In 2011 protesters shut down Wall Street, on March 1 protesters will shut down the university, and on March 5 they will shut down the capitol. It is no surprise to the UC Santa Cruz student body that we are in a class struggle for social and economic equality.

Van Jones spoke on campus on Feb. 21 about the economic crisis and his reformation of the American dream.

Jones is a Yale Law School graduate, former advisor to the Obama administration, bestselling author of “The Green Collar Economy,” award-winning pioneer in human rights and clean energy economy, and was dubbed one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2009 by TIME magazine.

Charismatic and humorous, Jones described the center of America’s struggle as an economic and cultural task. The notion of the American Dream, he said, is a confused and misinterpreted one that should be transformed to better reflect today’s society.

“There is a thing they call the American Dream,” he said. “This is the notion that everyone in American is going to get as rich as they possibly can. This is not the American dream, but it is the American dance. This dream is a dying dream. This dream is dying, and it should be dying.”

Jones is currently working on an organization called Rebuild the Dream, which focuses on community reformation through traditional techniques, like teach-ins and rallies, as well as digital services like online petitions and viral digital projects. The plan is to reestablish the American dream as something that protects and expands jobs for the middle and lower classes.

UCSC students are part of the new generation in this plan, Jones said.

“The diversity you have in your generation is a miracle in history,” he said. “You have every class, every faith, every race, every gender, and you’re even making new genders. You have all of these things, and you get along pretty well. This diversity, through your generation’s social and political movements, can and will restore prosperity.”

First-year Leilani Salvador is a member of the Cultural Arts and Diversity Program board of directors. Salvador helped organize and sponsor the event.

“One of our goals [with bringing Jones to speak] was to get a more politically diverse community,” Salvador said. “The majority of the politically active communities on campus are ethnically white students. For us to have Jones, who is a politically prominent figure, represented by so many ethnically-based groups really encourages ethnic students to participate in the campus’ political opportunities.”

Dr. Marla Wyche-Hall, director of the African American Resource and Cultural Center, one of the event’s sponsors, said Jones spoke well about the challenges and promises facing our diverse, multicultural generation.

“I think one of the purposes of his speech was to cross boundaries,” she said. “We have to acknowledge the differences between our social and ethnic groups, but, despite this ‘rainbow generation,’ we can still come together and make change.”

Read City on a Hill Press’ exclusive Q&A with Van Jones

Kevin Hoshiko, director of the Media Lab at Social Sciences Two, said the shutdown of the lab would be a serious loss for social sciences students. Photo by Pierce Crosby.

Nestled under a staircase in Social Sciences Two, the Media Laboratory holds six rooms for teaching, research and collaboration. This academic support source helps both undergraduate and graduate social sciences students further their writing and projects, much like a chemistry lab is to its corresponding lecture. However, like many small social sciences programs, funding is decreasing for the Media Lab.

Kevin Hoshiko is the sole director of the Media Lab this year, which operates on limited hours due to recent salary cuts.

“I went from a staff of three to one this year, the one being myself,” Hoshiko said. “If we get more cuts to the social sciences, bridge funding for programs like ours might not be possible. Technically we were looking at more cuts during mid-year, but they’ve rolled back enough to hold us until June.”

Checking equipment in and out on a regular basis, second-year Janet Nacarato uses the Media Lab as a resource for her field work.

“The Media Laboratory is super resourceful and easy,” Nacarato said. Nacarato is taking Multimedia Ethnography, a class that utilizes the lab as a backbone for its curriculum. “It’s essential for us, because we definitely don’t have the money to go buying professional equipment as students.”

But even as Hoshiko has come under increasing fire from the Social Sciences department to cut time and resources, he doesn’t blame the department for the funding limitations.

“[Dean Sheldon] Kamieniecki and [assistant dean Kyle] Eichen have been pretty fair about the process,” Hoshiko said. “It isn’t like they’re targeting us in particular — the entire department is suffering. Our program is certainly small, but we still don’t get a free pass.”

Still, the cuts will continue. In the 2012-13 school year, the social sciences facilities will face “restructuring,” according to the UCSC 2010-20 Capital Financial Plan.

Hoshiko said funding will remain in place until the end of the year due to carryover of previous funds from last year. However, he is concerned about the fragile future of the Media Lab and how its absence will affect students’ scope of knowledge and future work.

“[The lab] allows for writing enhancement, and unlocks a lot of potential students wouldn’t have otherwise,” Hoshiko said. “Larger schools like UCLA and Berkeley have extensive media labs because they understand the ubiquitousness of technology today and [they] desire to teach it. People might know how to use social media in the consumer sense, but to actually utilize the potential of the medium as a real tool becomes a different skill altogether.”

Second-year Edward Chow understands the relevance of sources like the Media Lab for education, but also for greater social consciousness, which he said students seemed to lack.

“I know [teaching] media is essential. That’s how people have been holding governments accountable,” Chow said. “Julian Assange is a perfect example, unraveling secrets for the public through the mobilization of technology and social media.”

Indeed, Hoshiko hoped to generate these tools for students, but found it increasingly difficult to provide sufficient resources while working understaffed. Even so, the desire to utilize technology remains prevalent among students, regardless of the greater limitations they now face.

“Resource programs and other supporting groups put meat on the bones of education,” Chow said. “Otherwise you’re just sitting in a classroom all day. You have to get out and try things for yourself.”

Illustration by Patrick Yeung.

UCSC alumnus Gabe Zimmerman was one of six people killed during the recent shooting in Tucson, Ariz. A social sciences scholarship has been proposed at UC Santa Cruz in honor of Zimmerman and his dedication to social justice.

Zimmerman was a congressional aide to Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.), who was holding a public forum the day Zimmerman was fatally shot. A gunman opened fire at the crowd gathered in front of a Safeway, critically injuring Giffords and fatally wounding Zimmerman.

A community memorial took place Jan. 13 to pay respects to Zimmerman, but UCSC alumni are seeking a more permanent tribute to Zimmerman’s life. Former UCSC student Jonathan Klein proposed a commemorative scholarship in response to the Arizona attack.

“I’m hoping that students that come to UC Santa Cruz like I did, like Gabe did …have the opportunity to learn about what Gabe did, what happened in Tucson, and to be helped out financially,” Klein said.

The scholarship will aid undergraduates in the social sciences. It is intended to provide financial support to politically-minded students working in social justice and public service.

“What I hope that people gain is a better understanding of the time and effort that it takes for somebody to be part of a democratic process,” Klein said. “It’s something people don’t think about on a day-to-day basis. Gabe Zimmerman gave the ultimate sacrifice for democracy, as if he were a soldier in battle.”

If the Gabriel Zimmerman Scholarship Fund reaches endowment, the scholarship will continuously and annually provide financial aid to social sciences students. Between $15,000 and $18,000 has been raised, but $50,000 is needed to endow the scholarship.

Joop Rubens, UCSC associate director of development, handles funding for the school, and is working with donors for the Gabriel Zimmerman Scholarship Fund.

“We’ve had over 250 responses,” Rubens said.“I’m hopeful that by the end of the month I can call Gabe’s parents and tell them that we will able to endow the scholarship.”

One of those responses was from UCSC alumnus Jon Carnero. Carnero now works in New York, but reached out from across the country after hearing about the loss of a former UCSC student.

“To see such violence take place [in Tucson] was jarring,” Carnero said. “That’s when I realized, ‘What can I do?’”

Carnero spoke to his boss about donating to the Zimmerman Scholarship so it can reach endowment. The company agreed to match donations dollar-for-dollar up to $500.

“I would like to see it support students so that they can continue their education with the vision of going into public service and make a positive impact on society,” Carnero said.

Carnero is one of many people responding to the tragedy.

Alex Clemens, another UCSC alumnus, is contributing his marketing contacts to the scholarship’s cause. Clemens is grabbing media attention for the Zimmerman scholarship along with Klein and Rubens, hoping to attract more donations.

Rubens expressed enthusiasm for students like Zimmerman.

“[Gabe] was part of the Global Information Internship Program,” Rubens said. “Any time I meet people here on campus who are very intelligent and very driven and very eager to work around social change, they’re part of this program. They always impress me. It wasn’t a surprise that he was one of these students. Clearly he was a very impressive individual.”

After Zimmerman received his bachelor’s degree in sociology from UCSC in 2002, he received his master’s in social work at Arizona State University. The Arizona State University Gabe Zimmerman Spirit of Service Scholarship has also been set up in Zimmerman’s honor.

“In terms of it affecting campus life, I think if this scholarship can show that something so tragic can turn into something that gives us hope for many, many years to come if we can endow it — then that’s amazing,” Rubens said. “You guys should be proud that you go to a school that Gabe graduated from, that people like Jonathan and Alex graduated from. I mean, you guys are them.”

~~~~~~

For more information, contact Joop Rubens at jrubens@ucsc.edu or (831) 502-7275.

Illustration by Kenny Srivijittakar.

Fewer classes, fewer teachers, fewer TAs. While paying the highest tuition in the history of the University of California, students are beginning to notice the dwindling resources on campus.

Throughout the UC system, cuts from the state are being implemented. Over the past two years, upwards of $50 million has been subtracted from UC Santa Cruz’s budget, according to UCSC administration .

“[The cuts] have a tremendous impact on UCSC, especially in the humanities and social sciences,” said Karen Bassi, literature department chair.

The biggest impacts Bassi noted were fewer courses, loss of TAships and lower salaries for staff and faculty.

“Last year, the literature department offered 123 courses, while this year we offer 101,” she said.

Bassi also explained that the loss of graduate student TAs who can lead sections has an effect on the quality of teaching for undergrads and graduate students. Due to the recent furloughs, staff are forced to work less and often expected to maintain the same workload. Faculty often work 80 hours a week, with a cut in pay but no cut in time.

For the social sciences, the two biggest impacts are reduction of faculty and decreased funding for TAs, said Kyle Eischen, assistant dean of academic planning and research for the Division of Social Sciences.

“Overall, social sciences does about 40 percent of the teaching for undergraduates and about 30 percent for the graduate students,” Eischen said.

The Division of Social Sciences — which includes the psychology, economics, anthropology, sociology, politics, Latin American studies, community studies, education, legal studies, and environmental studies departments — has been hit hard by the budget crisis.

According to an administrative report published in July of 2009, the social science division is facing an approximate $1.5 million dollar cut.

“We have the most popular majors on campus, yet the cuts that were made have not been proportional to our popularity,” Eischen said.

Eischen went on to say that the reduction in funding for TAs negatively affects undergraduates and graduate students. Many graduate students support themselves by TAing.

“The quality of education for undergraduates suffers, with a less personalized education,” he said.

In particular, the psychology major — the largest major on campus, with about 1,700 enrolled students— is experiencing cuts in faculty.

According to Avril Thorne, psychology department chair, the department should have 34 full-time faculty members, but has only 25 due to the hiring freeze and the failure to replace retiring faculty. Fewer faculty means larger class sizes, which are already struggling to accommodate the increasing numbers of incoming UCSC students.

Fourth-year psychology major Olivia Leung, who works as a peer adviser in the psychology department, commented that the funding shortage has caused students to experience duress.

“The budget cuts have caused students to feel unnecessary stress and anxiety about getting into classes, as there are fewer classes available,” Leung said. “People come into the psychology department where I work as a peer adviser and stress over not getting into classes, wondering what alternatives are available for them, and how they will be able to graduate on time if they can’t take a certain class.”

Second-year psychology major Jenette Debarge is ready to take extreme measures to ensure her quality education.

“It’s to the point where I’m ready to withdraw from UCSC until I can get into a class in my major,” Debarge said. “I’m not going to give the UC my money for GEs that I don’t need.”

Even with the changing environment of the UC, psychology chair Thorne said that getting a high-quality education is still possible, if more difficult.

“I advise students to plan their courses carefully and have back-up courses to take if they can’t get into the ones they need,” Thorne said. “Also, students should be aware of the peer advising available. It is important to be nimble and flexible. You need to be a quick dancer to figure out what classes will make do for what you want to learn.”

Social sciences assistant dean Eischen agrees that despite the loss of teachers and the increasing class size, it is possible to experience a high-quality UC education with increased creativity.

“Students need to know what they want and go after it,” Eischen said. “It is still possible to get a great education here; we have fabulous faculty.”

Fourth-year Sarah Fishleder is doing just that. After returning from a study abroad program in India, Fishleder noticed that most of the classes she wanted to take in the theater arts department had been cut.

“‘Asian Drama and Dance’ and ‘Global Impacts of Dance,’ ‘Chicano Power Theater,’ ‘Black Theater USA,’ all courses I really wanted to take, are not being offered this year,” she said. “It’s indefinite; we don’t know when or if they’ll be offered again.”

Fishleder has taken things into her own hands, electing to create her own major in order to accommodate the unpredictability of the course catalogue.

Her proposed major, “Multiculturalism and the Arts Education,” is going through the approval process and is currently being reviewed for acceptance.

In addition to flexibility, Eischen said that students need to become more politically active.

“Students need to be more political, targeted specifically on making education a priority for people in California,” he said. “We all need to be more political and more active.”

Thorne agreed with Eischen by saying that the action needs to be taken on a state level.

“Parents call me complaining that their kids can’t get into any classes, and I tell them to call their legislators,” she said.

Literature chair Bassi also emphasized political action in this pressing time for UC students, and suggested finding strength in unity.

“We need to work together collaboratively, bringing different factions together for the greater common good,” Bassi said. “I advise students to talk to their professors, tell them how they feel, and find ways of letting Californians know what is at stake here. Students can go up to Sacramento, write op-eds, and make the voters of California more aware of what they are losing as a result of the budget crisis.”

If nothing changes this year, part-time community studies field studies coordinator Florencia Marchetti will lose her position at the end of March this year. She plans on continuing her studies in social documentation. Photo by Nita Rose-Evans.

Mike Rotkin, the full-time community studies field studies coordinator will make plans for his retirement this June, once his pink slip goes into effect. He says that what the department can

Organizing can be frustrating for third-year community studies student Kit Rutter, one of the leaders of the Coalition to Save Community Studies. “We took a hiatus of the summer--something that we shouldn’t have done,” Rutter said. “There were only a few of us around and the communication was really poor.” Photo by Nita Rose-Evans.

Third-year Angie Espinoza is one of the 140 community studies interns on their six-month field study. She's interning for Barrios Unidos, a nonprofit in Santa Cruz that addresses gang violence. "I can't explain it, but I found this new love and dedication to peace work and social justice," Espinoza said. Photo by Valerie Luu.

Last spring, UC Santa Cruz felt the first blow of budget cuts when community studies (CMMU), an academic program centered around social justice and community organizing, received drastic cuts that forced students and faculty to mobilize in order save their own program.

It began when UCSC’s Dean of Social Sciences Sheldon Kamieniecki received an order from Chancellor George Blumenthal and Executive Vice Chancellor David Kliger to cut $1.4 million from the division budget. Word was leaked that the dean was “cutting” CMMU by laying off the administrative and support staff for the major.

In April of the same year that marked its 40th anniversary, the department received notice that Mike Rotkin, the field study coordinator, and his assistant, Florencia Marchetti, would be laid off 50 percent for the 2009 school year and laid off completely by the end of 2010. The CMMU department manager was laid off and consolidated with the sociology department manager.

Students quickly created the Coalition to Save Community Studies (CSCS) and held weekly protests and educational meetings.

The students and supporters cried foul. They rallied. Then they left.

Since the news about CMMU broke last spring, the Quarry has been silent. Pink slips have been issued to the field study coordinators (FSCs). Students are scattered around the country on their field study, and the department is now left figuring out what to do next.

Kit Rutter, a main organizer for Coalition to Save Community Studies and third-year CMMU student, says she and the small group of activists are ramping up their actions for this school year to dispel two prevailing misconceptions: that the major no longer exists and, conversely, that it’s completely safe and in the clear from budget cuts.

“It’s definitely still in crisis,” Rutter said. “There’s a lot of work to do.”

‘Like a Car Without Wheels’

CMMU requires its students to embark on a six-month field study, in which they work toward social change in a nonprofit organization, sometime during the summer or fall quarter prior to their graduation.

Rotkin and Marchetti’s roles as field study coordinators are to place students in internships, deal with any logistical issues and crises and read students’ daily field notes and term papers.

According to Rotkin, there has been a full-time coordinator since the program was started in 1969 and two coordinators for the past seven years. Rotkin finds the notion that CMMU could exist without a field study component absurd.

“Community studies without a field study is like a car without wheels,” Rotkin said.

Rotkin estimates it would require approximately $175,000 to fund his full-time and his assistant’s almost-full-time position. Currently, a portion of the coordinator salaries are being funded by fees paid from CMMU students who pay regular student fee amounts while doing their field studies.

The second set of pink slips will go into effect for Marchetti and Rotkin in March and June 2010, respectively, which means that at the end of this school year there will be no more field study coordinators, leaving the future of CMMU hanging in the balance.

Field Study: Foundations for Change

Currently, 140 students are interning full-time at nonprofits around Santa Cruz, the Bay Area and the nation for their CMMU field studies. Marchetti commented on the unique nature of the community studies program and its integrated field study opportunities.

“The students get the chance to go out in the world and test the knowledge they gained at the university against the reality, and use the knowledge they are learning to make something work better,” Marchetti said. “Like most professions, you learn by doing.”

A look at the field study students and organizations reveals an impressive network of graduates as well as many interns who go on to work at nonprofits that have been created by CMMU alumni.

One prominent example is Nane Alejándrez, who is founder and director of Barrios Unidos (BU), a nonprofit that addresses youth violence in Santa Cruz. He came to UCSC in 1977 to learn how to deal with violence after a tumultuous life marked by gangs, heroin addiction and serving in the Vietnam War. He found support in the CMMU staff, and Mike Rotkin in particular, who advised him as he started the organization.

“I can give credit to UCSC for being a part of Barrios Unidos,” Alejándrez said.

Since graduating, Alejándrez says he’s been “blessed” to have many CMMU interns come through BU and participate in the org’s six-month internship.

“It allows me to have someone to work with and [to] be able to mentor and teach what we learned the last 30-something years,” Alejándrez said.

One such intern is Angie Espinoza, a third-year CMMU major and education minor who has been working with BU since June of 2009.

Espinoza learned about BU when Alejándrez came into her Chicanos and Social Change class during her freshman year and talked about the organization and his experience with gangs.

This resonated with Espinoza, who “grew up in the madness” in Costa Mesa, California, where everyone she knew was in gangs and she had to deal with girls who verbally attacked her mother and tried to beat her up after school.

“I felt like I needed to come in here and see what Barrios Unidos was about,” Espinoza said.

At their office on Soquel Street, Espinoza works as an assistant to Alejándrez. But unlike many interns incessantly engaged in tedious tasks like copying and stapling papers, Espinoza has spent her time rubbing shoulders with national and international figures.

Espinoza recently prepared a BU fundraiser in San Francisco that boasted guests like actor and activist Danny Glover, California Speaker of the Assembly Karen Bass, and Dolores Huerta, United Farm Workers of America co-founder and vice president.

“It was unreal — I was chanting along with Dolores Huerta, the godmother of the Chicano movement,” Epinoza said.

A few weeks prior to the event, Espinoza and Alejándrez had dinner with Bernanrdo Alvaverz Herrera, the Venezeulan ambassador to the United States. She recalled a moment when she told a group of 15 people, including a Chevron Corporation executive and an Emmy award-winning documentary filmmaker, Saul Alindo, about the crisis with CMMU.

“It was intense actually,” Espinoza said.

In addition, Espinoza works for the Prison Project, one of BU’s nationwide programs. She visits incarcerated individuals at the Deuel Vocational Institution in Tracy and corresponds with inmates through letters.

“I get some crazy letters — poems expressing the madness they’ve been through,” Espinoza said. “Sometimes I’m left speechless by the powers in the words and it makes me try harder to keep youth out of there.”

The Fight For the Future

For current third-year CMMU students, it remains unclear whether they can embark on their six-month field studies during the upcoming summer and fall quarters.

“We’re going on [knowing] that in July, we’ll have nobody to manage the field study,” Rotkin said, noting that the program nonetheless admitted 50 new majors this quarter and will have a total of 120 new majors by the end of winter quarter that will need to complete field studies.

In light of these departmental changes, CSCS is changing gears this quarter as well. First, they’re choosing to break away from protests, which main organizer Kit Rutter said were liberating for some, but isolating for those outside the major.

In addition, CSCS is moving away from working with the administration.

“We tried that last quarter and nothing really came of that,” Rutter said.

Instead, Rutter and CMMU department chair B. Ruby Rich plan on utilizing the political sway of UCSC’s Academic Senate, a “shared governance” committee composed of faculty who, by design, are supposed to share responsibility with the administration for managing the UC system.

Additionally, the CMMU department has set up an endowment fund to raise money for the field study coordinators titled “40 by 40,” which encourages community studies alumni and nonprofit organizations who have used CMMU interns to donate $40 — which, compounded, might help extend the program for another 40 years.

Rich said that the department has raised about $7,000 thus far — a major monetary distance from the $500,000 necessary to generate enough dividends to achieve the 40-year continuation goal.

Second-year community studies and art major Alyssa Gutner-Davis works on the fundraising campaign. After witnessing the organizing around CMMU last spring, Gutner-Davis felt a sense of urgency to join CSCS because she didn’t want to see the major “destroyed.”

“The funny thing was I hadn’t taken any of the community studies classes yet, [but] hearing about the cuts [made me] upset because I liked what I heard and read about the major,” Gutner-Davis said, adding that she is worried about her future and is determined to find a way to complete a field study even if she has to do so outside of UCSC’s oversight.

“I’m not going to get it at the price everyone else is getting it at,” Gutner Davis said. “That’s really hard to hear.”

Among everyone from the CMMU department chair to CSCS organizers to the two field study coordinators, one thing seems agreed-upon by all: they are going to work their hardest to preserve the field study component as it exists right now while holding tight to a fervent belief in its educational and social value.

“It’s almost ironic that this is happening to community studies because we’re taught to be prepared for [things like this],” Rutter said. “It’s definitely a good test for us. It’s empowering in some ways and it’s just completely disheartening in other ways.”

Rutter explained that CSCS will look into a lawsuit in case the appeals to Academic Senate fall through, although exact details regarding such a lawsuit remain unclear.

Rotkin said Dean Kamieniecki has asked CMMU for an answer about how it will proceed by December. The department had its first meeting about three weeks ago, and Rotkin and Rich both reported that the discussions were inconclusive, but will continue as the field study season approaches.

Given that there is not and won’t be enough money in the budget in the future to fund the FSC position, the future of the field study will have to change.

“The only option is to do with a different kind of field study,” Rotkin said.

What it will look like, nobody knows.

Illustration by Justin Martinez.

Alicia Sebastian works to organize and mobilize a pool of roughly 50 volunteers for the Santa Cruz AIDS Project (SCAP), a local nonprofit. Through its volunteers, SCAP provides support to community members with HIV and AIDS, distributes clean needles to drug users, and performs outreach to educate underrepresented areas of Santa Cruz and surrounding regions. 

Sebastian is a UC Santa Cruz alumna who majored in community studies and now works as the volunteer and staff support manager at SCAP. She stressed the importance of the social sciences program to the greater Santa Cruz community. SCAP runs on roughly eight staff members and its volunteers. Sixty percent of the organization’s volunteers are from UCSC’s field study program, headed by community studies lecturer Mike Rotkin.

Large-scale budget cuts now loom over UCSC’s Division of Social Sciences like a dark cloud of uncertainty. As it stands now, the division faces $1.3 million in cuts as the entire university confronts a $13 million state funding cut, adding to the $6 million in cuts left over from last year.

“When it comes time to cut the budget, people always cut services, clubs, anything that isn’t the bare bones,” Sebastian said. “They cut the social sciences. When you do that, you cut what makes the UC different. You’re cutting away what makes this community different.”

The budget cuts to the social sciences are the largest core budget reduction campuswide, and will affect every program within the division.

“Cutting all of the hands-on opportunities, cutting the social sciences this way, is sending a message to incoming students [of the social sciences] that says ‘There’s no future for you here,’” Sebastian said. “The community is not going to be receptive of these decisions, and it is not going to be quiet.”

Sebastian has even received calls from other community organizations in Santa Cruz and beyond offering support for the social sciences programs at UCSC, which provide volunteers for organizations well beyond the city limits.

“Planned Parenthood called me yesterday asking what they could do,” Sebastian said. “I didn’t even call to tell them about it. The support for these programs speaks for itself.” 

There’s Something Happening Here

Deans and vice chancellors learned that their divisions would be facing major budget reductions in December. 

Sheldon Kamieniecki, dean of social sciences at UCSC, informed his division on April 1 of the large-scale budget cuts set for the 2009-2010 school year. Since then, information about how the cuts will affect departments — and the faculty and staff that support them — has been scarce. 

Kamieniecki declined several requests for a phone or e-mail interview from City on a Hill Press.

Campus spokesperson Jim Burns also declined a phone interview with CHP. However, via e-mail he said that few details about implementing the budget cuts are now known, but as divisional budget plans emerge, these should become clearer. 

However, UCSC has not had to take some of the more immediate actions that the state has taken.

“State of California employees have been subject to furlough days in recent months as one means of saving the state money,” Burns said. “The 10-campus UC system has not implemented similar furlough measures.”

However, Burns said UC President Mark Yudof told the Board of Regents in March to implement furloughs and other salary reductions if they become necessary due to the state funding situation.

On March 4, campus provost David Kliger informed all deans and heads of departments of their budget-reduction targets. These cuts include $8.5 million in cuts delegated across the administrative divisions of UC Santa Cruz, and $4.5 million in cuts to academic divisions.

The social sciences are not “taking the lion’s share of the campus’s budget cut,” Burns said.

Burns said that the academic-division budget cuts range from $450,000 in the Division of Arts to $1.3 million in the Division of Social Sciences. The Division of Engineering’s $600,000 in cuts, Humanities’ $1 million, and Physical and Biological Sciences’ $1.15 million fall in between. 

What It Is Ain’t Exactly Clear

The Coalition to Save Community Studies (CSCS) formed when news of possible fatal cuts to the community studies (CMMU) program spread. Since then, CSCS has organized two walk-outs/speak-outs and a teach-out in protest. Speakers demanded the administration take from the top before considering cuts in academic divisions, and to practice transparency in all proceedings.

A group of student organizers from CSCS met with Kamieniecki last Tuesday and viewed the tentative plan for the execution of the budget cuts, which is online at the “Coalition to Save Community Studies” Facebook group.

Andrea San Miguel, an organizer of CSCS and a fifth-year transfer student majoring in community studies, attended the meeting with the dean. 

“It took quite a bit of persistence on my part to get to meet with [Kamieniecki],” San Miguel said. “We got a hold of his official proposal about how to save money, and we got to ask him direct questions about it.” 

San Miguel couldn’t reveal many details about the meeting due to confidentiality, but he did come away from the meeting with the impression that Kamieniecki does not have the authority to avoid these budget cuts.

“They might not be offering up a lot of transparency, but these things are public documents so we are looking into it,” San Miguel said. 

In the projected plan, Kamieniecki tentatively proposed making the field study program an optional part of the community studies major. 

However, San Miguel said the field study program is vital to the academic side of the community studies major. 

“Field study is far from just volunteer work. It ties directly into the program,” San Miguel said. “Cuts to staff are cuts to the major, because staff support the field study and the same quality of education is not possible in community studies without it.” 

CMMU lecturer Rotkin said that firing teachers is the dean’s way of destroying the community studies program.

“We are not a traditional program,” Rotkin said. “The dean does not have a lot of sympathy for experimental education and civic engagement.”

As of May 1, Rotkin received two pink slips notifying him that, after running the field study program for 40 years, his position will be phased out over the course of the next two years.

Guillermo Delgado and Susanne Jonas, lecturers in the Latin American and Latino studies (LALS) department, both received pink slips last week. The first walk-out/speak-out on April 22 was organized largely due to their impending terminations. 

Delgado has taught at UCSC for 20 years and Jonas, 23 years.

“I recommend the administration to rethink priorities regarding undergraduate education,” Delgado said. “At the end, it’s always the student quality that counts. If you mass-ify education and raise tuition, that doesn’t sound good. They are paying more for less.”

Jonas said the current generation of college students is capable of social movement and change for the better, despite setbacks. 

“The main reward we get is to pass along education about social justice in America and empower students here,” Jonas said. “That’s why I came here.” 

A Bird Without Wings

On any UC campus, decisions to add or eliminate undergraduate majors or academic programs are proposed by faculty or deans within those divisions. They require the campus provost’s full consultation with the campus’s Academic Senate. 

“To date, the provost has received no proposals to cut academic programs related to these budget cuts,” campus spokesperson Burns said.

The deadline for vice chancellors and deans to inform campus provost David Kliger about how they plan to implement budget cuts is May 15. 

Campus spokesperson Burns said the budget cuts are likely to affect all areas of campus.

“[Kamieniecki] has not made final decisions about how he will implement $1.3 million in cuts,” Burns said. “While he is not contemplating across-the-board cuts — neither are other academic deans or administrative vice chancellors — it would be fair to say that $1.3 million in cuts within his division will impact every single program. To be clear, the cuts in every academic and administrative division on campus are large and they will be impactful. The size of the budget shortfall makes that unavoidable.”

Adam Butler is a student volunteer at SCAP as well as an organizer of CSCS. An American studies major, Butler volunteers through the field study program run by Rotkin. 

Butler said Rotkin and the field study program have been invaluable to his education. 

“It’s pretty shocking that things that will affect the end product of the education process are what’s being cut, instead of the tens of thousands of dollars being paid to the greater administration,” Butler said. “The end product — me, right here — my hands-on learning is what’s in danger of being cut.” 

Butler, who will graduate at the end of the quarter, said the administration has shown a lack of transparency with regard to the budget. 

“If the faculty hadn’t leaked information about community studies, no one would know it was in jeopardy,” Bulter said in reference to an e-mail sent out on April 2 that revealed Kamieniecki had told CMMU staff their department would face major staff cuts. “Saying ‘We’re just going to cut lecturers’ is like saying [about the program] ‘It’s still a bird — we’ve just cut off its wings.’”

Butler said he does not see the upper levels of the University of California doing all they can to cut costs on administrative levels rather than aspects directly linked to education. 

Sebastian, of SCAP, said the social sciences at UCSC and the social services in the community are directly linked, and advised the administration to implement budget cuts in ways that will not take teachers or field study away from the student experience. 

“At a time when there is a need for social services and a need for change, and a need for our role in it, the university wants to cut those programs,” Sebastian said. “And that’s the wrong message to be sending. [The people making the cuts] are not looking at the impact it’s really having on the community or the message it’s sending to students and to the world. There is a need for these programs.”

Photo by Conner Ross.

Classroom Unit I was filled to more than half of its capacity as students, administrators and faculty addressed concerns about the ongoing budget crisis and program cuts at the Student Union Assembly (SUA)’s town hall meeting last Wednesday. 

Speakers included Sheldon Kamienieki, dean of social sciences; Felicia McGinty, executive vice chancellor of student affairs; David Kliger, executive vice chancellor and campus provost; and Bill Ladusaw, dean of undergraduate education.  

Each administrator fielded questions from the crowd as SUA internal vice chair Tiffany Loftin facilitated the event. 

Dean Kamienieki responded to questions primarily pertaining to cuts in his division.   

“We haven’t made any decisions yet,” he said with regard to  the proposed cuts to the community studies department.

However, an inquiry about terminating two Latin American and Latino studies (LALS) lecturers, Susanne Jonas and Guillermo Delgado, prompted an explanation about the propriety of faculty members at UCSC. 

“It’s an option,” Kamienieki said. “We haven’t made any final decisions.” 

Kamienieki proceeded to suggest that the lecturers had not taken advantage of the opportunity to get job security during their two-decade-long careers here.  

“If these lecturers are really valued, they should have been hired by the department as ladder-ranked faculty,” he said.

But according to community studies field director Mike Rotkin, a collegue of Jonas’, she has attempted to get hired as a ladder-ranked faculty on several occasions — but her request has always been denied.  

Kamienieki was quick to assure that the cuts do not reflect the value of a department or faculty member. 

“I don’t want you or anyone here to think I don’t appreciate the contributions these two individuals have made to the program,” he said. 

One member of the crowd questioned the inequity of student fee hikes and program cuts juxtaposed with six-figure salaries for administrators. 

Vice chancellor McGinty dismissed the comment as immaterial. 

“I make what I should make based on a national comparison,” she said. “I have no guilt about the money I make.”

Executive vice chancellor Kliger suggested that the financial policy of the UC, as a whole, lacks integrity. He added that the impending fee hikes will not likely serve as a solution to the cuts, since the budget is distributed inequitably. 

“The rich campuses keep getting richer and the poor campuses keep getting poorer,” Kliger said. “Right now it’s very unlikely, unless the budget situation turns around, that we’ll be growing at all.”