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.

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

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

Illustration by Jamie Morton.

The recent UC Board of Regents planning session in San Francisco left many unsure about the UC system’s financial strategy for the next several years.

The regents met on Sept. 15 to discuss and plan a stable financial framework for the embattled UC system. Discussion of UC President Mark Yudof’s proposal to mandate an 8–16 percent tuition increase every year for the next four years was notably avoided. The regular increases were proposed in an effort to reduce the $1.5 billion budget gap faced by the UC system.

SFGate coverage painted the regents as largely opposed to Yudof’s proposal, with an increased focus on seeking sources of corporate donorship and philanthropy taking the bulk of the discussion period.

“Get real — and don’t fool yourselves and think the legislature will turn around, or you’ll be waiting for Godot,” Regent David Crane said, voicing the popular sentiment that state aid is unlikely to be forthcoming in any appreciable amount.

Many UC students are left wondering about the regents’ eventual plans.

“Historically, the regents have always supported what Yudof proposes,” said SUA external vice chair Nelson Cortez. “However, it seemed that this proposal was not going to be taken lightly by the regents.”

Cortez is wary of the regents’ focus on seeking more private sector funding.

“While I think it is good the regents are finally looking at alternate forms of revenue and finally doing something to address the lack of funding from Sacramento, I think we need to take a closer, critical look at what exactly they intend to do,” Cortez said. “Privatization of the university is not acceptable and won’t be tolerated by students. This is why students must be involved with the process and this is why the regents must be transparent with their actions.”

Steve Montiel, media relations director of the UC Office of the President, said though nothing was presented for a vote at the planning session, “[the planning session] was very distressing. It’s getting close to budgeting time and the ideal would be to have longer-term commitments from the state, rather than year-to-year.”

Ultimately, state aid is what is needed to close the budget gap, he said.

“What we’re looking to do is get some sort of signal from the regents on a multi-year plan so we can talk to the state about it,” Montiel said.

This signal, he said, would be the four-year tuition increase or something similarly preemptive.

“Some regents talked about corporate fundraising — we’ll do that with the regents and continue to look at alternatives, but when all is said and done, there’s that $1.5 billion gap,” Montiel said.

Seeking private sources of funding is nothing new to the UC system, despite it being a public university.

“$1.3 billion is given in gifts to the UC system every year, but they’re usually campus-specific and restricted,” Montiel said. “Only about 2 percent of gifts to the UC system are unrestricted.”

Still, some regents feel waiting for the state to come to their aid is pointless.

“[We should approach those] who can actually write a check — Chevron, Apple, Cisco and Google — all these companies sitting on money they don’t know what to do with,” said Regent Richard Blum at the Sept. 15 meeting.

Regardless of what method is chosen, Montiel makes it clear there is an interest in making the difficulties of paying for a UC education more predictable for families.

“The purpose [of the meeting] was to enable us to talk with the state about longer term commitments,” he said, “and to enable students to plan with their families with more certainty.”

The UC Board of Regents convened on Wednesday, March 16 to discuss how the University of California will address another half-billion dollar drop in state funding from Governor Brown’s proposed budget. The proposed cuts reduce the state’s expenditures by $12.5 billion. The state’s budget deficit is $25.4 billion. If Governor Brown’s proposed tax extensions fail, the state will need to find other areas to reduce spending and the university could see a $1 billion cut of state funding.

Chancellors from three campuses present the difficulties of absorbing past cuts. Chancellor Blumenthal of UCSC presented grave expectations for our campus’ future. “We will not be able to make these cuts strategically … These reductions will cut right to the heart of our instruction and research missions.” Photo by Prescott Watson

The first half of Wednesday’s meeting featured Chancellor Robert Birgeneau of UC Berkeley, Chancellor George Blumenthal of UC Santa Cruz, and Chancellor Michael Drake of UC Irvine in a presentation on the effects of previous cuts to their campuses. Chancellor Drake said UCI “spent a year with Band-Aids just holding it together. We were just not breathing, not moving forward.” Blumenthal described the cuts as “making us vulnerable in many ways,” and said the campus “can’t even exempt public safety operations – fire, police, and environmental health and safety.”

Vice President for Business Operations Nathan Brostrom presents to the Board of Regents data on system-wide faculty and staff reductions. Since 2008 over 4,400 faculty and staff have been laid off and 3,700 positions were eliminated or have gone unfilled. Photo by Prescott Watson

Nathan Brostrom, vice president for business operations (left), and Chancellor George Blumenthal of UCSC (right) address reporters on the effects of a possible $1 billion reduction in state funding. Photo by Prescott Watson

Campuses could face much more severe reductions if Governor Brown’s proposed tax extensions aren’t enacted, said UC Vice President for Budget Patrick Lenz. The tax extensions could fail to get on a ballot measure or be rejected by voters in June. Though a statewide survey from the Field Poll at UC Berkeley shows the majority of Californians support the proposal, several regents said they doubted its viability. If the extensions fail, the UC could be looking at a $1 billion cut. Chancellor Birgeneau of UC Berkeley said, “We have no model to accommodate that $1 billion … it would devastate our staff and faculty.” Blumenthal said if the legislature cuts that much from the UC, “some fundamental assumptions have to be thrown out.” He said there is no way we cannot cut academic enterprises and that “we are at the point of compromising quality.”

UCLA Chancellor Gene Block looks towards Doug Wagoner, university affairs chair at the UC Student Assembly, after Wagoner made a passing reference to recent controversy involving a UCLA student’s racist Youtube rant, which attracted over a million viewers and garnered national media attention. Wagoner described a program designed to fight hate across the UC. Photo by Prescott Watson

Claudia Magaña, SUA’s external vice chair, and Doug Wagoner, university affairs chair of the UC Student Assembly, presented new information on hate crimes on UC campuses. “We are concerned that there is no mention of constructive means of healing hate on our campus,” Magaña said. UCLA has attracted national attention recently from a student’s racist rant posted to Youtube, which has drawn equally controversial responses. Decrying the hateful responses to the UCLA student’s video, Wagoner said the UC community must advocate for “restorative justice,” which involves “educating the offender instead of exacting retribution on the offender.”

SUA External Vice Chair Claudia Magaña presents to the Board of Regents information on increasing incidents of hate crimes at the UC. Photo by Prescott Watson

Doug Wagoner, university affairs chair at the UC Student Assembly, presents to the Board of Regents a plan for a program based on “restorative justice” to combat hate crimes. Photo by Prescott Watson

Chancellor Gene Block of UCLA talks to City on a Hill Press about the racist rant posted online by a UCLA student, which drew national attention to the campus. “The UCLA described in the video is not the university I know, and not the university that many of our faculty, staff and other students know,” he said. “Our community has always embraced our diverse make-up.” Photo by Prescott Watson

President of the University of California Mark Yudof talks with the Chair of the Board of Regents, Russel Gould, about the decentralization of funding at UC campuses. Currently, funding at each campus is given directly to the University of California Office of the President (UCOP), and is then dispensed among the 10 campuses and other UC facilities. Decentralization would mean campuses would retain the funding they generate and pay a tax to UCOP. Photo by Prescott Watson

Chancellor Blumenthal of UCSC has been a strong advocate for increasing the amount of money UCSC gets from UCOP. Currently, all campuses generate funds and sent them to UCOP to redistribute, which results in some campuses receiving more than they generated, and vice versa. UCSC has historically received less than 100 percent of the funding generated by the campus community. Chancellor Blumenthal has fought to get what he often describes as UCSC’s “fair share” of funding.

Chancellor Blumenthal answers questions about President Yudof’s decentralization plans. Photo by Prescott Watson

A restructuring of the funding structure proposed by President Yudof would change all of this. The proposal would have each campus keep its funding, with UCOP assessing a tax, leaving the president with much less influence in funding matters. Yudof said “no great university has ever been built from a central office.” Not all campuses are as enthusiastic about this restructuring as UCSC, however. Large campuses with medical facilities will receive less money than usual under the new plan, as they are limited by what their campus communities can generate. “The smaller campuses will benefit from this,” said Nathan Brostrom, vice president for business operations for the UC. “The major opposition to this was from medical centers, [which] may be taxed more than they have been. [The proposal] is designed to be revenue neutral, not biased towards or against any campus.” This restructured funding model would allow administrators to reduce UCOP’s budget by $50 million, said Brostrom.

The event was organized by Rajesh Srinivasan, editor-in-chief of UC Berkeley’s newspaper and Farzad Mashhood, editor in chief of UCLA’s newspaper.

“In light of the $500 million reduction [proposed by Gov. Jerry Brown], it’s an especially good time to talk with Yudof,” Srinivasan said.

Srinivasan plans to ask Yudof about his housing.

Lawrence Pitts, interim provost and executive vice president for academic affairs of the UC system, and Nathan Brostrom, UC executive vice president for business operation, will also be interviewed.

After the latest UC fee hike in November, Srinivasan and Mashhood asked Yudof for an interview.

Yudof suggested the date, Srinivasan said.

“It was his idea that this would be a good time to flesh out the issue,” Srinivasan said.

Reporters from participating UC newspapers will have a chance to lead the discussion. Srinivasan said he looks forward to this opportunity.

“Any time you can get a chance to interview three of the top officials in the university, it’s a great opportunity for student newspapers,” Srinivasan said.

UC Berkeley grad students don homemade military uniforms in protest of proposals for expanding the availabilty of online courses. Grad students are also waiting for the pending health care program to take effect. Photo by Julie Eng.

The pessimism of members of the UC community during the public comment period was juxtaposed by UC President Mark Yudof’s promise of a brighter future for the UC in the opening remarks at the latest regents meeting.

Yudof call the cuts that the UC system endured this year “unsustainable,” indicating a more promising budget for this 2010-2011.

“Even in tough times, the state needs to have a priority,” Yudof said. “We’ve been in crisis mode for the last couple of years, and some desperate and temporary measures were taken, almost none of which, in my heart of hearts, I feel good about … now we’re at the point where we must look over the horizon for longer-term, sustainable ways of operating.”

Yudof said that these more sustainable methods of operation will include ending furloughs this summer, providing further support for graduate students, and reducing UC Office of the President (UCOP) expenditures.

Cuts to the UCOP included the elimination of 400 office printers for a savings of $300,000 a year.

Reinvesting these administrative savings into academics was mentioned frequently throughout the meeting by several regents. Yudof briefly outlined the benefits of redirecting these funds over the next few years.

“Over the next five years, we can redirect hundreds of millions of dollars annually from administrative costs for the academic and research missions of the university,” he said. “And that’s only a piece of the puzzle.”

The seats in the public seating area were nearly all occupied. The meeting opened with a public comment period. Individuals — representing a number of different facets of the university — addressed the regents, including graduate students, post doc students, a UC parent, and union members from the Association of Federal, State, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME).

After the public comment period concluded, Yudof began his opening remarks, but members of the unions halted proceedings as they exited the room, chanting and clapping in protest of current UC policy regarding campus workers.

Also critical of the proceedings were several graduate students dressed in G.I. garb. The students’ satirized a comment made by UC Berkeley Law School Dean Christopher Edley that “squadrons of GSIs” will “frontline online contact.” Edley’s remark was made in support of UC Berkeley’s plan to move to increased online courses.

“We didn’t join the military — we dressed like this to show how ridiculous the comments were,” said Jessica Tall, a fifth-year Ph.D. candidate at UCB. “We don’t think that a cyber-campus is the way to go.”

Graduate students were a hot topic at the meeting, as issues of adequate stipends and health care were raised by regents and student representatives. Graduate students at all campuses excluding UC San Francisco will now receive vision and dental benefits in their health care plans. All campuses’ health care programs will be centralized as a UC-wide plan, saving over $1 million.

Student Regent Jesse Bernal is optimistic about the efficacy of this new program.

“In the end, some campuses may be losing some autonomy that they had, but, overall, it will be benefiting the entire system,” he said.

The two-day meeting on May 19 and 20 was Bernal’s final meeting as student regent. Student Regent Designate Jesse Cheng will replace Bernal as a voting member in July. The candidate for student regent designate to succeed Cheng was selected May 18. His identity had not been revealed as of press time.

Although Cheng could not disclose the new student regent designate’s name, he is looking forward to working with him.

“He represents a very specific, really different part of the student population that other student regents have not brought in the past and I know that I don’t have,” Cheng said of his future colleague.

While it was Bernal’s last, Wednesday’s meeting was the first for newly appointed Lieutenant Governor Abel Maldonado and Regent George Kieffer. Also present was Regent Sherry Lansing, who was recently reappointed for her second 12-year term.

Lansing said her reappointment came at a critical time for the UC. She said that her return will enable her to continue her work on the issues that the UC currently faces.

“There are so many things we are in the process of doing that I care very much about,” she said. “It’s such a difficult time in the fiscal nature that one has to come up with alternative ways of creating revenue that don’t involve student fees. There are just so many things left undone.”

~~~~~~

Additional reporting by Arianna Puopolo

Illustration by Joe Lai.

California’s auditor will soon sift through the University of California’s accounting books, at the request of the California Legislature.

State Sen. Leland Yee, a Democrat from the 8th Senate District that encompasses San Francisco and San Mateo, requested that the Joint Legislative Audit Committee authorize an audit of the UC. The committee voted unanimously to approve the request on Feb. 17.

The California State Auditor, California’s nonpartisan external auditing office for state agencies, will conduct the review of the University of California’s finances.

“A comprehensive state audit will help further uncover the extent of the waste, fraud and abuse within the UC, and finally hold university executives accountable,” said Yee in a statement on his Senate website.

The senator asked the auditors to specifically focus on the UC Office of the President (UCOP), the head office of the University of California.

The audit will track where the UC gets its funds and where each dollar goes. Specifically, it will follow where private funds, state funds, student fees and federal funds all end up.

The audit will also search out how much money is spent per student and what the rest is spent on. Also, the inquiry will include a survey of which outside organizations the UC pays to and which funds are used to pay them.

Yee’s audit request was prompted by two recent online exposés about the University of California. Not long ago, the investigative website Spot.us reported that some of the UC’s regents have direct financial ties to many of the UC’s investments. Then CaliforniaWatch.org reported that a consulting firm, Huron Consulting Group, which was recently hired by UCLA, is being investigated by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

UC President Mark Yudof, in a recent interview with student media organizations, brushed off the state’s audit of the UC.

“I think it’s fine,” Yudof said. “When people are running out of money they often want to audit and want to make sure that all the dollars are being spent [well]. We have nothing to hide.”

Yudof also noted that the UC conducts an audit every year.

“We have an outside audit. We post it online,” he said. “… I think a lot of the information is really out there already. If the legislature wants to look at an audit then we’re happy to do that, and if they find some things we’re doing wrong we’ll fix them.”

Yee’s office rebuffed UCOP statements, explaining the need for an outside auditor.

“It’s a lot like a fox guarding the henhouse,” said Adam Keigwin, Yee’s chief of staff. “You can’t audit yourself.”

One contention from Yee’s office was that the UC allocates its finances so that funding for the university’s core functions — such as paying salaries and benefits of faculty and staff, or paying for equipment and utilities — can only come from the state funds and student fees. The rest, federal grants and private donations, go into restricted categories determined by departments and research groups.

“The UC has $6 billion of reserves that can’t be spent to mitigate fees or be put into the classroom,” Keigwin said. “We want to know what that money does. An audit will help us do that.”

The UC, on the other hand, says that its reserve is currently around $3.5 billion and shrinking. Administrators said that they cannot legally move this money to offset current funding deficits.

This is not the first time Sen. Yee has been an advocate for transparency and accountability in California’s public higher education systems.

In 2007, Yee authored a law that made executive compensation reports for the UC and the California State University (CSU) available to the public.

In the current 2010 legislative session, Yee has reintroduced two bills related to higher education that were previously vetoed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

SB 650, an addition to the California Whistleblower Protection Act, would give legal protection to UC or CSU employees who report fraud or waste. SB 330, an update to the California Public Records Act, would bring more oversight to private organizations that contract with a UC or CSU.

Yee also coauthored a state constitutional amendment, which gives the California Legislature power to supersede the UC Board of Regents in making decisions about UC.

If the bill is approved by the legislature, it will be put to voters in November.

The audit of the University of California will start within three to four months, and will take about four to seven months to complete. When the audit is finished it will be posted on the California State Auditor’s website.

In a statement after the audit was approved, Yee expressed his incredulity about the alleged financial mishandling by UCOP, but said that accountability and credibility will be achieved by the audit.

“The UC administration expects taxpayers and students to foot the bill without asking any questions,” Yee said. “It is long overdue for the UC administration to start acting like a public institution and not a private country club.”

Hundreds of students rallied on the north steps of the Capitol building in Sacramento on Monday. Chanting could be heard for blocks. Photo by Alex Zamora.

Photo by Alex Zamora.

Photo by Alex Zamora.

Third-year Tiffany Loftin, internal vice chair of the UCSC Student Union Assembly, was one of many speakers who commanded the attention of the large crowd of students gathered in solidarity at the Capitol building. Photo by Alex Zamora.

“Are you fired up?”

Hundreds of demonstrators on the north steps of the Capitol building echoed a response to this galvanizing inquiry: “We’re fired up!”

As the 66th California State Assembly speaker was sworn into office on Monday, student protesters literally made their voices heard in the halls of the state Capitol.

“While we appointed a new assembly speaker we could hear you,” California Labor Federation secretary and treasurer Arch Palaski told City on a Hill Press in reference to the demonstrators. “Your voice is being heard.”

Monday, March 1 was Lobby Day at the Capitol, where chancellors and students advocated for higher education. This day kicked off a week of action in defense of public education, and was a precursor to a statewide strike on Thursday, March 4.

The March for Higher Education on Thursday is a “K through Ph.D.” action that will include University of California students as well as all members of the California education system.

UC President Mark Yudof and UC Santa Cruz Chancellor George Blumenthal accompanied student lobbyists to meetings with members of the legislature throughout the day.

Though Monday’s activities were focused on lobbying, student demonstrators rallied both inside and outside the Capitol. One demonstration, a sit-in at the office of Assemblyman Jim Neilson (R-Yuba City), resulted in the arrest of five UC students.

Second-year Gabi Kirk, one of three UCSC students among the five UC students arrested, described the scene as nonaggressive.

“The coolest thing for me was how beautifully calm and peaceful it was,” Kirk said. “Protests don’t need to be loud and in-your-face — sometimes they can involve students sitting in business suits in an office reading books.”

The five students were arrested for assembling without a permit, and were charged with an extra misdemeanor for disrupting state business, according to Kirk. Because the state Capitol is under the jurisdiction of the California Highway Patrol (CHP), the students arrested were taken by van to CHP headquarters, where they were cited and released.

The demonstration inside began when several students — independent of any organization — gathered outside the offices of Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg and Assemblyman Nielsen, intending to present them with a letter containing two demands.

According to a narration provided by Kirk, the demands were: first, a commitment of nonapproval for a budget that does not increase funding for higher education; second, guaranteed funding for “student-initiated outreach and academic preparation, yield, and multicultural student development programs.”

“We need to see some real results, now more than ever,” said UCSC second-year Claudia Magana, who was among the five students arrested. “We need to hold our legislatures accountable.”

Steinberg met with a group of students and arranged for a follow-up to discuss their concerns on March 25. Nielsen, however, declined to speak to students.

The sit-in began when 11 students refused to leave Nielson’s office until they were allowed to meet with the assemblyman. After asking them to vacate the office, CHP officers zip-tied the wrists of the five individuals who had decided to stay and escorted them to CHP headquarters.

“These actions were taken by individuals to take it to the next level and push the envelope of prioritizing higher education,” UCSC first-year Natan Tietz said. Tietz was among the group of about 100 students gathered outside the offices in support of the sit-in.

Present at the protest for a short period of time was Dolores Huerta. Huerta is considered by many to be a significant figure in the history of grassroots activism, due in part to her role as co-founder of the National Farm Workers Association with fellow civil rights activist Cesar Chávez. A building at Oakes College is named in her honor.

“[Dolores Huerta] is an amazing figure in terms of activism and support for education,” Magana said. “To have someone who is so historically significant in social activism support your issue is very empowering.”

In the hours preceding the sit-in, students and members of the legislature spoke to the crowd of hundreds of supporters on the north steps of the Capitol. Many students spoke to the importance of rallying for public education.

“From all across the state, we’ve come together to say that education is a right and not a privilege,” said Victor Sanchez, UCSC’s Student Union Assembly (SUA) external vice chair. Sanchez also serves as president of the University of California Student Association (UCSA), whose members organized the day’s events.

On the north steps, over the noise of another speaker, Democratic Assemblyman Warren Furutani explained his reasons for supporting the student mobilization.

“We need to circumvent the legislative process,” he said. “Grassroots is the way to go.”

Furutani went on to discuss the significance of bringing the struggle to the Capitol.

“On my desk I have a green light and a red light,” he said about the process of passing legislation. “Often we forget that we are voting on people’s lives. When people come to Sacramento it puts a face [to that]. It humanizes it and makes it about the people.”

Illustration by Kiri Rasmussen.

Open up the books already. Seriously.

After years of hiding numbers, snickering, and insisting that everything is fine (“why don’t you just trust us?”), the University of California is finally increasing its transparency to the public. Now that California’s Joint Legislative Audit Committee has voted unanimously to authorize an outside audit of the UC, the state can finally begin to trust the financial operations of the university system. The financial review will be handled by the California State Auditor, the external auditor for California’s state agencies.

The California public deserves to know where its taxpayer money is going. It deserves to see which path the system’s private and state funds will take. Students deserve to rest assured that their fees are being spent efficiently.

The idea that we have been throwing money at the UC and trusting it sends shivers down the spine of any self-respecting taxpayer. It brings to mind the image of a hesitant donor trying to decide whether or not to give a dollar to someone smoking a cigarette and drinking a beer, asking for a couple bucks to spend on “food.”

With the amount of money it costs to run a public university system, it is baffling that this external audit is only being mandated now. As taxpayer money is pushed toward public education and students try to figure out how to handle a 32.5 percent fee increase, it’s about time. Both taxpayers and students deserve to know how the money is being spent.

State Sen. Leland Yee from California’s 8th District, which represents San Francisco and San Mateo, expects the audit to uncover fraud and waste at the university system.

Yudof insists that there isn’t any substantial amount of waste happening at the UC, and that this audit will not produce any groundbreaking findings. He is not expecting to see any easy solutions or quick fixes that should have been implemented years ago. He probably hopes for a crystal-clear report without any easy suggestions that money can be saved.

But looking around at the skyrocketing fees, mounting layoffs, and dwindling resources, we sure don’t. If this audit brings wasteful spending to the public eye, perhaps that money can be used for other valuable expenses. UC campuses will be forced to cut that much less from their resource centers, dining halls and employee salaries.

Really though, this isn’t about whether or not California’s nonpartisan auditor will uncover the fraud and waste that Sen. Lee anticipates. It’s about the transparency and accountability that Californians should be able to expect from their public institutions.

Can you imagine if a public business laid off thousands of workers, cut services, raised prices, and then tried to keep its finances a secret from its shareholders? People would be furious. This audit will hold the UC accountable to its “shareholders” — the California taxpayers and students.

It comes late, but we’re happy to hear about California’s plans to provide an honest audit of the UC. We expect it to be thorough, and we expect it to be complete.

So please, administrators, before you reach into our pockets any further, open up your books.

UC President Mark Yudof addresses student and state media organizations at the February 2009 Board of Regents meeting. One year later, Yudof is still facing many of the same budget and diversity issues on UC campuses. Photo by Arianna Puopolo.

UC President Mark Yudof sat down with student media representatives from UCs Santa Cruz, Berkeley, Merced, Davis, Santa Barbara and Los Angeles. The topics of conversation ranged from student demonstrations to financial aid to the recent racist incidents at UC campuses.

~~~~~~

City on a Hill Press: You increased the threshold for the Blue and Gold Plan, which now waives education and registration fees for students whose families earn less than $70,000 per year. How will you inform high school students of this so that they aren’t deterred from applying to the UC because of cost?

Mark Yudof: We have been communicating directly with the parents, we have met with the guidance counselors, [and] we have produced materials on the Blue and Gold Program. If I had my way, the window would be much higher and we’re looking at [whether] we should increase it to $80,000 and so forth. …

We have to obey the state and federal rules on awarding financial aid, and if we award more than what they determine is your level of need, they subtract it out someplace else in the process. So we need to make sure students actually come out ahead in this process. … It’s absolutely almost a moral issue that if you’re below $70,000 we need to help you, but there are significant financial issues for families above that, who are not poor but not rich in the sense that they can just sit down, write a check and not think about it.

Daily Cal [Berkeley]: Where do you think that student actions and your lobbying efforts meet? Are they complementary, or are they at odds?

MY: They’re complementary. The peaceful demonstrations are helpful. … The governor had his constitutional amendment … reducing prison expenditures and increasing [funding for higher education]. … Now, I’m not endorsing anything like that per se, but what I am saying is he made clear what the problem is.

Twenty, 30 years ago, 13 percent or 17 percent, some high percentage of the budget was going to the universities, 3, 4, 5 percent was going to prisons, and now it’s just the opposite. It is not smart public policy and the governor called attention to it and I’m grateful. …

We’re at great risk in this country because everybody has a recession, but in America it’s harming K-12 education, and it’s harming the community colleges. And our competitors abroad are not doing that. … Both developing and developed countries, even in hard times, they’re putting their money in their young people and that’s where it belongs.

City on a Hill Press: What is your opinion on occupation as a tactic of protest?

MY: I’m a First Amendment maven. I even wrote a book on it … in fact, over the years I’ve written about … rights of students to protest … but I’m not thrilled with taking over buildings and inconveniencing a lot of people, and on a few occasions destroying property in the buildings. That’s not protected speech.

California Aggie [Davis]: There were … demonstrations yesterday at UC Irvine and UC San Diego motivated by some latent issues of race within the campuses. How will the UC make an effort to [address them]?

MY: Well, there’ve been different incidents. We’ve had at least three of them that I can think of just in the last few days. … It’s a grave insult ­— well it’s really an insult to everyone, but particularly our African-American students and faculty.

The [UCSD] chancellor, I think that she’s having teach-ins and discussions — there were various demands from the African-American students and I think we’re going to try to implement as many of those as we can. … I’ll just be honest with you: I really think there’s an issue, and we need to work to increase African-American enrollment down there, and African-American appointments to the faculty.

I think everyone joins me in condemning these particular incidents. … This is an enormous problem, and I wish I had a simple answer. We’re working with campuses — the people on the ground have to do it. I issued statements and all that, but the real action has to be on the campuses.

California Aggie: Does this mean that you’ll be looking at any kind of affirmative action policy?

MY: My position on affirmative action has been clear for at least 25 years, maybe longer. I’m pro-affirmative action. Proposition 209 was a mistake. I’m in favor of giving financial aid to undocumented students.

But we have a state law … the new admissions system pushes very hard for comprehensive review — that means your life is not summed up just by your SAT and your GPA. We’re hopeful that that will be helpful. We’re hopeful that more community college transfers [will apply]. … We have to obey the state law even if we don’t like it, and we could be called to task for not doing that, so I feel like I have one arm tied behind my back with these issues.

Illustration by Amberly Young.

A week before the UC Regents voted to increase fees by 32.5 percent, the Nov. 23 issue of Time Magazine named UC President Mark Yudof as one of the 10 best college presidents in the United States. Yudof was acknowledged for repairing the nearly bankrupt UC system and was chosen because he “tools around dilapidated campuses and fixes them.”

The University Office of the President (UCOP) said it is very proud of the recognition.

“He is being recognized for his lifetime achievement of dedication to higher education,” said UC Spokesman Pete Kanes. “He has a way of making universities better places when he leaves than when he got there, like he did at Texas and Minnesota … he makes decisions based on what he thinks is right for the university, even if it makes him unpopular.”

UCSC community studies lecturer Mike Rotkin commented that Yudof’s award did not come as a surprise.

“As the flagship magazine for a corporate media empire, they share his values,” Rotkin said of the magazine. “Yudof is showing great success in his efforts to privatize what was once a great public institution of higher learning and turn it into, in all but name, a private university that is inaccessible to the children of the working people of California — a university which protects it’s profit centers, such as patents, hospitals, overhead on grants and private and corporate donations, at the expense of undergraduate education.”

Yudof began his career in education as a law professor at the University of Texas before he became the dean of the law school. According to the Time article, during his 26 years of employment at the University of Texas, he supported tuition deregulation that gave campuses the power to set fees. In 1997, he became the president of the University of Minnesota, where he secured funding for research and renovated the campus.

In 2008, he was named the 19th president of the UC system, and in 2009 he proposed that student fees be increased by 32.5 percent to make up for a loss of state funds. That fee increase was passed by the UC Regents in late November.

By hiking fees, Yudof plans to finance the Blue and Gold Program, which exempts California residents who make less than $70,000 a year from paying fees.

According to UCOP, the UC currently provides grant and scholarship assistance averaging $10,300 per student to 54 percent of the 230,000 UC undergraduates.

UC Santa Barbara Associate Dean of Social Sciences Leila J. Rupp sent a written response to Time regarding the nomination.

“[Yudof] is the target of [more] opposition from faculty and students than any other academic leader in my more than 30 years on the faculty,” Rupp said. “And not just because of the furloughs.”

According to a database kept by the University of California, which allows users to search the salary of any employee of the UC system, Yudof earned a gross salary of $326,791 in 2008.

Bob Samuels, the president of the University Council American Federation of Teachers (UC-AFT) and a lecturer at UC Los Angeles, commented on Time’s award for Yudof.

“Time Magazine must like the way Yudof has been able to drive up the cost of education while lowering it’s quality,” Samuels said. “Since he has been the president, we have seen fees go up 42 percent, while lecturers have been eliminated and classes have been cut. Yudof might be good at getting high bond ratings, but he has managed to unite most people at the University against him.”

According to Samuels’ blog at http://changinguniversities.blogspot.com, over 3,643 employees of the UC system earn more than $200,000 a year. Since 2006, 1,200 more employees were added to this number. However, according to UCOP, those who make over $240,000 took a 10 percent pay cut this year.

Samuels thinks Yudof’s choice to raise student fees while administrators are making hundreds of thousands of dollars is a mistake.

“UC doesn’t need to raise student fees again,” Samuels said.

Second-year Ian Steinman agrees that Yudof should not be receiving Time’s recognition.

“It makes sense that a publication as representative of private interests as Time Magazine would consider Yudof a great president,” Steinman said. “Yudof is the manager responsible for minimizing dissent here and making the transition from a public to a private institution as smooth and unrecognizable as possible.”

Steinman also said that he thinks it is time for students to take action.

“His ranking [in] Time Magazine acts as an affirmation of the tremendous task before the new student movement and the work that must be done to discredit him and the project he represents.”

UCSC students gather at Quarry Plaza before departing to campus entrances and blocking off the streets. Traffic was backed up down Empire Grade and Bay Street as protestors determined who could and could not enter school grounds. Photo by Rosario Serna.

I’m sitting in lecture on Wednesday, trying to get the education that I’m paying over $8,000 per quarter to receive, and in barge five students, faces painted, wielding signs that warn of 32 percent fee hikes and shouting at the students before them. Through a megaphone, they declare that our student fees are going to construction projects instead of to our education, and that UC President Mark Yudof enjoys a $900,000 annual salary while we struggle to make ends meet.

Not quite.

One-third of the fees paid by UC Santa Cruz students go toward financial aid, and the other two-thirds go to paying for campus instructional services. And Yudof’s salary is actually closer to $600,000 per year.

Not only was the class interruption offensive, it was deceptive. On Wednesday our education was interrupted so that an invitation to a campus-wide protest could be extended. This interruption not only misinformed students in some ways, but also seemed simply to be an abrupt effort to gain supporter bulk.

After class, a friend and I passed through Quarry Plaza to get to a bus stop, where yet again we were subjected to amplified, falsified shouts about fee hikes and student power and battle-like calls of, “Whose university? Our university!”

I can’t help but find it ironic that protesters claim UCSC as “ours” when their actions Wednesday actually prevented their tuition-paying peers from entering campus and taking advantage of the education that they work so hard to afford. A classmate of mine was unable to make it to section due to campus closures — both at the base and West entrances to UCSC. He may actually fail his class because of this absence.

The misguided enthusiasm of many protesters prevented hundreds of students from attending class, numerous professors from teaching class and countless campus affiliates at every level from knowing the full and honest truth about the fee hikes. Protesters stood at both entrances, deciding seemingly arbitrarily who had a good enough reason to be permitted onto campus and who did not.

If we as students are going to make a dent in this budgetary mess, we need to stand together in unity. Interrupting classes and keeping fellow students from fulfilling their academic desires and responsibilities does not foster such solidarity. The plight of affordability is felt by all students, and compassion is key in these trying times. Determining who is important enough to enter and exit campus alienates peers and fellow sufferers. And road closures only breed anger and frustration, rather than rallying a passion and understanding for the issues at the core of the protest.

Undoubtedly, the near and distant future of UCSC will be marked by more protests. It is our right and our duty as students to let our concerns be heard and to fight for the educational rights we deserve. But it is important that as we protest, we make every effort to be inclusive and progressive, rather than alienating and destructive.

Preventing financially struggling students from attending classes is not progress. Vandalizing cars that are stuck in traffic because the campus is blocked by a wall of people is not progress. Keeping students from getting to the jobs that help them attend college is not progress.

I agree with the protesters that fee hikes are completely terrible, especially in light of already high tuition costs. I agree that the state’s dedication to higher education is questionable, to say the least. I do not, however, agree with the methods implemented by protestors on Wednesday in order to communicate their anger and financial pain.

Biking up Empire Grade, all I saw were downtrodden, frustrated faces captive in their vehicles with traffic stopped going both up and down the hill. The student body was not marching through campus in unity, it was dispersed amid frustration in the hundreds if not thousands of cars that day. The student body was both literally and figuratively divided.

True educational dedication was more apparent in the students who trudged to campus from downtown Santa Cruz just to make it to lecture on time than it was in the protesters themselves. It was in the bikers who arrived at their classes, flushed and sweaty, because they had to book it through a mob and up Hagar Drive just to get to class. That is student power.

Without the fee increases the UC will fall short $792 million dollars in its budget. We need the money. But demanding that regents eliminate the fee hikes is like asking to live in a house without paying bills: it’s an impossibility.

If we are actually going to be successful in our fight against fee hikes and for student rights, we need to convene, organize and consolidate and to come up with comprehensive, realistic solutions.

This Wednesday was not a success, but next Wednesday, two Wednesdays from now, or even 20 Wednesdays from now can be. We need to organize, discuss, and fight together to save our education, but this cannot happen in one day. Patience is power, and the student voice can be heard if we take productive action.

This is our university. Let’s work to save it.

The proposal goes to a  final vote before the entire Board of Regents tomorrow.

“It’s probable, but it’s not over til its over,” said UC President Mark Yudof, on the chances of the fee increases passing tomorrow.

The fee item was passed without any students present. All spectators in the open session were forced to leave by UC police officers after numerous disruptions during the 20 minute public comment period and during the committee on finance’s deliberation. Fourteen students were arrested on two different occasions in the meeting preceding the committee vote.

The first fee increase, a system wide fee of $585 dollars for every undergraduate student,  will begin next quarter.  The second increase kicks in during the 2010-11 school year and will increase student fees $1,344 dollars per undergraduate. When all is said and done, student fees will be raised to $10,302 dollars, a 32.5 percent increase from current fees.

According to the regents, 33 percent of the revenue generated by both fee increases will go to financial aid.

“The result of budget cuts [from the state of California] is that we are recommending a mid-year fee increase,” said Patrick Lenz Vice President for budget, in a presentation to the regents.

The State of California, experiencing its worst fiscal crisis in years, ­­cut $637.1 million in allocations to the UC, leaving it with $2.6 billion for the 2009-10 fiscal year, twenty percent less of what it used to receive in state funding.

In a speech addressed to a regent, UC President Yudof said, “ I think we are doing it in a way that makes sense… it will end the furlough plan and extend library hours.”

Without the fee increases the UC will fall short $792 million dollars in its budget.

Along with the fee increase, the regents will request that the California state legislature provide UC with $913 million dollars for the next fiscal year. Even if the  state legislature responds positively to this request UC, will still face a $144 million dollar gap.

“We have to fix this,” said John Plotts, the Assistant Vice President of Finance. “Or we have no future.”

Illustration by Rachel Edelstein.

The University of California (UC) Regents will vote Nov. 18 on whether or not to increase undergraduate educational fees by a total of 32 percent, or approximately $2,500, starting next school year. By raising fees, regents and the University Office of the President (UCOP) plan to make up for a loss of state funds.

For UC Santa Cruz students, this partly means paying more to support other UC institutions.

In a student media press conference held on Nov. 2, UCSC Chancellor George Blumenthal told student representatives that “the last … six fee increases have generally not gone back to the campus where they’ve been collected.”

Educational fees, or base fees, are priced the same across the UC campuses by the UCOP.

Once collected, one-third of all educational fees are set aside for financial aid and the other two-thirds are used to support the operating budgets of each university. In the end, UCSC only gets back 82 percent of the income that it generates.

The remaining 18 percent is allocated to other UC campuses. The decision on where to allocate that money is made by the UCOP is based on actual enrollment levels.

“I don’t like the idea that students at UC Santa Cruz, by paying increased fees, are in fact supporting other institutions,” Blumenthal said.

Before 2007, only 67 percent of educational fees paid by UCSC undergraduates came back to the university.

That 67 percent increased to 82 percent after Blumenthal became an acting chancellor and was able to negotiate with the UC president.

If regents pass the fee hike next week, UCSC students will pay an estimated total of $10,280 annually in education and campus registration fees. After the funds are distributed, UCSC will lose approximately $1,850 per student, as opposed to the $1,400 lost now.

Out of the 10 schools within the UC system, three receive more money than they generate in educational fees. They are UC Davis, UCLA, and UCSF. Davis and UCLA receive approximately 105 percent and 110 percent respectively, while UCSF ends up with a 459 percent return.

UCSF is renowned for its medical facilities. The university’s medical school is ranked fifth in the nation and its hospital is ranked seventh, according to a 2009 US News and World Report publication. UCD and UCLA also have extensive research programs that are said to require the extra money.

One of the issues surrounding the idea of returning 100 percent of educational fees back to the UCs is that UCSF would no longer have the necessary funding to continue their high caliber research and care. President Yudof echoed this in an October press conference.

“On the one hand, grad and professional education is more expensive, so that’s a reason to claim more [fees],” Yudof said.

Chancellor Blumenthal disagrees, and has championed the idea that the UCs should get back all that they put in the pot.

“They can support themselves,” Blumenthal said. “UCSF gets … far more grant money than we do. They have hospitals, larger infrastructure and many of their faculty gets a significant fraction of their salary from clinical income. They have alternatives that we don’t have. We’re kind of wstuck with … state income.”

A budget process overview by UCSF published during the 2008-09 year said that even in these tough economic times it is important to remain a competitive institution with money to spend.

“Fee increases imposed by the UCOP have made it more cost-effective for many UCSF researchers to hire postdocs in lieu of graduate research assistants,” the overview said.

Both Yudof and Blumenthal agree that the model for how campuses are funded needs to be re-examined.

“It would go a lot better if we have more money,” Yudof said, “but we’re going to look at the formulas.”

~~~~~

For corresponding audio, tune into “On What Grounds?” next Thursday from 7:30 to 8 p.m. on KZSC 88.1 FM

Demonstrators “mourn the losses in public education” and march down Bay St. to David Kliger’s home on Nov. 2. Photo by Rosario Serna.

A student speaker at the Day of the Dead demonstration donned a painted face in honor of both the holiday and the protest. Photo by Alex Zamora.

Photo by Rosario Serna.

Photo by Rosario Serna.

With skulls painted on their faces, approximately 60 faculty, staff and student demonstrators led a “funeral procession” to UC Santa Cruz Executive Vice Chancellor David Kliger’s modest Santa Cruz home on Monday, Nov. 2 to protest student fee hikes, employee salary reductions and furlough days.

This symbolic move played on UC President Mark Yudof’s recent statement to The New York Times, in which he said that being president of the University of California is “like being manager of a cemetery; there are many people under you, but no one is listening.”

Despite Yudof’s clarification that his comment was not meant to equate UC students and faculty with cadavers, 100 protesters marched on Oct. 24 to Yudof’s home in Oakland Hills with tombstones and a coffin, items similar to those brought to Kliger’s home.

In the most recent march, protesters simultaneously honored the Day of the Dead, a holiday celebrated by Latin Americans to remember deceased loved ones. Many of the service workers impacted by the campus cutbacks are of Mexican descent, so celebrating the holiday added another dimension to the demonstration.

The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Students (AFSCME) and a small group of students and workers coordinated the event.

One of the coordinators, a UCSC student who asked to remain anonymous, described how the holiday and the demonstration were unified.

“We are mourning the loss of jobs and the loss of accessible, affordable higher education and celebrating the strength of our struggle,” said Janet Bradley.*

A number of unions attended the event including the International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America (UAW), a broad national union which has a branch for teaching assistants on the UCSC campus, AFSCME, a local service union, and the Coalition of University Employees (CUE), a clerical workers union.

These protestors voiced their opposition to furlough days, mandatory unpaid days off.

A theme among the speakers and those leading the protest was unity. One speaker, a custodian at UCSC who faces a 15 percent cut in hours until February, began a chant reiterating the message: “Students and workers untied for justice!”

The demonstrators crossed the Bay and High St. crosswalks, but once they reached the main stretch of Bay St., they flooded into the right lane chanting, “Whose streets? Our streets!”

Yolanda Lopez, a custodian at Stevenson and one of the many UCSC workers affected by the pay and hour reductions, discussed her reasons for participating.

“We are sending a symbolic message to Mr. Kliger that he needs to change the attitude toward workers and students,” Lopez said, as she marched on Nobel St. “It’s hurting the community.”

Much of the legislation disputed by protesters is the result of decisions made at the state level, rather than the UC level. For this reason Kliger believes that the protest was directed at the wrong target.

“I have a job here. If they want to protest my job, they should do it [at UCSC],” Kliger said. “But I am not my job. I am a person, and coming to my home is inappropriate.”

Neighbors curiously peeked their heads out from their homes as the chanting crowd snaked its way through the streets, trailed by two city police cars.

Around 6 p.m., UCSC Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs Felicia McGinty notified Kliger that the protest was approaching his home. Five minutes before the protesters arrived, Kliger arrived home on his bike and was greeted by police officers who asked whether he would like to address the demonstrators. He spoke to the crowd for 10 minutes.

Following Kliger’s address, demonstrators questioned him about the UC’s Commission on the Future, which was listed in the UCSC event calendar as open only to staff and faculty, despite the fact that students were, in fact, allowed to attend.

One participant in the demonstration expressed disappointment with the effectiveness of the protest, especially in regard to the content of the dialogue. Others in the crowd noted that they thought Kliger may have become an unfair scapegoat of the UCSC budget crisis.

“I don’t think that Kliger is hiding money. He’s just the man who had to make the cuts,” said Devin Cormia, a third-year Merrill student. “We’re not in this mess because of him.”

Cormia also said that Kliger’s wife, Rachel, became upset and asked the crowd to leave them out of the protests.

“The crowd laughed at that,” Cormia said.

Soon after this interaction, Kliger and his wife went inside.

As the procession came to an end, demonstrators delivered a coffin and other funeral procession memorabilia and placed signs in the Kliger’s yard. The police took the items left. The crowd dissipated soon after.

“I wasn’t annoyed initially,” Kliger said. “But I was when I saw their reaction to my neighbors and my wife.”

One neighbor said she sympathized with the demonstration but was hesitant about supporting a march to Kliger’s home.

“I feel like it [was] too invasive,” said UCSC alumna April Welsh. “There are other avenues besides going to someone’s home.”

*Names have been changed to protect the identity of sources

Illustration by Rachel Edelstein.

You Can.

These hopeful words have been stained with disappointment.

Yudof’s recent undertaking, Project You Can, is a University of California-wide student scholarship fundraising effort to help alleviate financial stress on low-income students.

It aims to raise $1 billion in the next four years — doubling the collective amount raised for students in the past five years — for student financial aid, mostly by soliciting alumni and friends of UC for donations.

On the internet site, http://youcan.universityofcalifornia.edu, donations can be made to individual campuses. While the program’s goals are ambitious and optimistic, the project is ultimately an ill-advised attempt to cover up a significantly larger systematic and budgetary problem.

By aiming for $1 billion dollars, UC is bound to fall short, but at the same time, achieve more compared to past fundraising efforts.

The program’s flaws lie in the expected process of donating. Because private donors are providing the contributions, all money gets allocated to a specific UC campus, rather than to the entire system.

UC Santa Cruz will see markedly less donations compared to flagship UCs with a greater alumni base, like UCLA and UC Berkeley.

This “new” system is hardly any different from the donation system already in place. Without a significant change in the way UC operates and garners donations, we don’t expect to see a significant change in the amount of donations that actually come in, either.

“While what I have proposed today will allow us to preserve access and help students with financial need, they are not a substitute for adequate state support,” Yudof said at the program’s announcement on Oct. 23. “We must continue our relentless advocacy in Sacramento for increased state funding, even while we explore new ways to increase support for the university and our students.”

State support for higher education has become virtually nonexistent, and while short-term solutions like this program may alleviate the strain temporarily, UC students and faculty need a plan that will help in the long-term.

Furthermore, University trustees and regents need to pursue programs that have high potential to benefit California higher education in the long run.

AB 656, better known as the Torrico Bill, would impose a 9.9 percent oil severance tax on California oil extraction from land and water. It has the potential to generate $1.2 billion annually for California State University, University of California and community colleges.

This bill has received nowhere near enough support from trustees to make it through the California State Assembly.

Endorsing a plan such as Project You Can, while simultaneously kicking efforts like the Torrico Bill to the curb, is not only insulting to California’s public education system, but painful for everyone fighting to save the UC.

Yudof, the regents and the state government need to take this situation seriously and stop masking financial issues with unrealistic, watered-down plans that will only graze the surface of the problem for the short-term.

Durable solutions must be accessed and supported. They are the only hope we have to escape this budget hellhole.

Project You Can is a weak bandage on a much more grave injury, and California’s higher education deserves much better than that. While this bandage may temporarily hold, our educations depend upon seeking other, longer-term remedies.

Illustration by Rachel Edelstein.

The University of California (UC) has long been recognized as one of the best public school systems in the nation. Its prestige attracts top brains from throughout the world at every level — from its students to its faculty, management and staff. Its research has developed products that create jobs and in turn drive California’s economy, one of the top ten largest in the world, and its public school pricing has historically allowed the less fortunate a chance to compete in a world that increasingly requires a high-quality education.

But in view of the global economic crisis, the UC’s future looks grim.

Hiked fees, hacked sports teams and the loss of some of the university’s key professors seem to indicate that the UC may not be able to overcome new fiscal challenges.

“We’ll get through this period,” UC President Mark Yudof said. “The University of California will recover.”

The question, then, is: at what cost?

As the world battles the deepest recession since the great depression, UC faculty, administrators, students and the Board of Regents are engaged in a last-ditch attempt to salvage California’s greatest asset: higher education.

California’s Crisis

Chris Connery, a professor of literature and cultural studies at UC Santa Cruz, said a common misunderstanding among students is that the worldwide economic crisis has not really affected the UC. He explained that in reality, the UC’s financial situation is severe enough that it requires action at the state level.

“I meet too many students who think that there is no budget crisis and that the University of California could actually pay for this stuff on its own,” Connery said. “[They think] that this is sort of a smoke screen for raising tuition. I think that’s a real misunderstanding of the situation.”

Last summer, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and state legislators passed a bill to clear the state’s $26 billion deficit. By cutting funding for future services like higher education, Sacramento was able to save itself $813 million from the UC alone.

But these cuts don’t come without a price for students and faculty. The UC regents, a 26-member governing body of the University of California, were forced to respond to reduced funding. Their solution was to implement a plan to raise student fees in order to make up for one-quarter of the lost $813 million. The plan also included mandatory furloughs, or unpaid time off, as well as pay cuts for faculty.

UCSC professor Michael Hutchison, co-director of the Santa Cruz Institute of International Economics and senior research fellow at the Economic Policy Research Unit at the University of Copenhagen, explained how the global economic crisis correlates with the state economic crisis.

“The national financial crisis is hurting the whole economy,” Hutchison said. “California was much harder hit than the national average and the reason is we were booming much more than the national average.”

What enabled California’s boom was the housing bubble. When the bubble burst, and housing prices dropped sharply, unemployment subsequently skyrocketed to the current rate of about 12 percent which, according the US Bureau of Labor and Statistics, is 2 percent higher than the national average.

Hutchison explained that due to this unemployment increase and housing bubble burst, the overall worth of citizens’ assets decreased, creating a significant loss in state tax revenues.

“All of our revenue sources from the state — capital gains, income tax, sales tax— all those things are way, way down so it’s all intertwined,” Hutchison said.

The cuts the UC experienced, as well as subsequently increased fees, are ultimately a result of a state law that requires the governor and state legislators to balance the budget.

“[Gov. Schwarzenegger and state legislators] have to do a combination of raising taxes or fees and lowering expenditures,” Hutchison said. “Part of the increase in fees is student fees and tuition, and [part of] lowering expenditures is decreasing the UC budget.”

State Priorities

In opposition to Gov. Schwarzenegger’s current fiscal policy towards higher education, critics point to the California Master Plan for Higher Education — a plan written by the California Department of Education promising funding to accommodate enrollment.

The plan, which was drafted long before the current fiscal crisis, outlines the mission of higher education in California and serves as the basis for current agreements between the state and the UC.

For the years 1960-1975, the Master Plan states: “The capacity of the State of California to support public higher education is determined primarily by three factors: (a) the size of the stream of income from which such support must be drawn; (b) the efficiency and effectiveness of the tax instruments by which this support is realized; and (c) the will of the people of the state to devote adequate funds for this purpose.”

Professor Hutchison acknowledged that as the economic recovery process occurs, fewer cuts will be necessary. However, he also pointed out that the state’s priorities seem clear when comparing the amount of state funding given to prisons versus higher education.

“If you look at the University of California state funds over the last decade they have not been treated well,” Hutchison said. “There have been very small increases in the state budget to the UC, but things like prisons and other state expenditures have gone up markedly.”

Hutchison went on to say that the only way to make funding for public higher education a priority is to clearly demonstrate how much the university system directly and indirectly benefits the state as whole.

For example, the 2009 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was given to three U.S. scientists, including UC San Francisco’s Elizabeth Blackburn. Her research helped discover telomerase, the enzyme that indirectly gives cancer cells life. In addition, in 2007, UCSC was ranked number one in the nation for its impact in the field of physics.

The Current Compact, Student Fees and Privatization

In 2004 Gov. Schwarzenegger and UC officials agreed on a compact developed within the context of the fiscal crisis currently confronting the state of California. The agreement promised less funding from the state compared to prior years, increased fees for students and the need for outside funding sources.

Connery sees this agreement as bad news for the UC.

“We think that the compact that our officials signed a few years ago with Governor Schwarzenegger was a terrible thing to have done,” Connery said. “We support a strengthened master plan. We think Schwarzenegger has been deeply hostile to the University of California.”

The compact, which outlines years 2005-06 through 2010-11, says, “In order to help maintain quality and enhance academic and research programs, UC will continue to seek additional private resources and maximize other fund sources available to the University to support basic programs.”

The student fee policy of the compact assumes that UC will continue to collect student fees even “without a corresponding reduction in state funds.”

Hutchison said that what makes a university privatized is the extent to which it relies on students to pay for their own educational services. He said that the ever-increasing fees imposed on UC students bring the system closer and closer to resembling a private institution.

“We’re not there yet by a long shot, but it’s a disturbing trend. Open access to the University is being gradually closed,” he said. “In my opinion that’s a bad thing — we have a lot of private universities that charge extremely high fees.”

Jeb Purucker, a graduate student in the UCSC’s literature department who has been involved in the recent occupation-resisting budget cuts, said the 2004 compact treats higher education as a private good, or a service that should be paid for by individuals instead of the state. He believes that UC officials are increasingly viewing the state as a business partner, as opposed to a source of public good.

“If you want an education you should be able to get an education and that is not the logic currently running the show,” he said. “The only way that we can change that is if we get a lot of people to stand up to the current logic of privatization.”

Connery said many students are wrong about feeling they are unable to change the priorities of the state and the university.

“Some students I talk to have this idea that, ‘Everything is collapsing … and that’s just how things are going to be and I can’t do anything about it,’ but they can do something about it,” Connery said. “If we had a large student movement demanding free or near-free public higher education these people would have to listen.”

Out of a Ditch

Chancellor George Blumenthal told City on a Hill Press that the budget proposal UCSC administrators are preparing for the next fiscal year does not include the furloughs currently in effect.

“I know a lot of people fear that [furloughs] will be extending but there are no guarantees of anything. Based on what I know now the mostly likely outcome is that it will end at the end of the year,” Blumenthal said. “I think it’s important that it end because to continue these pay reductions and furloughs really undermines the morale of faculty and staff at the university.”

Blumenthal went on to say that he couldn’t provide a more definitive answer because he, like everyone else, is not sure about what the state is going to do.

“We are so dependent on what the state of California does and they are not a reliable partner,” he said.

Professor Hutchison said that as the economy recovers there is a good possibility that the UC won’t have to continue the cuts in the future.

“We see a very cyclical budget. In good times we tend to have rapidly expanding revenues coming into the state and that means there will be less pressure to cut budgets and raise fees at the UC,” Hutchison said.

Many people are steadfastly maintaining hope that broad economic recovery will ultimately restore the UC, and that however dire the fiscal situation may seem now, it will not be the end of California’s most prestigious intellectual institution.

Professor Connery commented on the value of higher education: “Students should think of higher education as a right, as a right that all should have and as a valued component of life. Education is not just to get you a higher or better paying job, it’s to enrich your life, and help you enrich the lives of others around you.”

Illustration by Kenneth Srivijittakar.

Ninety-six percent of over 10,000 union employees, faculty and students at the University of California (UC) have voted that they have no confidence in the leadership of UC President Mark Yudof.

The ballot was distributed between Aug. 26 and Sept. 2 by the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), the Coalition of University Employees (CUE), the University Professional and Technical Employees (UPTE) and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), for the purpose of raising awareness locally and throughout the state that UC workers are displeased with their management.

Those who voted were members of the UC coalition. In addition, students were also allowed to participate, but did so minimally since school was not yet in session at most UC campuses.

Mike Rotkin, the president of the University Council of the American Federation of Teachers (UC-AFT) Local 2199, which represents lecturers and librarians, supported the no-confidence vote.

“There’s a lack of confidence in the direction Yudof is taking the university. There’s a lack of confidence in his vision of what this university is supposed to be about,” Rotkin said.

Rotkin, who is also a Santa Cruz city councilmember, a UCSC community studies lecturer and former mayor, said the voices of the UC worker community rang out with one clear message.

A precursor to the walkout of Sept. 24, the vote comes mainly in response to the Regent’s approval in July of a furlough plan. To make up for a quarter of the $813 million no longer provided by the state, the furlough plan requires all university employees to take a certain amount of unpaid work days off based on salary level.

Although each of the unions involved in the vote have various reasons for their lack of trust in Yudof’s competency, they agree on several points. Many UC employees and their representatives believe that Yudof is using the budget crisis as an excuse to move the university in the direction of his and the other regents’ priorities, at the expense of students and workers.

“There is a priority crisis at UC, not a budget crisis,” Rotkin said.

Union leaders acknowledge that the state of California is lacking funds, but say that is not the case for the UC. The $813 million UC shortfall makes up less than 5 percent of the UC’s total annual budget of approximately $19 billion. For employees, it doesn’t seem to add up that such a small overall change would require such drastic cutbacks.

“It would be prudent to have a 5 percent budget cut somehow, but I don’t know how they [decided upon] a 20 percent cut,” Rotkin noted.

Furthermore, unions argue that the UCs have funds they could use to make up for the lack in state funding — such as an estimated $4 billion in unrestricted funds — they just haven’t chosen to utilize that money yet.

Ernesto Encinas, a member of AFSCME who works at the College Nine and Ten dining hall, believes the UC is not looking enough at alternatives.

“Don’t blame it on the state,” Encinas said. “There’s money within the system.”

Steve Montiel, a spokesperson for UC’s Office of the President, says the idea that there is available money that isn’t being utilized is a commonly held misconception.

“It’s a myth that there is some source of uncommitted funds,” Montiel said, noting that “unrestricted” is an accounting term that refers to funds that are not federally restricted, but are still internally allocated.

UC’s Chief Financial Officer Peter Taylor said the budget is similar to a checking account.

“You might get paid on the 15th of the month,” he said, “and that cash comes in and on that day it looks pretty good, but the fact of the matter is you know there’s a mortgage bill coming, there’s a tuition bill coming, there’s a Mastercard bill coming … that money is committed.”

The UC budget isn’t only used for direct campus funding. It covers a wide variety of operations including UC medical centers and a vast web of employee pensions and benefits. Because of these various costs, what may appear to be a pile of money sitting in the bank is, in fact, very fluid according to the administration.

Nora Hochman, an organizer for the CUE Local 10, thinks that even if there is a lack of funds in UC, Yudof could pursue better ways of managing the budget without jeopardizing the University’s mission. She said he could spend more energy on lobbying the Legislature for a permanent higher education fund.

“There are a lot of alternatives,” Hochman said. “But they require political will. Instead he took the easy way out and is taking the money off the backs of students and workers.”

Union leaders say that since the vote, not much has changed. Certain unions are currently in the bargaining process with the administration over furlough programs and compensation. The Office of the President has generally dismissed the no confidence vote because fewer than half of all UC workers voted. Since the main purpose of the vote was to raise awareness, workers are hoping that more students will learn about the issues and become involved.

“The next step,” Rotkin said, “is likely in the hands of students.”

A protester outside the meeting speaks to the media about impending furloughs and pay cuts. Photo by Jenny Cain.

As hundreds of people rallied outside a meeting of the Board of Regents of the University of California, held July 14-16 at the UCSF Mission Bay Community Center, a university worker inside, opposing the pay-cuts proposed at the meeting, publicly condemned the salary of UC President Mark Yudof.

“You’re making twice as much as the President of the United States,” the man said as he raised his voice and eyed Yudof, who simply shook his head from left to right. “Show me the books,” he began to chant in reference to the regents’ transparency in accounting.

Despite opposition from various groups and individuals, including regent and Lt. Gov. John Garamendi, the board approved a plan that will require each member of the 180,000 UC workforce to take between 11-24 unpaid days, off depending on salary level.

If the plan is also approved by labor unions in contract with the university, top earners making over $240,000 could expect to see the largest salary reduction, while those making under $40,000 could expect to see the smallest. Overall, employees could see a 4-10 percent pay reduction for twelve months, starting Sept. 1 2009.

Senior management-level employees, however, would be limited to ten furlough days regardless of salary. And all positions funded by research grants would be excluded from furloughs.

“I disagree with the ‘open the books’ statement. You have our audited statements online,” Yudof replied to those hinting at a lack of precision and openness in the budget process.

The furlough plan came as Gov. Schwarzenegger attempts to close the $24 billion dollar deficit by reducing future expenses, including the expense of higher education. The University of California budget currently faces $813 million in cuts for the upcoming fiscal year. One quarter of that is meant to be absorbed by increased student fees. The furlough plan is supposed to offset another quarter of the $813 million. Administrative cost controls and cuts spread across all 10 UC campuses is supposed to offset the rest.

Yudof said that “the plan is fair,” but many opposed to the resulting pay-cuts induced by the impending furlough plan say that senior administration wages are too high and disproportional to other salaries.

But in a separate press conference, Yudof defended UC administrators’ salaries, saying that some senior executives are underpaid.

“The truth is, our faculty’s underpaid by 15 to 20 percent,” Yudof said. “Many of our staff are at market; some are as much as 10 percent below market. But the chancellors are 33 percent below market.”

At the meeting several chancellors, including UC Santa Cruz Chancellor George Blumenthal, expressed concern that the cuts might affect their ability to retain and recruit high-end professors.

“While I reluctantly support the need for pay reductions, these actions make our campus, our university and our state vulnerable to a rapid brain drain,” Blumenthal said.

Blumenthal also spoke about UCSC’s elimination of 55 faculty positions and 160 administrative positions. He explained that fewer teachers mean fewer courses available.

“For some students this means a longer time till graduation,” Blumenthal explained. “We understand at Santa Cruz that everyone must share in the pain and contribute to the solution but we will not compromise on UCSC’s mission to be a leading public research university.”

When Yudof introduced the furlough plan he dubbed it “flexible” as university employees will get to choose what days they take off. He also said that furloughs will have less impact than lay-offs.

Lt. Gov. Garamendi, the only regent who voted against implementing the plan, encouraged fellow regents and chancellors to look for new ways to generate revenue. He specifically pressed them to support AB 656, a proposed bill that would tax oil companies and generate an estimated $1 billion, all of which would be directed toward universities and colleges in California.

Regent Bonnie Reiss agreed with Garamendi that a tax on oil or gas was a possible solution.

“This is a revenue problem,” Reiss said. “We need to keep reminding elected leaders to support the public.”

Governor Cuts Funding to Domestic Violence Centers

As a means to balance the state’s budget, all funding to domestic violence programs was eliminated, leaving Santa Cruz’s two shelters, the Women’s Crisis Center and the Walnut Ave. Women’s Center, without $750,000 and $414,000, respectively. Both of these figures represent more than half of each programs’ funding.

Kristie Clemens, director of domestic violence services at the Walnut Ave. center, said she’s seen an increase in the severity of domestic abuse in the last six months, due in part to financial pressures facing families in the recessive economy. She and her counterpart at the Women’s Crisis Center, Laura Segura, deplored the cuts. Both said it is heartbreaking to lay off dedicated staff members and close their doors once a week as a cost saving measure when both places have seen a need for services increase.

Pay Raises for Some, $813 million Cut from the Rest

In a round of closed-to-the-public sessions during their three-day July meeting, the governing body of the University of California, the regents, approved stipends- periodic payments above a salary designed to compensate for additional duties- for more than two dozen senior leadership positions.

These votes fell on the same day the regents implemented layoffs, pay cuts and mandatory furloughs for all UC employees to tackle a state funding shortfall of $813 million.

The regents justified the stipends and pay increases as necessary to attract the best and brightest minds to the University of California’s top-tier positions.

Positions that will see an increase in their salaries and/or a stipend are the Associate Vice President-Federal Government Relations in the UC Office of the President, who will see a 10.4 percent increase in base salary, and UCSF’s interim chief operating officer, who will receive a 6.5 percent stipend, boosting his salary this year to $500,763.

For a complete list of individual’s stipend and pay increases, check out cityonahillpress.com.

Competency of UC President Questioned with a Vote

The University of California Union Coalition, comprised of unions whose members work in various sectors of the UC, called for a vote of no confidence in Mark Yudof, the president of the university.

Phil Johnston, president of the local chapter of the Union of Professional and Technical Employees, said the unions are fed up with the draconian actions taken by the university’s administrators to deal with a perceived budget crisis. Among them are pay cuts and mandatory furlough days for all state-paid UC employees.

Johnston said that as only $3 billion of the UC’s $19 billion budget comes from the state, the measures undertaken by the regents are based on false premises. Furthermore, there are other options, he said, the regents could take to offset the cuts, such as tapping into the university’s rainy day fund, which has not yet been done.

“[The regents] are downsizing and destroying the university,” he said. “When I see the effect [regents’ measures] have on the quality of education, I feel bad for the students and their families,” Johnston said. “As an alum, I hate seeing what it’s doing to the quality of the experience of being here.”

Exasperated, University of California employees took to the polls to express their frustration with UC President Mark Yudof.

The informal, democratic process began Thursday when concerned union employees gathered in a tent at the Bay Tree Plaza. Organizers asked interested and passing faculty members if they would like to cast a vote.

The ballot took voters only a couple of minutes and asked faculty if they had “Confidence” or “No Confidence” in Yudof’s performance so far. The polling took place on UC campuses statewide.

Ernesto Encinas, a cook for the College 9/10 Dining Hall and active union member, helped organize the event and recruit voters. He expressed distaste for upcoming furloughs, hour reductions and layoffs targeting a large number of university workers, in addition to fee increases for students.

“These guys have no compassion,” he said. “They have no heart and no soul, no heart and soul. And it greatly impacts our lives. That’s why we’re doing this. This is a democratic way of voicing our concerns and bringing them to light.”

The vote was planned by UC workers and union members in response to the furlough plan which will go into effect this fall for professors and non-union workers. The plans have yet to be accepted by the unions that work with the University of California.

The proposed plan would result in an increase of both voluntary and involuntary vacation days and effective pay cuts of 4% and up for many employees.

The vote was a coalition effort between several unions on campus. These unions included AFT, which represents librarians and non-senate faculty, CUE, which represents clerical workers, UPTE, which represents technical employees and AFSCME, which represents custodial and food staff, as well as bus drivers.

UCSC Reference librarian Ken Lyons is concerned about how layoffs both in the classroom and in the library will affect students. Lyons, also an AFT contact, stepped out of his office on a slow summer afternoon at McHenry Library to show his support in the Bay Tree Plaza.

“With the layoffs that have been put into effect, what that’s going to mean is that there are going to be fewer classes,” Lyons said. “What classes there are will have more people in them. There will be more competition for classes, which means its going to be harder to get your required classes, which means it’s going to take you longer to graduate… which means you’re going to pay even more for your education.”

Peter King, Director of Media Relations for the University of Califonia Office of the President, called the vote “just a political stunt” that “has no meaning.” He believes it is only a distraction from the union’s negotiation process, which ends Wednesday, Sept. 2nd He insists the cuts have been across the board and as fair as possible.

“We want to get through this,” he said. “We want long term solutions, but it doesn’t help that these unions don’t want to negotiate and don’t want to take their portion of the pain.”

Many workers say they have taken all of the pain they can. Yrene Marquez, a food service worker worried about her own job security, came to cast her vote. Marquez is frustrated that she not been getting the hours she believed she would get when she started in February. She saw her workweek go down to 30-35 hours a week in July, and it has been decreasing ever since.

“I was under the impression that there would be curtailment during the summer, but not to this extent,” she said. “To go from 40-45 hours a week during the school year to 6 hours a week during the summer is pretty ridiculous. I’m not going to be able to pay my mortgage. I’m not going to be able to work here anymore.”

Voting can be done online by interested faculty at upte.org and will continue through Wednesday, Sept. 2nd.

Sheryl Vacca (left), University of California Senior Vice President and Chief Compliance and Audit Officer, talks to Regent Gould at the recent Regents meeting. Photo by Arianna Puopolo.

Regents Richard Blum, Leslie Schilling and Russell Gould sat under the fluorescent lights of the UC San Francisco community center at Mission Bay, conducting side conversations while the regents’ senior vice president and chief of compliance and audit directed the May 7 meeting. 

The office of the regents cited  swine flu as the cause for reorganizing the event, which was adapted from a three-day conference in San Diego to a six-hour teleconference.

Thanks to the change of plans, and despite the fact that a potential student fee increase was the topic of discussion, there were none of the protests that usually mark each of the six regent meetings held every year. 

One or two students at each of the dozen participating satellite sites took turns speaking during the public comment period. Although, in some cases, these students were separated by hundreds of miles, they were joined in solidarity against the proposed fee hikes. But even after listening to 35 minutes of students crying, begging and pleading, only four of the 26 regents voted against the increase. Beginning fall 2009, student fees will go up by 9.3 percent. 

Adam Brown, a second-year engineering major at UCLA, resented the likelihood that he would see many tangible benefits from the hikes.

“If we’re not going to see any return on [the fee hikes], it’s unfair,” he said. “We’re being taken advantage of.”

Lisa Chen, a fourth-year at UC San Diego, was aggravated by the regents’ lack of accessibility.

“I’ve never felt so silenced and so marginalized as I do right now,” she said through the teleconference speakers. 

Many of the students who participated in the public comment period condemned the “high-fee, high-aid” model that the regents seem to be subscribing to. In this model, they said, middle-income and undocumented students suffer the most.  

UC President Mark Yudof dismissed these claims, saying that the UC is far from a high-fee, high-aid model. He said the fiscal implications are intended to be minimal for students.

“You are exaggerating the impact,” Yudof said to those listening in from the other teleconference sites. “Everybody has a compelling case.  We just don’t have a lot of money.”

Andrea San Miguel is a fifth-year community studies major affiliated with College Ten. She joined the Coalition to Save Community Studies and was approved by SUA to attend the conference call in San Francisco as a whiteliner, someone who has permission from the office of the regents to have the same access privileges as a member of the press.

San Miguel approached Yudof after the meeting went into private session. She wanted to discuss program cuts at UC Santa Cruz, but said Yudof was unreceptive.

“I tried to speak with [Yudof] after the meeting, asking if he minded if I got a few more seconds with him, and he said yes, he did mind, [and] that our conversation was over,” she said. 

Lucero Chavez, UC Student Association (UCSA) president and second-year UC Berkeley Boalt Hall Law student, commiserated with the student body and promised the regents retaliation if the fee hike trend continues.

“I have a very high threshold on pain,” Chavez said. “But we’re reaching a breaking point.  As students, we’ve been really quiet this year and we don’t have to be.”

Chairman Blum responded to Chavez by saying, “Please just don’t come here and complain.”

Many of the regents extended their sympathy and regret to the students anticipating financial crises due to the fee hike and blamed the legislature, denying that there might be any other solution to the budget crisis.  

Retired attorney Eddie Island was one of four regents who voted against raising fees. 

“The continuous increase of student fees changes the fundamental principle of the university creating access and affordability,” Island said. “Every time the legislature says they’ve got other priorities, the regents respond by raising student fees. It’s time for us to turn to … a model that will guarantee the funding and security of the university.”

Island said that treating this year’s fee hike like an isolated incident is inaccurate and deceitful because similar hikes have happened in seven of the last eight years. The exception, he noted, was an election year.

Lt. Gov. John Garamendi serves on the Board of Regents. He was one of the four to oppose the fee hike. Garamendi explained that his opposition reflects the respect with which he regards public education and what it can contribute to California.

“If we stay on the course we’re on with ever-higher fees, we will have lost one of the most important economic systems that can benefit this state,” Garamendi said. 

“The result of the vote to raise students’ fees will have a bigger impact on students than some of the regents and President Yudof are willing to admit to themselves,” UCSC student San Miguel said.  “Increasing financial aid does not necessarily neutralize the effect of higher fees, and it does have an impact on who applies and how hard high-school students attempt to get into four-year schools, as UCSA said in their presentation at the meeting.”