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Freedom"},{"term":"Management"},{"term":"Austerity"},{"term":"Inequality"},{"term":"Jerry Brown"},{"term":"Online Education"},{"term":"Privatization"},{"term":"Employee Benefits"},{"term":"UC Berkeley"},{"term":"Janet Napolitano"},{"term":"Shared Governance"},{"term":"Campus Safety"},{"term":"Income"},{"term":"Research"},{"term":"Academic Senate"},{"term":"Cal State"},{"term":"Tuition Hikes"},{"term":"archives"},{"term":"Affordability"},{"term":"Contingent Faculty"},{"term":"Future University"},{"term":"Quality"},{"term":"Humanities"},{"term":"UC Santa Barbara"},{"term":"Race"},{"term":"UCOF"},{"term":"Administrative Overreach"},{"term":"Development"},{"term":"International"},{"term":"Mark Yudof"},{"term":"Pension"},{"term":"Unions"},{"term":"UC Care"},{"term":"UC Davis"},{"term":"public goods"},{"term":"Transparency"},{"term":"Liberal Arts"},{"term":"Covid-19"},{"term":"Events"},{"term":"Financial Aid"},{"term":"Community College"},{"term":"Furlough"},{"term":"UC Riverside"},{"term":"Graduates"},{"term":"Policing"},{"term":"STEM"},{"term":"Tenure"},{"term":"democratic university"},{"term":"For-Profit"},{"term":"University of Wisconsin System"},{"term":"Discrimination"},{"term":"Diversity"},{"term":"Economy"},{"term":"Steven Salaita"},{"term":"Teaching"},{"term":"UC Los Angeles"},{"term":"Athletics"},{"term":"Corruption"},{"term":"Critical University Studies"},{"term":"Neoliberalism"},{"term":"Religion \u0026 Culture"},{"term":"UCLA"},{"term":"Graduate Student Conditions"},{"term":"UC Irvine"},{"term":"UCPD"},{"term":"UCSC"},{"term":"health care"},{"term":"Academic everything"},{"term":"Grad Student Strike"},{"term":"Isla Vista Shootings"},{"term":"Linda Katehi"},{"term":"Philanthropy"},{"term":"Structural Racism"},{"term":"Student Debt"},{"term":"UCSB"},{"term":"Academic Boycotts"},{"term":"Admissions"},{"term":"Biden"},{"term":"British Universities"},{"term":"Budget Cuts"},{"term":"Closures"},{"term":"Democrats"},{"term":"K-12"},{"term":"Margaret Spellings"},{"term":"Munger Hall"},{"term":"Newsom"},{"term":"Presidential search"},{"term":"Quantification"},{"term":"Sexual Harassment"},{"term":"UC Health"},{"term":"Workforce"},{"term":"anti-racist pedagogy"},{"term":"higher education policy"},{"term":"reparations"},{"term":"2020 Election"},{"term":"ACCJC vs. CCSF"},{"term":"Cooper Union"},{"term":"Covid-19 Cuts"},{"term":"Cuts \u0026 Cuts"},{"term":"Debt-Free College"},{"term":"Fake Knoweldge"},{"term":"Fake Knowledge"},{"term":"FutherCuts"},{"term":"Gender"},{"term":"LGBTQ"},{"term":"Metrics"},{"term":"More Cuts"},{"term":"Nonpecuniary effects"},{"term":"November 2009"},{"term":"President Drake"},{"term":"State Audit"},{"term":"UC Merced"},{"term":"UCSF"},{"term":"USC"},{"term":"University of Missouri"},{"term":"Vegara vs. California"},{"term":"abolition"},{"term":"abortion"},{"term":"carbon offsets"},{"term":"climate crisis"},{"term":"climate policy"},{"term":"human capital theory"},{"term":"opinion survey"},{"term":"public support"},{"term":"review of The Great Mistake"},{"term":"slavery"},{"term":"stimulus"},{"term":"value of a college degree"},{"term":"white nationalism"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"Remaking the University II: Knowledge Rebellion"},"subtitle":{"type":"html","$t":"A blog on higher education and related issues."},"link":[{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#feed","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"https:\/\/utotherescue.blogspot.com\/feeds\/posts\/default"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"https:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/1170716682680204889\/posts\/default\/-\/Grad+Student+Strike?alt=json-in-script\u0026max-results=10"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"https:\/\/utotherescue.blogspot.com\/search\/label\/Grad%20Student%20Strike"},{"rel":"hub","href":"http://pubsubhubbub.appspot.com/"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Chris Newfield"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/01078395415386100872"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"16","height":"16","src":"https:\/\/img1.blogblog.com\/img\/b16-rounded.gif"}}],"generator":{"version":"7.00","uri":"http://www.blogger.com","$t":"Blogger"},"openSearch$totalResults":{"$t":"3"},"openSearch$startIndex":{"$t":"1"},"openSearch$itemsPerPage":{"$t":"10"},"entry":[{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1170716682680204889.post-871536586912815828"},"published":{"$t":"2022-12-06T10:27:00.004-08:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2022-12-06T11:17:47.273-08:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Academic Senate"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Austerity"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Budget Cuts"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Grad Student Strike"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Research"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Teaching"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"THE STRIKE"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ca href=\"https:\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEhWr1K1GNG8wAupVsJJQylbotHUyvb9eWuxpbWvXHYToKTxOnQxdztLRWgymdyrpHcXXR99bQu7T3fkkdfg61j2SVf03yYI8p-1aRMx_Ltp3Hj3BZpyQBPDw-GnI1ZRHHg87FSb_ZqhDugaqtfWgISYhGg6rFt7xoR12Axz45eWB6jLNQ_ekUzIlNPSJw\/s1126\/95%20Theses.jpg\" style=\"clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"\u003E\u003Cimg border=\"0\" data-original-height=\"1126\" data-original-width=\"700\" height=\"320\" src=\"https:\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEhWr1K1GNG8wAupVsJJQylbotHUyvb9eWuxpbWvXHYToKTxOnQxdztLRWgymdyrpHcXXR99bQu7T3fkkdfg61j2SVf03yYI8p-1aRMx_Ltp3Hj3BZpyQBPDw-GnI1ZRHHg87FSb_ZqhDugaqtfWgISYhGg6rFt7xoR12Axz45eWB6jLNQ_ekUzIlNPSJw\/s320\/95%20Theses.jpg\" width=\"199\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003EThe Strike continues with no end in sight.\u0026nbsp; Although there have been tentative agreements concerning Post-Docs and Academic Researchers, in the Academic Student Employee and Student Researcher units, the parties appear to remain well apart on the fundamental economic issues.\u0026nbsp; This distance is most easily seen in the ASE category: although the UAW made significant adjustments in its proposal UC responded with little change.\u0026nbsp; You can see the latest UAW wage proposal \u003Ca href=\"https:\/\/drive.google.com\/file\/d\/13xBPbmQKEtHQu0NkRp8bEKSYBeS-Zx5f\/view\" target=\"_blank\"\u003Ehere\u003C\/a\u003E and the latest UC wage proposal \u003Ca href=\"https:\/\/drive.google.com\/file\/d\/1exYkh33SCzqQjR2BoRVgn0mHau4OFtb0\/view\" target=\"_blank\"\u003Ehere\u003C\/a\u003E.\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u003Cp\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EIt is impossible from the outside to tell where the negotiations are headed.\u0026nbsp; But what I want to try to do here is offer some suggestions for how we could think about the gap, how we got here, and what we might do in the future to alter the conditions that have created what is undoubtedly a crisis at the University, and a depressing foreshadowing of the end of UC as a serious research university.\u0026nbsp; If the latter does happen the responsibility will ultimately lie with UCOP and the Regents with some support from the campus Chancellors.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe first point is that it seems clear that there is a fundamental gap in the way that each side is defining these negotiations.\u0026nbsp; UC is approaching this as if it were a conventional labor negotiation with a class of workers whose position is fundamentally stable.\u0026nbsp; The UAW and its supporters on the other hand, start from the position that they have been placed in an untenable economic position. \u0026nbsp;Given the fact that TA wages have barely kept up with national inflation over the years combined with the extreme cost of housing in California, they cannot continue with relatively minor adjustments in the dollar amount of their monthly pay.\u0026nbsp; To make matters worse, UC's latest offer has a first year adjustment that is about equal to current inflation.\u0026nbsp; In this light, UCOP appears completely out of touch with the reality of life on campuses and indifferent to its lack of knowledge.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThis image of autocratic disregard was only deepened by Provost Brown's appalling \u003Ca href=\"https:\/\/news.ucsc.edu\/2022\/12\/regarding-faculty-rights-and-responsibilities-2022-11-30.pdf\" target=\"_blank\"\u003Eletter to the faculty last week\u003C\/a\u003E.\u0026nbsp; Although much of it was standard UCOP pablum, he inspired widespread faculty hostility with his closing flourish threatening faculty members who refused to pick up the work of striking workers with discipline beyond the docking of pay.\u0026nbsp; For the last three years, faculty and lecturers \u0026nbsp;have performed an enormous amount of additional labor to keep the university afloat during the pandemic: transforming their courses, spending additional time with students, planning for campus transformations, and putting their research duties on the side to maintain \"instructional continuity\" as the administration likes to put it.\u0026nbsp; After all this effort, for the Provost to threaten disciplinary action for those who choose not to pick up the work of striking TAs or to act upon their own convictions about academic integrity, manifests a contempt for the faculty that is hard to ignore.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EIt's important to grasp UC's budgetary situation correctly.\u0026nbsp; Most importantly, the usual invocation of the university's 46 billion dollar budget needs to be put aside.\u0026nbsp; Most of that budget is tied up in the medical centers or in funding for designated purposes.\u0026nbsp; The real budget that is relevant is the core budget made up of tuition, state funding, and some UC funds.\u0026nbsp; It comes in closer to $10 billion (\u003Ca href=\"https:\/\/www.ucop.edu\/operating-budget\/_files\/rbudget\/2022-23-budget-summary.pdf\"\u003EDisplay 1)\u003C\/a\u003E and is largely tied up in salaries across the campuses.\u0026nbsp; As Chris and I have been pointing out for nearly 15 years, UC has been subject to core educational austerity surrounded by compartmentalized privatized wealth (although we should notice that the medical centers barely stay in the black).\u0026nbsp; This crisis will not be overcome by hidden caches of money floating around the university.\u0026nbsp; The problem is deeper than that:\u0026nbsp; its roots lie in the combination of state underfunding and the expansion of expensive non-instructional (often non-academic research) activities that have taken up too much of campus's payrolls.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EBut I want to stress that this reality does not mean that the graduate students are being unreasonable in seeking wages that enable them to perform their employment duties and pursue their studies.\u0026nbsp; Instead, it is a sign of how deep the failure of the University has been in (not) providing a sustainable funding model both for students and faculty supporting students.\u0026nbsp; The Academic Senate has been pointing to this problem for at least two decades.\u0026nbsp; In statements and reports from \u003Ca href=\"https:\/\/senate.universityofcalifornia.edu\/_files\/committees\/council\/gsac.report0806.pdf\" target=\"_blank\"\u003E2006\u003C\/a\u003E, \u003Ca href=\"https:\/\/senate.universityofcalifornia.edu\/_files\/reports\/CAGSSGradCompetitivenessPaper_072012.pdf\" target=\"_blank\"\u003E2012\u003C\/a\u003E,\u0026nbsp;and \u003Ca href=\"https:\/\/senate.universityofcalifornia.edu\/_files\/reports\/kkb-mb-graduate-student-funding.pdf\" target=\"_blank\"\u003E2020\u003C\/a\u003E, the Senate has repeatedly insisted that graduate student support was insufficient and proposed steps to improve it.\u0026nbsp; Even the administration itself has\u003Ca href=\"https:\/\/www.ucop.edu\/graduate-studies\/_files\/gsiwg-july2012.pdf?utm_source=BP06631\u0026amp;utm_medium=email\u0026amp;utm_campaign=\u0026amp;utm_content=grads-issues\" target=\"_blank\"\u003E sometimes\u003C\/a\u003E recognized its depth.\u0026nbsp; To take only one example from 2019, UCOP's Academic Planning Council declared that:\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cblockquote\u003E\u003Cp\u003EUC must do better at financially supporting its doctoral students, particularly as it seeks to diversify the graduate student body. The University cannot compete with its peers for talented candidates if it does not offer competitive support. In 2017 the gap in average net stipend between UC and its peers was nominally $680.3 In actuality the gap is much greater due to California’s high cost of living - with factored in, the average gap in doctoral support is closer to $3,400.4 This is a huge difference but not insurmountable. The Workgroup urges UC leadership to make every effort to close the gap so that the quality of UC’s doctoral programs is maintained and enhanced.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EUC campuses, with planning and prioritization, could guarantee five-year multi-year funding to doctoral students upon admission. According to current data, about 77 percent of doctoral students across UC receive stable or increasing net stipends for five consecutive years.5 (Appendix 1.) With some exceptions, this multi-year funding is relatively consistent across campuses and disciplines. However, this funding is typically not presented as a full five-year multi-year guaranteed package upon admission. Offering five-year funding upon admission would enhance recruitment of high-potential students, offer financial security, and address one of the chief stressors for doctoral students - worry over continued funding while in the program.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EIn addition to offering guaranteed five-year funding, the University must address the issue of graduate student housing. Graduate students, many of whom have family responsibilities, face enormous challenges in finding affordable housing. Without a targeted effort to address graduate student housing, UC’s capacity to attract and retain qualified candidates is at serious risk.\u0026nbsp; (\u003Ca href=\"https:\/\/www.ucop.edu\/graduate-studies\/_files\/apc-grad-ed-wrkgrp-report.pdf\" target=\"_blank\"\u003E4-5\u003C\/a\u003E)\u003C\/p\u003E\u003C\/blockquote\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAnd yet the problem persists.\u0026nbsp; The Academic Senate has stressed this issue repeatedly and with great force.\u0026nbsp; A recent \u003Ca href=\"https:\/\/dms.senate.ucla.edu\/issues\/issue\/?6728.UC.Graduate.Education.Funding\" target=\"_blank\"\u003Eletter\u003C\/a\u003E from the UCLA Divisional Senate's Executive Board has pointed its finger at the problem--the need for renewed state funding.\u0026nbsp; \u0026nbsp;It is time for the administration to do something to fix it--and something that doesn't simply damage other parts of the academic endeavor.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EUCOP will continue--as they always do--to insist that we cannot get more money out of the state to pay for what needs to be done.\u0026nbsp; But let's press on that point a little more.\u0026nbsp; It is certainly possible that we are heading for a recession--the Federal Reserve seems determined to induce one to put labor in its place.\u0026nbsp; But does that mean that the state doesn't have the capacity to respond to an emergency at the University?\u0026nbsp; Despite all the talk about a budget shortfall, Dan Mitchell at the \u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com\/\" target=\"_blank\"\u003EUCLA Faculty Association Blog\u003C\/a\u003E\u0026nbsp;has been pointing out that the situation is far less clear than the Legislative Analyst is insisting (and the University is repeating).\u0026nbsp; For one thing, revenues have been \u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com\/2022\/11\/uncertain-outlook.html\" target=\"_blank\"\u003Ehigher than expected\u003C\/a\u003E\u0026nbsp;and that even with the possibility of a downturn the state has around \u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com\/2022\/11\/where-are-we-now.html\" target=\"_blank\"\u003E90 billion dollars in usable reserves\u003C\/a\u003E. If the state won't help it's not because of economic necessity but a matter of political choice.\u0026nbsp; After all, the Governor had no problem finding $500 million to pay for a private immunology research park at UCLA that provides little, if any, real benefit to the campus academic program.\u0026nbsp; The \u003Ca href=\"https:\/\/portside.org\/2022-11-30\/academic-proles-barricades\" target=\"_blank\"\u003EGovernor\u003C\/a\u003E and the state can do more for the educational core of the University than they are doing: and if UCOP and the Regents can't show the state how necessary that is, then one wonders again what their purpose is.\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EI want to make one final point.\u0026nbsp; UC is the research university of the state and UC insists that graduate education is at the heart of its purpose.\u0026nbsp; But if UCOP actually agrees with that then the question must be: what do we need to do to have academic graduate education in a sustainable form?\u0026nbsp; What resources do we need to enable students to both contribute to the larger functioning of the university and to pursue their studies?\u0026nbsp; Are we willing to have only graduate programs where students have family money or have already flipped a startup?\u0026nbsp; Or where they are here to gain an additional credential to take back to their jobs?\u0026nbsp; Does UCOP remain committed to UC's contributions to disciplines across the spectrum of knowledge? \u0026nbsp;Or does it only care about graduate students (and others) as cheap and disposable labor?\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EI don't expect that these negotiations or this strike can answer or settle these questions.\u0026nbsp; But UC is at a crossroads and the university--especially its leadership--must face up to that. \u0026nbsp;The long-term question raised by the strike is whether UC will continue as a research university; if we don’t make it possible for future scholars to attend, we will have forfeited our purpose. \u0026nbsp;There is an opportunity here to take the first steps towards creating a new sustainable vision of a twenty-first century research university.\u0026nbsp; Or we can continue as we have in decline.\u0026nbsp; The choice ultimately is UCOP's and the Regents'.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E****\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E(I've focused here on the ASE unit because the Student Researcher Unit is admittedly a more complicated problem.\u0026nbsp; The vast majority of GSRs are supported by external grants and those grants have both limits and their own rules.\u0026nbsp; To some extent UC has been negotiating with someone else's money.\u0026nbsp; That doesn't mean the situation is impossible but rather that it has to be implemented in such a fashion as to protect Principal Investigators from damaging unintended consequences.)\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E"},"link":[{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"https:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/1170716682680204889\/posts\/default\/871536586912815828"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"https:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/1170716682680204889\/posts\/default\/871536586912815828"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"https:\/\/utotherescue.blogspot.com\/2022\/12\/the-strike.html","title":"THE STRIKE"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Michael Meranze"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/05336793340375780406"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"16","height":"16","src":"https:\/\/img1.blogblog.com\/img\/b16-rounded.gif"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"https:\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEhWr1K1GNG8wAupVsJJQylbotHUyvb9eWuxpbWvXHYToKTxOnQxdztLRWgymdyrpHcXXR99bQu7T3fkkdfg61j2SVf03yYI8p-1aRMx_Ltp3Hj3BZpyQBPDw-GnI1ZRHHg87FSb_ZqhDugaqtfWgISYhGg6rFt7xoR12Axz45eWB6jLNQ_ekUzIlNPSJw\/s72-c\/95%20Theses.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1170716682680204889.post-4150466942332875977"},"published":{"$t":"2021-05-03T10:11:00.004-07:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2021-05-03T10:11:23.114-07:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Grad Student Strike"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Policing"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"UCOP"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"UCPD"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"Days of Refusal of Campus Police"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ca href=\"https:\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEiKQ8da4V8YGirPycJkOjNWV5fRpXegkyyj06xjknPie3Z7LjpoqXX-YouqyaL-JAkcT5ChWJPnf1CK1Mvf0oCRtHB20ubabsUeetg2sxRkFZKqkgQaiVlhI4ml_IJ4zUBsM6PwCZ37TuQ\/s1440\/Policing+UCPD+Atlantic092814Rise+of+LawEnforcement+on+Campus.webp\" style=\"clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"\u003E\u003Cimg border=\"0\" data-original-height=\"810\" data-original-width=\"1440\" height=\"225\" src=\"https:\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEiKQ8da4V8YGirPycJkOjNWV5fRpXegkyyj06xjknPie3Z7LjpoqXX-YouqyaL-JAkcT5ChWJPnf1CK1Mvf0oCRtHB20ubabsUeetg2sxRkFZKqkgQaiVlhI4ml_IJ4zUBsM6PwCZ37TuQ\/w400-h225\/Policing+UCPD+Atlantic092814Rise+of+LawEnforcement+on+Campus.webp\" width=\"400\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003EVarious universities have hosted a range of events leading up May 3rd's abolitionist Day of Refusal, meaning a strike day. This is meant to kick off a month of direct actions (described on\u003Ca href=\"https:\/\/copsoffcampuscoalition.com\/abolition-may\/\"\u003E the Cops off Campus website\u003C\/a\u003E) to raise awareness of the necessity and the possibility of converting most or all policing functions to constructive forms of safety practices, care, and community engagement. \u0026nbsp;\u003Cp\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDuring the George Floyd phase of the Black Lives Matter movement last year, ideas about police replacement arrived in the mainstream media, like \u003Ca href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/outlook\/2020\/06\/12\/defund-police-violent-crime\/?arc404=true\"\u003Ethese\u003C\/a\u003E\u0026nbsp;good ones from a Princeton sociologist in the Washington \u003Ci\u003EPost\u003C\/i\u003E. \u0026nbsp;If campus police departments had been formed to \u003Ca href=\"https:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/education\/archive\/2015\/09\/college-campus-policing\/407659\/\"\u003Ereduce the chances of regular cops busting student heads\u003C\/a\u003E during anti-Vietnam war protests in the 1960s and 1970s, student heads were now in greater danger from campus police during contemporary protests--or non-protests: UCPD found the limelight in 2006 when UCLA \u003Ca href=\"https:\/\/www.latimes.com\/archives\/la-xpm-2006-nov-18-me-taser18-story.html\"\u003Epolice tasered a student who was studyin\u003C\/a\u003Eg in Powell Library.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ca href=\"https:\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEisTAMBW8XZyGb4CmsO-MkAfxLK04_Ei5FuQSmegQiBoPVliFQoKOapL341vd2DE0_gHZS1XqRWnao_e7j1HJWfzO81gtv1S-XSY7iW85vyyP2sdkxtKwUXtbSvzUa0JU5QFUHnPXlYZbE\/s640\/Taser_rally_2.jpg\" style=\"margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"\u003E\u003Cimg border=\"0\" data-original-height=\"480\" data-original-width=\"640\" height=\"300\" src=\"https:\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEisTAMBW8XZyGb4CmsO-MkAfxLK04_Ei5FuQSmegQiBoPVliFQoKOapL341vd2DE0_gHZS1XqRWnao_e7j1HJWfzO81gtv1S-XSY7iW85vyyP2sdkxtKwUXtbSvzUa0JU5QFUHnPXlYZbE\/w400-h300\/Taser_rally_2.jpg\" width=\"400\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003EWhen the UC Regents passed large tuition hikes in 2009 and 2011, students protested them. Various forms of UCPD misconduct wound up in the public eye, with \u003Ca href=\"https:\/\/www.sfgate.com\/bayarea\/article\/UC-campus-police-move-in-on-student-protesters-2323667.php\"\u003Ebeatings and arrests at UC Berkeley\u003C\/a\u003E\u0026nbsp;in November 2011, including of campus faculty (see \u003Ca href=\"https:\/\/utotherescue.blogspot.com\/2011\/11\/why-i-got-arrested-with-occupy-cal-and.html\" target=\"_blank\"\u003EProf. Celeste Langan's post\u003C\/a\u003E\u0026nbsp;about her arrest, and Prof. \u003Ca href=\"https:\/\/utotherescue.blogspot.com\/2012\/03\/ddeepening-chill-in-berkeley-recap-of.html\"\u003EGreg Levine's recap of political repression against campus protest).\u003C\/a\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;UCPD-Davis's Sgt. Pike then went on a world-famous pepper-spray rampage. This killed off any lingering sense that campus police were special--more collaborative and communicative, less anti-student, less violent towards the unresisting than off-campus forces. \u0026nbsp;\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ca href=\"https:\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEhkAQvSYKMpcmtSxmydfha_86R-AQbucASlNJOU_T6t7pdg6m8oYcRSj_Pbjp_KK1DZ6PFo4S5QcVIaNtRlKCzyyh16S2LqiHqHSjRn4nT-YlrSNl0Y1y_m9vEQZSEjgFeqRTMb7ncZbgc\/s1926\/Policing+Pepper+Spray+Pike+UCDavis+1111.png\" style=\"margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"\u003E\u003Cimg border=\"0\" data-original-height=\"1282\" data-original-width=\"1926\" height=\"266\" src=\"https:\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEhkAQvSYKMpcmtSxmydfha_86R-AQbucASlNJOU_T6t7pdg6m8oYcRSj_Pbjp_KK1DZ6PFo4S5QcVIaNtRlKCzyyh16S2LqiHqHSjRn4nT-YlrSNl0Y1y_m9vEQZSEjgFeqRTMb7ncZbgc\/w400-h266\/Policing+Pepper+Spray+Pike+UCDavis+1111.png\" width=\"400\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003EIn reaction, UCOP sponsored a report (\u003Ca href=\"https:\/\/www.universityofcalifornia.edu\/press-room\/final-uc-report-protests-and-policing-released\"\u003EEdley and Robinson, 2012\u003C\/a\u003E) on UCPD conduct, but not much happened. Police abuse also did not become a tenure-track faculty issue. For example, \u0026nbsp;Davis faculty\u003Ca href=\"https:\/\/utotherescue.blogspot.com\/2012\/02\/davis-agonistes.html\"\u003E senate sided with Chancellor Katehi\u003C\/a\u003E while condemning Sgt Pike's actions. The 2009-13 period offers a long, dynamic example of why policing activists are so deeply skeptical about \"police reform.\" \u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003EA defining campus cop incident occurred in July 2015, when \u003Ca href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2015\/07\/30\/us\/university-of-cincinnati-officer-indicted-in-shooting-death-of-motorist.html?_r=0\"\u003Ea University of Cincinnati police officer killed Samuel Dubose\u003C\/a\u003E during a routine traffic stop off campus. After this, the media paid more attention to the \u003Ca href=\"greater opacity of campus police reporting\"\u003Egreater opacity of campus police reporting\u003C\/a\u003E,\u0026nbsp;their lesser training compared to municipal departments in many jurisdictions, and their not-so-different bad treatment of people from marginalized groups.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003EThe protests that really brought out the police were opposed to the effects of austerity policies that the university itself was \u0026nbsp;unable or unwilling to oppose. These were often tuition hikes that disparately punished poor students and students of color. These protests worked, with the nail in coffin being protests\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/utotherescue.blogspot.com\/2014\/11\/wild-day-at-uc-regents-stakes-of.html\"\u003E\u0026nbsp;in 2014)\u003C\/a\u003E. \u0026nbsp;The state did not replace missing tuition hikes with meaningful state increases, as we've had occasion to note, so austerity effects continue to the present day. The grad student COLA strike at UC Santa Cruz in 2019-20 was another turn of the screw. They brought heavy police containment of strikers by various police forces, and appeared to be part of a strategy of physically intimidating the students to drop the strike. \u0026nbsp;\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ca href=\"https:\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEgLjIivWCFhz1yrsvUiRup6liA-dqoqJO4MKYU1fPVA9fLsKqe183Vwi5k1JqO0DmMm3MYCF8z_bhB0520PkIkdnXM7SoKyd3nJww3DhHleYyOW3FPJz5O0yT8qeYEOfE4PIOPwELUV0K0\/s1484\/Policing+Santa+Cruz+Strike+0220+2.png\" style=\"margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"\u003E\u003Cimg border=\"0\" data-original-height=\"982\" data-original-width=\"1484\" height=\"265\" src=\"https:\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEgLjIivWCFhz1yrsvUiRup6liA-dqoqJO4MKYU1fPVA9fLsKqe183Vwi5k1JqO0DmMm3MYCF8z_bhB0520PkIkdnXM7SoKyd3nJww3DhHleYyOW3FPJz5O0yT8qeYEOfE4PIOPwELUV0K0\/w400-h265\/Policing+Santa+Cruz+Strike+0220+2.png\" width=\"400\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ca href=\"https:\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEhOpK0C9LivKYCrGWDRfYR29dei9L_EFsnbngiDZYE1aAXuYpz3tQlHbt6XSVrsR3XlU7ezc3BzUmN7g2_W5pf-5mIRz5KGs9lAD_d8gFao9EHbBEr-5Zw0-I9l8o-BMIPsA1qAfetayQo\/s1274\/Policing+Santa+Cruz+Strike+0220.png\" style=\"margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"\u003E\u003Cimg border=\"0\" data-original-height=\"1012\" data-original-width=\"1274\" height=\"318\" src=\"https:\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEhOpK0C9LivKYCrGWDRfYR29dei9L_EFsnbngiDZYE1aAXuYpz3tQlHbt6XSVrsR3XlU7ezc3BzUmN7g2_W5pf-5mIRz5KGs9lAD_d8gFao9EHbBEr-5Zw0-I9l8o-BMIPsA1qAfetayQo\/w400-h318\/Policing+Santa+Cruz+Strike+0220.png\" width=\"400\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003EPhoto Credit: \u003Ca href=\"https:\/\/www.mercurynews.com\/2020\/02\/12\/at-least-17-arrests-as-ucsc-students-stand-off-against-police\/\"\u003EMerc News\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003EThe later administrative suspension of the strikers who withheld grades (see Michael's \u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/utotherescue.blogspot.com\/2020\/03\/ucsc-fate-of-graduate-education-and.html\"\u003Eoverview\u003C\/a\u003E), made policing again seem an extension of administrative refusal to take student concerns seriously, deliberate democratically, and find adequate funding for the educational core.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003EIn 2020, UCLA faculty discovered that \u003Ca href=\"https:\/\/utotherescue.blogspot.com\/2020\/06\/ucla-lets-lapd-use-jackie-robinson.html\"\u003Ethe LAPD geeks arrested BLM protesters on a campus baseball field\u003C\/a\u003E named for the barrier-breaking Black baseball legend and UCLA alum Jackie Robinson. This suggested that the one big advantage of the UCPD--that they were not the LAPD--could be readily set aside. \u0026nbsp;\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003EDerek Chauvin's guilty verdict--in the Minneapolis trial of George Floyd's killer--coupled with ongoing police killings in the days before and after, have increased an interest in permanent policing changes that goes all the way to the White House. It's into this context that UCOP has recently launched proposals for changes in UC police policy. They include a ludicrous plan to form a kind of UC SWAT that would be deployed around the state to tamp down alleged unrest. \u0026nbsp;Here you can find Dylan Rodriguez\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/utotherescue.blogspot.com\/2021\/01\/campus-safety-task-forces-as-police.html\"\u003Ediscussing Cops Off Campus\u003C\/a\u003E in the context of policing task forces, and Michael recently \u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/utotherescue.blogspot.com\/2021\/04\/ucop-doubles-down-on-militarized.html\"\u003Eposting on the UC police proposals\u003C\/a\u003E.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003EAnother good place for background on the no- combined issues of overall police conversion and stopping a new militarization of UCPD is this\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\"https:\/\/ucsbfa.org\/town-hall-report-may-3-day-of-refusal-and-ucop-police-reform-proposals\/\"\u003EUCSB Faculty Association post.\u003C\/a\u003E\u0026nbsp;It has a number of links to statements and explainers about local and national dimensions, as well as its own statement, which nicely represents TT faculty who've mostly focused on faculty welfare, academic freedom, administrative misconduct, and budgeting coming to take a meaningful stand on campus police transformation, and linking it to core faculty concerns.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003EOf course I can't stop without making a budget point. The political economy of universities is now pressuring units toward for-profit activities. The function of policing in this model was \u003Ca href=\"https:\/\/reclaimuc.blogspot.com\/2020\/06\/how-much-money-does-university-of.html\"\u003Enicely described in a big\u003Ci\u003E Reclaim UC\u003C\/i\u003E post last year.\u003C\/a\u003E\u0026nbsp; It itemizes UC police budgets and also offers an important analysis of how policing fits into a skewed administrative understanding of risk management. Here I'll close with a simpler point about quantities of expenditure. \u0026nbsp;\u003Ci\u003EReclaim UC\u003C\/i\u003E notes that UCSB's police budget was just under $11 million in 2018-19 (the UC range of \u003Ci\u003Ebase\u003C\/i\u003E\u0026nbsp;budgets\u0026nbsp;is from $5 million to $22.4 million in that year). \u0026nbsp;The 2019-20 grad COLA strike was for a pay increase that would eliminate \"rent burden\" for grad workers. My calculation at the time was that to take all rent burdened UCSB grads out of burden would cost UCSB about $5.2 million a year--or around half of the police budget. \u0026nbsp;(I'll do the math in a future post on the new rent hikes at UCSD.)\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EI hope Abolition May moves the debate toward some deep and comprehensive police conversion.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"https:\/\/utotherescue.blogspot.com\/feeds\/4150466942332875977\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"https:\/\/utotherescue.blogspot.com\/2021\/05\/days-of-refusal-of-campus-police.html#comment-form","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"https:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/1170716682680204889\/posts\/default\/4150466942332875977"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"https:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/1170716682680204889\/posts\/default\/4150466942332875977"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"https:\/\/utotherescue.blogspot.com\/2021\/05\/days-of-refusal-of-campus-police.html","title":"Days of Refusal of Campus Police"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Chris Newfield"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/01078395415386100872"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"16","height":"16","src":"https:\/\/img1.blogblog.com\/img\/b16-rounded.gif"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"https:\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEiKQ8da4V8YGirPycJkOjNWV5fRpXegkyyj06xjknPie3Z7LjpoqXX-YouqyaL-JAkcT5ChWJPnf1CK1Mvf0oCRtHB20ubabsUeetg2sxRkFZKqkgQaiVlhI4ml_IJ4zUBsM6PwCZ37TuQ\/s72-w400-h225-c\/Policing+UCPD+Atlantic092814Rise+of+LawEnforcement+on+Campus.webp","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1170716682680204889.post-6256801941652316090"},"published":{"$t":"2020-05-07T12:15:00.001-07:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2020-05-11T11:52:36.000-07:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Grad Student Strike"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Graduate Student Conditions"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"UCSC"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Unions"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"UCSC Assistant Professor Letter to Admin: Rescind Disciplinary Action"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"https:\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEhh26X9lJ9so9Kr9YZDBd3lzVlj5riAt-VXIJ4tDPVZb1z1fExmFTgZzzv7XEp5byv6AqthF9HMjDqBJ7i7A4ywXjkR866bgzVhZGMSSzavqkBUYW8KnXOAk7XuV6Pr0OcNAbkcDKl7-E0\/s1600\/shameonUCSC-min-1536x864.png\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"\u003E\u003Cimg border=\"0\" data-original-height=\"864\" data-original-width=\"1536\" height=\"180\" src=\"https:\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEhh26X9lJ9so9Kr9YZDBd3lzVlj5riAt-VXIJ4tDPVZb1z1fExmFTgZzzv7XEp5byv6AqthF9HMjDqBJ7i7A4ywXjkR866bgzVhZGMSSzavqkBUYW8KnXOAk7XuV6Pr0OcNAbkcDKl7-E0\/s320\/shameonUCSC-min-1536x864.png\" width=\"320\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Ci\u003EThis is an open letter expressing the concerns of around a dozen Assistant Professors from the Faculty Organizing Group (FOG) at UCSC. The authors would like to encourage all colleagues to share stories of surveillance, intimidation and\/or punitive measures taken by university administrations during the COVID-19 crisis with the hashtag #DisciplineAnd Punish. Also please follow the “Ad Hoc Committee of Scholars 4 COLA” on Facebook and on Twitter (handle: @COLASolidarity).\u003C\/i\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nDear Colleagues,\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nAssistant professors have been repeatedly asked, both formally and informally, to provide information about how the graduate student wildcat strike (and later, the COVID-19 pandemic) has impacted our research, teaching, and service on campus. Here is our collective response. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nEchoing numerous calls from the faculty senate, individual departments, and colleagues at institutions across the United States, we write in the form of an open letter, to call upon the administration to stop their harmful disciplinary actions against graduate and undergraduate members of our campus community.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nTo our great dismay, what has impacted us the most is not the circumstances created by the strike itself, such as the absence of TAs in our lecture courses, additional grading, and general disruption to our teaching. Rather, the most taxing element has been the emotional, logistical, and material support we have provided graduate and undergraduate students as a direct result of the administration’s punitive responses to the strike. And now, in the midst of a global pandemic, many of us have been working countless additional hours to assist students who have been caught up in a needlessly aggressive disciplinary dragnet because of their involvement in the strike. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nWe are deeply frustrated by our campus administration’s misguided approach in responding to the strike, particularly the ongoing disciplinary hearings whose only purpose seems to be to intimidate and overwhelm students. These actions traumatize the students involved; it is unconscionable that they continue at a time when students are struggling in the face of unprecedented financial, psychological, and health risks. They also put a disproportionate burden on junior faculty members who have often been on the frontlines (sometimes literally—at the picket) in defending these students from a bureaucratic machine whose punitive actions seem to know no rhyme or reason.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nThe administration has been carrying out disciplinary proceedings against at least 49 students for strike-related activities, despite the passing of a faculty senate resolution and numerous faculty letters and requests calling for these disciplinary actions to stop. Students arrested at the picket line received interim suspensions; some of these students had been injured by police, and the suspensions impeded their timely access to medical care on campus. Arrested students and those who withheld grades have received warning letters in their files. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nDisciplinary hearings have been ongoing, even after the onset of COVID-19, and even as cities and states closed courts and halted criminal proceedings. The administration has refused to halt or revoke any of these measures even after students submitted grades. Perhaps most mysteriously, they have formed a “Demonstrations Operations Team,” whose role remains opaque at best. Ostensibly charged with “coordinating the campus’ specific operational planning and response needs related to campus activism,” we have no information about who team members are and little to no knowledge about their budget, surveillance activities, oversight role, or involvement in issuing summons. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nAs faculty, our role has involved providing for the physical safety, emotional health, and academic success of our students. We have accompanied them to multiple disciplinary hearings when they were intimidated by disciplinary officers. We have also provided time and emotional support to vulnerable, frightened, and sometimes ill students. We organized a daily faculty march and picket line support group so that faculty observers were at all times at the base of campus to protect students from campus-paid police, and to serve as witnesses should testimonials later be required, which they were. We made donations of money and food to help already-struggling students continue to meet their daily needs. We worked to secure alternative funding and employment for fired graduate students and wrote numerous letters. These included character letters for students as part of the disciplinary proceedings and letters to campus administration expressing our dismay about how these proceedings have unfolded.\u0026nbsp; We spent afternoons being interviewed by disciplinary officers who were attempting to corroborate police reports with student accounts.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nQuantitatively, many of us easily spent between ten and twenty hours a week on these activities during winter quarter (and into the present). This workload has only become more complex and time-consuming in the context of COVID-19, as we navigate the many bureaucratic and procedural inconsistencies caused by moving these disciplinary hearings to Zoom. In total, we estimate that assistant professors have spent at least 2,000 hours engaged in hearings and other activities related to our students’ punishment, intimidation, and dismissal—undoubtedly enough time to publish one or more articles, or even finish first books. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nThese numbers only gesture at a more worrying reality: the disturbing skill-sets acquired by assistant professors on our campus. We now know the answers to many questions we had previously never wished to ask: What is the difference between the CHP and campus police? What is the correct tone to use when speaking with police officers in riot gear to de-escalate a situation and avoid physical harm being inflicted on students? Where does our academic freedom begin and end when it comes to using Canvas or modifying our syllabi? Is a grade property—and, if so, who “owns” a grade? Should we be worried about our security of employment based on a student’s online report via the administration-provided Canvas widget (dubbed the Tattlebot by faculty)? Might photos taken of us by police at the picket line be used against us in future tenure and promotion decisions?\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nTo offer an example of what this disciplining has looked like, one of us accompanied a graduate student - who had in fact submitted grades - to a hearing. They were being “investigated” for having temporarily moved these grades off Canvas. The charges included “interference with courses of instruction, theft or damage of intellectual property; unauthorized entry to, possession of, receipt of, duplication of, or use of any university services; theft or abuse of university computers and other University electronic resources; forgery, alteration or misuse of any university, state, federal or other government documents; obstruction or disruption of teaching; failure to identify oneself to, or comply with directions of, a university official; violation of any other university policy or campus regulation.” This list can only be read as a concerted attempt to intimidate and harass this student.\u0026nbsp; This heavy-handed process raises troubling questions—for us\u0026nbsp; as well as our graduate students—about the potential uses of Canvas for surveillance and discipline.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nTo offer a second example, another of us supported an undergraduate student who, after being present at the picket line in February, was later investigated for alleged “obstruction of university activities.” This student was one of a large number of undergraduates who had assembled at the base of campus in support of their TAs. That day, a number of faculty saw this student arrested during the well-documented episode of police overreach and outright brutality. During this student’s hearing, the faculty support person saw their student forced to relive the anxiety and lingering trauma from their interaction with police (a condition that has been formally diagnosed by a medical professional) as the student conduct officer posed confusing, leading questions. This student never received the opportunity to review the full evidence held against them, and was only sent piecemeal and contradictory police testimonies. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nMany of us arrived at UC Santa Cruz excited about the university’s history of support for radical and progressive politics and intellectual thought. We looked forward to fulfilling the three components of our responsibilities as assistant professors—teaching, research, and service—at a public, Hispanic-serving institution that takes its commitment to undergraduates seriously. One of our primary activities in the past year has fallen somewhere between teaching and service: working closely with UCSC students, helping expand their intellectual horizons and acting as a source of support, as so many mentors have done for us. This role is rewarding but challenging for many of us—particularly for female-identified assistant professors and faculty of color, as we try to establish a balance between caring for our students’ welfare and maintaining our professional role as professors. It is particularly difficult on this campus even during the best of times, as campus services struggle to keep up with the very real problems of food insecurity, homelessness, sexual violence, and expressions of racism that confront our students. As a result, our role is often something between a social worker and a professor. We have no training for the former, nor is this labor particularly valued as we approach mid-career reviews and the always-ticking tenure clock.\u0026nbsp; \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nSome will say it was our decision—and not our responsibility—to assume this role. We could have watched from the sidelines as our students were harassed, arrested, and even physically injured. Yet such a position implies that professors’ mentorship and care should be restricted to classroom discussions. Moreover, the Academic Personnel Manual (210) states that, “Mentoring and advising of students and faculty members, particularly from underrepresented and underserved populations, should be given due recognition in the teaching or service categories of the academic personnel process.” Indeed, we see our activities around the strike as fully in line with our responsibility to support the most precarious members of our community.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nThese activities have continued into the spring. The administration’s present actions continue to undermine the well-being of our students, precisely at a time when their precarity has been heightened by COVID-19. While we worry about the welfare of our community, the administration seems to be undermining our efforts at every turn, continuing to traumatize students at a precarious time. Not only do their actions harm graduate students, they have also been profoundly destabilizing for undergraduates who have been swept up in disciplinary hearings. Indeed, for\u0026nbsp; all the UCSC administration’s statements of concerns about the impact of the strike on undergraduate learning, the reality is that undergraduate learning has been severely disrupted by such an opaque and inconsistent disciplinary process. It is alarming that as we transition to distance learning, the most immediate connection that students maintain with UCSC is through its disciplinary bureaucracy. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nNow that the graduate students have announced that they will collectively submit outstanding fall and winter quarter grades, we believe that it is time to bring this disciplinary process to a close. We ask again that the university halt all disciplinary proceedings, end probationary periods and other sanctions (including the possible loss of housing stipends), and expunge the records of all graduate and undergraduate students under investigation. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nWe hope that the administration will take seriously our request to halt the disciplinary process and will offer a response to this letter. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nSincerely,\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nAssistant Professors of FOG, UCSC\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"https:\/\/utotherescue.blogspot.com\/feeds\/6256801941652316090\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"https:\/\/utotherescue.blogspot.com\/2020\/05\/ucsc-assistant-professor-letter-to.html#comment-form","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"https:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/1170716682680204889\/posts\/default\/6256801941652316090"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"https:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/1170716682680204889\/posts\/default\/6256801941652316090"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"https:\/\/utotherescue.blogspot.com\/2020\/05\/ucsc-assistant-professor-letter-to.html","title":"UCSC Assistant Professor Letter to Admin: Rescind Disciplinary Action"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Chris Newfield"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/01078395415386100872"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"16","height":"16","src":"https:\/\/img1.blogblog.com\/img\/b16-rounded.gif"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"https:\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEhh26X9lJ9so9Kr9YZDBd3lzVlj5riAt-VXIJ4tDPVZb1z1fExmFTgZzzv7XEp5byv6AqthF9HMjDqBJ7i7A4ywXjkR866bgzVhZGMSSzavqkBUYW8KnXOAk7XuV6Pr0OcNAbkcDKl7-E0\/s72-c\/shameonUCSC-min-1536x864.png","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}}]}});