At CSU San Bernardino we had over 1000 faculty, staff, and students gather in a standing room only meeting to discuss the budget cuts for the CSU that are on the table. The CFA campus president (who has been very active in CFA for 25 years or so) said that he'd never seen the CFA and CSU work together on something as they are working now. (You'll recall that faculty nearly struck a year ago over egregiously poor salaries and other problems.)
They've set up a website to help stand up for the CSU:
I encourage all of you to speak up for the CSU and to encourage others to do the same.
It won't be easy. Just yesterday I received a newsletter from my Senator (Margett) which read like an internal memo to GOP loyalists written by Grover Norquist. Really strong stuff; I was pretty shocked that it was coming out in a general newsletter. I'm getting similar stuff from my Assemblyman.
But we have to win this fight. I grew up in Illinois in a family that wasn't rich. When I was a child, I wished I lived in California. It had such amazing public high schools, and after that, I would have a chance to go to some of the greatest public universities virtually free of cost. It was an educational beacon on a hill to people outside the state. No longer. We can't let it get any worse.
A couple of weeks ago, I stumbled across a brilliant metaphor for how the debate over problems often totally misses the root of a given problem itself: "How Best to Fill a Sieve With Water":
There are many arguments over which is the correct course of action which I liken to debating how best to fill a sieve with water. By this I mean that they ignore the fact that their premise is wrong.
Obviously the first thing an impartial observer would say when the two camps are debating whether to use a spoon or a cup would be to point out that one can't fill a sieve without first plugging the holes. This seems to be my current role, pointing out assumptions which are either wrong or taken as being obvious without any examination.
University of California President Robert Dynes, who was pressured earlier this year to step down by next June, is expected to get an over-scale faculty salary of $245,000 for research and teaching at UC San Diego.
[...]
Dynes had been at the center of controversy after The Chronicle disclosed that millions of dollars in extra compensation and questionable perks had been handed to some top executives without telling the public or regents. The Chronicle's findings, reported in 2005 and 2006, were followed by three state and university audits that showed how UC administrators sometimes flouted, circumvented and violated university policies governing pay and perks.
In 1960, the Master Plan for Higher Education in California was adopted, with Democratic Governor Pat Brown having played the key role in brokering the deals that produced the remarkable document. Among its core principles were access - from the guarantees of UC or CSU acceptance for students in the top levels of their high school classes, to community college transfers - as well as affordability with an outright ban on tuition and the expectation that "student fees" would be limited, and used for things such as student activities and dorms. The state would provide the support for instruction.
But ever since Reagan took office in 1967, these promises have been under attack. In a political or especially an economic crisis, state politicians have repeatedly undermined the Master Plan, limiting access by reducing affordability. After a truce in the 1990s, the budget crisis of the 2000s saw another sustained attack on higher ed and the first acknowledged abrogations of the Master Plan's promises. Today, a UC or CSU education is no longer affordable, and reduced state support not only limits access, but is impoverishing those who work in its ranks.
All this is the subject of a fantastic LA Times article this morning titled "Less to Bank on at State Universities: Educators fear a 2004 funding deal has schools sliding toward mediocrity." But the article is about more than just the problems of reduced funding. Instead it outlines how this is a deliberate policy of the Schwarzenegger administration, an effort to privatize California colleges and put them out of the reach of those who have been promised access to them.
The story does not end there. An unstated, but equally important aspect of the piece also shows how this crisis is also the product of a stunning failure of public officials to protect the institutions and historic policies they have been charged with defending. Whether it is the UC Regents, the State Legislature, or the Democratic Party, these officials have done little to nothing to protect one of the most important projects in California history.
Well, we haven't quite reached that milestone yet, but it is only a matter of time. A very short time.
As the costs for fixing the state's troubled corrections system rocket higher, California is headed for a dubious milestone -- for the first time the state will spend more on incarcerating inmates than on educating students in its public universities. Based on current spending trends, California's prison budget will overtake spending on the state's universities in five years. No other big state in the country spends close to as much on its prisons compared with universities.
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"California is just off the charts compared with other states in corrections spending," said Michael Jacobson, director of the Vera Institute of Justice in New York, a leading research organization. (SF Chron 5/22/07)
During the Arnold Administration, prison spending has leaped from just under $6B to an expected $10B in the 2007-2008 Budget. That kind of growth would make even a CEO of an Indian software firm jealous.
There are many, many reasons that our prison expenses are so out of line, even when compared to other states. But one reason surely must be ToughOnCrimeTM:
"I'll tell you what, it's clearly not a statement of our priorities," said Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez, D-Los Angeles. "Our policies are hurting the economy of California. This is a disservice to our economy."
Núñez blamed the prison spending on a get-tough-on-crime mentality among politicians that equates more prison spending with safer streets, when that is hardly the case.
First, congratulations to the Speaker for saying this. This should be shouted from rooftops: ToughOnCrimeTM is ruining our prison system, and apparently our budget as well. ToughOnCrimeTM fails us when we try to rehabilitate prisoners, ToughOnCrimeTM fails us on race issues, ToughOnCrimeTM fails us on efficient use of resources. Todd Spitzer, the outspoken OC Assemblyman, can crow all he wants about how Tough he is, but where has the success been for ToughOnCrimeTM?
A labor showdown between the California State University system and its faculty union was averted Tuesday with a tentative accord on a new contract that provides a guaranteed pay hike of 20.7 percent over four years for professors, lecturers, coaches and librarians.
"We expect our members to ratify this. We think it's a good deal," [union president John] Travis said. "We pretty much got everything that we asked for."
What I like even more about this is that part-time and adjunct faculty are included in the wage increase, although the article says the rate of increase for those instructors - currently more than half of the overall CSU faculty - is undetermined.
Sen. Leland Yee (D-SF) introduced SB 190 a while back. It brings a sense of transparency to the Executive Salary system. And a whole lot of sunshine. I'm not actually sure that I'm really that appalled by UC Executive Pay, but some sunshine would sure be welcome.
Over the flip, you can read the press release about the "faculty and students uniting to support SB190". You know, I really love press releases. I mean, the language is always so grand. You just feel like the campuses are demanding this action. How much you want to bet that next time I go to Berkeley, that I could go around asking on campus all day about it, and nobody would have heard of this bill. Maybe a few will have heard of the executive pay "scandal", but I bet most of those are concentrated in the polisci department and the student government. But sure, I'll go with it: they united to support SB 190.
As the California Aggie reported today, State Senator Leland Yee (D-San Francisco) has just introduced a bill, SB 190, that would mandate that the CSU board of trustees and UC board of regents hold public, transparent deliberations on executive compensation. Given the repeated ethical violations and soaring payraises and benefits that the regents and trustees have voted for themselves over the past several years (and that to have the gall to make everyone else fill out ethics questionaires?), given the stagnant wages paid to professors, TAs, clerical and service workers by the same regents and trustees, and given the ever-skyrocketing tuition hikes at both the CSU and UC systems (not to mention the community coleges), I think this is a reform long overdue.
Public universities shoud not just be plum patronage positions for an unaccountable ruling class of free-floating executives, who vote each other raises with public monies. They are intended for the public good, to produce research for the people of the state of California, and to educate the youth of California. The state government and the university regents and trustees have reneged on this intent, and can no longer be trusted to conduct public affairs in private, free of all oversight and beyond reproach.
Thank you Senator Yee. It is time to remind the regents and trustees exactly who they work for, and for whose benefit the public university system is intended to work for.
Faculty for Cal State schools throughout California will begin voting today to determine whether to walk off the job over grievances regarding pay, class size, and health care. If approved by a simple majority, faculty would begin a series of rolling two-day walkouts statewide. The voting process will last into next week with the results announced soon afterwards.
(Oops! Sorry that I didn't notice this earlier. But anyways, best of luck to the UCD food workers! : ) - promoted by atdleft)
As the Aggie reported today, The Associated Students of UC Davis voted 10 to 1 (one abstention due to absence) in favor of supporting the workers of Sodexho in their efforts to become University employees and have the right to unionize. Currently, UCD contracts out food service at the Silo and elsewhere to Sodexho, a private company with a terrible labor record which has fought employee attempts to unionize and to get better wages and benefits all across the country. UC Davis is currently the only University of California still subcontracting out food service to a private company, now that UC Irvine food service workers got recognition as university workers last year.
What is heartening about ASUCD's vote is that the traditional tactic of trying to play students and workers off against one another - often playing upon class identity - doesn't seem to be working. Of course, many Sodexho workers are students, which could be one reason for the solidarity. Still, it is great to see, since we all do better, as workers and as citizens, when we stand together and stand up for one another's rights to a decent wage and to organize.
For those interested in supporting the food service workers, there will be a rally on March 1st, this coming Thursday, meeting at 11 AM at the MU, marching to Mrak Hall, and then rallying in front of Mrak Hall at around 11:45 AM. See you there.
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In related labor news, CSU faculty move closer to a strike over the issue of CSU salaries, which lag some 18% below the national average. Given the repeated bonuses and raises given to the regents and administrators, it really is unconscionable for the pay disparity to be so great.
So, I'm doing this one from the Phoenix airport, where I'm delayed due to the fact that U.S. Airways/AmericaWest/whatever they want to call themselves today really sucks. But on the bright side, they have free WiFi here. Also, we had a little down time this afternoon. Sorry about that.
This is a pretty long roundup, so let's get straight to the teasers: Presidential primary chatter, Health care...um, we need it., George Runner is a tool (but we already knew that), Two speakers who kick ass: Nancy, and Fabian the blogger, Doolittle's a changed man...kinda...sorta...well, not so much, Is Chuck DeVore on a witch terrorist hunt?, Maxine Waters wants us out of Iraq, Spocko's on the rise, CalPERS is investing in urban sprawl, Frank Luntz is a liar, and Irvine has a budget surplus!
nathan ballard at earned media alerts us to the flunk arnold campaign, in which cal state u. students are encouraged to make a video explaining why the gropinator should get a failing grade for his job leading california. the asspress tells us:
the california faculty association, a union that represents about 22,000 professors and other csu employees, launched a "flunk arnold" contest on wednesday asking students to design a 30-second television commercial criticizing schwarzenegger.
