $7 billion in extra revenue for the state’s education and public safety programs, according to the governor’s office.

If voters vote down this proposal, the $100 million in cuts could become permanent, and the UC will face an additional $200 million in trigger cuts.

The proposal faces a few obstacles before voters can even vote on it. After last year’s failed push for a tax extension, this new measure would need more than 500,000 signatures to be placed on the ballot in November. If the signatures are collected voters could pass the revenue hike proposal by a simple majority.

Student regent Alfredo Mireles is cautiously optimistic about the governor’s budget proposal and tax hike initiative.

“It’s much better than it could have been,” Mireles said to UCLA’s Daily Bruin on Jan. 9. “What [the UC Board of Regents] can do is show our gratitude by supporting the governor’s tax measures, continue to make the case to the governor and the legislature on why we need the money.”

In his budget cover letter the governor offered words in line with Mireles’ cautious optimism.

“This ballot measure will not solve all of our fiscal problems, but it will stop further cuts to education and public safety and halt the trend of double-digit tuition increases.”

---- (C) 2011 City on a Hill Press. All Rights Reserved. View online at UC Budget: Winter Recap

The Santa Monica-based lawyer and 1971 Cowell graduate will serve first as an alumni regent designate beginning July 1, 2012, followed by a 12-month term as a full, voting member of the board.

UCSC alum Kenneth Feingold has been appointed to the UC Board of Regents. Photo courtesy of news.ucsc.edu

Feingold will be the first UC Santa Cruz graduate to serve on the board in seven years.

“I am honored to have been chosen to serve as a Regent by the UCSC Alumni Association Council,” Feingold is quoted in the release. “This is a difficult time for the State of California and the University of California. I pledge to work as an alumni regent to keep our institution strong and responsive to the needs of the students, the faculty and our state.”

Feingold will serve the first year as a regent designate and secretary of the Alumni Associations of the University of California (AAUC). He will attend all meetings and participate in policy discussions but without voting rights. Beginning July 1, 2013, he will serve as president of the AAUC and become a full-voting member of the board.

“Ken is a dear friend of UCSC with a long record of service to the campus that has focused on the needs of students,” Blumenthal wrote in the Dec. 13 release. “He joins the board at a critical time, and I look forward to his participation as the university grapples with budget and advocacy issues.”
Read the full text of the press release at news.ucsc.edu

This is a breaking news story. City on a Hill Press will continue to report on this story as more information becomes available.

---- (C) 2011 City on a Hill Press. All Rights Reserved. View online at UCSC Alum Named to Board of Regents

“Is occupying the building a violation of the student code of conduct? Yes,” Burns said. “Is disciplinary action for this particular incident likely? It’s not on our agenda right now.”

Burns noted that Judicial Affairs has a “tendency” to review and judge such incidents “on their own merits.” Mentioning the occupation of Kerr Hall in 2009, he contrasted the condition of both buildings after protestors left.

“Kerr Hall was a mess and very costly to reopen,” Burns said, “and obviously the condition of that building played a role in the sanctions inflicted.”

He recounted seeing protestors cleaning the building and making sure no damage had been inflicted, which he said the staff, maintenance workers and students were very relieved to see.

Pressing charges against future violations of the student code of conduct was absolutely possible, said Burns, but Hahn is not likely to be pursued as an offense in and of itself.

---- (C) 2011 City on a Hill Press. All Rights Reserved. View online at Hahn Occupiers Not Likely to Face Charges

A KSBW Channel 8 cameraman tries to film the occupiers inside Hahn Student Services, as a protester prevents him from doing so. Occupiers were still voting on whether or not to let media cameras inside. Photo by Pierce Crosby.

After preventing entry into the Hahn Student Services building on the morning of Nov. 29, students found an open window. Around 3 p.m. they let themselves in, beginning a 21-hour-long occupation.

The Hahn occupation follows the November 2009 Kerr Hall occupation, where 35 students were initially charged $972 each for property damage and trespassing, and the March 2011 occupation, where around 30 students stayed the night outside the ethnic resource center.

Around 30 people stayed the night at Hahn, and 70 filled the building at its peak.

Comparing Hahn to previous actions, fifth-year Hayden Kreiling said Hahn felt more valid because of its part in the greater occupy movement.

“We have general assemblies,” Kreiling said. “We’re using not a consensus method but a highly democratic method. This is the method that has been taught at Zuccotti Park at Occupy Wall Street that has spread throughout the country.”

3When voting on decisions, the students borrowed from the larger movement’s voting practices, Kreiling said.

“I personally, as a white student, get privilege,” Kreiling said, “and one of the ways to check that is to give other people privileges that I would just be afforded … We have a students of color working group and we’ve talked about how that’s something we want to prioritize in our space … when you have a student that’s of color, you put them higher, because if the speakers list gets closed or you put it off, those voices won’t get heard. It’s something that happens in a lot of the Occupy movements around the country.”

After entering Hahn, the community agreements were one of the first topics voted on, said Mary Virginia Watson, graduate student and teaching assistant. The students agreed to not damage property, respect workers’ spaces and not use substances.

“Students were respectful of workers’ spaces, and at the same time able to accomplish civil disobedience,” Watson said.

Nora Hochman, representative of the Coalition of University Employees (CUE) Teamsters Union, which represents UC Santa Cruz clerical employees, said occupiers stood by their pledge to not disturb anything in the building.

University administration employed at the Hahn Student Services building were not forced to take paid leave and were reassigned elsewhere.

“Our union is very proud to be in coalition with those students,” Hochman said. “We are very appreciative on how they treated our workplace.”

In late afternoon, a few UCSC administrators asked to enter Hahn to close and remove sensitive documents. The occupiers voted to allow three administrators to enter with three escorts for 20 minutes.

As the three administrators entered Hahn, director of student judicial affairs Douglas Zuidema also tried to enter, but students forcibly blocked him.

Zuidema deferred comments to the student information office. Director of university relations Jim Burns could not be reached regarding this matter.

During the general assembly meeting at 7 p.m., the seated occupiers lined a corridor, and more spilled onto the outside balcony. The occupiers deliberated for 30 minutes before deciding to let the media to photograph them. KSBW Channel 8 cameraman tried filming the meeting, but students responded by trying to cover his camera with scarves and sweaters. The occupiers voted early on that no photographs be taken inside Hahn, only outside.

Third-year Adam White said students wouldn’t want their face in photos or video since media footage could be used to identify and cite students, as with the Kerr Hall occupation.

“We asked them several times not to film,” White said. “They were being very rude to the people outside … technically, they’re allowed to, but we were asking them not to.”

A KSBW Channel 8 representative said the students should know the media will come when 100 people are allegedly breaking into a building.

“We’re just out there trying to get their message out and they’re preventing that,” the representative said.

Fourth-year Chris Cuadrado said media coverage of the Hahn occupation differed from the media coverage of the Kerr Hall occupation.

“When the police came to raid [Kerr Hall], they made sure there was a media blackout by preventing news vans at the base of campus,” Cuadrado said. “All individuals with cameras outside were moved out of sight of where the students were barricading, so the police made it invisible.”

No police were present at Hahn throughout the night, and UCSC chief of police Nader Oweis said the police actions were not influenced by what happened at UC Berkeley, UC Davis or Kerr Hall.

“Our actions from the police department and the university itself [have] been to keep an open dialogue and really work with the students that are here, and to make sure everything remains peaceful and safe,” Oweis said.

Alison Galloway, campus provost and executive vice chancellor, and Oweis remained at Hahn for the majority of the occupation, leaving only at night.

Galloway wanted to keep dialogue open, and said it was best if she and Oweis were there, rather than use a system for relaying communication.

“It’s easier to take a direct approach so we understand what the situation is for the student protesters,” Galloway said. “It’s a philosophy both the police chief and I have. I think this is probably very similar to the approach we would’ve taken, no matter what.”

In a second general assembly at 9 a.m. Tuesday, Nov. 29, the occupiers voted to completely clear the building at 11:30 a.m. and gather at Quarry Plaza one hour later to declare their purpose for occupying the building and present a list of four demands. They demanded the disbanding of the UCPD, and instead the installation of a committee of students, faculty and staff that will assign community safety responsibilities to unarmed campus safety groups, place a greater emphasis on violence prevention and refund related resources, and establish a protocol for inviting “outside agencies … onto campus.” Also among the demands was a refusal to implement any fee hikes, layoffs or budget cuts to departments further than 2009 levels, and that no disciplinary actions be taken against protesting students and allies who occupied the building.  They further demanded the list of demands be forwarded to all of the campus community via the UC Santa Cruz email server.

Additional reporting by Jacob Van Der Wilk and KellyAnn Kelso

---- (C) 2011 City on a Hill Press. All Rights Reserved. View online at Hahn Influenced by Occupy Movement

“It’s hard,” senior librarian Ginny Steel said. “I’m concerned about the future, and what will happen if we receive any more budget reductions.”

The project of reconstructing McHenry Library has been in progress since before money was the paramount concern for the university.
“The original plan for this project started in the early ’90s,” Steel said. “The library then was operating on restricted materials, few electronic resources, and not enough space for stacks. The other big concern was that the library rated poor in terms of the seismic capacity of the building, a serious safety concern the university had to address.”

But with the reconstruction finally finished, the question of whether or not the university will be able to operate at full capacity is a concern librarians are facing.

Elizabeth Cowell, an associate campus librarian, stressed the importance of libraries’ availability for education.

“We are here for the students and staff, committed to maintaining the current levels of accessibility and resources,” Cowell said. “But under current [budget] restrictions we can’t staff the university like we used to.”

Rather than wait for university funding improvements, library administration has been proactive in working toward generating external funding.

“We’ve raised a lot of money for the new furniture and equipment that you see in McHenry now,” Steel said. “The way it works on campus, is there are development officers assigned to each program division, such as the library. Their payroll, however, is split between university relations, who provide the officers, and the library 51 percent of salary paid by University Relations and 49 percent paid by the library.”

Private donations from mostly alumni and former faculty, according to Steel, have allowed libraries to sustain current levels of accessibility. Measure 42, which passed in the 2009-2010 school year, also has allowed some partial hiring and hour extensions.

But it might not be enough. Steel said there have been shortfalls over the past four years.

“I don’t have the exact number, but we’ve lost approximately 30 positions just for library staffing, which puts more stress on us because we run both libraries seven days a week, many hours a day, with less staff,” Steel said.

In the 2012-13 school year, the Measure 42 legislation will be re-voted upon, but there is potential for its expiration.
Though some are hopeful that the libraries will receive additional funding in years to come, many senior staff prepare for worst-case scenarios.

Ken Lyons, a longtime member of the library staff and Union Representative for the UC American Federation of Teachers, believes the state of the libraries couldn’t get much worse than it had become without jeopardizing the value of the libraries to the students.

“Staff in both collective planning and reference branches of the library is already stretched as thin as possible,” Lyons said. “A big issue we’re trying to get attention to right now is that UC librarians are compensated as much as 20 percent lower than our California State University sister schools.”

This same issue occurred during the funding crisis in 1992, but with the more recent budget restrictions, the flexibility of the department to adapt has already been removed due to the large remodeling.

“In response to the budget tightening, we’re trying to do strategic planning to assess which sources get used the most and which aren’t commonly accessed.” Lyons said. “The issue that we’re running across is that a lot of the resources we have aren’t common sources for most students, such as research materials. We have 200 audible databases, for example. I don’t think most students are even aware of their existence.”

In 2009, the university issued the 34 percent cut to the UCSC library — as seen in most other departments as well — to be carried out over the next four years. Now as the cuts come into place, databases like this may seem less valuable to the staff looking for places to cut. In addition, reconfigured positions have become a new trend for library positions.

“We have a lot more people contacting us with questions on how to begin research, but a lot of these questions are through email and chat, not necessary people coming to the reference desk, which has commonly been the resource for answering these questions,” Steel said. “In response, we’ve cut back on hours that we staff the reference desk, and changed the model for how we answer questions.”

Lyons actively manages the reference desk and has seen this shift in student research habits as well.

“We have seen less students coming to the reference desk for help. Students seem often overwhelmed by the expansiveness of the library itself,” Lyons said. “Although we have more online resources like the redesigned website to direct students, resources like reference desk librarians are invaluable to the accessibility of the library.”

Though no direct layoffs have occurred in the 11 years Lyons has been with library services, the number of full-time employees has decreased dramatically and attrition (the cancellation of retirees’ positions) has continued steadily since budget restrictions were approved.

Though the remodeling of the McHenry Library has been a valid project and offers students an expansive, almost luxurious interior, the future outlook of library staffing and hours of availability could certainly be in trouble.

Steel hopes the libraries can continue their current levels of availability for students, even with the future budget looking increasingly slim.
“We want this space to meet the needs of students and faculty,” Steel said. “We think of this as a community space and a space for collaboration, so if students have ideas of things they want to see, we’re interested to hear those ideas. That’s why we’re here.”

---- (C) 2011 City on a Hill Press. All Rights Reserved. View online at New McHenry, Same Budget

Photo by Nick Paris.

Picketers surrounded Hahn Student Services building at 5:30 a.m. on Monday, Nov. 28, in conjunction with a rally at Quarry Plaza to be held that afternoon. They aimed to shut the building down and prevent people from going to work.

A small initial group of organizers were quickly joined by more protesters, growing from 20 to near 100 in half an hour.

Dividing to stand in front of each entrance into Hahn, picketers held signs protesting cuts to education and fee increases. Several donned bandanas as well as swatches of iridescent cloth to denote their support of the students at UC Davis. By 6 a.m, they erected three tents in front of the south, east and second-story entrances.

Third-year Courtney Hanson said the group’s general assembly chose Hahn as the center for demonstration.

“This is the place where people come to write their checks to this entity called ‘The Board of Regents,’’’ Hanson said. “We chose this building for various reasons—some tactical and some legal. The people who work inside this building are not our enemies, but we have to disrupt the system.”

Associate Vice Chancellors Jean Marie Scott and Michelle Whittingham approached the building at 7:20 a.m.

Scott explained Hahn employees had not been instructed to abstain from coming to work that day, and would instead be deferred to the Bay Tree Bookstore after arriving at the building. She noted the building was considered “occupied,” and asked for cooperation to avoid confrontation.

Around noon, protesters used Quarry Plaza as a forum of discussion about fellow occupations’ hardships, most notably the action taken against UCD students on Nov. 18.

UCD second-year Kitty Bolte, who is studying agriculture at UC Santa Cruz, announced a message from UC Davis at the rally.

“We’re all one campus,” Bolte said. “We’re the same student population, all fighting the same struggle.”

In preparation for her rally message, Bolte called friends at UCD, who talked to UCD Occupy.

“For Davis, we’re just getting started,” Bolte said. “Everyone is waking up and we’re not backing down … before this, Davis was an apathetic campus, and now a tenth of the campus is coming out.”

The rally saw approximately 300 people, but the turnout wasn’t reflective of what third-year Mark Goodman expected to see.

“Before break, the protest was way bigger,” Goodman said. “When they marched to the bottom of campus it looked much larger than it does today. There is a good chance it’s because people are still home for vacation.”

Sociology professor Herman Grey did not view the size of the rally as important as its meaning.

“This action is great,” Grey said. “You can’t judge it by numbers because the message is being sent. If it’s on the students’ minds, they are making an impact. The fact that this place is given to this kind of discussion shows what’s on students’ minds. Size as an index won’t change why the protest matters.”

Various campus officials were also present at the protest, monitoring the progression of the discussion and agenda demands.

Alison Galloway, campus provost and executive vice chancellor, agreed there should be changes around various campuses, but some demands wouldn’t be in the interest of the students.

“Police forces need greater communication with the students, and the admins need to work closely with the police,” Galloway said. “If UCPD ends, the university is subject to city and county police — the UCPD was originally established to be more or less lenient on students. If the university were subject to city/county police, the administration has less control.”

UCSC chief of police Nader Oweis discussed the use of force.

“Our actions are really dictated by what happens, and our level of force or non-use of force is really determined by what happens at the protests or rallies, or by the individuals who attend,” Oweis said.

Though the need for greater student physical safety was a counterargument to the deconstruction of UCPD, other staff regarded this as a subtext to the potential of a larger reconstruction.

Susan Gillman, senate chair and literature professor, said there was an “implicit hierarchy” in the UC system.

“Most of the UC campuses believe in 10 UC campuses, one university,” Gillman said. “We’re all basically in the same boat. The budget is the great equalizer. We need to reevaluate our efforts for equal per-student funding to all UC campuses.”

While discussion contined throughout the crowd, the rally ended at 1:45 p.m., followed by a  general assembly. Students seated themselves to discuss the future goals of the movement, as well as vote on the continued support of the closure of Hahn Student Services.

Pierce Gibson Crosby, Laurel Fujii and KellyAnn Kelso contributed to this report.

Additional reporting by Chelsea Hawkins

---- (C) 2011 City on a Hill Press. All Rights Reserved. View online at Hahn Shut Down at Dawn

Illustration by Jamie Morton.

A recent corruption scandal has been discovered in AFSCME local 3299, a branch of the largest UC labor union that represents nearly 20,000 patient care and service workers. According to recent reports, corruption charges have been directed at newly elected AFSCME local 3299 president Kathryn Lybarger and other staff members, including executive vice president Jessica Agost and financial secretary Ruben Santos.

Charges being brought against members of the newly elected administration include allegations of racial discrimination, election tampering and mismanagement of union funds.

“Based on what we know to be factual, the evidence is compelling,” said Kat Bedford, chair of the AFSCME 3299 Election Committee, in a report recently released to UC student media outlets. “This may be one of the worst corruption cases in AFSCME history and I hope the national union takes action before its too late.”

Lybarger, a UC Berkeley groundskeeper, was sworn in as local 3299 president on Oct. 27 after receiving a reported 66 percent voter approval rating, soundly defeating incumbent president Lakesha Harrison. However, after recent allegations, some are calling for the newly-elected president to step down.

“Its very saddening that in their desire to control the union, these individuals have caused great harm to the members of our union,” said Jannet Pascual, AFSCME 3299 recording secretary, in the report. “The claim is that they stole and misused our union’s resources for their personal gain. Union members from all across California demand that Lybarger and co-conspirators resign and that our parent union steps in immediately.”

In light of the corruption allegations, calls have been made for AFSCME international president Gerald McEntee to place the union under a trusteeship, which would allow the parent union to take control of local 3299 in an effort to stabilize the union’s finances and protect union member assets from possible corruption.

Bill Pool, a maintenance worker at Merrill College and AFSCME union member, is opposed to the idea of placing local 3299 under a trusteeship, as he claims it would allow the international union to assume power for up to 18 months.

Pool said he feels charges against recent president-elect Lybarger were brought about by ex-president Harrison and her supporters, who could not accept defeat in the recent election.

“I think that Lakesha [Harrison] is a sore loser, and that she ran the union for her own benefit, not for the people,” Pool said.

Pool recalled past instances where Harrison called on local 3299 members to strike, seemingly in an attempt to only benefit her own political aspirations within the union.

“We went on strike three and half years ago in the middle of summer when no one was here, we marched up from the base of campus in blistering heat waving signs at each other, it was basically pointless,” Pool said. “It only made sense if Lakesha Harrison was running in the next election, in which she actually was and elected to international board.”

Pool said he fears placing local 3299 under a trusteeship could help Harrison, as she has connections in the AFSCME International Board. He is calling on union members to speak out against the plans to place AFSCME local 3299 under a trusteeship by contacting international president McEntee.

President Lybarger and ex-president Harrison were unavailable for comment.

---- (C) 2011 City on a Hill Press. All Rights Reserved. View online at Allegations of Corruption Surface in UC Labor Union

Photo by Prescott Watson

Held simultaneously at the Mission Bay campus in San Francisco, UC Merced, UCLA and UC Davis, (with UC President Mark Yudof absent from the proceedings) the meetings were conducted via teleconference and were temporarily disrupted by chanting protestors.

UC Office of the President said the decision to hold the meetings at different locations was “cost-effective.”

Students and protestors occupied the spaces in which the meetings took place, and held extended comment sessions. Under a hundred people attended each of the protests, in sharp contrast to the thousand-plus who rallied in San Francisco on Nov. 16th, when the meeting was originally scheduled to take place.

Rescheduled from Nov. 16th after the UCPD advised the Regents to do so, the meetings ended with the approval of a proposal to petition the state for additional UC funding. No tuition hikes were discussed today, contrary to public perception of the purpose of today’s meetings.

---- (C) 2011 City on a Hill Press. All Rights Reserved. View online at Regents Meetings Interrupted

Photo by Prescott Watson

Footage of students being pepper sprayed by UC Police Department (UCPD) officers as they sit with arms linked on the campus quad at a UC Davis protest has garnered national attention. The attention has brought the UC Police Department (UCPD) under severe scrutiny.

In a release from the University of California Office of the President (UCOP), Yudof said the announcement came in response to a request from UC Davis Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi that the UC president conduct a thorough review of the event. Assembly Speaker John A. Perez, D-Los Angeles, has also requested an independent investigation of the event.

Yudof has asked UC General Counsel Charles Robinson and Christopher Edley Jr., UC Berkeley School of Law dean, to head a system-wide examination of “police protocols and policies as they apply to protests at all 10 UC campuses,” according to the release.

The examination will involve visits to campuses for discussions with students, faculty and staff, and consultation with “an array of experts.”

William J. Bratton, chairman of New York-based Kroll consulting company, will investigate the pepper spray incident and report back the results to Yudof within 30 days.

Bratton’s findings will be reviewed by an advisory panel made up of students, faculty, staff and members of the campus community, which will make recommendations to Chancellor Katehi “on steps that should be taken to ensure the safety of peaceful protesters on campus.” Katehi will then present her implementation plan to President Yudof.

The University of California and Davis Chancellor Katehi have come sharp criticism in the wake of the pepper spraying, both in national media and the academic community.

The Council of UC Faculty Associations condemned the UCPD’s actions in a Nov. 19 press release.

“We demand that the Chancellors of the University of California cease using police violence to repress non-violent political protests,” reads the release. “We hold them responsible for the violence and believe it can only result in an escalation of outrage that holds the potential for even more violence.

Others have publicly called for Katehi’s resignation. According to a banner on the UC Davis English department homepage, the department joins the Board of the Davis Faculty Association in calling for the chancellor’s resignation, and further, the disbanding of the UCPD.

The university placed Campus Police Chief Annette Spicuzza on administrative leave pending investigation into the incident, and suspended two officers involved.

Alexander R. Galloway, an associate professor in the department of media, culture, and communication at New York University, said yesterday in a public letter to Yudof and Katehi he will no longer attend a UC Davis conference as he had previously planned, “until Chancellor Katehi takes responsibility for her actions by resigning, and until UC Davis removes its paramilitary police from campus.”

“While my admiration and respect for the great public universities of the UC system remain strong, I cannot in good conscience visit the UC Davis campus in April,” the letter continues. “I cannot support Chancellor Katehi. I cannot support police brutality. And, quite simply, I fear for my own safety were I to visit your campus.”

---- (C) 2011 City on a Hill Press. All Rights Reserved. View online at Yudof Announces Investigation of UCPD Action

---- (C) 2011 City on a Hill Press. All Rights Reserved. View online at UCSC Marchers Stand With UC Davis

When meeting with the 10 chancellors, either in person or by phone, Yudof plans to discuss how to handle non-violent protest with “proportional” law enforcement, he said in a statement released on Sunday Nov. 20. In addition, Yudof said he is assembling an assessment of campus police procedures.

UC Davis police officers pepper sprayed Occupy UC Davis participants on Friday Nov. 18, while UC Berkeley police officers jabbed Occupy UC Berkeley protesters with batons on Nov. 9.

“As I have said before, free speech is part of the DNA of this university,” Yudof said. “Non-violent protest has long been central to our history. It is a value we must protect with vigilance. I implore students who wish to demonstrate to do so in a peaceful and lawful fashion. I expect campus authorities to honor that right.”

While the UC Davis chief of campus police and two other officers involved with the pepper spray incident are on a paid leave of absence, students and faculty are calling on UC Davis Chancellor Linda Katehi to resign.

---- (C) 2011 City on a Hill Press. All Rights Reserved. View online at Yudof Calls for Meeting with UC Chancellors

The regents meeting has been rescheduled for Monday, Nov. 28. UC President Mark Yudof will participate in the teleconference from the Palm Beach Gardens, Florida location, which is also open to the public, according to an email from director of admissions and ethnic media at UC Office of the President, Ricardo Vazquez.

He will be in Florida on a “long-standing trip that had been scheduled awhile ago,” Vazquez said.

Citing “public safety concerns,” the University of California Board of Regents postponed the meeting from its originally scheduled date last Wednesday, Nov. 16.

The meeting will now be held via teleconference on four different campuses — UC San Francisco-Mission Bay, UCLA, UC Davis and UC Merced. Regents and UC staff will be dispersed among the four campuses. The public comment portion of the meeting, scheduled to begin at 9:00 a.m., has been expanded from 20 minutes to one hour and will be available to listen in live online for those not present.

Vazquez said UC regent Monica Lozano, who serves on the Bank of America board, will most likely be at the UC Los Angeles campus. On the date the regents meeting was initially slated for, 300 protesters still mobilized and marched to a San Francisco Bank of America in the Financial District, delivering a pledge asking Lozano to support tax rises to the rich and refund social services.

One protestor placed a call to her line and spoke with her secretary, but Lozano was not reached.

Additional reporting by Laurel Fujii, campus editor

---- (C) 2011 City on a Hill Press. All Rights Reserved. View online at Yudof To Be in Florida for Rescheduled Regents Meeting

Protesters from various schools and organizations march in the streets of San Francisco’s financial district on their way to the Bank of America on California Street, the former location of the bank’s headquarters. Photo by Hilli Ciavarello.

Photo by Hilli Ciavarello.

The UC Office of the President (UCOP) sent out an email on the afternoon of Nov. 14 informing the public that the regents meeting was to be postponed, based on information gathered by the UCPD that “significant violence and vandalism” was likely to occur at the event. The email said UCPD recommended “in the strongest of terms” the meeting be canceled, and after consultation within UCOP, they decided to heed UCPD’s warning.

UAW 2865 had chartered several buses to take protesters to the meeting in San Francisco, where a protest organized by the group ReFund California (an anti–Wall Street statewide coalition comprised of “homeowners, community members, faith leaders and students,” according to the group’s website) was due to take place.

Despite the cancellation of the meeting, the buses transporting over 1,500 protesters (including students from UC Santa Cruz, UC Davis, San Francisco State and K-12 teachers) still went to San Francisco as planned. The protest took place in the Financial District of San Francisco, and included a march and rally that lasted the majority of the day.

“Wall Street and the regents can’t hide from us,” said Josh Brahinsky, UAW affiliate and graduate student at UC Santa Cruz in an email to politics graduate students outlining the change in protest plans. “We’ll be marching through San Francisco’s Financial District, where many of [the regents] have offices … we’ll invite them to join us.”

Student and union representatives have been largely critical of the regents’ decision to postpone the meeting based on the possibility of violent action. UC student regent and student regent-designate, Alfredo Mireles, Jr. and Jonathan Stein respectively, said the regents’ decision was a poor one.

“We understand that UCSF law enforcement authorities recommended the meeting be postponed in the interest of public safety,” they said in a Nov. 14 press release. “However, students have a right to protest peacefully and make their voices heard forcefully; this action eliminates their opportunity to do that.”

Sindy Ramirez, a UCSC SUA representative, said the cancellation robbed students of their voice.

“I think it’s unfortunate students from the UC system are not given this space for solidarity, and to express how we are suffering from these fee increases,” Ramirez said. “However, we must not let these concerns from the regents hinder students from taking action.”

Claudia Magaña, president of the University of California Student Association, said UC students are “strongly opposed to this decision.”

“We do understand the concerns about public safety, yet the regents have a responsibility to the students and people of California to hold open meetings that allow for public access and participation,” Magaña said in a Nov. 14 press release. “By canceling this meeting, the UC regents have done a great disservice to students, and our ability to participate in the governance of our university system.”

Others feel the cancellation of the meeting itself speaks to the effectiveness of the planned protests.

“I think it’s fantastic [that the meeting was canceled]” UCSC grad student Brahinsky said. “If you build a big enough movement, just its presence is an incredible force. We don’t even need civil disobedience — we just need to be there.”

The protest on Wednesday follows hot on the heels of police action that took place on the UC Berkeley campus Nov. 9, where students were arrested and beaten by UC police officers as they assembled in Berkeley’s Sproul Plaza. Antipathy from students towards the UCPD remain high.

“It seems that given the way regents meetings have gone in the past, the only credible threat I can imagine would be coming from UCPD,” said a UAW-affiliated TA who wished to remain anonymous. “This just shows how out of touch the regents are with the student movement.”

Mireles condemns the university response to the Berkeley actions as well, and thinks the UC system needs to differentiate between violent and non-violent protest.

“The police violence at UC Berkeley on Nov. 9 was reprehensible and ought to be condemned, not defended, by campus and systemwide administration,” said Mireles in an open letter to students. “The student regent and student regent-designate support the actions of students who call attention to the privatization of public education through courageous and peaceful protest.”

---- (C) 2011 City on a Hill Press. All Rights Reserved. View online at Regents Meeting Canceled

Around 300 protesters occupied Bank of America in San Francisco. Ninety-five were arrested for trespassing, approximately 60 of them UCSC students. Photo by Hilli Ciavarello.

San Francisco police arrested an estimated 95 students, teaching assistants (TAs) and community organizers who shut down and occupied a Bank of America location in the San Francisco Financial District Wednesday. About 60 of the arrested were from UC Santa Cruz, while others were from UC Berkeley, UC Davis, San Francisco State, community colleges and local Occupy movements.

Three hundred protesters initially filled the bank lobby, standing on desks and even setting up a tent, forcing out employees and customers. The protesters chanted they were there to deliver a pledge to UC regent Monica Lozano, who serves on the Bank of America board, and asked her to support tax rises to the rich and refund social services.

“We could consider staying until Monica signs the pledge,” they chanted. “Sign the pledge, Monica.”

On the date of the UC regents’ cancelled meeting, around 150 UCSC undergraduate and graduate students filled several buses chartered by the TA union UAW Local 2865 to the city. Combined with other schools and organizations, the protesters reached around 600 in number and filled an entire block, not including the trailing police, as they marched from Justin Herman Plaza to the bank.

Bill Chorneau of the Oakland Alliance of California for Community Empowerment said the bank occupation was still going to take place after the regents meeting.

“I don’t expect us to get results today,” Chorneau said. “It’s going to be a long struggle, but as long as it keeps getting bigger and bigger, the 1 percent’s in trouble.”

San Francisco police spokesman Carlos Manfredi said the arrested would be taken to the county jail on charges of trespassing. While the police brandished batons as protesters pinned them outside the bank, no injuries were incurred. Police presented opportunities for occupiers to leave if they did not want to be arrested.

While seated on the floor, one protester found Lozano’s telephone number and called her. The protester announced Lozano’s secretary was trying to find Lozano, but the call eventually led nowhere. Another protester shared a haiku she created in honor of Lozano.

“We’re thinking of you,” she said. “Are you thinking of us too? Sign the fucking pledge.”

UCSC third-year Tyler Correa originally planned to attend the regents meeting, but still decided to take the bus to San Francisco after the meeting was canceled.

“Everyone needs to know they’re victims here,” Correa said. “Some people are upset but don’t have a face to be angry at.”

As they marched to Bank of America, the crowd drew the attention of businesspeople. Businesses like the Omni Hotel on California Street locked their doors, while their customers’ eyes were glued to the protesters.

Prior to the march, protesters gathered at Justin Herman Plaza and listened to speakers from the educational community.

Bob Meister, UCSC social sciences and political thought professor and president of the Council of UC Faculty Association supported the actions in response to the canceled meeting.

“Instead of making the argument [the regents] are working for Wall Street, we did the walk from the regents to the Financial District,” Meister said. “This is the connection that needed to be made.”

---- (C) 2011 City on a Hill Press. All Rights Reserved. View online at Regents Cancel, Protesters Don’t

SUA, which functions as the the official student government body at UC Santa Cruz, has operated since 1985, and was created to serve the student body as a collective group. SUA is run entirely by students and is made up of six chairs, six at large representatives, 30 college representatives and four advisory members. The SUA is funded largely through Measure 8, a voter-approved measure that takes a $7 fee out of each student’s university fees.

“We get a third of a million dollars every year from the students, and that’s a third of a million dollars the students are saying, ‘you know what you are doing, SUA you know how to best spend this money, go ahead and spend that money,’” said Justin Riordan, Kresge parliament representative and SUA assemblyman.

SUA’s operational budget comprises Measure 8 funding and is supplemented by carryover, which goes to the general fund. Carryover, according to Riordan, is the accumulation of funds that go unused by SUA-funded organizations, which is then transferred over to the next budget.

Among the criticisms that have emerged following the recent amendment is concern over former SUA chair Tiffany Loftin’s decision to not hire a treasurer. Current SUA chair Amanda Buchanan said this led to the projection of these funds to be far greater than they were in actuality, leaving SUA with an unbalanced budget.

“For the past two years, carryforward on the budget was $150,000, and then for this year it was actually around $60,000,” she said, “So she assumed the carryforward was the same as last year’s, even though we had spent a lot more this year.”

Due to this error, the budget for this year had to be amended. The 2011-12 overall budget had to be cut from a proposed $457,242.48 to $397,230.30.

The cuts were absorbed in a number of places. Spending on conferences dropped from a proposed $120,000 to an amended $94,566.00. Office supplies were cut from $12,000 to $7,000. A proposed $1,000 office furniture expense and $1,452 in ethernet charges were also removed.

The areas SUA chose to absorb the cuts were criticized as well.

“We cut money from the conferences, I would say that’s one of the only things that the SUA does for the student body directly,” Riordan said. “We take these students to student conferences, we teach them how to lobby, we take them to Sacramento, these are a thing that we do directly for the student body, and that’s where we cut from first, not the SUA staff.”

Riordan and dissenting Kresge parliament members said cuts could be made elsewhere in SUA, most notably from the parking budget. According to Riordan, $3,366 was allocated to purchasing the permits, most of which went to the purchase of three “B” permits. These permits allow access to virtually every parking location on campus, and are unavailable to undergraduates.

“We should be thinking about where we want our priorities — is refusing to cut from parking in relation to cutting from the conferences an appropriate use of funds?” Riordan said.

Riordan said elimination of the all but one of the “B” permits and trading in the other three for “R” carpool permits would allow SUA to send more individuals to conferences, and therefore better serve the entirety of the student body.

The SUA general body agreed to keep “B” permits in a vote totaled 3-30. Buchanan acknowledged that while they are helpful to officers in times of voter registration, changes to this budget could come in the foreseeable future.

“B permits gives us specific access college-by-college,” she said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if there is a cut from “B” to “R” in spring, but we need to do that math to see what it’s worth.”

Transparency, or lack thereof, within the financial realm of SUA is also an issue that has prompted Riordan to speak out. Much of this has to do with the perceived ambiguity of spending by the organization.

“I don’t know what [funding] has been spent on for the last couple of years,” Riordan said.

Doug Baker, Kresge parliament and SUA member, agreed SUA lacked transparency.

“We do not get any paperwork or notification,” he said. “The only way we can find out is by asking them what they are spending on.”

SUA Chair Buchanan said providing both the student body and SUA general assemblymembers prompt and accurate expense reports is now a higher priority, and is being addressed, as the newly hired treasurer will be in charge of updating SUA expenses.

“That’s a huge priority of mine, I’ve charged the treasurer to give monthly reports to the body and that they are published online,” Buchanan said.

As the year comes to a close, SUA hopes to begin 2012 on a positive note, moving toward becoming a more transparent and fiscally sound student-led organization.

Looking forward, Buchanan said she feels hopeful.

“We are trying to catch up, and we are trying to implement all these things,” she said. “Spring will a good time to evaluate, and see how far we have come and how can we institutionalize some of the things that we have required this year.”

---- (C) 2011 City on a Hill Press. All Rights Reserved. View online at SUA Budget Amendment Opens Conversation on Spending Priorities

One protester who wished to remain anonymous said they protested in response to the UC Berkeley police brutality on the Nov. 9 Day of Action.

“Today Berkeley decided it’d be a day of action and asked all UCs to do something, and we decided to do this,” he said. “If military recruiters get kicked out, the whole [job fair] gets shut down.”

Event organizer and Career Center director Barbara Silverthorne cited the 1996 Solomon Amendment, which allows the Secretary of Defense to deny federal grants to institutions of higher education if they prohibit or prevent on-campus ROTC or military recruitment, as the reason for having the recruiters stay in spite of the protests.

UCSC alum Marine recruiter Lieutenant Colin Campbell was not bothered by the protest.

“It’s kind of sad,” Campbell said. “It doesn’t really affect us, but it’s not the troops’ fault the decisions that are made.”

As the students linked arms and wound their way through the room chanting, “No Recruits, No Troops, No Wars,” Silverthorne of the Career Center called the UC Santa Cruz Police Department.

Around six police officers arrived, and some took pictures of the protesters.

“We took pictures just to show the actions that were being taken on both sides,” UCSC police chief Nadar Oweis said.

---- (C) 2011 City on a Hill Press. All Rights Reserved. View online at Marines, Missile Producer Met with Protest at Job Fair

Illustration by Matt Boblet.

When people think of college dining halls, they usually don’t think of tasty, refreshing and original meals — but Mike Kraus does.

UC Santa Cruz senior food service manager Kraus has dedicated himself to bringing tasty and nutritious food options to campus, and it hasn’t gone unnoticed. In fact, his work has been acknowledged by a nomination in the first annual Real Food Awards.

“It’s definitely a proud moment,” Kraus said. “I think I do a lot of creative things with the menu here, and it’s exciting to get some recognition as far as what we do here at the dining hall on a day-to-day basis.”

The Real Food Awards, sponsored by the Real Food Challenge organization, recognize people who bring “real food” — defined by the organization as “food which truly nourishes producers, consumers, communities and the earth” — to university and college campuses.

“For me, it’s all about tying the community into what we are doing with dining services at UCSC and taking advantage of the abundant seasonal produce here in California, and Santa Cruz in particular,” Kraus said.

Described as a “lifelong foodie,” Kraus has been acknowledged for making a variety of creative and healthy “real food” options available on campus. Kraus has been involved in bringing to campus unique dining initiatives and options, such as Meatless Mondays, fruited quinoa, black bean burgers, sun-dried polenta and numerous gluten-free items.

“I like surprising people and challenging what they’re expecting, and giving them new dining options, what they don’t expect at a dining hall,” Kraus said.

The Real Food Awards has five categories: Students, Faculty, Food Service Managers, Cafeteria “Worker-Leaders,” and Food Producers. Kraus is a finalist in the Food Service Managers category.

The finalists are defined by the Real Food Challenge as those who “have demonstrated dedication to excellence in college food, whether through improving working conditions, obtaining real food in dining halls, or growing sustainable and nourishing food on community farms.”

“The people nominated are exceptional and really inspire people,” said Nina Mukherji, Real Food Challenge director of programs. Mukherji said the nominees have been recognized for making “really concrete change” and “developing leadership.”

“Mike Kraus has all these [qualities] to a high degree,” Mukherji said.

The candidates in each of the categories were nominated by students, and of the 100 nominations, the Real Food Challenge team narrowed the candidates down to 19 finalists.

“These are the real people who are the Real Food Challenge,” said Tricia Kiefer, food day coordinator of the Real Food Challenge.

The Real Food Awards provide an opportunity to put “names and faces to our organization, and really saying these are the stories making ‘real food’ a reality,” Kiefer said.

The winners of each category will be determined by votes via the Real Food Awards website by Nov. 9, and will be announced on Nov. 18. All winners will be featured on the Real Food Challenge website and receive a certificate of recognition. The winners in the Student and Worker Leader categories will receive $750 cash prizes.

The Real Food Challenge will also be awarding “Pioneer Awards,” recognizing schools piloting the Real Food Calculator and/or signing the Real Food Campus Commitment. The Real Food Calculator is a measurement students take to calculate how much “real food” they have in their dining halls. Students go through dining hall receipts and put the food into one of the four categories: Local/Community, Humane, Ecologically Sound and Fair.

The Real Food Campus Commitment is a pledge universities and colleges sign to “support a healthy food system” by shifting their food purchases to 20 percent “real food” by 2020.

“[We’re focusing on] one campus at a time rather than change the whole system over night,” Kiefer said.

The primary goal of the Real Food Challenge, according to their website, is to “shift $1 billion of existing university food budgets away from industrial farms and junk food and towards local/community-based, fair, ecologically sound and humane food sources by 2020.” Since the inception of the Real Food Challenge in 2007, the organization has been able to effectively shift $35 million to “real food.”

The organization plans to reach their goal through initiating and assisting in student-led campaigns. They offer support and training to students through Real Food Challenge campus visits, providing leadership training and development sessions and supplying campaign materials on their website. Additionally, the Real Food Challenge holds summits with interactive workshops, speeches given by movement leaders and panel discussions.

“We believe in the power of students,” Kiefer said, “and we believe students have the energy and power in the system to make a lot of change.”

To learn more about the Real Food Awards and the Real Food Challenge, visit http://realfoodchallenge.org/ 

---- (C) 2011 City on a Hill Press. All Rights Reserved. View online at Campus Dining Honored

In a press release from the University of California Office of the President yesterday, board Chair Sherry Lansing, board vice chair Bruce Varner and UC President Mark Yudof announced the cancellation, citing concerns raised by information presented by UC law enforcement officials. The Nov. 16 meeting will be rescheduled “for another time and, possibly, an alternate venue,” according to the release.

Student Regent Alfredo Mireles (above) and Student Regent-Designate Jonathan Stein released public statements yesterday opposing the UC Board of Regents' decision to cancel their Nov. 16 meeting due to concerns for public safety. Photo by Prescott Watson.

In a press release and an open letter to students, Mireles and Stein said they understand the need to take cautionary measures to ensure public safety, but canceling the meeting was unfair to students.

“Students have a right to protest peacefully and make their voices heard forcefully; this action eliminates their opportunity to do that. We would support finding a way for student attendees to exercise their constitutional and moral right to protest while excluding non-student elements that raise the specter of violence and vandalism,” reads the press release.

Mireles and Stein urge students who had to planned to attend the meeting to instead travel to Sacramento “and make student frustrations known to the state’s ultimate decision-makers.”

Read the full text of the press release and open letter below:

Press Release:

NOVEMBER REGENTS MEETING CANCELED

November 14, 2011

San Francisco, CA and Berkeley, CA: Alfredo Mireles, Jr. and Jonathan Stein, the Student Regent and Student Regent-Designate respectively, oppose the decision to cancel this week’s Regents meeting. We understand that UCSF law enforcement authorities recommended the meeting be postponed in the interest of public safety. However, students have a right to protest peacefully and make their voices heard forcefully; this action eliminates their opportunity to do that. We would support finding a way for student attendees to exercise their constitutional and moral right to protest while excluding non-student elements that raise the specter of violence and vandalism. We urge students who had made plans to travel to San Francisco for the Regents meeting to travel to Sacramento instead, and make student frustrations known to the state’s ultimate decision-makers.

An Open Letter to Students, Administrators, Faculty, and the Regents:

The leadership of the Board of Regents has chosen to cancel this week’s Regents meeting. This letter addresses that decision, the recent protests on UC campuses, the continued defunding of public higher education by the State of California, and recent police brutality at UC Berkeley.

The State of California’s unprecedented and short-sighted divestment from public higher education is a disastrous moral and economic choice. In the short term, it hurts students. In the long term, it will hurt all Californians.

The University of California is a nationwide leader in educating students who are the first in their families to go to college, students who come from underserved communities, and first-generation students who are the children of immigrants. Collectively and through sacrifice, the State of California has built an institution that excels at providing a world-class education to students who have faced the greatest challenges to access it.

And yet the State is choosing to tear that institution down. The State of California cut the UC by $650 million in the past year, with a $100 million trigger cut likely on the way. These latest cuts come on the heels of decades of declining funding. The cost is felt first and foremost by students, who face nothing but bad choices: work multiple jobs to make ends meet, take out enormous loans that will be paid back in a terrible job market, or drop out and pursue an education somewhere cheaper or not at all. Generations of Californians attended an excellent UC at low or no cost; today, those same Californians are forcing the next generation of students to attend a  university under threat, and at a high and rising cost. It is privatization of our greatest public good, and a morally bankrupt choice on the part of our citizens and our state government.

It is also a short-sighted economic choice. For decades, the University of California has fueled this state’s economic success, by driving innovation and entrepreneurship and graduating thousands of highly skilled workers into the California economy. Defunding this institution may ease our budget problems today, but doing so will bear bitter fruit for decades to come, as we become a less attractive destination for businesses and entrepreneurs. Cutting the UC hurts every Californian’s opportunity to get a well-paying job, decreases our future tax revenues, and delays or prevents entirely the research breakthroughs that advance our society and our economy.

The Student Regent and Student Regent-Designate support the actions of students who call attention to the privatization of public education through courageous and peaceful protest. The police violence at UC Berkeley on November 9 was reprehensible and ought to be condemned, not defended, by campus and systemwide administration. We have additional concerns about freedom of speech – on the day of the protests, a Berkeley Law student was stopped by police officers while far from the events at Sproul Plaza simply for carrying a megaphone. When she was unable to produce a student ID, she was handcuffed, placed in a squad car, and cited for a misdemeanor. Free speech and providing equitable access to education have been hallmarks of the UC and particularly UC Berkeley — by suppressing speech that advocates for education access, we do violence to two of our most cherished principles.

The Student Regent and Student Regent-Designate oppose the decision to cancel this week’s Regents meeting. We understand that local law enforcement authorities recommended the meeting be postponed in the interest of public safety. However, students have a right to protest peacefully and make their voices heard forcefully; this action eliminates their opportunity to do that. We would support finding a way for student attendees to exercise their constitutional and moral right to protest while excluding non-student elements that raise the specter of violence and vandalism. We urge students who had made plans to travel to San Francisco for the Regents meeting to travel to Sacramento instead, and make student frustrations known to the state’s ultimate decision-makers.

To fund the University of California, the State needs revenues. The Student Regent and Student Regent-Designate support ending Proposition 13’s treatment of corporate property taxes and ending the two-thirds supermajority requirement for raising new revenues in the state legislature. The Student Regent and Student Regent-Designate also support increasing taxes on the wealthiest Californians. Those at the top of California society have benefited the most from the fact that California is a vibrant, innovative, and diverse place; in times of struggle, they should give back to make sure that other Californians have the same opportunities to succeed that they did.

We hope that our fellow Regents and the administration of the UC will be forceful advocates for new revenues for state government. To not do so leaves us with only a single, cynical choice every year: submit a funding request to the State and lobby for it despite knowing Sacramento is unlikely to meet it; search internally for savings after yet another budget cut that we knew was coming; and fill the balance of our budget deficit on the backs of students, pushing those in the middle class further to the margins.

We have a responsibility to fight for an alternative. Students are leading the way. We hope that the University of California and its leadership can join students in the fight to preserve truly public higher education for all our citizens. As the Student Regent and Student Regent-Designate, we have a responsibility to be the students who partner with the Regents and the University’s top decisions-makers. We will continue to advocate from within the system for the principles and beliefs driving student energy and passion.

Alfredo Mireles
Student Regent

Jonathan Stein
Student Regent-Designate

---- (C) 2011 City on a Hill Press. All Rights Reserved. View online at Student Regents Oppose Regents Meeting Cancellation

The UC Board of Regents has postponed their Nov. 16 meeting, citing fears for public safety. President of the University of California Mark Yudof talks with former board chair and current regent Russel Gould at a March regents meeting. Photo by Prescott Watson

UC Office of the President (UCOP) announced the cancellation of this week’s regents meeting, due to “credible intelligence” collected by University of California law enforcement officials last week of threats of violence. The cancellation comes just two days before the Nov. 16 UC Board of Regents meeting was to be held in San Francisco at the UCSF Mission Bay campus.

University of California Police Department officials said there was a “real danger of significant violence and vandalism,” and advised the regents to cancel or postpone the meeting. In a Nov. 14 UCOP press release from Sherry Lansing, chair of the board of regents, Vice Chair Bruce Varner and President Mark G. Yudof, Lansing cited as the reason for cancellation information received by the board from the UCPD warning those present at the meeting could be subjected to violence.

“(UCPD) have advised us further that this violence could place at risk members of the public, students lawfully gathered to voice concerns over tuition levels and any other issues, the UCSF community,” Lansing said in the release. “After further consultation with these law enforcement officers, we have decided that, in fact, the most prudent course for us would be to postpone this meeting and reschedule it for another time and, possibly, an alternate venue.”

In a Nov. 14 release the University of California Student Association (UCSA) said UC students “are strongly opposed to this decision.”

“The decision to cancel this week’s regents meeting came abruptly and without any consultation with students or other stakeholders. We do understand the concerns about public safety, yet the regents also have a responsibility to the students and people of California to hold open meetings that allow for public access and participation,” said UCSA President Claudia Magana in the release. “It is concerning that the UC regents and UCPD were not properly prepared for this meeting, given the ‘credible intelligence’ that was gathered. UCPD deals with student demonstrations on a regular basis, and their top priority should be ensuring student’s ability to demonstrate safely. By cancelling this meeting, the UC regents have done a great disservice to students, and our ability to participate in the governance of our University system.”

A TA from UAW local 2865 — the union representing UC teaching assistants that chartered seven buses to take representatives from UC Santa Cruz to the meeting — questioned which body would be inflicting violence and how this reflects on the regents’ reaction.

“It seems that given the way regents meetings have gone in the past, the only credible threat I can imagine, would be coming from UCPD,” said a TA from UAW who is an active coordinator of bus transportation to UCSF and who wished to remain anonymous. “This just shows how out of touch the regents are with the student movement.”

Despite the abrupt cancellation, UAW’s current consensus is to push ahead with an “alternative action” rather than abandoning student action for that day.

UAW’s plans, however, are contingent on the general assembly meeting tonight, where a different course of action could be decided upon. The general assembly meeting will be held tonight at 7 p.m. in UCSC’s Kresge College.

Lansing’s statement goes on to emphasize that tuition hikes were not on the meeting’s agenda, and a new schedule for the meeting will be provided as soon as possible.

“The UC regents need to stand with us, not run away,” said Magana in the UCSA release. “In order to fully fund education, the state needs new revenue, and our UC regents should support this goal. This is all that students wanted to hear this week from the UC regents.”

---- (C) 2011 City on a Hill Press. All Rights Reserved. View online at Upcoming Regents Meeting Canceled