Huge Protests at UC Berkeley.  Here is a slideshow.  General Assembly votes to rebuild encampment.  Here was a live blog.  Protests across the CSU and UC systems: UC Davis with a slideshow.  Occupy Northridge.

Robert Reich: "The Days of Apathy are Over." With Video.  Even NPR realized it was important.

Day of Action Live Blog November 15th (Daily Cal)
Regents' cancellation coverage: LA Times; San Jose Mercury News (with UCPD chief quote that the protesters "chose physical confrontation")
Regents Cancellation doesn't slow protests at UC and CSU.
NBC LA says "leave the powerless Regents alone"
Occupy Student Debt
Decade-old decline in Illinois college attainment, which once led the country (Penn study).
Washington governor proposes an additional 15% cut for state's higher education system
Mayors coordinated on how to move against Occupations in their cities.  NYPD moved against press as well as protesters.  Was the Federal Government part of the planning?
Large Protests and Open University at Berkeley.
Occupy Movement spreading on California Campuses.

The following is a resolution--drafted by members of the Berkeley faculty--to be presented for a vote at the Berkeley Academic Senate Meeting November 28th.

REGENTS POSTPONE THIS WEEK'S MEETING   
Skepticism is expressed about the official explanation of cancellation


Occupy Cal call for Tuesday's strike and other actions.  Further Information can be found here.
 CFA on the CSU November 17th Strikes.

UC Berkeley Chancellor Birgeneau describes November 9 video of police attack on protesters "very disturbing"

By Celeste Langan

I participated in the Occupy Cal rally on Sproul Plaza on November 9 (my sign, "We're Afraid for Virginia Woolf," made it to the Daily Cal’s top 10) and stayed for the general assembly. The organizers of Occupy Cal asked those who were willing to stay and link arms to protect those who were attempting to set up the encampment; I chose to do so. I knew, both before and after the police gave orders to disperse, that I was engaged in an act of civil disobedience. I want to stress both of those words: I knew I would be disobeying the police order, and therefore subject to arrest; I also understood that simply standing, occupying ground, and linking arms with others who were similarly standing, was a form of non-violent, hence civil, resistance. I therefore anticipated that the police might arrest us, but in a similarly non-violent manner. When the student in front of me was forcibly removed, I held out my wrist and said "Arrest me! Arrest me!" But rather than take my wrist or arm, the police grabbed me by my hair and yanked me forward to the ground, where I was told to lie on my stomach and was handcuffed. The injuries I sustained were relatively minor--a fat lip, a few scrapes to the back of my palms, a sore scalp--but also unnecessary and unjustified.

Toby Higbie's account of UCLA's November 9th protest is below.   With additional links 1.

• 
  
• Video on Occupy Cal and the General Assembly.  Good discussion, very large crowds.
• The Occupy Cal General Assembly called for a general strike (education sector) for this Tuesday, November 15th.  The strike is " in opposition to the cuts to public education, university privatization, and the indebting of our generation."
• The UC Davis Faculty Association has endorsed the OccupyCal strike call.
• In an open letter to UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert Birgeneau, Teachers at UC Berkeley condemn police violence.  

By Rei Terada

In March 2010, about a thousand people at UC Irvine marched here and on the street, on University Avenue. I was amused that a couple of commentators wrote afterward that UCI students were “protesting reality.” Someone headlined a blog for The Atlantic, “Students Protest University Cutbacks, Reality”. This remark assumes that once reality has been determined, you have no right to say anything further. That assumption can be refuted in a number of ways, even if—and that’s an “if”—we don’t dispute the amount of the state budget shortfall since the recession of 2008. First of all, anyone who cares about reality should always ask, what makes the reality the way it is? What are the conditions on which reality depends? That is the question known as “critique,” and critique is the mainstay of the Enlightenment education that Universities historically support.

Penn State students riot for football coach fired in coaching staff molestation scandal (grand jury report).  The Nation follows up with a comparison of Berkeley and Penn State.

Crowds at Occupy Cal - Daily Cal Coverage.  Mercury News coverage with photos. SF Chronicle story and slideshow.  The AtlanticWire has a digest of news coverage.
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Occupy Santa Cruz.  Occupy UCLA. Occupy UC Irvine, Occupy San Diego  

And here is a first-hand report from Irvine:

Report from Irvine by anonymous
"We had a spirited teach-in and march in which about 400 participated, followed by a General Assembly in front of the administration building. TA and lecturer union reps, librarians, queer student groups, graduate and undergraduate students, and faculty spoke at the teach-in. Between the teach-in and the GA the students marched into ongoing classes and through the science library and the UCI bookstore. They chanted "Students' needs, not corporate greed" and "Educate, Occupy. Take back UCI." The OC Register has of course written us up with special attention to our profanity. (At one station of the march, a student began his speech with "My name is Alexander, I'm a student here and I'm fucking pissed off!")" 

Berkeley City Council has decided not to renew mutual aid agreements with UCPD and neighboring police forces in aftermath of recent police violence.  h/t CC

Thousands March in London.

OWS and the Reeducation of Desire.

Students, staff, and faculty engaged in protest across the UC and CSU systems today.  So far I've tracked reports from Berkeley, Channel Islands, Davis, Fresno,  Irvine, Long Beach Los Angeles, Riverside, San Diego, Santa Cruz, and Sonoma State.  I'm sure there will be more news as time goes forward.

Protests in London.  Surprise, Surprise, the Police were there as well.

CSU threatens to raise tuition next year by 9%.

Yudof starts to walk back early reports of tuition freeze. Now it depends on receiving large infusion from the state.

Did you notice that the state budget is looking really bad for next year?

The LAO responded to Brown's pension proposal.

Yudof announced no mid-year tuition hikes.  I wonder if he is nervous about protests at the Regents' party next week?

UC Davis plows ahead with plan to increase out-of-state and international students.

Bob Samuels discusses the rising inequality at UC here and here.

In the last few weeks I've given a number of talks on college campuses about the self-feeding devolutionary spiral in puliic university funding.  I've tried to describe the mechanisms that are continuing to accelerate decline, and identify points of resistance that could help with rebuilding.   The goal must remain mass quality rather than limited access to premium content.  Our higher ed system is stratified enough as it is, and "private good" solutions only make it worse.

Robert Mejia offers an overview of my "Rebuiling the Public University" talk at the University of Illinois-Urbana-Champaign.  By coincidence, I spoke in the same room a few hours after UI-Urbana faculty had met their new systemwide president for the first time, and heard him speak directly about his plan to take control of enrollments away from each campus and centralize them systemwide.  This struck me as the kind of administrative exercise that makes an executive's mark without improving the institution itself, and that distracts attention from the deeper issues of rebuilding funding and upgrading academic goals.

An example of the deeper issue occurred the day after the coverage of the Illinois faculty meeting, in an article in the Los Angeles Times on how California public universities are leading the way in public tuition increases averaging over 8% last year.  The article started with a causal connection between legislative cuts to public funding and increases to student tuition.  But it then cited an expert saying that the real problem wasn't public funding cuts but public campus inefficiencies, particularly the inefficiency of faculty who don't teach enough.

In Oakland, Occupy supporters and city officials debated at a public meeting.  And you can get more information here.

Assembly Budget Committee expects 5-8 Billion dollar deficit next year.

#OccupyOakland closes down nation's 5th biggest port.  UCOP appears to have asked its employees to stay away from the office, located near the occupation, and to work from home.

Colorado votes down a tax-increase measure for education.  The state governor wants to balance the budget by cutting higher education but much of the legislature is resisting.  The governor is a Democrat, and those opposed to higher ed cuts are Republicans.

Occupy Oakland Schedule for General Strike.  Live updates.  Other information.   Video. 

Colorado Voters say no to increasing taxes to pay for education.

Texas Board of Regents invests in company that trolls for course grading data; mandates that campuses sign on to it.

Regional Public Universities are lessening research commitments.

Universities intensify efforts to break into commercial world.

By Stanton Glantz

cross-listed from KQED

Conventional wisdom says the UC and CSU funding crises are the inevitable result of recession-driven budget shortfalls, and the only solution is to soak students and their families.

But it's bunk. Shifting costs from the public to students is a deliberate act of public policy.