Faculty Organizing Group: Ten-Point Program (draft)

The Faculty Organizing Group at UC Santa Cruz is committed to the defense of the public character of the University of California. We advocate a strengthened version of the 1960 Master Plan, founded on the idea of the Californian people’s free access to education at a high-quality research university. We believe a university of this kind will produce new and important knowledge and will lead to the betterment of life for the people of our state We are opposed to the privatization of the university. Privatization, in our view, has two fundamental dimensions: 1. Limiting access to the university to those who can pay. 2. Orienting the university’s basic values toward sources of revenue, be these federal, private, or other funds, rather than towards knowledge and the social good as a whole. In the defense of the public university, we support efforts toward a stable and predictable source of State funds, gradually increasing to earlier high levels. We want the Regents and UCOP to define a minimum “investment per student” amount, and to obligate the university to maintain per-student funding above that amount. We support AB 656, the oil extraction tax, as well as other progressive taxes aimed at raising revenue from the wealthiest sectors of our state, and we want the Regents and UCOP to lobby aggressively for these efforts. This is a longer-term political effort, and will require the support of students, their families, alumni, faculty, staff, and the University administration. The Regents and the UCOP (Office of the President) need to aggressively advocate for and enlist support for the public university-- from the public, from the legislature, and from the governor. There can be no repeat of the odious 2004 “HIGHER EDUCATION COMPACT: Agreement Between Governor Schwarzenegger, the University of California, and the California State University 2005-06 through 2010-11,” an agreement that Governor Schwarzenegger broke a few years later. UCOP and the Regents also need to pressure gubernatorial candidates to publicly commit to restoration of the pre-Compact University of California, so that voters can know which candidates hold these values, and which do not. In the shorter term, as we all know, the university faces tremendous budget shortfalls. But budgets are expressions of values, and we disagree with some of the values evident in responses to the cuts at UCOP and at UCSC. The values expressed in current budget priorities disproportionately disadvantage students and lower-income workers, and this we find unacceptable. In the

The  Fog  10-­‐point  Program,  page  2      

shorter term, while awaiting more favorable arrangements at the state level, we advocate the following positions: 1. The Regents should not vote for a 32% tuition/fee increase, which places the bulk of the burden of cuts on students, their families, and their debt-ridden futures. The Regents should first look for savings from other sources, some of which are detailed below. In addition, any discussion of tuition/fees must begin with full disclosure of the system-wide formula for distributing tuition (education fees) to the campuses, and of all uses of those revenues at the campus level. 2. We insist that any discussion of tuition/fee increase needs to provide details showing that such an increase would result in zero rise in average student family income and zero effect on average student indebtedness. Studies have shown that the “high tuition-high aid” model negatively affects lower-income student access to the university. This burden falls most heavily on students of color. If some feel that students from high-income/high wealth families should not have their educations effectively “subsidized” by low tuition and fees, we advocate that this perceived inequity be remedied in a progressive state tax structure, rather than through tuition increases. 3. We call on UCOP and the Regents to examine all possible prudent uses of reserve or carry-forward funds in order to compensate for short-term budget shortfalls. 4. We advocate that the number of higher administrative positions at UCOP and at UCSC be reduced, so that proportions of higher administrators to faculty be returned to 1990 levels. We advocate that salary differentials between higher administration and faculty also be reduced to the 1990 level. We advocate streamlining and simplification of procedures that require levels of administrative oversight that might contribute to administrative bloat. 5. We call for a moratorium on all new construction, with the exception of seismic retrofitting necessary for safety, and a redirection of those funds to the core mission of the university. We call for a moratorium on new bond issues to pay for construction. 6. We call for an end to public-private partnerships with businesses unless they pay full indirect costs. 7. We call on UCOP to selectively examine assets that could be sold without undermining the university’s instruction and research mission, and to consider selling said assets in order to avoid tuition/fee increase.

The  Fog  10-­‐point  Program,  page  3      

8. We call for all cuts to fall heaviest in those areas furthest from the core missions of instruction and research. We advocate examination of and possible termination of support for all those auxiliary enterprises that are not self-supporting. We advocate examination of and possible termination of UC’s relationship with the Livermore Laboratories and the Los Alamos National Laboratories, if it is shown that these units divert funds from our core mission and are not self-supporting. 9. We call for a renewed commitment to principles of shared governance, so that Senate and Academic Council recommendations are not so casually contravened as in the case of the Pitts letter on furloughs. 10. We call for extensive Senate consultation to remedy or prevent unintended consequences of current budget policy, and to make explicit what might be the implicit values in the current administration of budget cuts at UCSC. For example, whereas the Social Sciences and Humanities Divisions have cut over 35 faculty lines in response to the budget cuts, the different budgetary situations of Physical and Biological Sciences and Engineering have left them with under five cuts in faculty lines. The likely long-term effects of the disproportionate cuts in FTE among different divisions need to be publicly acknowledged and openly discussed. Policy should be created and implemented in such a way that, if the university is to be reshaped, it will be done deliberately, and with wide faculty involvement, rather than in ways unanticipated and unintended by the faculty.

*** As Chancellor Blumenthal so eloquently stated, in his opposition to the cuts: “California  is  fundamentally  disinvesting  in  higher  education.  We  must  be  creative  and  focused  -­‐  there's  too  much  at  stake  to  do  anything  less.”          We  call  on  the  creativity  and  focus  throughout  our  campus  community  in  support  of  public  higher  education.  We  call  for  creative  and  innovative  proposals  for  long-­‐term  and  short-­‐term  actions.    We  call  on  the  university  to  be  especially  tolerant  of  student  activism  and  dissent,  for  it  is  often  out  of  the  unruliness  and  messiness  of  dissent  that  creative  solutions  emerge.      We  are  all  in  this  together,  and  we  will  find  a  way  forward.