Organizers and speakers alike pointed to the fact that this was an extraordinary collaboration between students, faculty and staff that in many ways was unprecedented. All groups seemed very alarmed at the prospect for fee hikes which will make the university unaffordable and inaccessible to many segments of the population.
Finally there was a very real concern about the decline of the notion of shared governance–the separation of powers within the UC System, where the bulk of powers have been ceded by the Regents to UC President Mark Yudof as a part of an emergency decree.
The large and boisterous crowd repeatedly chanted, “Whose University? Our University.”
Speakers ranged from students, graduate students, representatives of the various unions–AFSCME, CUE, and UPTE, lecturers, and faculty members.
Among the speakers on Thursday was Professor Markus Luty, a physics professor who exhorted students that it was a great day to ditch class.
On a more serious note, he reminded students that the UC system began in 1960 with a Master Plan that included a spot for the top 1/8 of all California school graduates–free of charge.
He liken UC to a Superbowl-winning football team:
“The University of California is like a Superbowl-winning football team. If you stop investing in it, it will still be great fora while. But eventually the top players will. start leaving, you won’t be able to recruit top talent to replace them, and you will end up with a mediocre team.”
He continued:
“The UC system is at a tipping point between greatness and mediocrity. Faculty morale is low, and I hear a lot from my colleagues about leaving the UC system. This has been noticed outside California: a recent editorial in the Austin Statesman suggested that the University of Texas should set aside money specifically to recruit top UC faculty. Those Texans know a thing or two about football!”
Furthermore, UC is now in serious trouble.
“This great university system is now in serious trouble. The problems did not start this year. Since the 1980s, higher education funding has been cut more than any other major sector of the state budget. It is the only sector that had a reduction in real per capita revenues between 1984 and 2004. Then in 2004, Governor Schwarzenegger made a “compact” with the University of California and California State Universities that fundamentally changed the model for higher education in California. The universities committed to shift financing from state funding to student fees and private donations. In return the compact was supposed to guarantee a minimum level of state support. But the governor and the California state legislature have walked away from this agreement and made further cuts.”
Bill Camp, Executive Director of the Sacramento Central Labor Council brought the crowd to a frenzy with an angry and impassioned speech. “Sisters and brothers there’s a new day in America, and we’re going to send a message to those jerks in Sacramento.”
He spoke of holding every elected official accountable–every Democrat as well as every Republican.
“There’s no question, we’ve got to get rid of this governor. He’s the one that broke the trust with you and the future of California. He’s the one that said no, I’m not going to commit myself to the future of this state. I’m going to commit myself to the past, to the fear, to the racism, to the class prejudice. We’re not there. We’re the United States, we have to charge into the future.”
Gretchen, a member of UC AFT spoke. UC AFT is the union that represents the non-Academic Senate Faculty. She spoke of her experience and how it affects the students.
“Last week, five lecturers in the University writing program were laid off as a direct result of this budget crisis. I was one of them… Three of who were appointees in the English program retained two classes, but we’d go far below living wage and we lose our health eligibility for health benefits. The two who were University writing program-only employees were laid off.”
She went on to point out that students need these classes in order to graduate.
“Because of our layoffs, 15 sections of UWP 101 which is required for graduation have been cut for this year.”
Lecturer John Boe has been a lecturer at this University since the 1981. He pointed out that about 40% of classes are taught by lecturers rather than professors. UC could not function without people who were paid primarily to teach and teach a large number of classes. He argued that UC has mismanaged its budget causing them to have to cut back sections and lay people off. This will result in fewer available sections and a longer time to graduate.
He argued that we have $15 billion in unrestricted funds, but the excuse is that we cannot use those funds in the classroom.
“I’ve been here since 1981, that’s what administrators always say, that’s the wrong color of money, we can’t use it for that. It’s green money we can use it for student fees, we can use it to hire teachers.”
The issue of administrative pay has been a huge lightning rod for criticism. Mr. Boe quantified that by comparing UC to Enron, Lehman Brothers and AIG in terms of their payment structure.
“Did you know since 2006, the University has followed the pattern of Enron, Lehman Brothers and AIG paying their top administrators more and more money while punishing students staff and teachers.. In 2006, there were 214 administrators who made more than $200,000, but just two years later that number had almost doubled with 397. Why in two years did we have to double the number of administrators making $200,000? That’s money for your tuition. And the total amount of money spent, the gross pay, and it is gross, has almost doubled. There’s not $109 million being spent on these overpaid administrators.”
The Vanguard also spoke with some of the organizers of the event, Catherine Fung, a graduate student in the English Department.”
She told the Vanguard,
“We’ve come out here today to defend public education… The most obvious indication of [it being under attack] is the egregious 32% percent fee increase for undergraduates which is being proposed which then will make UC tuition be more than $10,000 per year for undergraduates. What we’re seeing here is the closing of the gap between private school tuition and public school tuition. The way I see it, the UC principles, the promise of the UC is supposed to be access, quality and affordability. Clearly with these proposed fee hikes it’s not going to be accessible for entire segments of California’s population. That’s what I’m standing here for is to keep the university of California accessible.”
What message does such a rally send to the UC Regents and President Yudof? According to Ms. Fung, it is a message of vigilance and activism.
“That we won’t just take this lying down. That they can make all of these decisions from the top, which is how it’s been, with this and the violation of shared governance, with the extra executive powers that the President of the UC system has declared. This is a message that we won’t just sit down and take it. This is a coalition of students, graduate students, undergraduate students, faculty and staff, so it should be a really powerful statement.”
Ms. Fung told the Vanguard that the movement was very grassroots. It began with UPTE’s announced strike and built up from there.
“It’s very grassroots. I know that UPTE, one of the staff unions, was the first to declare strike, then thereafter the faculty came together to declare a walk out. From there, a bunch of graduate students, I’m a graduate student, we saw that as very inspiring that faculty are standing up for this cause. Anyone who was following these developments sort of got together and started flyering and emailing people and just started outreaching and getting people mobilized.”
The Vanguard also spoke with Professor Joshua Clover, an Associate Professor of English:
“I think the faculty are walking out for a variety of different reasons, but I think the main reason is to protect public education in California which administrative decisions as well as state defunding has put into extraordinary jeopardy because it moves us away from the direction that the university is mandated to go which is to provide affordable high quality education for the people who can otherwise not afford it. I think those people are being priced out of public education.
I think that faculty are concerned with that in the long run. In the short run of course there is a variety of issues, there’s labor issues, there’s the abandonment of shared governance, there’s the abandonment of the collective decision making process which characterizes the UC, there’s increasing autocratic power from the Office of the President. The faculty are frankly not happy about that. They don’t think it’s good for UC and they don’t think it’s good for the students.”
The Vanguard also asked Professor Clover the message that such an event sends to the powers that be.
“That an unprecedented coalition among students, faculty, and workers has been formed. We’re going to be struggling against the defunding of public education, against the priorities of the University Office of the President, and to restore the University of California to its paramount mission for public of California.”
One of the critical questions facing this movement is that given the fact that the budget crisis is very real, what alternative approach would they recommend. For Professor Clover, he felt that all options had not been explored in an open and public way making it difficult to determine whether or not there were alternative means by which to address the current budget crisis other than furloughs and fee hikes.
“The problem is that they have been secretive and indeed disingenuous about the budget situation. One of our demands is simply transparency that they should make the budget available for all, put it on line, publish it, and we can all sit down together and try to figure out the best way to deal with this budget situation so as to continue to support public education.”
On Wednesday evening, the Vanguard discussed the issue of the UC Davis Walkout in protest of furloughs and student tuition hikes. We interviewed five individuals from four different groups for their perspective. Guests: Julia Tachibana a 4th year English major, Sarah Raridon, a 4th year Gender Studies major, Jeff Bergamini from UPTE, Rick Sandoval from AFSCME, and Pat Turner, the Vice Provost of Undergraduate Studies represented the university.
As a number of the speakers and some of the organizers mentioned, the action began as a strike by UPTE and it grew. The Vanguard spoke to Jeff Bergamini from UC Davis’ campus on Wednesday, you can listen to that segment above.
UPTE’s strike is statewide and across the state over 9000 technical and research workers held a one-day unfair labor practice strike to protest what they say is UC President Mark Yudof and the regents have mishandled reductions in state funding.
Jelger Kalmijn, UPTE-CWA’s systemwide president and a staff research associate at UC San Diego said in a statement issued on Thursday:
“The UC system is about to be pushed over the brink by Yudof’s mismanagement. Our unfair labor practice strike is aimed at Yudof’s illegal, unilaterial cuts to the university’s core research and educational functions. He is legally obligated to bargain with us, but refuses to discuss his plans in good faith at the bargaining table.”
Lisa Kermish, an administrative analyst at UC Berkeley and vice president of UPTE-CWA:
“Our decades of hard work have helped make UC the jewel of California’s higher education. We won’t stand by and watch it destroyed. This institution belongs to the people of California, not to a small group of unaccountable executives who think they can do what they like, ignoring public input and budget transparency.”
Senator Leland Yee was one of the few legislators to stand in solidarity with the students, faculty and workers on Thursday. He joined the picket outside of the UCSF Medical Center.
In a statement released by his office he said:
“It is unconscionable what the UC administration is doing to our students, workers and their families. While UC executives live high on the hog, workers, students, and patients are left in the cold. UC administrators are more concerned with protecting their ivory tower and their culture of secrecy than the public trust.”
One of the big questions is how big an impact this will have on policy. Veteran Columnist John Wildermuth, who writes a daily column in the San Francisco Chronicle wrote of the lack of public outrage towards the cuts at UC:
“With the rising cost of a UC education, growing selectivity at the various campuses, and the eagerness of University officials to compare their schools to elite private universities like Harvard and Yale rather than to other public universities, it’s the little wonder that more and more Californians are thinking that they and their children don’t have a place at UC. And if those people don’t feel a link to the UC system, why should they be concerned about the troubles it faces?”
Perhaps the showing yesterday will spark general public interest in the plight of the UC. Of particular note should be the reference that Professor Luty made to the Austin newspaper suggesting that Texas ought to raid California’s top talent from the UC System. If this is a matter of priorities, the public needs to decide where a top notch public education system fits in their list of priorities.
As many fear, the University of California is not going to stand by and allow the decline in public funding undermine the UC system, instead it will move it toward a more privatized hybrid system which will be less affordability and less accessibility for many of the students.
UC began as a dream where the top 1/8th of all students could attend college for free. The free portion has long-since vanished, the only question now is whether the top 1/8th will still have an affordable place to get a great education.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
good for them. Cannot expect Adjunct faculty, part timers without tenure,
or hourly employee’s to participate though.
This is absolutely disgusting behavior. Professors seem more concerned about their own personal time and money-making. You guys have to get over yourselves and do the job you signed on to do or get off the pot!!
200 years from now educators are going to look back and think you guys were a bunch a dimwits.
Gotta disagree Homeless, the professors at the event seemed very concerned about the overall picture of education in the UC including the affordability for students. I would argue they showed the EXACT opposite of what you suggested.
Vincente,
I hope your right. To me education is first and foremost.
On the one hand, the few professors who participated put their personal interests ahead of the students whose faces they spit on when they ditched their duty to teach. A duty for which they are very well compensated. Shame on them.
On the other hand, only a handful of the faculty participated. Kudos for the vast majority who were working hard teaching and performing their other duties.
As to the students who think that skipping class is an appropriate way to protest. You are probably in majors where there is very little benefit to attending class. Please change to a serious major before it is too late and you have blown your opportunity by getting a degree in a worthless field
To Get Real:
I participated in the walkout at UC Riverside today. I am NOT in a major in which class attendance is non-beneficial. In fact, missing my classes can be very detrimental. Fortunately, the walkout was scheduled for the first day of classes which most teachers cancel anyways. That, or they read their syllabus for 20 minutes and then dismiss us. This well-organized protest was meant to not only inform but to symbolize that we might all be missing classes when we can no longer afford them. So YOU get real, and get informed!!
Get Real— there’s no such thing as a “serious” major. It’s what you choose to do with it that matters. A “fake” degree like Gender Studies could be valuable if someone chooses to become a civil rights lawyer. It could be worthless if they had no idea what to do with such a degree after graduating. Same with a “useless” English degree. “Durrr I don’t know what I wanna do with a major in English! Everyone knows English!” Teacher? Translator overseas? Technical manual writer? Newspaper editor? A “real” degree like chemistry could get someone a job at a pharmaceutical company. But it could be worthless if the person doesn’t know what to do with such a degree. “Uhhhhhh I can blow stuff up, but how does that translate to a real job??????????”
People like you, talking about “worthless fields” and essentially implying “just cut funding for worthless departments” are dangerous because you are the ones threatening the ability for many people to get a good education.
Get Real: “Please change to a serious major before it is too late and you have blown your opportunity by getting a degree in a worthless field”
What worthy major did you study in college?
[i]As many fear, the University of California is not going to stand by and allow the decline in public funding undermine the UC system, instead it will move it toward a more privatized hybrid system which will be less affordability and less accessibility for many of the students.[/i]
First, to hear UPTE and Leland Yee tell it, UC has plenty of money anyway. If they were right, why should the voters be upset at a decline in public funding?
Markus Luty was totally correct when he defined the problem as the state funding cuts. He kept his eye on the ball. In fact his whole speech was very good. But to continue with a theme, this was a crowd that did not want to hear logic. They did not notice that UPTE wants to contradict Luty’s message.
Second, if the cuts are unavoidable, why should anyone “fear” that UC won’t stand by and allow the decline in public funding to undermine the UC system? I’m much more afraid of the opposite, that UC could stand by and allow the cuts to undermine it.
Third, there is a subtext here that many UC students don’t want to admit how much their education is subsidized. They particularly don’t want to admit the inevitable consequence of removing some of that subsidy. My fantasy is that UC could set the fees to the full cost, which is something like $18,000 per student, and then on the printed bill subtract the state compact as an explicit government subsidy. Then the students would know better who to blame when the subsidy is cut.
Also, here is an important quote in the New York Times from Berkeley Chancellor Birgeneau: “We are operating on the assumption that the state’s disinvestment will continue.”
Indeed, everyone in the administration, from department chairs on up, is operating under that assumption. UPTE has slogans that UC can ignore the crisis by drawing down a “rainy day fund”. But that is yet more fodder for people who don’t want to hear logic. It’s ridiculous to ask UC to blow its endowment as the solution to a lasting financial problem. In fact, I suspect that that advice is insincere and not just lousy.
Maybe some people are suspicious not just of Yudof but of the entire list of chancellors. They may think that it makes sense to aim below the top to blast compensation for chancellors, because unlike doctors and coaches, the chancellors are incompetent. But I suspect that they are competent, and that they are right that there is no easy way for the state funding to come back. I also suspect, as David said, that they won’t stand by and allow the decline in public funding to undermine the UC system. Some people may hate them for that, but I’m relieved.
Greg: I agree with you that to some extent Yudof and others probably should not be the target of these protests. Yudof and company are the policymakers but they are also at the whims of the political mess in Sacramento. That’s the real bad guy here and some of that message got out, but not enough. I would certainly have done things differently than Yudof and I probably would have started out by taking a 50% pay cut just to make the real point about shared sacrifice and then asked all of the top executive to follow suit. That would have completely diffused that side issue.
That said, I cannot agree with your last sentence, if the UC ends up moving away from being a public institution in order to remain great, I think that’s a very unfortunate outcome in all of this. I would also suggest that you being a professor paid by university probably view the issue somewhat different or at least you have a different interest in the outcome than a student who has to pay fees/ tuition to attend classes and may not be able to afford continued pay hikes.
It is interesting to note since 2006 there has been almost a doubling of administrative positions making over $200,000 a year in the UC system. That amounts to almost $40,000,000 in additional administrative costs! And just what wonderful things are we getting for this additional expenditure of $40,000,000?
I do believe the UC budgeting process needs to be more transparent. Yudof and the Bd of Regents are not including any stakeholders in the process. Why? So they can pad administrative/athletic coach salaries to the hilt, and not have their decisions questioned. Bad form, showing absolute arrogance.
The UC system is moving away from being a public institution bc the CA legislature is clueless how to stop the tax dollar hemoragging (sp?) that is going on throughout CA, which refuses to prioritize anything. CA wants to be all things to all people, which is not possible. CA taxpayers must wake up and smell the coffee. Do we want super prisons? Super schools? Super welfare programs? Pick one, bc we cannot afford THEM ALL!
Frankly, I pick education…but that doesn’t mean education gets off the hook. It needs to better manage its money. An almost 200% increase in administrative positions in 2 years is unacceptable.
[i]That said, I cannot agree with your last sentence, if the UC ends up moving away from being a public institution in order to remain great,[/i]
Actually, what I had in mind is that UC needs to move away from being a public institution to remain solvent. Not necessarily great.
For comparison, look at CSU. By design, it is stripped to utter humility as a place to do research. I don’t mean to be too snobbish about that. I respect CSU; and in general humility has its value and it is not the opposite of excellence. But CSU is in the same bind as UC: Privatize or go bankrupt.
If you’re thinking that the state compact subsidizes research at UC, it doesn’t. UC policy favors research in various ways, but the subsidy is in the opposite direction. An anti-research shift would be selling the cash register to raise cash.
You’re right about divergent interests though. Today’s students are out in four or five years. They have much less reason to mind if UC blows its endowment on them.
[i]It is interesting to note since 2006 there has been almost a doubling of administrative positions making over $200,000 a year in the UC system. That amounts to almost $40,000,000 in additional administrative costs![/i]
Again, I have to heed David’s warning that people don’t want to hear logic. But no, that’s not what it amounts to. If a salary increases from $195,000 to $205,000, that’s not $200,000 in additional costs, it’s $10,000. After adjusting for inflation, it isn’t necessarily any increase at all.
[i]I would certainly have done things differently than Yudof and I probably would have started out by taking a 50% pay cut[/i]
First of all, I don’t believe you. I seen many people in my life want someone else to take a 50% pay cut, but I have never seen any American in peacetime voluntarily do it. I have even seen Americans donate half of their pay, but not back to their employer. If I were UC President, and if a command came to me in a dream to donate half of my pay, then I would give it to universities in India where it would pay for 100 students, not to California where it would pay for 10 students.
That’s the real point, that if you want to talk shared sacrifice, your focus on Yudof’s pay is in the end solipsistic. Either you take a market interpretation of Yudof’s salary or anyone’s salary, or you take a charity interpretation. If it’s charity, since when are Californians needier than South Asians?
If it’s not charity, if it’s compensation for service, why should Yudof work for Californians for less than Texans are willing to pay him? He had the same job there, with $700K total compensation, and UC hired him away. Is he supposed to tell UT, “I can’t come back no matter how much you want to pay me, because I’m busy showing leadership in California.” You may feel safe lecturing Yudof for his lack of generosity, but I don’t see that you have any explanation for the state of Texas. In practical terms, the most leadership that you could have expected was to have him turn down his current job. Certainly then you wouldn’t be talking about his salary.
In particular, I really don’t see how you can explain it when Yudof doesn’t make even close to the highest salary at UC. What about Ben Howland’s leadership? You’ve never answered that one.
I’m a UCD prof, trying to understand the predicament.
My conclusion is that the UC cannot remain a public
research university, and is based on the following facts:
(1) UC funding has little support among the public.
(2) UC funding has little support among politicians and other
“decider” elites connected to California government.
(3) The current UC leadership (yes, including the faculty
leadership) is in the privatization/corporatization camp,
and has been there for a while.
(4) No viable opposition is likely to emerge from faculty.
Best people, who would contribute the most weight
to the opposition (if they did hold such opinion), will leave
rather then use the time and energy in a political fight
with, at best, uncertain outcome. The remaining faculty
are busy with their research and other duties, difficult
to organize and agree on a course of action, etc.
(5) Students are too organizationally weak and distracted
to be a viable opposition.
(6) State budget situation will not improve for many years.
Let me know if I’m making a mistake in (1-6). If I’m not,
then UC will either drop “public” or “research.” My prediction
is that UCB and UCLA will easily privatize, due to their
prestige and donor base. The remaining campuses will
struggle and the result will vary, but many will become
closer to CSU schools. For UCD faculty of every rank,
the smart strategy is to look for a position elsewhere,
the sooner the better. Too bad, because I love Davis,
but one needs to face facts which no amount of wishing
and whining will erase.
UCD Prof: I agree that UC will almost certainly continue on its course of replacing the state compact by student fees. I don’t think that this will somehow be peachy for Berkeley and UCLA and hard for the other campuses. Probably it will work out about the same for all of the campuses except Merced and maybe Santa Cruz. For Merced it could be a very ominous development. The other campuses might well survive because the demand for them will probably still go up, just maybe at a slower rate.
But I really doubt the way that you have assigned motives and decisions to this outcome. (1) UC funding has little support among the public? That’s much more true in the technical sense of the state proposition system, than in the abstract sense of public opinion. (2) UC funding has little support among elites? Actually, it has a lot of support among elites, except among a few destroyers such as Leland Yee. But the state proposition system is anti-elitist in the worst possible way, and it has tied their hands.
(3) The current UC leadership is in the privatization camp? Nobody in the system thinks of state funding as castor-oil-flavored money that they don’t want. They’ll take what they can get from the state government. Which, however, is less and less these days; look at how they treat CSU. What the leadership does think is that state subsidies plus student fees should hold even.
(4,5) No viable opposition? That’s true, because at the level of UC management, there is everything to oppose, and nothing to oppose. We could also march in the streets to oppose AIDS, but what would that accomplish?
(6) Yes, the state budget situation probably won’t improve for many years. Speaking unsentimentally, the state proposition system is a curse on California that gets a little worse each year. And it probably won’t go away any time soon.
Yes, it’s Prop 13, yes it’s the 2/3 rule, AND take a look at what Yudof did to the University of Texas.
[i]Yes, it’s Prop 13, yes it’s the 2/3 rule, AND take a look at what Yudof did to the University of Texas.[/i]
With that comment, I begin to understand. It takes some work to Google exactly what Yudof did to the University of Texas, since it passed out of the news cycle. But without looking, it is easy to guess that he raised student tuition, because that is what all public research universities have been doing. Yes, tuition at UT went up and displaced state funding. It’s the same scary slippery slope to privatization as at UC. In fact, Yudof himself wrote an opinion paper in 2002 that said that public universities would have to do this.
So I begin to make sense of the more hardline protests against UC’s decisions. David said that these protesters don’t want to hear logic, and I did cynically conclude that that was the major explanation for their demands. I’m sure that it plays a big role: Even people like Jeff Bergamini who ought to know better have have wildly misrepresented the UC budget and the UC payroll.
But on top of that, there is a fraction of a coherent vision. Namely, that the paramount objectives are (a) wage compression, and (b) a free education. People want UC’s leaders to pursue these two goals at all costs. All other goals, such as research prestige or competent management or even instruction quality, are secondary at best. In fact, the gut intuition is that to the extent that they are important, these other goals are corollaries of the big two. For instance, tuition and wages are the main yardstick for whether management is competent. If tuition goes up and the wages spread, that proves that management is incompetent, and high pay for the incompetent is an outrage.
Along the same lines, it isn’t important that UC’s managers don’t have the highest salaries at UC, even though it’s clearly also an inconvenient fact. It’s bad enough that executives have high salaries, because it means that UC is run by “them”. Anyone who makes more than $200K a year will never accept wage compression as the top goal. It may be more obscene that two of the coaches make $2 million, one may reluctantly admit, but it’s less damaging because they don’t set wages.
It equally matters for nothing that UC’s chancellors are paid below the median for chancellors of public research universities. It’s irrelevant because it’s a distraction to compete with other universities to chase a suspect standard of good management.
If wage compression and a free education are paramount, that also informs the way that management should respond to the budget cuts. First freeze student feeze, first sign the union contracts, first attack salaries over $200K, first promise no layoffs. Then go and scream at the state legislature to provide the money, and try to buy time by spending the endowment. The gut intuition is that attacking salaries over $200K could reap a huge windfall. The fact that the lion’s share of those salaries go to doctors is a difficulty postponed for later discussion.
Well, it’s a vision. It seems fair to call it a socialist vision. I personally think that a vision like that isn’t realistic and isn’t good for California either. But at least it isn’t a simple denial of logic and arithmetic.
Take a look at this:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/27/magazine/27fob-q4-t.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=Yudof&st=cse
This is the real news a real journalist would have put at the beginning of the article:
Bill Camp, Executive Director of the Sacramento Central Labor Council brought the crowd to a frenzy with an angry and impassioned speech. “Sisters and brothers there’s a new day in America, and we’re going to send a message to those jerks in Sacramento.”
Greg,
I think my data on the UC payroll is pretty conservative, really. People can decide for themselves at [url]http://ucpay.globl.org[/url].
As for UC budget, I haven’t published much yet, but I do follow the work of Bob Samuels ([url]http://changinguniversities.blogspot.com[/url])and Charles Schwartz ([url]http://universityprobe.org/[/url]), who make pretty convincing cases that most of UC’s current real problems have more to do with UC management priorities than state funding. Of course the state could do a better job funding UC. But if we are to be honest, it looks like UC is being suffocated more from inside than out at the moment.
I will have more data on that very soon.
JB
Brian: I disagree. This wasn’t a story about Bill Camp. It was a story about the students, faculty and staff. So no, it didn’t belong at the beginning of the article and no real journalist would have put it there. And you’ll probably notice that no one covering the event did.
Jeff Bergamini: [i]I think my data on the UC payroll is pretty conservative, really.[/i]
But that’s not the question. To put it to you directly, you said in your interview with David that the UC payroll is top-heavy with [b]administrators[/b], while it’s quite clear from your data that the UC payroll is top-heavy with [b]doctors[/b]. That is a main point on which I felt that you ought to know better. The lion’s share of your proposed pay cuts is that you want to save the UC budget by raiding the salaries of doctors.
Good luck finding the money just with administrative salaries.
On another point, though, I am totally on your side. Your data web site is really very useful. The one run by the Sac Bee is already useful, but yours is even better.
“I think my data on the UC payroll is pretty conservative, really. People can decide for themselves at http://ucpay.globl.org.
As for UC budget, I haven’t published much yet, but I do follow the work of Bob Samuels (http://changinguniversities.blogspot.com)and Charles Schwartz (http://universityprobe.org/), who make pretty convincing cases that most of UC’s current real problems have more to do with UC management priorities than state funding. Of course the state could do a better job funding UC. But if we are to be honest, it looks like UC is being suffocated more from inside than out at the moment.”
Makes for interesting reading. It bolsters my argument that the rationale of “different pots of money” is nothing but a shell game used to hide where money actually goes/how it is spent/how much waste goes on. TRANSPARENCY OF PROCESS is key, and is something the UC Regents will fight tooth and nail. I’m with Leland Yee, to the extent of demanding transparency, but I don’t want the CA legislature being the ones doing the oversight, since they can’t keep their own house in order. But some objective oversight of the UC system is needed, and transparency of budgetary process is paramount.
For the record: the lecturer who spoke at the rally is named John Boe, not Steve Ball.
Thanks.
“Makes for interesting reading. It bolsters my argument that the rationale of “different pots of money” is nothing but a shell game used to hide where money actually goes/how it is spent/how much waste goes on.”
Typically, legislative actions or voter approved initiatives define these pots of money, and don’t necessarily give educational institutions flexibility to spend them that freely.
For instance, if voters approve a construction bond for universities and public k-12 education, then they don’t have the right to turn around and spend that money on salaries or something else.
[i]Typically, legislative actions or voter approved initiatives define these pots of money[/i]
There is only one pot of money that really looks big enough for the radical protesters, and that’s medical care. Whether the formula comes from Jeff Bergamini, or Charlie Schwartz, or AFSCME, the bottom line is the same: Cover the state budget cut by raiding the salaries of doctors. They get the lion’s share of the money that looks available.
It is true that various state and federal laws restrict this pot of money, and maybe one or two minor voter initiatives. But it’s not just the laws, it’s also simple common sense. Patients do not want their medical bills used to teach calculus. Yes, doctors’ salaries are extremely high and maybe Obama can do something about that, but Yudof can’t just yank that money for the sake of students.
Greg,
[quote]But that’s not the question. To put it to you directly, you said in your interview with David that the UC payroll is top-heavy with administrators, while it’s quite clear from your data that the UC payroll is top-heavy with doctors. That is a main point on which I felt that you ought to know better. The lion’s share of your proposed pay cuts is that you want to save the UC budget by raiding the salaries of doctors.
Good luck finding the money just with administrative salaries.
[/quote]
Thanks for the input. In fact, that’s an interesting point, worth investigating. So I just added the ability to filter out doctors from the furlough worksheet. See here for an example:
[url]http://ucpay.globl.org/worksheet.php?proposal=28&nodoctors=on[/url]
Play around with it a bit. Maximum 25% cut for the very wealthy (>=$240K/yr), little to no cuts for low earners, same savings as Yudof plan. And you’ll see that, in fact, if the (non-doctor) highest bracket were to take an extra 2% off from the above proposal, no one making less than $60K needs a pay cut at all.
So even discounting medical profs, UC management’s line of “shared sacrifice” just doesn’t hold up, and this still sounds more like a backhanded way of “restructuring” the university in a very corporate manner.
[quote]
On another point, though, I am totally on your side. Your data web site is really very useful. The one run by the Sac Bee is already useful, but yours is even better.[/quote]
Thanks. It’s been a fun and interesting project.
I’ve also been digging into historical data regarding state funding vs student “fees”, and so far it seems to confirm the same “crisis of priorities” that has been the center of this discussion. Should have that done within a couple days.
Jeff
Jeff, your filter doesn’t exclude all of the doctors. You also need to exclude *clin* and *physician*, and even after that there are is a sprinkling highly-paid medical workers left. You need to adjust it again to make your point.
In any case, as you adjust for reality in your plan, it looks more similar to Yudof’s actual plan. The main difference in your new table is that you boosted my pay cut to 11.5% from 9%. Also, because I have summer grant money, I am a hair away from an 18.5% pay cut. If the administration wanted a real faculty revolt, it would try to implement this plan.
You should also understand that cutting my 2/9 summer salary is illusory savings under anyone’s plan, and the same is true for a lot of faculty. That money comes straight from the NSF and UC has no authority to confiscate it. UC charges overhead, but overhead must be negotiated. They could cut my summer salary rate, but I could and would increase the total back to 2/9.
Sorry, I meant from 8% to 11.5%. I am not in the 9% range.
Anyway, the real point is that the 18.5% pay cut would be a deep hit to senior faculty. Many would jump ship, and they would take a lot of grant money and UPTE jobs with them.
In general, I think it’s a mistake to get too drawn into matching the amount that the Yudof furlough plan “saves”, since I haven’t seen any real justification for it, and UCOP (to my knowledge) hasn’t tried to explain the amounts.
But sticking with it for the moment, I did add the rest of those clinical/physician titles in just now, without much effect. (See same link above.)
To your other points:
There’s no reason UC would have to confiscate your NSF funds, someone else’s NIH funds, etc. In a “fiscal emergency” it might make sense to cut the actual salary that UC is paying. Which is better?: A slightly leaner retirement pool from this year’s salary for some relatively wealthy people, or tens of thousands of normal folks truly suffering?
Which brings up…
I’ve been a grad student at both UC and CSU, and have known students from a few other systems. I understand this is anecdotal, but: The faculty who might “jump ship” if UC dares to touch them would almost certainly be replaced by others who are, honestly, just as ready to teach and do some quality research. There is no shortage of hopeful postdocs around, or frustrated faculty from other systems who might want to give UC (even a new/different UC) a try for less (but still a lot of) money. And as for teaching quality, I would not be surprised if those replacements were more dedicated to teaching than the current lot. (No offense meant to you. I work with faculty members every day; I’m sure we both know that a fair segment regards teaching as a nuisance.)
Do think some of these details are red herrings though, to some extent. There are larger issues. I’m still working on the following, but maybe you have some feedback: [url]http://ucpay.globl.org/funding_vs_fees.php[/url]
It’s certainly not all the state’s fault, even if plans have changed since the “compact”. There are obvious financial management problems here.
Toward the bottom I might add in some trends regarding salary growth rates for a few brackets of staff, faculty and administration as well, to see how well they track fees and state funds. Should be interesting.
[i]There’s no reason UC would have to confiscate your NSF funds, someone else’s NIH funds, etc.[/i]
Except that, in your “proposals”, that’s what it would do. Gross pay includes pay from these funds. It’s equally bad advice when you airily declare that senior faculty can be replaced, after slamming an 18.5% pay cut on them. Your “proposal” includes big pay cuts for people with billions of dollars in grant money. That includes Nobel Laureates, NAS members, etc. Maybe they could be replaced by people with some sort of PhD, but not by people who can tow nearly as many UPTE jobs.
In all, you’re not taking your own proposals to Yudof very seriously. I find that a lot of activists are willing to march in the streets, take interviews, write a lot of letters, etc., on the basis of core demands that haven’t been thought through. People figure that there must be some simple way for the system to do whatever they want.
As for your page of charts, by far the most relevant chart is the last one. The other six charts on the page are all smoke and mirrors and should be deleted. And that last chart is also missing something major. Namely, the red and blue curves are not put on the same scale as each other, [b]inflation-adjusted dollars per student[/b]. UC’s education money is obtained by adding the blue curve to the red curve, but not of course when they are rescaled to 1960 = 1.
It would be even better to make a green curve which is the sum of the red curve and the blue curve, once they are on the same base.
Also, I don’t know which inflation rate you use, but it should be the California inflation rate, not the national inflation rate.
We’re trying to settle on core demands right now, so some input is always useful, if it’s honest. (You sound like you might be more interested in attacking/deflecting than being honest, but I’ll go out on a limb.) I’d rather move this discussion off the web, if you’re willing to discuss personally a bit. This isn’t a satisfying method of communication.
A couple points and I will try to contact you:
One underlying assumption in what you’re saying is that faculty are too important to sacrifice their fair share, and irreplaceable.
First you claimed that the “lion’s share” of the alternative cuts I proposed were to the “salaries of doctors”. When that didn’t turn out to be true, the line became that it would involve “confiscating” your NSF money, which doesn’t make sense either, unless over 80% of your salary is grant money. And then you drag out the Nobel Laureate line… We’re talking about a relative handful of people here. Same goes for NAS members. And so what? Are you implying they’ll all just leave if their pay is cut? Seems odd for supposedly dedicated scientists.
[quote]
As for your page of charts, by far the most relevant chart is the last one. The other six charts on the page are all smoke and mirrors and should be deleted. And that last chart is also missing something major. Namely, the red and blue curves are not put on the same scale as each other, inflation-adjusted dollars per student. UC’s education money is obtained by adding the blue curve to the red curve, but not of course when they are rescaled to 1960 = 1.
[/quote]
The charts are meant to build up to those on the bottom. That last chart shows exactly what I intended: The state is paying 10 times what it did per student (adjusted). Students are paying almost times what they did (adjusted). Obviously student fees are being used to make up for something other than lack of state funding. This is the trend.
Changed inflation data to use CA DOF Implicit Price Deflator for state and local government.
I’ll add a dollars graph when I have time.
Edit: Students are paying almost 30 times what they did (adjusted)
Interested: “Makes for interesting reading. It bolsters my argument that the rationale of “different pots of money” is nothing but a shell game used to hide where money actually goes/how it is spent/how much waste goes on.”
wdf: “Typically, legislative actions or voter approved initiatives define these pots of money, and don’t necessarily give educational institutions flexibility to spend them that freely.
For instance, if voters approve a construction bond for universities and public k-12 education, then they don’t have the right to turn around and spend that money on salaries or something else.”
Stop right there. “Legislative action”. In other words, legislators, UC Regents (college legislators), etc. all play the shell game. They take tax dollars in the aggregate, divide it up into pots of money, so it becomes “untouchable”. That doesn’t make it any less of a shell game. The “pots of money” strategy has been very effective in fooling the voters like you.
“They take tax dollars in the aggregate, divide it up into pots of money, so it becomes “untouchable”. That doesn’t make it any less of a shell game. The “pots of money” strategy has been very effective in fooling the voters like you.”
Maybe so. But the way I read it there is a history behind this, at least in the K-12 system. I know less about higher education budget processes.
School districts have been taken to court for skimping on textbooks or not keeping the schools at a minimum level of maintenance and cleanliness.
[url]http://www.cde.ca.gov/eo/ce/wc/wmslawsuit.asp[/url]
(link also lists legislation derived to respond to the Williams lawsuit)
Federal money is often allocated for disadvantaged students of one kind or another. One reason that you find “pots of money” is an attempt to make sure that all students are served.
At a college level, one way to demonstrate compliance with Title IX is to show that you’re spending equally on sports for men and women. That would produce a “pot of money” strategy.
So what do you propose? Just mixing it all together into just one pot and letting the administration decide how to spend it best?
[i]First you claimed that the “lion’s share” of the alternative cuts I proposed were to the “salaries of doctors”. When that didn’t turn out to be true[/i]
Well, wait a minute. Yes, the second time I said “lion’s share”, I was speaking loosely, and yes it was an exaggeration. However, your data shows that 2/3 of the pay over $200K is to doctors. It’s fair to say then an outright majority of the shift from low salaries to high salaries in your original plan really is doctors’ money.
The other thing is that you keep changing the pay cuts and cutoffs in your plans. At this point, you have a proliferation of plans and off-the-cuff descriptions, and you can’t bounce between them to argue that your ideas work. If you had Yudof’s job, you would only be allowed to implement one plan.
The one plan that you made that does not depend on doctors has a really big pay cut for a lot of ordinary senior faculty, anyone making over $120K. You might have trouble understanding why anyone would “need” to make more than $120K; and actually I agree that in the social justice sense, no one “needs” that much money. But I think you can understand that if you cut people’s pay by 18% at that level, you’re basically daring them to go to another employer. Again, according to your own data, you’re proposing this hit for 40% of the regular (non-medical) faculty.
Again, look how far you’ve moved away from your radio statement that the UC payroll is top-heavy with [b]administrators[/b].
Your last chart does roughly convey one point, which is that over the past 50 years, the cost of education really has gone up a lot, when adjusted for inflation [b]in goods and services[/b]. But there is a famous reason that that is the wrong rate of inflation for the cost of education. You should instead use [b]wage inflation[/b] because of the Baumol effect ([url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baumol’s_cost_disease[/url]). Many types of goods and services are much more economical than in 1960 because of technology. But labor-dominated services, things like daycare or teaching classes, take just as much work now as then.
Rest assured that I have no reason to be dishonest in this discussion. I have more to learn on certain points, but I’m not invested in any political campaign of any time. If you want to talk more by e-mail, sure. Or we can even meet for a cup of coffee if you like. (Well, tea in my case.)
[i]Are you implying they’ll all just leave if their pay is cut? Seems odd for supposedly dedicated scientists.[/i]
A couple of other points, notwithstanding the suggestion of meeting in person if you want to do that.
Yes, scientists certainly are dedicated. But we’re dedicated to science, and often to teaching, not to California. Why should we do this work in California if Michigan or Texas wants us 30% more?
Also here is a corrected url ([url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baumol_effect[/url]) for the famous Baumol effect, or Baumol cost disease. The cost of wages, not the cost of goods and services, is the right base for your 50-year chart.
The changes to those proposals on my site are fairly slight, at least those recent ones that work in “no doctors” mode. And they all focus on the idea that the brackets just aren’t graduated enough. But I still think it’s a bad road for us to go down, focusing exclusively on trying to match Yudof’s level of salary cuts. It misses the bigger picture.
Pretty much agreed regarding salary caps and “daring” people to look for other employment. That’s one way to look at it. One other interesting number, to return to the Yudofian cut level once more, is that if no one in the system made over $12K/month, that would obviate need for a “furlough” plan. So in this sense UC is a microcosm of our very unequal society.
And yes, it was unwise in that interview to append “top-heavy” exclusively with “administrators”.
Anyway, I’ll shoot you an email. We can talk more about wage inflation. It’ll be tea for me as well.
JB
“You should instead use wage inflation because of the Baumol effect. Many types of goods and services are much more economical than in 1960 because of technology. But labor-dominated services, things like daycare or teaching classes, take just as much work now as then.”
This defines labor improvements as improvements in productivity, presumably making more of a product. But wouldn’t service jobs improve over time as technology improves? Teaching today more likely requires the ability to work with more technologies than were available in the past — powerpoint, spreadsheets, word processors. Wouldn’t that potentially improve the quality of teaching?
[i]This defines labor improvements as improvements in productivity, presumably making more of a product. But wouldn’t service jobs improve over time as technology improves? Teaching today more likely requires the ability to work with more technologies than were available in the past — powerpoint, spreadsheets, word processors. Wouldn’t that potentially improve the quality of teaching?[/i]
That’s a good question, but it does have an answer. There has been some efficiency gains in teaching from technology. I e-mail my students, I post homework on the web, and (although this is not convenient in my favorite classes) in a very large class I could lecture from my laptop. If the point is to make the product cheaper in labor units, then I could use these methods to have maybe a 50% larger class for the same quality of instruction.
In comparison, you could probably make and ship five times as many chairs and tables as in 1960 for a unit labor cost. The price for many such goods has fallen even further because they are manufactured in other countries.
But even that comparison doesn’t show you the real interaction of technology with education. What really happens is that expectations for what the education should accomplish go up. In fact, these expectations go up faster than the efficiency gains. The same Internet that I use to teach more efficiently, makes more people want to go college, and it makes them want more from college. Yudof makes the point that a college graduate can expect to make a million dollars more in total salary than a high-school graduate.
UC’s class sizes have followed a bad trend lately, but in many other respects a UC education is better than it was in 1960. And whether or not it’s better, it’s certainly more valuable to the students.
While you guys are still at it, I think this is begging a question:
If a Baumol effect plays a significant part in this, why was it apparently sleeping from 1960-1990 and 1997-2001? What’s Baumoly special about 1990-1997 and 2001-present?
(See graph at bottom of [url]http://ucpay.globl.org/funding_vs_fees.php[/url].)
[i]If a Baumol effect plays a significant part in this, why was it apparently sleeping from 1960-1990 and 1997-2001? What’s Baumoly special about 1990-1997 and 2001-present?[/i]
Nothing was Baumoly special about the past ten years. (I like the neologism, though!) The only reason that your last graph doesn’t show it is the way that you plotted it. The curves are flattened because they are compressed to the x-axis — this is what semilog plots are for. And they are straightened because before 1990, your data points are five years apart.
Again, this plot would have been clearer if you added the red and blue curves.
Also, no matter how your graph looks, the Baumol effect is real. Indeed, to take account of what Baumol was really talking about, you would have to look at specific types of labor, not labor in general. The cost of an hour of labor from someone who knows calculus has gone up rather faster than the cost of an hour of labor from someone who doesn’t.
Yeah, I’ve been looking around for finer-grained enrollment data from earlier years. Haven’t found it yet.
I’ll rethink how to present the graphs and get them cleaned up before making them “public”. Don’t want to mislead…