Los Mejicas, UC Santa Cruz’s student-run dance team, will be performing in the upcoming show ‘Mejicas, Hoy y Siempre.’ Students and alumni will perform a variety of dances from different regions in Mexico. Photo courtesy of Jasmin Avila.

And this is just practice.

Los Mejicas, UC Santa Cruz’s student-run Mexican folklorico dance team, will celebrate their 40th anniversary with their latest show: “Mejicas, Hoy y Siempre” — Mejicas, now and always.

The title exemplifies the group’s ethos.

“Once a Mejica, always a Mejica,” said Nidia Bautista, a fourth-year Latin American and Latino studies major and politics minor from Merrill. “I attribute everything to Mejicas.”

Over 60 students and alumni will be performing for an audience that is already booked to top 400. Bautista said what makes this year’s show special is the increased participation of the program’s alumni.

“Mejicas from 20 years ago are going to come and participate,” Bautista said. “It reinforces the notion that once you’re a Mejica, you continue to be a Mejica.”

UCSC anthropology professor and Los Mejicas faculty advisor Olga Nájera-Ramírez said the influence of Los Mejicas reaches across generations.

“There’s a lot of connection between family members,” Ramírez said, whose own niece is dancing this year. “There’s a very strong ongoing connection with people who have danced with Mejicas.”

The performance is broken up into dances hailing from various regions in Mexico. Nine groups of students and alumni will be performing dances from Mexican states like Yucatán, Veracruz and Baja California. Centeotl, the Santa Cruz community folkloric dance group, will also be performing.

Blanca Alfaro, a fourth-year anthropology major and co-director of Los Mejicas, said the group tries to reach out to the campus and city communities. Still, she said she wished the group had more recognition, especially from the student population.

“This campus is so big, and there are so many other things going on that a lot of the time it seems like we’re in a little corner,” Alfaro said.

But that little corner may be growing. Ramírez said their Saturday performance has already sold out. She emphasized, however, there are still lots of tickets available for the Friday show.

Despite the group’s enduring success, Los Mejicas’ future is uncertain. David Cuthbert, head of the theater arts department, said the department’s production manager, John Anderson, spent half of his time managing productions for the theater arts department. The other half of his time was spent managing the department’s facilities for productions by the arts division, like Los Mejicas.

But when the Arts and Lectures series, one of the most frequent arts division users, stopped, the division could not afford to continue paying Anderson for those duties, and funds for that portion of his job were cut.

Alfaro said the cost of Anderson’s services was then split between three student groups: the Pilipino Cultural Celebration (PCC), the Indian Student Organization (ISO) and Los Mejicas. The three groups joined together in their need for the theater departments facilities and to pay for the cost of performing them. Together, they formed the umbrella group Productions of Color (POC).

For the last year, POC has been funded by the Dean of Students Office, said assistant dean of students Lucy Rojas. Funding has also been secured for another four years by executive vice chancellor Alison Galloway.

But Alfaro worries that POC — and Los Mejicas — might be threatened if a permanent solution cannot be found by then.

“Those four years really buy us time to come up with permanent solutions, because that’s what we want — we don’t want a band aid,” Alfaro said. “[The funding] is good, but at the end of the day all of us just want a permanent solution.”

Show Information:

What: Los Mejicas show “Mejicas, Hoy y Siempre”

When: June 8 at 7 p.m. and June 9 at 5:30 p.m.

Where: Mainstage

How Much: $12 general; $10 seniors, students, faculty; $6  children. Free for children five and under.

Photo by Simren Bolaria

UCSC Chancellor George Blumenthal and Executive Vice Chancellor Alison Galloway sat down with student media organizations to answer questions of concern. The meeting took place on April 24 and included City on a Hill Press, KZSC, Banana Slug News, and The Fish Rap Live! 

CHP: UCSC receives less money than many other UC schools, one disparity in funding among UC campuses. What kind of pressures are being exerted on the office of the UC president for more equal allocation?

B: When I became chancellor, I discovered student fees were not distributed back to the campus from which they were collected and UC Santa Cruz got back about 67 cents on the dollar. The disparity was and still is significant. Last year I finally persuaded [the president] to look at this issue and reevaluate the budgeting of the university. The president agreed to put in place rebenching – a revaluation of how state money is allocated among the campuses. On that committee representing UCSC were myself and Susan Gilman, the chair of Academic Senate. When the report comes out it will be reviewed by the campuses. It should be available for students to look at as well. UCSC stands to gain a significant amount of funds from this process.

CHP: This year, the UC faced substantial reductions in state funding as well as increases in costs. How much of this was absorbed by tuition increases and how much of this was absorbed by cuts to jobs, classes, and resources?

B: We face two challenges: one are the cuts from the state, which were about $750 million university-wide last year. To put that into context, $750 million is roughly equal to the total state support for UC Santa Cruz, UC Santa Barbara, and UCLA, so that’s a huge, huge cut. In addition to that, we continue to face increasing costs. Increases in pension contributions from the university is a good example of that. If you average it out over the last four years, [student fee increases] were roughly half that total of cuts plus cost increases.

CHP: At the last regents meeting. Students argued that they didn’t have enough time to voice their opinions and they were calling for a more democratic process. Do you think that will be effective?

B: Currently, regents meetings last three days. Each have public comment periods for half an hour where students get a chance to express their views. There’s a balance between keeping [the meetings] open for public comment forever versus keeping public comment too short. [Regents meetings] aren’t fundamentally a democratic process. I think it’s quite appropriate that [the regents] hear constituents of the state – that they hear from students and faculty but ultimately [the regents] are charged with making decisions about the university. I think having input is really important but I would not feel comfortable if the state voted on every issue surrounding the university.

CHP: How can students get more involved with the decisions made at regents meetings?

B: At the last regents meeting, two UCSC students spoke and their comments were very different from comments made by other speakers. They were calm, persuasive — they made a rational argument and I think they were listened to because they were not screaming at the regents. Another way to be involved is to write a letter to the regents and president. The third way of getting involved is to come talk to people on campus. Allison holds office hours at Quarry Plaza and I hold office hours in my office; I meet with students all the time. Even if I don’t agree with a student, I’m happy to give them advice on a particular issue and on how to be influential in the process. I think there are a lot of ways that students can get involved and have their voice be heard so they can have a good chance at having an effect on university policy.

Chancellor George Blumenthal and executive vice chancellor Alison Galloway answer questions from student media organizations. Photo by Kyan Mahzouf.

Chancellor George Blumenthal and executive vice chancellor Allison Galloway met with Student Media Organizations for their Quarterly Meeting on Oct. 10. Blumenthal discussed private UC funding and the critical race and ethnic studies movement on campus.

CHP: Regarding the Sept. 15 Board of Regents meeting: there was a certain sentiment that the UC system ought to be pursuing more sources of private funding, in light of President Yudof’s four-year proposal. What are your thoughts on this?

Blumenthal: We would love to see more private funding, no doubt about that. Don’t be misled that we don’t already do private funding. Last year, our private funding was up 10 percent. We already do a lot. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do or try to do more … There is an effort to reach out to the largest corporations in California, who are in some ways beneficiaries of higher education because they get to hire trained people. That’s a perfectly legitimate thing to do. The bottom line is, we’ve taken tremendous cuts … President Yudof’s plan was a plan to bring some stability, and to make it clear that if tuition goes up, [here's] where the finger needs to be pointed: the state and the legislature have not provided adequate funding for us to continue to do what is our mission.

TWANAS: Now that we have seen the critical race and ethnic studies movement go through several steps, students are wondering where you two see your position as salient to the movement, and what involvement you have, if any.

B: We’ve been very supportive of the major. We’ve provided funds for faculty. I’d love to see it happen. We regard it as a major initiative.

Galloway: We’re hoping to get a proposal out of the faculty quickly, and through the academic senate process where it would be approved. Personally, I’m very supportive of this … As executive vice chancellor, I’m delighted to see it move forward.

CHP: In addition to current private funding, what direct approaches do you think would be practical for corporations in showing them their advantage in funding a UC?

B: We owe it to the next generation of students to give back. People take it seriously — our donations were up last year. When I go to a group of business leaders, one of the key questions they ask concerns education and higher education. They run companies that send jobs out of the country because there aren’t enough qualified people here. It’s obvious that there should be more financial support for the benefit of our state, country and economy.

CHP: Do you think the UC system at large has done enough with regard to providing information for students about the fee increases?

B: Almost certainly no. We could do a better job of it, and we could do a better job of communicating with the people of California and the legislation. It’s frustrating that, though last year was great in terms of lobbying in Sacramento to bring the issue forward, at the end of the day higher education cuts were devastating. We have to do better, or we have to find alternatives — private fundraising, specially designated higher education funding from the state. We have to do something else.

CHP: What can students do to impress upon the private sector that it is in their best interest to invest in the UC system now?

B: I was really impressed by how students, faculty and admins worked together in Sac[ramento] last year. We came together to convey that we had the same message. I think that can translate in the private sector as well. I think it would be entirely appropriate to respectfully have student groups meet with private sector groups. Some are already there: The Silicon Valley Leadership Group is as supportive as any of higher education. We need to reach out more broadly to individual companies, though.

On May 24, executive vice chancellor Alison Galloway hosted a forum to bridge the gap between student and faculty discussions on the possible inclusion of an ethnic studies program.

“What is it that you want?” Galloway asked the audience of about 50 students and faculty members. “We’ve got some momentum and I don’t want to let it slip.”

The fight for ethnic studies is nothing new to the UCSC campus, as students and faculty have throughout the years been embroiled in debates over the possible addition of the program to the campus curriculum. Currently, student groups advocate for the inclusion of ethnic studies while a “faculty work force” of roughly 20 to 25 individuals has been working on creating and proposing a structured curriculum.

Currently, students are spearheading classes focused on ethnic and cultural studies despite the absence of formal curriculum on campus. Several courses are offered including Pilipino Historical Dialogue and Asian American Pacific Islander Perspectives. Both courses are taught and organized by students under a faculty sponsor.

The forum on May 24 was an informal opportunity for members of the community to meet, talk and collaborate in their efforts to bring the program to the campus. Topics discussed ranged from diversity issues on the campus to the disconnect that exists between different facets of the UCSC community overall.

Those who support the addition of an ethnic studies program say the recent controversy surrounding racially insensitive graffiti found on campus has shown the community that there needs to be constructive dialogue on race and culture.

“My involvement with ethnic studies is because I take the future of my people seriously,” said Chris Cuadrado, a student organizer involved in advocating for ethnic studies. “But coming from the diverse background that I do, I understand that there are larger structures of oppression that affect more than just my people.”

With the campus buzzing over cuts and possible suspensions of programs like community studies and protests erupting throughout the UC system, students have been advocating for an education that better addresses their wants and needs.

“Out of the deconstruction of community studies, we realize that it would be much more productive to promote the creation of ethnic studies,” said Will Duggan, a third-year community studies major from Stevenson College. “That would appeal to a broader audience and fill a void that has been here for many years and which community studies directly rose out of.”

The discussion of ethnic studies continually returned to questions over the current budgetary problems facing the UC system, but faculty members present at the forum on Tuesday said they believe UCSC has the means to create a program with associated faculty.

Bill Ladusaw, vice provost and dean of undergraduate education (VPDUE), said, “There are many courses on campus which can be viewed as ethnic studies.”

Mark Cioc, a faculty member of the history department and Interim VPDUE reiterated this view.

“There are on this campus enough courses to create a major with very little additional resources,” Cioc said. “An idea of a major would create a curriculum and a path for students to take.”

Consensus among those present at the forum was that the school, working with what is currently available — and working under the assumption that the UC system will not face another $500 million cut — can feasibly support an ethnic studies program.

Galloway addressed concerns over the budget crisis, specifically with regard to the question of ethnic studies.

“The budgetary climate is not great, but quite frankly, I don’t remember it being great in the last 20 years,” Galloway said.

Another topic on the table was the student desire for an ethnic studies department while faculty advocate for an ethnic studies program instead. While the establishment of the department demands a full-time faculty, a program would only require associated faculty members. This would mean an ethnic studies program could exist by working cooperatively with other fields in a cross-disciplinary manner.

The forum ultimately stressed communication between graduate and undergraduate students and faculty members as groups try to flesh out what ethnic studies or critical race studies would look like at UCSC.

“A key aspect in regards to ethnic studies is shared governance,” said Teq Kavinzo, a second-year feminist studies major. “By shared governance, I and other people have been working on this. We mean a horizontality betweens undergraduates, graduates, faculty, staff and administration. We don’t want it to be a bureaucratic system, we want to transform that and recognize a democratic process in which every voice is heard.”

Following the forum, the Student Union Assembly (SUA) held its weekly meeting, and on the agenda was the approval of an official resolution concerning ethnic studies. However, the meeting quickly reached a stalemate as students’ hands shot into the air and diverging ideas and opinions were presented.

By the end of the discussion, participants decided there needed to be a much larger, more in-depth conversation outside the space of the SUA meeting. A sheet of paper went around the room, students quickly jotted down their information, and that was — for the time being — the end of the conversation.

The lack of communication between SUA and student activists underscored the need for greater communication between different areas and subgroups on the campus. It was conceded that everyone had the same end goal, but there was not a singular way to that goal.

During the SUA meeting, one attendee said “10 minutes, 20 minutes, an hour won’t make a difference tonight.”

“Students should know that it will take more than a one-day action,” Cuadrado said. “It’s going to require organizing and coalition-building.”

Students and faculty throughout the evening agreed that it was time for UCSC to reevaluate and reexamine the current discussions surrounding ethnic studies.

UCSC has changed immensely since its inception in 1965, and Galloway commented on the way the university is continually in a state of metamorphosis — the debate for ethnic studies is proof of that.

“This is not a museum — it’s a university,” Galloway said. “It should change.”

Photo by Prescott Watson

UCSC Chancellor George Blumenthal and executive vice chancellor Alison Galloway sat down on April 14 with student media organizations to discuss issues facing the university. City on a Hill Press, KZSC, SCTV, TWANAS and The Fish Rap Live! touched on the topics of decentralization and the $500 million cut to the UC system.

City on a Hill Press: At the UC Board of Regents meeting in March, you said if the state legislature ends up cutting $1 billion from the UC system, “some fundamental assumptions have to be thrown out.” In regards to UCSC, what assumptions are you referring to?

Blumenthal: I really don’t believe that the campus can responsibly take cuts of that magnitude and still maintain the kind of student experience that you’ve come to expect. I think that the responses will have to be systemic — there will have to be a major effort to bring additional money into the system, and that’ll have to be done on a systemwide basis. I think in the short run, it’ll probably lead to significant fee increases. I don’t see any other choice … A billion-dollar cut to UC really is Armageddon, and the way you deal with Armageddon is with really radical solutions.

SCTV: On April 5 [Gov.] Jerry Brown said “the university is an engine of wealth creation.” I’d like to get your response to that idea.

Blumenthal: I completely agree with that. Let me limit my response to California. California is a knowledge-based economy — there’s a lot of farming, but a lot of California’s economy has a lot to do with intellectual property, creating things, whether it’s Hollywood or IP. We really need an educated populace in order for that to happen. It’s true that for every dollar invested in UC, the long run repays that investment many times over. It’s a great investment for the state of California. The reason they don’t do it is because they need the money now, and they’re not so worried about the future. I think it’s short-sighted.

CHP: Regarding the decentralization plan, where all the campuses will pay a flat tax to UCOP instead of paying them funds and getting funds back — this will probably be more beneficial to smaller campuses rather than larger campuses. Could you comment on that?

Blumenthal: It’s a little more complicated than that … For every different color of money that came to the system, like the mafia, they would take a piece of the action off the top, and it was a different piece and percentage based on the color (health, lab, state, student, federal money). They used a complicated formula to do that. Generally, they took more money from state general funds than from medical centers. But if you look at the total budget for UC, the total state funded budget for UC next year under Jerry Brown is $2.4 billion. But the total budget of UC, if you include medical centers and all that, is closer to $20 billion. A flat tax on all expenditure is going to be advantageous to campuses like Santa Cruz, which are more dependent on state funds, as opposed to campuses like UCLA for example, where a large part of their operation is a huge medical center.

KZSC: With the increase in student fees, what is the outlook for incoming freshmen next year? There’s the possibility that they won’t be able to apply because they can’t pay, and with the removal of more grant programs, how can they enter a UC?

Blumenthal: First the good news — Cal Grants have been preserved in the budget at the federal level, although as you probably know from reading the papers, there was a push by some to severely limit them … We have at UC the Blue and Gold Program, which guarantees that students with a household income of less than $80,000 don’t pay fees. They should not be concerned. The people who are really hurt by fee increases are people in the middle class.

KZSC: Just going off availability for classes, there was a proposal to cut the class time to 60 minutes, down from 70. Is this correct … [and] was the purpose to save revenue or to increase availability?

Galloway: It was largely to increase availability, because it would give us an extra slot in the day in which students could get a class. One of our problems is we have so few large lecture halls, so it’s difficult to have the large classes which preserve the smaller classes. Another slot would help us move enough students through so they could all get into a class.

KZSC: What do you think the potential benefits and downfalls are to this plan?

Galloway: Benefits would be students getting into classes that they need. Less delays in their progress to their degree. Downsides are pretty obvious — if you have less time in class, you’re going to get less out of the class. It’s frustrating as a faculty member when you have a certain amount of material you have to get through. We’re teaching a semester’s worth of material in a quarter. It’s hard to do in the first place.

Illustration by Rachel Edelstein.

Faculty, administration and students are attempting to better communicate information in the process of student demonstrations with the formation of the UCSC Demonstration Advisory Group (DAG).

In an email directed to the larger UC Santa Cruz community, executive vice chancellor (EVC) Alison Galloway detailed the formation of a new focus group. The group’s aim will be the examination of UC policy regarding student demonstration and protest. Officially titled the DAG, the group is still in its infancy. However, Galloway, who co-chairs the group with College Nine and Ten provost Helen Shapiro, said in a phone interview she has an idea of where she wants the group to focus its energy.

“[The DAG] is here to look at the policies we have in place to interact with demonstrations, how they’re regulated, how they’re surveilled, what sort of limits are set, how the police are involved,” Galloway said. “Essentially, we’re asking, ‘How do we help the people who are forming the demonstration and help them get their message to the people who need to hear it?’ If the message doesn’t get through, then everyone’s time has been wasted.”

Though the formation of the DAG is partially a response to last year’s Kerr Hall occupation, Shapiro said the group has been in the making for a number of years.

“The former EVC was interested in starting this,” Shapiro said, “but it’s been a combination of a new EVC, a push from students and faculty and general dissatisfaction about what happened last year with Kerr Hall.”

Staffed by a mixture of faculty, students and administrators (all volunteers — none of the DAG members are paid for their participation), the DAG hopes to solidify UCSC’s approach to student demonstration.

“With a lot of the demonstrations last year, we felt that we [the UC] weren’t handling them as best we could,” Galloway said. “There was a general sense that we needed to take a step back.”

Noah Miska, College Nine second-year and member of the DAG, agreed that the UC has done a poor job of handling student demonstrations.

“Students organize a demonstration in response to [the] administrators’ failure to address the top-down power structures that govern the UC. If the demonstration is in any way disruptive, administrators call the police and/or make claims to discredit the demonstrators,” Miska said in an email. “This inflames tension between already perturbed students and administrators incurs significant expense for the university and, most importantly, fails to address the top-down power structures that govern the UC. Students then organize another demonstration, and the cycle repeats.”

The DAG is notable in that it is staffed primarily by faculty and students.

“This group is not administration-based,” Galloway said. “I’m the only administrator on staff.”

The group, Galloway said, is intended to gather information from students and other interested parties to more clearly inform the UC on how to enact regulatory policy regarding demonstrations.

“We’d like to have a situation where each group [the UC and the demonstrators] comes together with a better understanding of how the other works, where we don’t have to see each other as necessarily opposed,” Galloway said.

Shapiro also said the UC needs to reexamine its protest policy.

“The hope is to not simply react. We want to have people who are concerned about the campus sitting down and working towards a better community,” she said. “That doesn’t mean there won’t be differences, but our goal is to have a clear, fair procedure.”

Miska is apprehensive about the DAG’s future.

“I’m only tentatively optimistic about the outcome of the DAG. The group’s focus is on how to address demonstrations, rather than how to address the structural issues that motivate students to organize those demonstrations,” he said. “I think administrators should be asking more broadly contextualized questions, like ‘Why do students, staff and faculty have no say on who sits on the Board of Regents?’”

In the initial email to the UCSC community, Galloway made note of the fact that the DAG would attempt to review the policy on campus surveillance. In a later interview, she said the reasoning behind photography at demonstrations should be transparent.

“If photographs are taken at demonstrations, we want it to be clear why they’re being taken, who gets to look at them, who has access to these photos,” Galloway said.

Shapiro also is in favor of increased transparency.

“Some policies are explicit, some aren’t,” she said. “We need to make it clear who’s in charge on the ground [during a demonstration.]”

Transparency seems to be the eventual goal for the DAG, but Miska says that he is doubtful of the group’s ability to change the structural causes of student protest.

“I think the best probable outcome of the DAG is that UCSC admins will be less likely to use police and the threat of physical force against nonviolent demonstrators,” Miska said. “The DAG is well-intentioned and is being formed out of genuine recognition that administrative responses to demonstration have been inappropriate. I just think that they fail to understand why those responses have been inappropriate.”

Photo by Prescott Watson.

Chancellor George Blumenthal and executive vice chancellor Alison Galloway met with student media news organizations at the chancellor’s quarterly press conference Monday. Among other issues, the administrators responded to queries about the governor’s proposed budget and the future of American studies.

City on a Hill Press: How will the potential suspension of American studies affect the chancellor’s vision of a “cross-cultural” campus?

GB: Both American studies and community studies are programs that do have important cross-cultural contributions that they have made. But I still think, that even with the suspension of admission of new undergraduate majors in both cases, there remain programs on this campus that really do provide significant cross-cultural opportunities for students. [The suspension] by no means reflects a reluctance to have them. The steps that involve those suspensions came about for a lot of different reasons, including the question of whether or not we can continue to support these students at the level they have been enrolling. But their suspension provides us an opportunity to rethink some of these programs and perhaps have them come back in a different form that might better the cross-cultural initiatives we’d like to see on this campus. I don’t see that as a takeaway. I see that as an opportunity to improve.

AG: [The suspension of American studies] it is very much something we need to work on with the faculty to see if we can take this decision and make it into an opportunity to reformat some of these things, in particular around ethnic studies.

GB: There has been a lot of concern on the part of students as to whether or not we can have an ethnic studies program or major on the campus. The faculty decided many years ago that our equivalent of ethnic studies would live within the American studies major. So the potential suspension of that major does give us an opportunity to rethink things, and we could very well end up in a better place than where we started with.

CHP: How will the university account for the lack of diversity in student interest that might come with the suspension of American studies?

AG: Well, the majors themselves have probably [had] around 200 majors in each of those or maybe a little bit less. So it’s not an incredibly large number of students. More than likely, most of those students would be adopted to other majors on campus. Those programs may not serve exactly the kind of things they would like to do, but we still have the option for the individual majors as well, so some students may be constructing their own majors around that. There are internship programs, such as were provided to community studies, in other fields as well. Sociology and environmental studies, for example, have internship programs. So students may go into those areas as well.

KZSC: In light of the governor’s proposed cuts to higher education, do you have any insights as to what is going to happen to the university?

GB: We are fortunate that we haven’t spent all the money we got last year. But we will have to make some significant additional cuts. That will mean that we won’t be able to do everything that we currently are doing, which is already cut back from what we were doing a few years ago. I don’t think we’re in a position to say specifically which programs might be affected. We can say that a year from now, if this budget passes as it was proposed today, we will have to make cuts. Making cuts means that a year from now there won’t be as many people working at the university as there are today and that’s going to mean a loss of services for students. Exactly where they’re going to be, we don’t know yet.

AG: Obviously, cutting programs in and of itself does not save us money unless the costs associated with those programs go away. And that is something we haven’t done. We have kept the faculty going with most of the departments. The idea that we can just simply go in and discontinue teaching certain areas as we have done in the past doesn’t save us money. So we’re looking at ways of trying to preserve as much of the academic mission as we can. But still realizing savings in other areas.

On the Spot: As UCSC isn’t predominantly a graduate program-focused campus, when budget cuts are enforced, do graduate programs get cut more than undergraduate programs?

GB: It isn’t easy to look at budget cuts always and say, “This is undergraduate, and that is graduate.” We do have a graduate division which does have some money. But most of the cuts that take place on campus affect support units or even if they affect the department, they might affect graduates the same as undergraduates depending on the department and depending upon where the department’s priorities may lie. In addition to that, I would say you’re right, graduate students constitute 10 percent of the student body in this campus and that is one of the lowest if not the lowest of the UC system. But it has long been a goal of the campus and a goal of mine to increase the percentage of graduate students, certainly not to the level of Berkeley or UCLA but at least up to a level that is more consistent to the rest of the UCs. I think it may not be a priority we can easily attain during a time of decreasing budgets, but it is still a priority.

AG: Many times the cuts that we think of as being primarily focused towards the undergraduates have profound effects on the graduate programs as well. Examples of these are things like the temporary support for teaching. In many cases we cut those teaching assistants but also teaching fellows. So we have fewer sections available for undergraduates. We have fewer course offerings available for undergraduates. Unfortunately, those have implications on graduate students too, for whom teaching assistantships and teaching fellowships are a very important means of support, so it hits both undergraduates and graduates. And unfortunately, that is the way things are: One blow does not hit just one people — it hits many.

CHP: With the budget cuts, how can we keep and attract great professors?

GB: I think a lot of our faculty come here and stay here because of the quality of our students, because of the nature of their interactions with other faculty. The research environment and the teaching environment are very important for the faculty, as well as what the future will hold, if things will get better or if they will get worse. I will say up front that we do not pay our faculty adequately. Our faculty are underpaid by national standards — they are easily more than 10 percent underpaid relative to faculty elsewhere at equivalent institutions. Over the past few years our faculty have even been underpaid relative to the UC system. We’ve been trying, over the last two years and will continue this year, to make sure that our faculty are at least not underpaid relative to other UCs. We don’t have enough money to make them not underpaid relative to the rest of the country, but at least relative to the rest of the UC system, I think that’s one of our obligations. We’ve made enormous progress in that regard in the last two years, and I’m hoping we’ll finish the job this year.

On the Web

At ucsc.edu: Read Alison Galloway’s advisory and learn more about resources available to the campus community. [Link]

Story updated on 01/13/2011 at 12:53am

Graffiti threatening violence, found in a campus bathroom, has prompted an investigation by the UC Santa Cruz administration and police. The graffiti was discovered in early December, before students left for winter break.

Administrators issued an email advisory to the campus community Jan. 11 alerting students and faculty of the discovery of the graffiti, and asking them to be alert for suspicious behavior. Recipients were warned that the message threatened violence on Jan. 18. Exact details were not included.

UCSC director of public information Jim Burns said the administration has no plans to release further details.

Sam*, a UCSC student who lives on campus, was informed about the graffiti by a UCSC staff member on Jan. 6. Though he was asked not to share the details of the threat, Sam has since told “quite a few people,” he said.

Burns confirmed that “members of the campus’ senior leadership team were among the people informed,” before the e-mail advisory was sent out.

In an interview conducted prior to the release of the official alert, Sam said that though he understands the university’s position, he was concerned for students’ safety. He decided to alert his peers of the threat as they had not yet been informed by the university.

“I don’t want to interfere with any investigation, but this is too important,” Sam said. “Of course, it is in the administration’s best interest [not to tell], but I don’t think the university’s best interest and the students’ best interest align in this case. I think the best thing is to tell people.”

He said a university staff member informed him about the threat and included details not disclosed in the advisory e-mail. Sam said, in the message, discovered in a men’s bathroom on the first floor of the Social Sciences 2 building, the individual threatened to harm a finite number of students before hurting themselves.

Burns and executive vice chancellor Alison Galloway declined to comment on specific details of the message beyond what was included in the advisory e-mail.

The graffiti message was removed shortly after its discovery. Jim Durning, supervisor of the UCSC Paint/Sign Shop, said that after threatening graffiti is reported, protocol requires police officers take a picture of the message and members of Durning’s staff are called in to remove it. Durning confirmed that a member of his staff did paint over the message after they were called to do so.

When it was discovered, certain aspects of the message were detailed enough to warrant the administration’s concern, Galloway said.

“The information we had, had enough specificity in it that we were concerned and thought we should take it seriously,” Galloway said. “That doesn’t mean that it is a legitimate threat — it could be a number of things. But we felt we had to treat it as if it was a serious concern. So we’ve been trying to … reach out to find out who this individual will be and if we can offer some help, offer some intervention.”

UCSC interim police chief Ava Snyder said that an investigation has been ongoing since the graffiti was discovered by a student Dec. 2. Though the FBI was contacted for consultation, it is not investigating the incident.
While the UCSC Police Department’s plans for next Tuesday cannot be revealed, Snyder said that supporting law enforcement agencies have been notified in case assistance is needed.

As of press time, the administration has no plans to close campus on Jan. 18, said Jim Burns, UCSC’s director of public information.

“We are planning for campus to be open,” he said.

Though the graffiti was discovered in early December, the administration did not send out an advisory until Jan. 11. Galloway said that in withholding the information, the administration hoped to avoid causing unwarranted panic.

“Obviously, the ideal for us would have been to have found the person already and not have to worry about exposing people to the stress of hearing this on our campus,” she said. “But we haven’t been able to do that, so we felt we really had an obligation to the campus community to let them know … that something could happen. And they should be prepared.”

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Additional reporting by Arianna Puopolo.
*Names have been changed.

At a meeting for the year’s first press conference with student media, Chancellor George Blumenthal (left) and executive vice chancellor Alison Galloway (right) addressed student media’s most urgent concerns. While the discussion focused on serious topics, the pair managed to keep the tone positive. Photo by Prescott Watson.

Student media news organizations put hard-hitting questions to Chancellor George Blumenthal last Thursday. Newly appointed executive vice chancellor Alison Galloway joined us at the chancellor’s quarterly press conference. Among other issues, the administrators responded to queries about student activism and the future of campus programs.

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City on a Hill Press: What went into the decision to appoint Allison Galloway as our new EVC?

Blumenthal: I really feel very, very lucky, because at the same time last year that we were doing our EVC search, several other campuses were doing EVC searches as well. Some of them were unable to complete their EVC search and make an appointment. I had four outstanding finalist candidates, any of whom could’ve stepped into that position. But in choosing Allison, I was motivated by the fact that she is very committed to the campus. She understands the campus well, and she really has demonstrated her ability to administer programs … I think Allison brings the whole package, and because we worked together in a variety of different capacities over the years I thought that we would work well. And lastly Allison isn’t afraid to tell me when I’m wrong.

TWANIS: What do you want to be your legacy at UCSC?

Blumenthal: First, I’d like people to look back and say that during our term here, the university continued its upward trajectory among universities in the country and the world. I think that was true as I was coming in as chancellor, and I’d like to continue that trend and really move it forward in a very meaningful way. Secondly, I’d like people to look back and realize that this was a very difficult financial time for the university, and that we found ways to stabilize the university during what were very difficult times and prepare us for hopefully better times ahead.

KZSC: You talked last year about increasing the graduate student population to help the undergraduate population in their quality of education — how is that going?

Blumenthal: I actually really believe in my heart of hearts that graduate students do benefit undergraduate students, and we have one of the lower, or maybe even the lowest, percentage of graduate students in the UC system … it seems to me that for a research university we could benefit from more graduate students, and I think our students would benefit. I’d also remind you that our graduate students are not evenly distributed around campus, we have a much higher percentage of graduate students in the sciences and engineering, for example, than in the other divisions, which makes me very gratified that over the last few years we opened new Ph.D programs more broadly across campus in social sciences and humanities, and that we’re now starting two new Ph.D programs in the arts … if your question is where should we make investments, graduate students versus more classes for undergraduates, those are hard choices, and we’ll have to look at all of those choices. I think that that’s a priority just as making sure that resources are available so students can get classes. I don’t see the two as being mutually inconsistent. Both of them are important priorities.

City on a Hill Press: The TA’s union on campus has asked you to be somewhat of an advocate for them to the UC Regents in their contract negotiations — how specifically have you been able to do this?

Blumenthal: Of course, I can’t talk in detail about union negotiation … collective bargaining doesn’t take place on this campus, it’s system-wide bargaining, it isn’t really with the regents, it’s really with the UC president, the president has the authority to agree to a contract with unions. We have input into it, we have representatives on the bargaining team, those issues are discussed with the chancellors, before agreements are made we all get to comment on them and provide input. I think our graduate students in general, TAs in particular, are a really key part of the campus. TAs have it tough, not only are they students but they also teach. It is a job, many of them have families to support, I think it’s really important that we make sure that they are able to survive in a reasonable way.

TWANIS: Are you going to make an effort this year to come to rallies and show public support for the UAW/students in general?

Blumenthal: I will be out there, and I’m going to try to be accessible to people. I’m more than happy to talk to anyone as long as the conversation takes place at a reasonable decibel level. I do keep office hours, I am available for people to talk to. Second, there is a presumption that chancellors are all powerful … I think there is a power in the ability to be persuasive, and to persuade the appropriate decision makers of the rightness of a position. Just because you may not see me doing it doesn’t mean that I’m not an advocate for certain positions. I am a part of the management of the university, and to the extent that a union negotiation is management versus union, it would not be appropriate for me to speak outside of normal channels in that regard. I certainly can be available to listen to concerns, I can talk to people to hear what their concerns are, and use my voice, which I actually believe is a lot, to be persuasive about the right things to do in terms of negotiations with the Office of the President. I would never write an open letter to the president urging him to do something, for example. I think that would decrease my credibility with the president even if it might win me some brownie points with those who want me to be more openly an advocate.

KZSC: What are your thoughts on the student activism against the UC?

Blumenthal: There’s nothing wrong with activism, I was an activist myself as a student. I encourage our students to speak out, I think it’s great that Santa Cruz as so many students whose voices want to be heard. There are lines, though. Sometimes, activism that exceeds what I think are the appropriate bounds of behavior can be negative for the university. I spend a lot of my time with donors and legislators, and I’d rather be talking about what they can do to help the university really provide education for a broader spectrum of Californians than having to defend the university against accusations that our students don’t understand the good things that they have. I think that activism, if it’s overboard, or it exceeds the appropriate level of behavior of respecting other people’s rights, I think that that can actually be a negative for the university. And it detracts from the conversation.

City on a Hill Press: This summer the New York Times published a story about Mark Yudof’s residence — how do you think it reflects on the University of California that the president’s rent monthly is more than a student’s annual fees?

Blumenthal: Each of the ten chancellors has a chancellor’s residence on campus, which we use … it’s a very legitimate thing. It turns out that the president has for many, many years an official residence. It’s a very large house, and I would never live there. It’s run-down, I would be afraid it would collapse around me if there was an earthquake … so when Mark Yudof was appointed president the university faced a decision of what to do … the cost to fix Blake House is $10 million, rough figures, I don’t know it exactly. The university felt it shouldn’t do that, so the decision was made, instead, to rent him a place in the Berkeley-slash-Oakland area. Now, it had to be a large enough residence, to be frank with you, to do a couple of things. One, it had to provide the opportunity to entertain … he uses his house to entertain and that’s an important part of the job, so I think it was appropriate for the university to rent a house for him. There’s also a second issue, which is security concerns, and so they had to rent something that they felt would be a secure place for him to live. As for the exact rent, well, they weren’t going to put him in a $100-a-month apartment. I can’t comment on exact numbers … what can I say? Rents are expensive in Oakland. I think it’s legitimate that they rented him a house.

Allison Galloway was elected the new campus provost and executive vice chancellor Sept. 16. She says she hopes to bridge the divide between the administration and students. Photo by Prescott Watson.

Chancellor George Blumenthal appointed Allison Galloway to the position of executive vice chancellor (CP/EVC) Sept. 16. Galloway enters the position at a fiscally challenging time for UC Santa Cruz.

Blumenthal selected Galloway and she was subsequently approved by the UC Regents. Galloway succeeds David Kliger, who stepped down after a five-year term as CP/EVC. He has returned to his former position as chemistry and biochemistry professor.

Galloway has previously served in several administration positions at UCSC, including University Extension (UE), a program that required extensive budget restructuring. This year is the first time in over a decade that UE will be filing no deficit.

As CP/EVC, Galloway is responsible for academic and administrative operation of the campus, including budget planning. Since her appointment, Galloway has met with the departments on campus and made it a priority to grant more teaching assistantships and make classes more accessible for students, she said.

“That’s probably the [complaint] I hear the most, that classes are too full,” Galloway said. “We gave extra money to the divisions at the beginning and end of spring quarter with the contingency that they increase capacity.”

The school does not plan to cut any programs within the coming year, she said, though planning for the future of the community studies program is ongoing. Despite the failure of both the UC Regents and the state to release their budgets, UCSC is prepared for the potential outcomes, she said.

“Even if the state budget for education is less than we expected, we will not be taking back money from any of the departments,” Galloway said.

Galloway emphasized the importance of maintaining open communication with the university community.

“I want to bring a lot of communication and honesty to the position,” she said. “When people understand why a decision is made, they accept it a lot easier.”

In addition to managing university funds, Galloway will also manage day-to-day university administrative duties. Former CP/EVC Kliger was often the target of media attention and student action. Though Galloway said she will “definitely be the enemy” at times, she will attend the day of action to defend public education on Oct. 7.

“We all need to defend public education,” Galloway said. “It’s not the responsibility of one or the other.”

Though it is hard to hear news of the difficulties UC campuses face, Galloway said, working at UCSC makes her optimistic for the future of public education.

“The faculty, students and staff — they bring in the best minds and encourage great work,” she said. “That gives me hope and is something that has to be defended.”