mortiz055

We've been told that public colleges and universities have entered a New Normal. It's supposed to be stable and sustainable. It gives colleges less--to make them learn to do more.   Happy scenes like commencement at San Francisco State, at left, are to carry on unimpeded, with lower costs but no loss of learning or research. This week, this insidious narrative was again undone by several stories about San Francisco State, UC Berkeley, and their private cousin Stanford University. 1. Defunding Democracy First, a rehearsal: The democratic vision of U.S. higher ed was that the burgeoning masses could get a degree that was cognitively the same as that of elites, even though they lacked the latter's social networks and private resources.  Twins separated at graduation, one going to Stanford, say, and one to UC Berkeley, with a sibling already enrolled at San Francisco State, would have student experiences that would differ in trappings but not essentials.  The great faculty an...

Retirement Options Feedback The UCSB Staff AssemblyExecutive Board, which is comprised of policy covered staff, believe that future retirement options should be offered equally to all employees, including staff. Staff are the backbone of the University of California (UC) system and we are a fundamental component to ensure that the UC mission is realized. Thousands of bright and dedicated staff choose the UC as their employer and our daily duties, such as advising students on which courses to take, assisting faculty with writing grant proposals, and balancing department budgets, are integral to making the UC work. Staff are crucial in making the UC system successful and they should be given the opportunity to take advantage of the same retirement benefits that are being offered to faculty. Benefits, including the retirement package, are one of the strongest tools UC has for recruiting and retaining employees. The new proposed retirement tier has been presented with the impression that i...

I realize there are many other factors, but the geography of the state inequality boom does not put the University of California system on the side of broad income growth.  Take a look at the figure at left, from a new report by the California Budget and Policy Center. Of the top 12 regions that have seen the highest percentage of growth go to the top 1%, 7 have UC campuses.  Of the others, one has Stanford and SJSU, another has a Cal Poly, and two are something akin to agricultural plantations. 3 UC campuses serve more egalitarian regions (Davis, Merced, and Riverside).  They are also lower-income--and not associated with California's famous tech economy.  (I mean tech broadly to include related (and well-paying) financial and other services, and retain the murkiness of the term, whose aggregate employment generally remains less than 10 percent of any regional tota l.) Research universities do not only serve their local regions, but there is national pressure for th...

In the context of ongoing doubts about the value of Defined Benefit pensions to public institutions and the people who serve them, we offer two pieces of essential reading for your long weekend.  One is the UC Academic Senate Chair's letter to President Janet Napolitano (Hare) about the Senate review of the recommendations of her Retirement Options Task Force (ROTF). Posted a day after the Academic Senate Assembly rejected the ROTF recommendations in their entirety , this 6-page letter summarizes over one hundred pages of Senate commentary from across the UC system. The commentary is distinctive for detailing the abundant negative consequences of the proposed "2016 Tier" ROTF proposals: one is that the higher salaries required to make up for lower retirement benefits will come out of strapped campus operating budgets, insuring more structural crises of the kind the Berkeley campus announced this week .  It is also distinctive for rejecting the Task Force ground rules, m...

The UC Berkeley community received this email this morning. You can find coverage at Inside Higher Ed and The Chronicle of Higher Education . From: Nicholas Dirks Chancellor Date: Wed, Feb 10, 2016 at 8:13 AM Subject: Launch of campus strategic planning and analysis process To: calmessages_communication@lists.berkeley.edu Dear Colleagues, Today, we announce a strategic planning process designed to ensure our excellence in the face of continuing financial challenges.   This process is comprehensive, encompassing academic and administrative realignment, investment in our fundraising and revenue-generating activities, and the reexamination of all our discretionary expenditures, including athletics and capital costs. Whether in California, Wisconsin, Michigan, or elsewhere, public research universities have been challenged not only by dwindling state support but also by shifting public opinion and momentous social and economic change.  Even without financial challenges, the pursu...

The following is a letter sent to Colleagues by the UCSB Faculty Association calling for opposition to the proposed new pension tier. Dear Colleagues: We are gratified by the strong response at the Town Hall of the faculty, resisting the unsound pension that UC is proposing to offer new hires starting July 1. Over 1,000 faculty have signed the petition opposing the new tier proposals. We are resending this message to give you an opportunity to join your colleagues by signing the petition if you have not done so. The deadline for making known your opinions regarding these changes is February 16. Allow us to share with you our reasons for objecting to the current proposal: 1) We share the task force chair's bleak account of the "negative effects of the PEPRA cap on retention and timely retirement" (A guide to reviewing the recommendations of the Retirement Options Task Force , p. 7). In other words, the future of the institution is at stake. 2) We take issue with the fact ...