UC President Mark Yudof has only two more regents meetings to attend before his slated resignation in August. Shortly into the March 13 meeting, Yudof expressed his dismay over the recent UC Student Health Insurance Plan (UC SHIP) actuarial error, which chalked up a $57 million deficit.

UC Student Association (UCSA) president Raquel Morales attended the meeting and urged the regents to redact the lifetime cap currently in place under UC SHIP and asked that emergency funding, rather than student premiums, pay for the UC SHIP deficit.

A discussion over the election of a new UC president occurred in a closed meeting. A recent UC press release said a national executive search firm is currently working to submit candidates to a special committee within the board that includes academic, student, staff and alumni advisory groups.

UCSA president Morales, who also chairs the student component of the special committee, also addressed the regents on a variety of UCSA concerns. While stressing the continued need for increased state funding and a tuition freeze for all UC students, Morales called the regents’ attention to a number of more acute stances held by UCSA.

While UCSA supports online education, Morales said the platform must not replace classroom learning. Morales also discouraged Gov. Jerry Brown’s recent proposal of a max unit cap. After concluding her presentation, the regents did not ask any follow-up questions of Morales.

Discussion over the progress of two fiscal stability projects — the Working Smarter initiative and Onward California — were met with approval by the regents.

The savings from the Working Smarter initiative, a five-year project launched in 2010 to cut down on administrative expenses, is slightly ahead of schedule with 34 projects currently underway. Overall, the initiative is intended to save the UC $500 million.

The majority of the over $200 million already saved comes from enterprise risk management, which includes the cost of workplace hazards like lab safety. The initiative is in collaboration with a similar initiative at Cal State University called Synergy.

The regents also viewed a series of videos available as part of the Onward California campaign, which aims to elicit more private donations from individuals and business organizations for the UC. The campaign is also targeting celebrity sponsors and corporate donors.

Chairman of the Board of Regents Sherry Lansing said Onward California, and future projects like it, must be seen as an integral component of revenue for the UC, citing the continuously decreasing certainty of state funding.

New ideas for the project were bounced around at the meeting, including a UC-owned social media platform. This would market student participation to raise funding for student scholarships at each of the UC campuses. The platform is expected to launch in October 2013.

Student Regent Jonathan Stein tweeted his approval of the social media proposal, encouraging the regents to consider more out-of-the-box ideas like this one.

The regents approved the construction of a teaching and learning center for health sciences at UCLA, the funding of which will mostly be covered by gifts UCLA has raised. Representatives from UC Santa Barbara and UC Merced also proposed student housing expansion plans to accommodate increasing enrollment with discussions to continue.

UC PResident Mark Yudof announced he will be resigning from the UC Board of Regents in August 2013. Photo by Prescott Watson

During their Jan. 15–17 meeting at UC San Francisco, the UC Board of Regents discussed the implications of Prop 30 toward current budget affairs, as well as a variety of fiscal strategies.

Ex-officio regents Gov. Jerry Brown, assembly speaker John Pèrez, Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom and state schools chief Tom Torlakson also attended the meeting.

On Jan. 18, UC President Mark Yudof announced he will resign from the board in August 2013, due to health-related complications, which, according to the Los Angeles Times, include recent gallbladder surgery, a broken shoulder and bronchitis. President Yudof plans to resume teaching law at UC Berkeley.

Budget

While many gave thanks to Gov. Jerry Brown, voters, and related parties for their help in the passing of Prop. 30, Gov. Brown and Speaker Perez implored the regents to remain vigilant in their budget strategy.

Gov. Brown released his proposed 2013–14 budget on Jan. 10, which would increase state funding for UC by $125 million. However, Gov. Brown emphasized a gap between his proposed budget and that of the regents’.

“Let’s get real,” Brown said. “I’m proposing 5 percent more [funding] in your budget. You’re proposing 11.6 [percent more funding].”

Brown expressed his hearty support for decreasing top administrative salaries and reducing faculty benefits, referencing a recent 23 percent reduction to his salary.

The regents counter-argued that decreasing the cost of leadership would accrue the long-term cost of decreased quality.

While acknowledging the regents’ point, Brown rebutted that California is a large enough state to draw the best and most competitive leaders from within its population.

“How do you make up the [revenue] gap?” Brown said. “Either students make it up in tuition increases — this year and forever — faculty does something different, or in some way we change the model, or the people of California decide they want to invest more than they have historically in higher education.”

Chair Sherry Lansing said she did not think tuition fees increases would be likely through next year.

Online Education

The regents revisited the topic of online education in lieu, they said, of tabling its advancement under the harsh conditions of frequent budget cuts.

Gov. Brown expressed his hearty support for the UC Online Education Initiative, toward which his proposed budget allocates $10 million.

The UC currently offers several online courses, although few students take them for credit and many of the courses are campus-specific.

The regents agreed to assess reports of online education pilot programs, which currently aim to augment high-demand and primarily lower-division courses students must take, at every other meeting in the future.

Diversity

Provost Aimee Dorr gave a report on UC faculty diversity as part of the UC accountability auditing process.

While UC showed more ethnic diversity and gender equality than several other leading universities, the data drew terse criticism from the Board.

“In a state where almost half the students graduating from high school are Latino,” Regent Eddie Island said, “a faculty that is less than 5 percent Latino is embarrassing … how much longer do we have to wait to make the UC faculty demographics look like the state?”

The data showed a continued increase in the diversity of new faculty, but the regents asked Provost Dorr for additional research into what can be done to shift UC faculty into greater diversity.

Graduate/Professional Degree Fee Increases

After having removed the topic from their last meeting agenda, the possibility of raising graduate program fees by up to 35 percent again drew a diverse debate from the regents. The increase could generate $28 million in revenue for UC.

Erik Green, External Vice President of the UCSC Graduate Student Association (GSA), voiced GSA’s strong disapproval of the proposed increase, adding that an additional strategy of only increasing fees in some graduate programs counters the fundamental tenets of UC education.

The topic was tabled without a date set to vote on the potential increase.

UC Assets

Nathan Brostrom, executive vice president of business operations for the UC encouraged the regents to participate in debt restructuring with the state.

Because the UC has a higher credit rating than the state of California, managing $2.5 billion of the state’s debt could accrue the UC $80 million in savings — as opposed to cuts.

Gov. Brown also advised the regents to calculate UC’s operating costs more thoroughly when generating revenue and debt strategies.

“You said [the budget crisis was compounded because] you had to pay your retirement costs,” Brown said. “That’s part of the cost of doing business … internal to the cost of education.”

“We’ve got to think big here,” Brown said. “We’re a research university. Lets do some research. Lets not get imprisoned by paradigms of the past that are now obsolete.”

Illustration by Caetano Santos

After enduring five years of steady cuts in state funding, the University of California system is at last receiving some good news.

Last Thursday, Gov. Jerry Brown released the state’s annual budget plan, which for the first time since 2007 did not project California running a deficit. Combined with the revenue raised by Proposition 30, Brown’s budget will provide $250 million in additional funding next year for the UCs.

The UC regents have cautiously estimated that there will be no need for a tuition hike between 2013–14. One member of the State Assembly characterized this fiscal largesse as an olive branch extended by the government to the UC system to repair a relationship marred for years by mutual enmity.

As far as peace offerings go, this is a step in the right direction. But Brown should not use this as leverage to micromanage UC affairs.

At the same press conference he announced the budget, Brown criticized the UC system for its rising tuition costs and increasing expenditures. Although his plan is still pending discussion with the UC regents, who have the final say in changes to the university system, one of Brown’s early proposals is to increase massive open online courses (MOOCs) at UC’s as part of a joint goal for reducing the cost of education while boosting graduation rates. His watchword for the UCs? “Deploy your teaching resources more effectively.”

City on a Hill Press favors affordable and accessible education for Californians, but Brown’s anemic plan is not the answer to this problem, and his attitude toward the UCs is disappointing. The UC system has lost $1 billion in state funding over the last five years, with tuitions rising by $7,000 during the same period. The money Brown did allocate for state universities fell tens of millions short of what the UCs requested. Although online courses are a possible solution to expanding access to impacted classes, MOOCs represent an experimental education model whose efficacy as a teaching tool remains to be seen.

Education has been struggling in California for decades, and the last few years have been especially horrendous for students. Brown knows this, it’s why he campaigned so hard for Proposition 30. It’s why he appeared last November in the Quarry Plaza, urging UCSC students to turn out and vote for their future. Thanks in a large part to his efforts, the price of higher education in California has temporarily stopped climbing.

But stopping the hikes is not enough. The only way to make high-quality education accessible to more Californians is to lower tuition. Citizens of the Golden State have already shown their willingness to lend a hand to students by passing Proposition 30. Even Republicans in the state legislature have expressed concern over the price of education, proposing legislation that would freeze tuition for up to seven years.

Howard Jarvis’ shadow is slowly lifting from California. For the first time in a long time, we have a chance to restore higher education in the state. We ask Gov. Brown to not snap his olive branch in half.

Illustration by Maren Slobody

The University of California Board of Regents recently approved two new chancellors for UC Berkeley and UC Riverside: Nicholas B. Dirks and Jane Close Conoley respectively.

The appointments were confirmed on Nov. 27 at the Office of the President’s Oakland headquarters. Dirks, the executive vice president and dean of the faculty for Arts and Sciences at Columbia University, was selected as Berkeley’s tenth chancellor by UC President Mark Yudof after a six-month search.

“Nicholas Dirks is a humanist with an invaluable mix of scholarship, fundraising experience and administrative expertise,” Yudof said. “I am confident he is the right leader at the right time for UC Berkeley.”

Dirks will succeed the current chancellor, Robert J. Birgeneau, on June 1, 2013. He does not, however, feel anxious or overwhelmed in transitioning from a private university to the University of California.

“I am deeply honored to have the opportunity to serve in a leadership capacity at a truly great institution of higher learning that is both a beacon of excellence and a powerful engine of opportunity,” Dirks said.

Although Dirks will not officially begin his service until next summer, Conoley, dean of UC Santa Barbara’s Gevirtz Graduate School of Education, will begin her appointment on Dec. 31, the day after Timothy White, UCR’s current chancellor, leaves to be the new chancellor for the California State University system.

Yudof is just as confident in the decision to appoint Conoley for Riverside as he was in the regents’ decision to appoint Dirks for Berkeley.

“Jane Conoley has long been a nationally recognized education expert, and she is a treasured member of the UC community,” Yudof said. “I am confident that the Riverside campus will keep moving forward on several fronts, especially student success.”

The regents approved an annual salary of $486,800 for Dirks and an annual salary of $245,600 for Conoley.

Ten percent of Dirks’ salary will come from private donors and 90 percent will be funded by the state and other sources. Dirks and Conoley, like the current UCB and UCR chancellors, will receive annually an auto allowance of $8,916 and will have a house on campus that will be paid for with non-state funds.

Conoley’s salary will also be funded by the state and by other private sources. Conoley’s new salary will be distributed immediately because she will spend most of December transitioning from Santa Barbara to Riverside in order to begin her appointment on Dec. 31.

There are significant differences between Dirk’s and Conoley’s recently approved salaries from the current salaries of chancellors Birgeneau and White.

Dirks will be paid $50,000 more in his annual salary than Birgeneau, who receives $436,800. Conoley will be paid $79,400 less than White, who receives $325,000.

Although the majority of the UC Board of Regents approved Dirks’ overall compensation, Gov. Jerry Brown, who also sits on the board, voted against Dirks’ allocated salary.

Brown emphasized the need for sacrifices to be made among the university’s administrative leaders in the current climate of budget cuts and increased student tuition.

“The $50,000 increase above the incumbent [chancellor] … does not fit within the spirit of servant leadership that I think will be required over the next several years,” said Brown during a telephone meeting with the regents, according to The Sacramento Bee’s “Capitol Alert” blog.

Brown added that as governor he would continue to be an advocate for “greater efficiency, greater elegance [and] modesty” within the UC.

Other government officials besides Brown are attempting to take a stand against such salaries like Dirks’.

According to the “Capitol Alert,” State Sen. Leland Yee, D-San Francisco, said that he plans to re-introduce a bill that would prohibit pay increases like Dirks’ at the UC specifically under a tight state budget and in a time of a sharp increase in student fees.

“UC and CSU are public institutions designed to serve California’s students and not to be a cash cow for wealthy executives,” said Yee in a statement. “I am committed to passing legislation to stop these egregious compensation practices and restore the public trust.”

Illustration by Christine Hipp.

The bottom line is this,” President Mark Yudof said. “UC — for the first time in my four years here — has a clear shot at attaining fiscal stability.”

The UC regents met on Nov. 14, opening the meeting with warm remarks on the passage of Proposition 30. The proposition prevented a total budget cut of $325 million in state funding to the UC — which could have triggered a possible 20 percent mid-year tuition hike.

During discussion over the 2013–14 budget, Lt. Gov. and ex officio regent Gavin Newsom pointed out that the new budget expects millions more in state funding than Prop 30 provides. If additional state funding fails to materialize, students could see five to 6 percent tuition increases starting next year.

Gov. Jerry Brown arrived shortly into the meeting. Recent reports of a substantially smaller state deficit did little to soften his hard-hitting agenda for the regents.

“The Lt. Gov. has let the cat out of the bag here,” Brown said. “When you look at this budget, the state would have to increase its funding by 12 percent to the university every year, and that’s just not likely to happen.”

Newsom, however, ended up being the only member of the Committee on Finance to vote against the 2013–14 budget.

The Issue of Out-of-State Enrollment

The hotly contested issue of out-of-state student enrollment also entered discussion. The topic opened with the fact that UC is expected to hit its 10 percent ceiling on non-resident enrollment by 2015.

“That’s a very tempting pot of money,” Brown said, referencing the potential revenue out-of-state tuition offers, igniting a chuckle from the board.

The UC’s current admissions policy prevents out-of-state enrollments from displacing qualified in-state applicants—of whom UC also seeks to increase by 1 percent, Provost Aimee Dorr said. Student Regent Jonathan Stein emphasized the disparity of non-resident enrollment percentages between the campuses, and said a system-wide increase would deepen the inequality. The cap on non-resident enrollment was not raised.

Protests

Protesters from across the state gathered in front of UCSF’s meeting hall on Wednesday, some camping out that night while others, including several UC Santa Cruz undergraduate and graduate students, bused in for an early start Thursday morning.

Due to a large queue of speakers lined up on Thurs., Nov. 15,  public comment was extended by 30 minutes. Many speakers went over time, including students, union members, UC employees, a San Francisco Community College student, a parent, and a UC Davis nurse. Several insisted that the regents roll tuition back to 2009 levels. Their cries went

After a scattering of vocal interruptions during the meeting, approximately 10 protesters stood up and proceeded to do a “mic check” in the fashion of the Occupy protest movement, and called out Executive Vice President Peter Taylor for dismissing a financial advisory report submitted by UC Berkeley graduate students.

After failed attempts to call the protesters into order, Chair Sherry Lansing dismissed the meeting to recess and police gave the protesters a five-minute warning to clear the auditorium or risk arrest. Student regent Stein and Regent-designate Cinthia Flores stayed behind to watch as the protesters walked out with linked arms.

UCSC students lead approximately 80 protesters down the street to block an intersection chanting “Hey hey! Ho ho! UC Regents have to go!”. The 20-foot-long Banana Slug tarp puppet struck a vivid jolt in the crowd as passing cars honked in support.

The next open session regents meeting is set for Jan. 15-17 at the UC San Francisco Mission Bay campus, where the regents plan to broach the postponed discussion over increasing fees in over 60 graduate programs.

The temporary tax will generate an estimated additional $6 billion annually for education in the state, with 89 percent of the revenue going to K-12 schools and 11 percent to community colleges.

Although none of the revenue will go to the University of California system directly, the passage of Prop 30 will suspend automatic trigger cuts that would have slashed $250 million from the UC budget, and will allow for an additional $125 million in potential funding.

At the last UC Regents meeting in September, UC administrators warned if Prop 30 was not passed by voters, the UCs would be faced with a 20.3 percent tuition increase if no other revenue could be found to mitigate the trigger cuts.

In a press release UC Regents chair Sherry Lansing praised students and faculty for their role in raising awareness of the proposition.

“I am deeply grateful to all who advocated for Proposition 30, especially the students who worked so incredibly hard to get out the vote, and the many faculty members and alumni who argued so eloquently for its passage,” Lansing said.

The next regents’ meetings is scheduled for Nov. 13–15, next week, where they will discuss UC budget and tuition. Although Prop 30 will prevent triggering the large tuition hike, it is still unknown if UC students will see smaller tuition increases in the 2012–13 year.

Illustration by Louise Leong

The Sacramento Bee and the Los Angeles Times are suing the University of California Board of Regents for the names of all police officers involved in the November pepper spray incident at UC Davis. City on a Hill Press fully supports the publications’ joint effort, especially given the general lack of transparency endemic in the UC system.

For a week or so leading up to Thanksgiving last year, all eyes were on UC Davis, perhaps for the first time. The campus previously considered a sleepy, docile cousin to UCs Santa Cruz and Berkeley had been rocked by a scandal involving the brutal pepper-spraying of several seemingly peaceful protesters.

The Bee and the Times, along with scores of other news outlets, were quick to report the names of then-UCD police chief Annette Spicuzza, as well as Lt. John Pike, the only pepper-spraying officer caught on tape.

But any hopes the newspapers had of running the names of all officers involved in the decision and action of pepper-spraying were dashed when the Federated University Police Officers Association, the union representing campus police officers, won a lawsuit that effectively redacted the names of all officers but Spicuzza and Pike in the task force study of the incident, released in April.

The regents stuck to this redaction, ignoring the publications’ requests through the California Public Records Act for all the names.

The UC failing to provide public records — sound familiar? It should, given that just last year, non-profit organization Californians Aware gave the UC system an average score of 46 out of 100 in its compliance with public records requests — an “  F.”  If releasing public records was a class, the university wouldn’t pass.

On this issue, City on a Hill can very much relate to its more senior newspapers. In October of 2009, former City on a Hill reporter Dana Burd requested public records from UCSC pertaining to the budget, and was met with much bureaucratic stalling.

“[The administration] didn’t treat it as a responsibility they had, but a hardship,” Burd said.

Burd didn’t receive all the information she requested until 2011, after persisting with several follow-up emails.

Burd’s request was to UCSC specifically, while the Bee and Times are suing the central Board of Regents. Regardless, it’s heartening to see newspapers that have the resources to do so demand action.

“ [T]he idea that government agents can anonymously plan and execute operations using chemical weapons against protesters in the public square is antithetical to the most fundamental notions of democracy, which depend upon public scrutiny of official conduct,”  reads the suit, filed May 23 in the Sacramento Superior Court. “  The regents’ withholding of the names of the officers also contradicts California law, which requires officers to wear name tags on their uniforms.”

We look forward to covering the results of this lawsuit, and will remain in strong support of any entity that challenges the UC to lawfully comply with all public records requests. After all, the word “public”  is right in the name — clearly, we all have a right to know.

Illustration by Christine Hipp

Our system of higher education has asked much of students lately, mostly in the form of frequent fee hikes and budget cuts. Many have come out against these hikes and cuts through participation in protests across the state, in which riot batons, pepper spray and multiple arrests have fallen on them.

It becomes questionable, then, when University of California president Mark Yudof requests help in lobbying money for the UC. In an email sent May 9, Yudof requested help from “UC Santa Cruz friend[s]” to push Gov. Jerry Brown to include additional funding to the UC in his coming tax plan up for vote in November. Brown’s plan, released Monday, shows that he is facing a near $16 billion gap in the California state budget to fix.

“We need to send a strong message to the state’s political leaders to spare UC from cuts in the 2012–13 budget and to recommit to making higher education a state priority,” Yudof said.

Asking students for help can be difficult when those asking have cut students’ resources and raising fees so often. In fall 2009, the UC Board of Regents approved a 32 percent increase in fees. A subsequent 8 percent hike passed that November. Another 9.6 percent fee increase passed July 14, 2011. Now, the board is considering an additional 6 percent increase this coming fall, if Brown does not increase funding by $125 million.

The regents have suggested the budget crisis was caused by lessened state support for the UC. While lessening support undoubtedly plays a major role in our budgetary deficit, leaders of the UC have continued plunging forward with larger construction projects and larger still administrator salaries. This is why the regents must continue looking for alternative solutions to our budgetary crisis. Raising student fees, cutting worker’s benefits and admitting more students alone cannot solve our budget crisis.

The regents should take into serious consideration the Fix UC plan, a student investment proposal developed by the editorial board of UC Riverside’s newspaper, The Highlander. Fix UC proposes that students pay fees through a percentage of their yearly income after graduation instead of a yearly tuition-based system.

If the budget crisis is dire enough that regents must ask for assistance, we are left to wonder why administrators are not cutting their own salaries. According to an article in the daily web magazine Slate, UC Davis Chancellor Linda Katehi makes $400,000, as base salary.

In November of last year, 10 university administrators and lawyers saw salaries raised by as much as 21.9 percent, according to an article by The Bay Citizen. The UC president himself brings in a salary of $540,000 a year — a good deal more than President Obama earns from his seat in the Oval Office.

While asking students to get involved in their own university’s issues is great, the regents must find solutions other than state support. They also cannot continue raising tuition, a detriment not only to students of low-income families but to the UC Master Plan, which by design allows students of all backgrounds access to higher education.

Illustration by Amanda Alten.

The Regents of the University of California control a large amount of money. Along with this control comes the control of allocation of students’ tuition payments to endowments held by the Regents. These endowments are then invested in high grossing companies as an effort to yield the largest possible return on UC funds.

According to a statement made by the California Student Sustainability Coalition (CSSC) on April 4, the UC Regents released data showing investment holdings of $234 million in the 15 largest coal mining and burning corporations in the United States.

The CSSC is now calling for the Regents to reinvest funds directed towards coal corporations into renewable energy resources in addition to implementation of a more “democratic” process that would include student participation in deciding where the UC invests its money.

“It turns out that the UC’s investment in coal is sort of a complicated situation,” said Kitty Bolte, Outreach Coordinator for CSSC’s EndCoal Campaign. “The UC system controls a ton of money, and they’ve sourced the investment of that money out to third party investors. Those companies have, in turn, put the money into these things called indexes, which, for example, might invest the money in the top 3000 highest grossing companies in the U.S.”

The CSSC commissioned graduate student Sarah Siedschlag of the Bren School of Environmental Science and Management at UC Santa Barbara to write a report on the UC’s investments in the coal industry. According to the report, the UC invests heavily in the Russell 3000 index, which consists of a pooled fund that contains holdings in the top 3000 US companies by size. By investing in this index, the UC system owns shares in every major coal company in the US.

“Historically, endowments in the UC and elsewhere have had one mission: to create a consistently growing base of funds through which the school could then fulfill its mission of educating and providing services to the academic community,” said Andrew Chang, UC Santa Barbara alumnus and Campaign Director of CSSC’s EndCoal Campaign. “In more recent times, people have realized the impacts of their investments and have moved to include social responsibility to investment practices as well as financial responsibility.”

The CSSC is calling on all UC campuses to practice – not just educate students on a system-wide commitment towards environmental responsibility. By encouraging students to advocate for more disclosure of investment holdings and practices by the Regents, the CSSC is hoping to establish a student voice in investment practices. They hope to do this through forming investment committees and calling for socially responsible investment strategies that would serve as both policy and practice.

Marie Berggren, Chief Investment Officer and Acting Treasurer of the Regents, said that the Regents have no plans to divest from coal-related securities at this time.

“The Regents have a fiduciary responsibility to protect the security of the University’s pension and endowment fund and they have consistently maintained a position of primarily using economic factors in evaluating the University’s portfolio and its investments,” Berggren said. “Their primary investment goal is to maximize the risk-adjusted total investment returns on the portfolios to benefit the current and future constituencies of the retirement and endowment pools.”

Although Berggren and the Regents currently have no intentions of seeking an alternative to the UC’s coal investments, records show that the Regents have divested from other securities that carry political and ethical weight as a result of public pressure in the past.

“The UC has divested from tobacco and Sudan in recent years and students would like to see the UC divest from coal and proactively invest in renewable energy,” Chang said. “Socially responsible investment strategies, including divestment, are very powerful tools toward social change, with the ability to alter perception of and ultimately dismantle dangerous, corrupt institutions – including the coal industry.”

According to the World Coal Association, the United States is second to China in world production and consumption of coal. Additionally, Siedschlag’s report said that coal is used for roughly half of all electricity generated in the United States and accounts for 81 percent of the electricity sector’s carbon dioxide emissions.

Both Chang and the CSSC report said that the coal industry, aside from its environmental pitfalls, will fail to sustain itself as a long-term, profitable investment.

“Coal is a risky investment not only environmentally, but financially,” Chang said. “The EPA’s new pollution-cutting measures will create significant and unpredictable costs for coal-reliant industries. The cost of coal itself is volatile and on the whole rising, and increasing construction costs for power plants are driving the replacement of coal fired plants with alternative energy sources.”

Chang said that while he recognizes the fact that the UC has a responsibility towards maintaining its financial security for its employees, students and public education system as a whole, the UC also has an obligation to invest in a better future for its students.

“The UC needs to continue its leadership and invest in the clean, renewable energy our country needs,” Chang said. “The UC is investing in our generation by creating the leaders of tomorrow.”

Illustration by Jamie Morton

In this issue’s column, I really wanted to try and write a piece critical of UC student activism— and then the regents went and did something stupid again.

It’s gotten to the point where you can set your calendars by campus protests — there are always a big showings in September, November and March. Recent campus graffiti (the “FUCK TUITION” on the side of McHenry Library and “OCCUPY MY SCHOOL” on the side of the freshly painted Digital Arts Research Center (DARC) seems to be regressing the movement almost to a state of self-parody. Spray paint against a wall, see what sticks.

Activism on campus never felt more like a well-executed play without a climax than during the Hahn Student Services occupation in November. Early in the day, students listened to the teleconferenced regents’ meeting on a laptop. Applause broke out periodically during the public comment portion, but as soon as the regents started speaking, someone snapped the laptop shut — a gesture full of great theatricality, but a disappointment to anyone hoping to learn something about the UC’s future.

How surely history repeats itself. In her 1979 book “The White Album,” essayist Joan Didion writes about her impressions of student activism at San Francisco State University in the 1960s:

“As I walked across the campus that day and on later days the entire San Francisco State dilemma — the gradual politicization, the ‘issues’ here and there, the obligatory ‘Fifteen Demands,’ the continual arousal of the police and the outraged citizenry — seemed increasingly off-key, an instance of the enfants terribles and the Board of Trustees unconsciously collaborating on a wishful fantasy (Revolution on Campus) and playing it out for the six o’clock news.”

That “unconscious collaboration” Didion writes of has been palpable in the UC system for quite a while now. The regents have scheduled and canceled and rescheduled meetings and visits, playing the part of tone-deaf
bureaucrats. Students responded in kind. As appalling as the now-infamous footage of a campus police officer pepper-spraying UC Davis students last year is, it ultimately proved to be a favor to the student activist movement, fueling its fire and lending it many new supporters, at least temporarily. At the end of the day, none of this amounted to much. Until now.

In a cringe-worthy twist, the regents are organizing their own rally. The May regents’ meeting will be held in Sacramento, with one full day dedicated to rallying at the Capitol in an attempt to pressure the California government into giving the UC more money. Never mind that the growth in tuition does not at all mirror the decline in public funding, nor that there are over 3,000 people in the UC system who make over $200,000, nor that the UC chooses to keep spending money on construction projects over education — UC president Yudof and his cohorts are mad as hell, and apparently they’re not going to take it anymore.

The UC student regents are already trying to involve students in this rally, and it will be interesting, to say the least, to see who shows up. What’s even more interesting at this point is the farcical nature the UC’s decline has taken on. The May rally is a brilliant piece of political theater — deflect, deflect, deflect — but it also symbolizes a sort of throwing in the towel on the regents’ part. Anything they do is going to infuriate the student body at this point, so why not go out on a limb and try to redirect our wrath?

Which brings us back to “FUCK TUITION.” As much as I want to reprimand our more activism-inclined peers for their sloppiness, I cannot in good faith write a piece putting them in the same category as the regents.The UC student movement is flawed and often too predictable, but they have something the regents do not — the best interest of the students at heart. I hope there’s a huge turnout out in Sacramento in May, and that they’re all carrying signs that say “FUCK THE REGENTS.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Photo by Hilli Ciavarello.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Photo courtesy of the University of California Board of Regents.

Leslie Schilling was appointed in 2005 by Gov. Schwarzenegger and will serve as a Regent until March of 2013. She is Founder and Director of Union Square Investments Company, a commercial real estate investment and management firm. Ms. Schilling is also a Commissioner of the Asian Art Museum, and is co-founder of Toys for the Tenderloin. She received her bachelor’s degree in economics and political science from UC Berkeley and her master’s degree in international management from the American Graduate School of International Management.

About this Series

The University of California Regents will be meeting Nov. 15-17 in San Francisco. This week and next week we are running profiles on the UC’s top decision makers. Read more…

Photo by Prescott Watson.

The UC Regents appointed Yudof as the 19th UC president in March 2008. Prior to working at the UC, he served as dean of the law school at the University of Texas at Austin, chancellor of the University of Texas System, and as president of the University of Minnesota. According to The Minnesota Daily, University of Minnesota’s newspaper, within the first two years of Yudof’s stint, UM’s tuition increased as much as 16 percent in one year.

At the September meeting, regents ignored a proposal from Yudof that would have mandated annual tuition increases of 8 to 16 percent for the next four years. The plan was intended to tackle the $1.5 billion UC budget gap.

The UC provides the president with housing, an allowance for an automobile and a salary of $591,084, according to the UC Newsroom. In 2010, The New York Times and The Bay Citizen ran articles on his housing expenses, which were paid by the UC, eliciting criticism due to the UC budget cuts.

About this Series

The University of California Regents will be meeting Nov. 15-17 in San Francisco. This week and next week we are running profiles on the UC’s top decision makers. Read more…

Photo courtesy of the University of California Board of Regents.

Monica Lozano was appointed to the Board of Regents by Gov. Gray Davis in 2001. Lozano holds memberships to the compensation, finance and governance committees. She is the chairperson of the finance committee, the same committee that approved “Report F” (Commission on the Future Dec. 1, 2010) that increased student fees by 32 percent over two school terms. Lozano chairs the Walt Disney board of supervisors. She has been a director of Bank of America Corporation since 2005, as well as a director of the Weingart Foundation. In March of 2013 Lozano’s 12-year term will end.

About this Series

The University of California Regents will be meeting Nov. 15-17 in San Francisco. This week and next week we are running profiles on the UC’s top decision makers. Read more…

Photo courtesy of the University of California Board of Regents.

Richard Blum is an investment banker and the husband of U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein. Appointed in March of 2002, Mr. Blum will serve as a UC regent until March of 2014. Graduating from UC Berkeley, Mr. Blum has earned a B.A. in Business Administration and an MBA, with both degrees coming from the Haas School of Business. Mr. Blum is also the Chairman and President of Blum Capital, an equity investment management firm. He is also the founder and Chairman of the American Himalayan Foundation.

About this Series

The University of California Regents will be meeting Nov. 15-17 in San Francisco. This week and next week we are running profiles on the UC’s top decision makers. Read more…

Photo courtesy of the University of California Board of Regents.

Appointed in 2005 by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Eddie Island is a retired attorney and executive who will serve until 2012. Island was the presiding vice president for McDonnell-Douglas Corporation, leading law, intellectual property and governmental affairs departments throughout his tenure. Previously Island worked with Pacific Enterprises Corporation, and was a member and treasurer of the California Science Center Board. He earned a juris doctorate degree from Harvard Law School. Island now holds office in the UC regents’ educational policy, finance, governance and health services committees. He voted against the 9.6 percent fee increase (voted 14-4) approved by the Board of Regents in July.

About this Series

The University of California Regents will be meeting Nov. 15-17 in San Francisco. This week and next week we are running profiles on the UC’s top decision makers. Read more…

Photo courtesy of the University of California Board of Regents.

First appointed by Gov. Davis in 1999, Lansing replaced former Chairman Russel Gould in June. Lansing is widely recognized for her lasting stronghold in the film industry, including Presidency at Paramount Pictures. Her career recently broadened to include professional philanthropy (such as her own charity, The Sherry Lansing Foundation) and corporate involvement.  Lansing is director for RealID, Inc., Dole Foods, Inc., and Qualcomm, Inc. Investigative reporter Peter Byrne singled out that “Documents released by the UC Treasurer show that, after Ms. Lansing joined the Qualcomm board, UC quadrupled its investment in Qualcomm to $397 million.” Lansing said she did not instruct the Investment Committee to buy such stock.

About this Series

The University of California Regents will be meeting Nov. 15-17 in San Francisco. This week and next week we are running profiles on the UC’s top decision makers. Read more…

Photo courtesy of the University of California Board of Regents.

Hadi Makarechian was appointed in October of 2008 by Gov. Schwarzenegger, and will serve until March of 2020. Mr. Makarechian is Chairman of Makar Properties Board of Directors and Banning Lewis Ranch Management Company. He received his B.S. In Civil Engineering and his B.A. in Economics from the State University of New York. In 2008, Mr. Makarechian retired as chief executive holder and chairman of the board of directors of Capital Holdings Inc., a company he founded in 1991.

About this Series

The University of California Regents will be meeting Nov. 15-17 in San Francisco. This week and next week we are running profiles on the UC’s top decision makers. Read more…

Illustration by Louise Leong

When it comes to the UC system’s budgetary crisis, any news is typically bad news. Consider the $620.8 million fee hikes imposed on students in 2009 and 2010, the $28 million one-time cuts dealt to UC Santa Cruz staff and faculty, and the rapid extinction of “non-standard” programs such as UCSC’s American studies major.

The UC regents have come to view the budgetary crisis as gangrenous, hacking away at the UC system until either it dies or the crisis ends, whichever comes first.

But our financial woes as UC students are closely tied to, if not exacerbated by, the state’s ongoing budget crisis. Yet the give-and-take relationship between the UC and the state bears more resemblance to Adrian Lyne’s “Fatal Attraction” than Rob Reiner’s “When Harry Met Sally.”

In a plan to close the state’s budget deficit, the $305 million that former Gov. Schwarzenegger restored to the UC system in 2010 was trumped by the $500 million cut made by Gov. Jerry Brown. Brown’s self-described “tough budget for tough times” additionally included a $400 million slash from the California Community Colleges system and $500 million from the California State University system, all part of $8.2 billion worth of cuts made in total.

And that’s only half of the bill the state owes.

Brown’s plan to close the budget gap also included extending taxes that were set to expire in June. The extensions, which included a 0.25 percent increase on personal income tax rates, a 1 percent boost in the retail-sales levy, and a reduction in the state’s annual child tax credit from $309 to $99, would have helped close the state’s budget deficit by roughly $12 billion.

Barring the approval of the tax extensions, the burden to make up the $12 billion would rest on a second swing of the axe — further cuts to health, education, and other public services. For the UC system, this could potentially make our $500 million cut into a hefty $1 billion.

In the last meeting of the UC regents, UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert Birgeneau stressed that further cuts to the UC budget would all but capsize the higher education system.

“We have no model to accommodate that $1 billion,” Birgeneau said. “It would devastate our staff and faculty.”

UCSC Chancellor George Blumenthal supported Birgeneau’s sentiments.

“There is no way we cannot cut academic enterprises at this point,” Blumenthal said. “The amount of our campus’s cut is equal to the funding of our largest department.”

Throwing their support behind allowing voters to vote on the tax extensions are over 250 local school boards, the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, and the Bay Area Council, which represents many of the biggest and well-known businesses in northern California.

Barring the ballot initiative, however, are four votes from Republicans — two in the House, two in the Senate — in the state legislature. Republicans presented the governor with a list of 53 demands, which included additional budgetary cuts, the elimination of redevelopment agencies, and limiting legal damages that can be sought in environmental lawsuits filed against businesses, among other things.

With the Republicans unwilling to budge on their list of demands, the hammer dropped. Negotiations to put the tax extensions on the ballot have crumbled and with it, my faith in the California state legislature. The legislature has chosen not to let its citizenry decide whether our colleges are worth keeping.

In his Tuesday announcement, Brown said he was committed to “coming up with honest and real solutions to our budget crisis.” But what’s left are legally questionable maneuvers to force the extensions on the ballot or an all-cut budget with virtually no chance of passing the legislature.

In retrospect, I’m reminded of the character Corey Giles from “The Crucible,” having stone upon stone piled atop his chest in a peine forte et dure (hard and forceful punishment). Unable to move, unable to breathe, Giles had no choice but to staunchly bear the pain from being increasingly crushed. In a morbidly appropriate context, his last words — perhaps ours as well — before his chest caved in were grim.

“More weight.”