Education Uber Alles The Advocate:
"The recent round of student protests and building take-overs at campuses across the University of California system this week have been both inspiring and heart-breaking. The devastating and unprecedented 32 percent increase in student “fees” (the UC system’s way of getting around using the word “tuition”) approved by the UC regents on November 19 reminds us of just how short-sighted, stupid, and callous most university administrations have been in their response to state budget cuts across the country.
Instead of standing up to Sacramento and demanding restoration of cuts, UC President Mark Yudof told reporters after the vote: “Our hand has been forced. When you don’t have any money, you don’t have any money.” This is, of course, easy for Mr. Yudof to say whose first year salary was $828,000 and whose $10,000 a month house in Oakland, the New York Times reports, is entirely paid for by the University."
Instead of throwing up his hands and saying there is nothing he can do, why did Yudof not threaten to resign? Why not encourage the regents, all of them who voted for this disastrous increase, to do the same and resign unless the state restores the cuts? Why not work with his students to oppose these cuts rather than kowtowing to the whims of the state?
The answers to these questions are clear: because the governance of the UC system, like so many university systems across the nation, is such that administrators and regents and presidents and trustees see themselves as somehow at odds with the faculty and students whom they are supposed to serve.
The trend of corporate-structured oversight of public universities has brought those institutions to their knees and until this is changed there is little hope that these kinds of cuts will not continue.Equally heartbreaking was the relatively low turnout in response to these increases.
Instead of thousands, even tens of thousands of students protesting at every campus across the UC, the biggest protests never reached more than 1,500 people and although some campus buildings were taken over and strikes called, they seem to be having little impact on the actual functioning of the schools, which continued with their business as usual, despite the noise of protest all around.
"The recent round of student protests and building take-overs at campuses across the University of California system this week have been both inspiring and heart-breaking. The devastating and unprecedented 32 percent increase in student “fees” (the UC system’s way of getting around using the word “tuition”) approved by the UC regents on November 19 reminds us of just how short-sighted, stupid, and callous most university administrations have been in their response to state budget cuts across the country.
Instead of standing up to Sacramento and demanding restoration of cuts, UC President Mark Yudof told reporters after the vote: “Our hand has been forced. When you don’t have any money, you don’t have any money.” This is, of course, easy for Mr. Yudof to say whose first year salary was $828,000 and whose $10,000 a month house in Oakland, the New York Times reports, is entirely paid for by the University."
Instead of throwing up his hands and saying there is nothing he can do, why did Yudof not threaten to resign? Why not encourage the regents, all of them who voted for this disastrous increase, to do the same and resign unless the state restores the cuts? Why not work with his students to oppose these cuts rather than kowtowing to the whims of the state?
The answers to these questions are clear: because the governance of the UC system, like so many university systems across the nation, is such that administrators and regents and presidents and trustees see themselves as somehow at odds with the faculty and students whom they are supposed to serve.
The trend of corporate-structured oversight of public universities has brought those institutions to their knees and until this is changed there is little hope that these kinds of cuts will not continue.Equally heartbreaking was the relatively low turnout in response to these increases.
Instead of thousands, even tens of thousands of students protesting at every campus across the UC, the biggest protests never reached more than 1,500 people and although some campus buildings were taken over and strikes called, they seem to be having little impact on the actual functioning of the schools, which continued with their business as usual, despite the noise of protest all around.