Notes from the Underground: Legislative Hearing on UC Protests

Notes from the Underground: Legislative Hearing on UC Protests

By Joe Kiskis, assisted by Eric Hays December 14, 2011 Joint informational hearing Senate Committee on Education and Assembly Committee on Higher Education-- UC and CSU policies, Procedures, and Responses: Campus police and on campus Demonstrations Chairs Senator Lowenthal and Assemblymember Block The hearing was scheduled for two hours but lasted about four and a half...

We Don't Have Teachers at Western Governor's University

We Don't Have Teachers at Western Governor's University

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Links for December 20--Special Grinch Edition

Links for December 20--Special Grinch Edition

Jerry Brown announced 100 Million cut for UC, 100 Million Cut for CSU and 102 Million Cut for Commuity College System.  President Yudof  offers his normal stirring response. UC Berkeley announces fabulous new financial aid plan where middle class families would contribute up to 25% of their gross family income to attend a public university. Cornell announces new campus...

Who’s Really Making Policy at Your Campus?

Who’s Really Making Policy at Your Campus?

By Jorge Mariscal My pessimistic intellect agrees with our colleague Rei Terada who recently wrote in this space: “A professor who agrees to be on a [Senate] committee thinking that from that position she’ll be able to limit damage and fearing that if she is not on it things will be even worse is not negating the legitimacy of the administration, so that should not be done.”...

Debt, Democracy, and the Public University

Debt, Democracy, and the Public University

by Bob Meister, Wheeler Hall, UC Berkeley, December 7, 2011: This panel has been asked to talk about how far we've come since the Fall of 2009--and where we're headed. I When I spoke in Wheeler Hall two years ago today, December 7, 2009, I asked Berkeley students to connect the dots between their ever-rising tuition, widening income gaps in California, and the then-dominant belief...

Two Totalities of Crisis

Two Totalities of Crisis

By Lyn Hejinian Two and a half years ago, in July 2009, the Regents of UC granted emergency powers to UC President Mark Yudof under the guise of freeing him to deal with an ostensible budget crisis. There are a number of ways to frame what has transpired—ways to plot the diverse elements and track the various trajectories set in motion by the actions undertaken in the name of...

Delegitimate UC Administration

Delegitimate UC Administration

By Rei Terada The moment we’re in right now is auspicious, fragile, and surprisingly well-defined. The thing that strikes me most about the moment is how much it is a particular moment, with specific characteristics and borders. It appears as the clearest-looking and most pregnant moment since students starting taking action in Fall 2009. It’s the moment we’ve hoped to attain...

When The Public University Can No Longer Afford Itself: The Impending Crisis in UC Graduate Programs

When The Public University Can No Longer Afford Itself: The Impending Crisis in UC Graduate Programs

By Wendy Brown Most recent concern with increasing tuition at the University of California has focused on undergraduate access–how the middle class is being squeezed out of quality higher public education, taking on preposterous levels of debt, or both. And most recent concern with retaining excellence at UC has focused on faculty compensation issues–how to maintain the salaries,...

Debt, Democracy, and the Future of the Public University: An Introduction

Debt, Democracy, and the Future of the Public University: An Introduction

By James Vernon The restructuring of higher education and the privatization of the public university has operated through a series of vectors: the push for online education, the challenges to access and diversity, the tremendous increase in studentfees and student debt, the growth of management bloat. It has been met—point by point—by a politics of protest. These protests have...

There Are Alternatives to the Yudof Privatization Story

There Are Alternatives to the Yudof Privatization Story

by Chris Newfield UC Berkeley Forum on Debt, Democracy, and the Future of the Public University, December 7, 2011 November was a good month for the free speech dimensions of the Occupy movement. Police brutality at UC Berkeley and UC Davis was denounced on an international scale, the outrage forced formal investigations to be convened, administrators at Davis suspended several...

Debt, Democracy, and the Future of the Public University: A Series

Debt, Democracy, and the Future of the Public University: A Series

Last Wednesday (December 7) qui parle, Reclamations, and Representations organized a public forum on the present crisis, ongoing protests, and future prospects of the public University.  Each Journal has recently put out a special issue on the topic: qui parle's "Higher Education on its Knees," Reclamations' "Generation of Debt," and Representations' "The Humanities and the...

Links for December 9

Links for December 9

Occupy Davis dismantling for winter break. Linda Katehi offers her take on the Context of Student Protests.  Of course, that doesn't address the fact that UC has a longer history of police violence. In California the middle class is shrinking.  Oh, by the way, so are corporate tax payments....

Links for December 7

Links for December 7

There is now a petition demanding the withdrawal of UCR's recently announced protest guidelines.  You can sign it here. Mr Yudof Goes to San Francisco:  Addresses Chamber of Commerce on the logic of his liberal privatization scheme.  Still doesn't recognize that it is making the University worse. CSU applications at record levels.  Aren't they cutting back...

Links for December 5

Links for December 5

UCSD Students reclaim closed Library. Yudof names Task Force to investigate Davis police violence. UCR Dean of Students issues proposed guidelines telling students, staff, and faculty the proper etiquette for protest.  FreeUCR responds. The Occupy movements are expanding into new areas and tactic...

Protest: Only the Pro, Not the Test

Protest: Only the Pro, Not the Test

The Dean of Students at UCR has distributed a draft for new rules concerning protest on the Riverside campus.  They are actually quite remarkable.  Under the tag line "Your voice matters. Make an Impact" the Dean is proposing a system where only the most regulated protest activities are allowed on campus.  Not only is Riverside proposing the usual "time, place,...

Links for December 2

Links for December 2

As the UC Turns Ignore those raises behind the curtain: Regents manage to find money to raise salaries of high administrators. On Tuesday, Students and Faculty at Davis debated what is to be done.  242 Davis Professors Sign Letter in Support of Katehi. Birgeneau canceled his scheduled appearance at the Graduate Student Assembly on Thursday. Occupy Cal presses UCPD Review...

November's Steps toward Democracy

November's Steps toward Democracy

The many UC crises this November have prompted challenges to longstanding prerogatives of unilateral governance among UC's senior managers. In the aftermath...

Links for December 1 (Updated Below)

Links for December 1 (Updated Below)

More questions about Bratton.  He urged Brown University to arm its police.  And in case you missed it here is the CUCFA letter to Yudof opposing the hiring of Bratton.  Oh, and the Atlantic weighs in. Rei Terada and Michael Meranze point out the larger problems exemplified in the Bratton, Robinson, and Edley appointments. CSU Trustees postpone decision on executive...