reclaim UC: Students

Showing posts with label Students. Show all posts

Monday, September 19, 2011

Senior Administrators Now Officially Outnumber Faculty at the UC

It's official -- the administration continues to grow as faculty and workers continue to shrink. In this context, it's worth noting once again that administrators are the only ones getting substantial raises these days (the Daily Cal has the enemies list). We have to remember that austerity doesn't only mean cutbacks and layoffs -- it also corresponds to hirings and bonuses.

Here's the full report from Keep California's Promise:

In November of 2009, KeepCaliforniasPromise.org posted a report by Richard Evans titled “Soon every faculty member will have a personal senior manager” which pointed out that the number of managers at UC was growing far faster than the ranks of the faculty and that, if the trend continued, it would not be long before there were more senior managers than ladder rank faculty. Richard just sent me an e-mail pointing out that data through April of 2011 was out.

I wondered if the data would show how the “Working Smarter Initiative” and much talked about cuts of $80 million to the UC Office of the President, had combined with promises to first and foremost “preserve excellence in instruction, research and public service… which it cannot do without continuing to attract and retain top-flight faculty” (see, http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/article/25580) to reverse that trend.

Well, it turns out faculty ranks have declined by 2.3 percent since the 2009 post, at a time when student enrollment increased by 3.6 percent. (I would hope the UC administration wouldn’t try to spin a continuing erosion of a major measure of academic quality such as the student faculty ratio as increased efficiency.)

But we all know the budget cuts have been tough. Even an administration striving to preserve the education and research missions of the University by directing as many of the cuts as possible at administrative overhead might have to make painful cuts to the employees responsible for education and research in such an environment. The cuts to senior administrators must be even steeper, right? At least as steep?

Somehow the ranks of managers have continued to grow right through this difficult period – up 4.2% between April, 2009 and April, 2011. In fact, the dismal prediction of our 2009 post has now come to pass: UC now has more senior managers (8,822 FTE) than ladder rank faculty (8,669 FTE).

Thursday, September 15, 2011

What the Public Education Coalition Stands For

This summer, following the July Regents Meeting — at which student fees were raised by another 9.6 percent — a group of students, workers, and faculty began meeting to renew our shared fight for public education and against the evisceration of the UCs. Since then, we’ve held large social gatherings and open meetings to begin building an effective, coordinated pushback against fee increases and worker layoffs. These attacks against students and workers are only intensifying: this past week, we learned that the UC Regents are considering a plan that could result in an 81% fee increase over the next four years. They will be voting on this plan in mid-November. In collaboration with our allies in the labor movement, we are building for mass student walkouts on November 9 and 10, which we hope will make it more difficult for the UC Regents and state politicians to carry forward their agenda to privatize California’s public universities, and to slash spending on health and social welfare programs. In order to begin building for the November actions, we’re organizing a public forum on state austerity and the budget cuts this Tuesday, September 20th (6-8pm, Wheeler 315). We’ve also called and are organizing for a Day of Action this coming Thursday, September 22nd, which will begin with a noon rally on Sproul Plaza. We have collectively prepared the following statement in advance of next Thursday’s Day of Action, and hope that all students, workers and instructors on campus will join us in fighting for public education and against the destruction of the public sphere in California.

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We are a broad coalition of UC Berkeley students, workers, instructors, and community members who are committed to fighting for universal, free, and accessible education.

As members of the campus community, we see university administrators and state politicians abandoning and blocking the realization of this goal. We are facing crushing levels of student debt from massive and increasing student fees, the intensifying exclusion of students of color and working class students, worker layoffs, departmental cuts that have damaged the quality of our education, and futures constrained by devastated job markets. Meanwhile, corporations and the wealthiest – including many UC Regents – continue to rake in increasing bonuses and profits, partly by speculating on our indebtedness. This destructive prioritization of corporate interests is apparent at all levels of society: in our country, state, educational system, and on our campuses.

We say ENOUGH IS ENOUGH! We live in the richest society in the history of the world, yet we always hear that there are no resources for accessible public education and decent public services. We as a society generate immense wealth. Trillions of dollars are currently directed towards warfare, incarceration, and the enrichment of an already wealthy few. It is through collective actions that we must reclaim and redirect this wealth for the public good and the needs of the people. We support making corporations and the wealthy pay for free public education, health care, and social services.

Popular movements against austerity and oppression all across the world have occupied public squares and established popular assemblies where ideas can be exchanged and proposals debated. From Spain to Chile, these movements have revealed how education and consciousness raising are far more effective when combined with a strategy of impacted communities mobilizing on the ground and in the streets.

As members of the UC community, we demand a complete reversal of recent fee increases; a revision of current admissions policies to lift barriers faced by underrepresented students of color and working class students; the re-hiring of workers fired as a result of the budget cuts; a full investigation of the Regents’ conflicts of interest, especially their investments in banks and for-profit schools; an end to UC administrative and police surveillance, violence, and intervention in political and academic activities; equal and full access to the university for undocumented students and workers; and the democratic control of the university by students, faculty, and staff. In order to pursue these ends, we are committed to uniting with people and movements in all sectors of society, who share our commitment to the empowerment of workers, students, and the unemployed to create an equitable and compassionate society.

Originally posted here.