It has been a busy week, but we have to note with stunned amazement the continued audacity of the University of California, who announced this week that they will spend approximately 140 million dollars that was raised from increasing student tuition to give merit raises to thousands of faculty members and nonunion employees earning up to 200,000 dollars.
According to one source, the faculty has consistently received these raises for the last few years, but nonunion staff members have not.
In July the UC Regents added a new fee hike of 9.6 percent, along with the 8 percent hike they already approved last year, and it will raise tuition to around $12,192 annually for UC Davis students.
As Mr. Yudof wrote to students at that time, “I want to emphasize that the regents and I made this painful decision only after the campuses and the Office of the President had absorbed as many cuts as possible without irreparably damaging the quality of the system.”
While he was spilling his guts out last week talking about how painful it was to increase fees to students, in a letter to faculty he argued that these raises were necessary to keep faculty and other staff from being lured away, and that staff also deserves more money as a signal that they are appreciated.
“One purpose of this pool is to give you a tool in your efforts to recruit and, most importantly, retain leading faculty members, who increasingly are being courted by competing institutions. As I have said on many occasions, University quality cannot be compromised, and our excellent professors and researchers are the fountainhead of that quality,” he wrote.
“Another purpose is to demonstrate to non-represented staff members that we understand and appreciate how hard they have worked, through difficult times, on behalf of the University and California,” Mr. Yudof wrote. “Fairness dictates that we take this step.”
He defended the policy, arguing that they have not received any increases in nearly four years, have taken pay cuts through the furlough programs, and “Many are working longer hours as a result of budget-induced layoffs of their coworkers.”
He added, “It should be noted, as well, that most of our colleagues who are represented by unions, by virtue of existing, negotiated contracts, have received regular pay increases throughout this long-running fiscal crisis.”
Union officials took exception to that notion, noting that their lowest-wage workers make below $13.75 per hour.
AFSCME (American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees) 3299 Union President Lakesha Harrison objected, “Mark Yudof needs to make a commitment to all of his workers.”
Students questioned whether faculty and staff members earning up to $200,000 needed pay hikes.
“So all of a sudden they have money?” said Claudia Magaña, a UC Santa Cruz student who is president of the UC Student Association. “Is this where our fee increase went to? I wouldn’t want to say they don’t deserve it, but I think it’s questionable that all of a sudden there’s money for this, but there’s no money for our services being cut.”
Meanwhile, Senator Ted Lieu introduced legislation that would limit CSU salaries and raises within three years of a tuition increase.
This comes in the wake of California State University trustees granting a $100,000 raise to a campus president immediately after approving a 12-percent tuition hike
“I believe a $100,000 annual raise to San Diego State University’s new president was unreasonable, especially while tuition fees for students were increased by 12 percent,” Senator Lieu said. “They have not listened to my call to reverse the pay hike. I’m pushing to limit salaries to a reasonable level of compensation.”
Under the legislation, CSU trustees cannot approve any pay hikes or bonuses if a student tuition increase has occurred within three years.
Senator Leland Yee also re-introduced his bill to stop executive pay hikes at CSU and UC.
“After the governing boards of the University of California and the California State University hiked executives’ pay while also raising student fees last month, Senator Leland Yee (D-San Francisco) today reintroduced (SB 27×1) legislation to prohibit pay raises for top administrators during bad budget years,” a press release indicated.
“The action taken last month by the Regents and Trustees is appalling and reinforces the perception that they are completely out of touch,” said Senator Yee. “UC and CSU are public institutions, not Wall Street banks. Once and for all, it is time to stop these egregious compensation practices and restore the public trust.”
Senator Yee’s legislation would prohibit such pay increases for the system’s top administrators, including campus presidents and chancellors, in years in which the university’s allocation from the state does not increase.
“Time and time again, rather than protecting the needs of students and California families, the Regents and Trustees line the pockets of their top executives,” said Senator Yee. “While these public administrators are living high on the hog, many Californians are struggling. We deserve better.”
Unfortunately, it seems that President Yudof remains tone deaf both to the propriety of raising salaries while taking more money from students and middle class families, as well as to the politics of it all. It simply looks bad.
In our “let them eat cake” commentary last Sunday, we argued that while President Yudof writes an apologetic letter to students, stating that he wanted to emphasize that he and the regents made this painful decision only after the absorption of as many cuts as possible without irreparably damaging the quality of the system, he doesn’t exactly feel their pain.
Here he is sitting there receiving over $800,000 in salary, surrounded by people who make half a million in salary, talking to parents who are worried about their children’s education as though he feels their pain.
Of course, Mr. Yudof would prefer to not have to raise tuition. It’s one thing to take a huge salary while raising everyone else’s costs, it is quite another to then turn around and give $140 million from student tuition – blood money – and give it to faculty members and staff who make up to $200,000.
I want to know how much is going to those making between $100 and $200,000, because those people are hurting a lot less than the students.
Sadly, Mr. Yudof took a bad and unfortunate situation, that he likely had no other choice but to do – raise tuition – and made it worse.
I just don’t get it. He can justify it all he wants by arguing that people will leave if they are not properly compensated – I don’t buy it for a second, not in this economy and this market – but what he fails to realize is that every time he raises tuition and then gives money to top executives, he makes it look like they have more money than they are letting on.
That makes it easier for the legislature to cut money to education and tougher for the voters to sympathize when they do. In short, he is undermining the entire higher education system through his sheer arrogance and tone deafness.
He is presiding over the death of public higher education and he is the one pushing it over a cliff with his own stupidity. There is no justification at all for raising anyone’s salary at a time when students and middle class families are being asked to sacrifice.
The average taxpayers is left with the impression that increased taxes would just mean more money to the top executives and the funniest part about it is that they are not wrong.
It does not matter the situation, at the end of the day, the people at the top always benefit at the direct expense of the people at the bottom. This is just the punctuation mark at the end of the sentence.
Let them eat cake, indeed.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
May UC faculty have left due to the cuts so there is much justification with keeping up salaries there. AS for administrators, that may be another story. Its a very small part of the overall budget but certainly not good for PR.
Ahhh…. UC professionals deserve increases in hard times, but City, County, State workers should ‘sacrifice’…
[quote]While he was spilling his guts out last week talking about how painful it was to increase fees to students, in a letter to faculty he argued that these raises were necessary to keep faculty and other staff from being lured away, and that staff also deserves more money as a signal that they are appreciated.[/quote]
This is much the same argument the City Council used to raise the new City Manager’s salary – the higher salaries are necessary to retain the most qualified people. I personally don’t agree w this philosophy. I don’t think paying more money necessarily does get you more qualified applicants.
[quote]That makes it easier for the legislature to cut money to education and tougher for the voters to sympathize when they do. In short, he is undermining the entire higher education system through his sheer arrogance and tone deafness.[/quote]
Frankly, I am beginning to wonder if this is a move by the UC system towards complete privatization. In other words, the UC system is getting so little money from the state, they are not particularly concerned what the state or the public thinks. The UC system is moving towards privatization and autonomy to do whatever they want, at the expense of our in-state students. The UC system was built by taxpayer money and land grants, and needs to stay as a public university system to serve primarily in-state students. The legislature needs to understand that as well, when deciding its budget priorities.
Dr. Wu,
I think you make an important point in differentiating between faculty and administrators. Attracting and retaining the best faculty is critical to the university at many levels : reputation with ability to draw grant money, publish, train on the graduate and undergraduate levels, inspire the next generation of scholars or in the case of campuses with medical schools, our next generation of doctors,build relationships with and support the surrounding nonacademic community. For these reasons, I am in support of whatever is needed to attract and retain top level professors including higher salaries. For administrators, I would be happy with competent, stellar is probably unnecessary both from a functional and a financial point of view, especially since I don’t think that the argument can credibly be made that having top administrators is saving the university money or enhancing undergraduate or graduate education.
ERM
I share your concern about the risk of increasing privatization of what was intended to be and in my opinion should remain a public institution.
I agree that the legislature needs to understand this when deciding budget priorities and would add that the public needs to understand it when we are choosing our legislators. It seems to me that there has been not only a shift in public opinion away from prioritizing our university system, but away from the importance of education overall. While Davis has been very supportive of our public schools to date, I feel that we are becoming one little island in a wave of abandonment of public education as a major priority.
[quote]I think you make an important point in differentiating between faculty and administrators. Attracting and retaining the best faculty is critical to the university at many levels : reputation with ability to draw grant money, publish, train on the graduate and undergraduate levels, inspire the next generation of scholars or in the case of campuses with medical schools, our next generation of doctors,build relationships with and support the surrounding nonacademic community. For these reasons, I am in support of whatever is needed to attract and retain top level professors including higher salaries. For administrators, I would be happy with competent, stellar is probably unnecessary both from a functional and a financial point of view, especially since I don’t think that the argument can credibly be made that having top administrators is saving the university money or enhancing undergraduate or graduate education.[/quote]
But the city and UC will argue the same for administrators as faculty. Te greater the salary, the better the quality. I’m not convinced that more money necessarily buys better. It reminds me a bit of the whole “brand name” nonsense. Someone can buy a perfectly serviceable and competent piece of luggage for $100, but if it is Luis Vitton luggage, the price goes up to say $500 just bc it “looks fancier”, but the luggage is probably not any more functional/serviceable. I think we have gone way beyond getting something “serviceable” for salaries offered, and are entering the “Luis Vitton” realm…
Just as an aside, I think salaries are way out of whack in this country. You have people like Lady GaGa making multi-millions when she can’t even sing, while really good musicians are making peanuts. CEOs of failing corporations are making obscene salaries, while the lowly worker is making peanuts. Teachers/average professors are making mediocre salaries, while lifeguards in some cities are making far more. Something is really wrong w this picture…
ERM: [i]You have people like Lady GaGa making multi-millions when she can’t even sing, while really good musicians are making peanuts.[/i]
I didn’t initially warm up to Lady Gaga, but over time, I’ve come to the opinion that she has talent worth noting. There is a very powerful message in her song, “Born This Way” for instance. We probably have a disagreement over taste on that, though.
I would just note that musical talent isn’t enough to succeed. It also requires a good sense of self-promotion and just plain luck.
In a similar way, often it isn’t the “most qualified” person who gets the job, but rather the person who interviews the best. It may not be fair, but that is how it often works.
I would also add that the UC administration probably does more than $140 million in damage to itself through the negative publicity of trying to sustain those salaries.
“Born This Way”, you mean the song that Lady Gaga ripped off from Madonna?
Back in 2008, when my portfolio was taking a nose dive, my daughter, then 19 made what I thought was a rather astute observation for her age. Her comment was “Don’t worry Mom, it’s not real, it’s only worth what someone is willing to pay for it, it will go back up”. And she was right, it did. So how is this relevant to the current discussion ? I agree with you that the administrators would make the same argument as I make about faculty. My point however is very close to the one that you are making about the inequity of pay for actual work done. This is all about “what we are willing to pay” and our priorities are all messed up. My opinion is that the primary goals of the university are the education of the students,research and the distribution of this knowledge to the community.
This is where it will be of the most benefit to pay competitive wages since number of publications, name recognition, demonstrated leadership in their field are important not only for the individual professor, but to the “lineage” of his or her students. This has real market value for everyone who trains under an acknowledged leading expert. I do not feel that the same argument can be justified for administrators, no matter how hard they may argue for it. Administrators ( and I include myself) simply do not provide the same value for the administrative function as those who are addressing the core mission of an organization. In my opinion, what you need from an administrator is competence, efficiency, fairness and a keen sense of reality. You do not necessarily need a nationally known name or superstar.
ERM
Sorry I was unclear. my post above was directed to you.
Yudof wrote years ago that public universities need to raise tuition in order to pay faculty and staff more to (supposedly) keep up with private universities. This is his idee fixe and he is simply unable to see things any other way. He doesn’t “get it” and he never will.
We’ve given him an extraordinary degree of the benefit of the doubt and he has lost his chance to reform himself, therefore the only choice he has given us, as citizens of California who have the ultimate say in the matter, is to remove him. He obviously will not leave on his own, therefore he must be fired. If the Regents don’t remove him, then we must have them replaced too.
rusty49: [i]”Born This Way”, you mean the song that Lady Gaga ripped off from Madonna?[/i]
I hear some similarities in the melody, but not enough (IMO) to justify a lawsuit as happened to George Harrison w/ “My Sweet Lord”. But the lyrics are not the same; Lady Gaga’s are better, IMO.
From Mark Yudof ruining the best public higher education system in the world to Lady Gaga…
Yes, that is a little off topic. Unless of course Lady Gaga is being considered for UC President. I bet she could raise more money than Yudof.
@brianriley: The problem with your suggestion is that the public is at least two steps removed from the process of hiring the UC president. I don’t think even the governor could fire him if he wanted to, without the approval of the rest of the board of regents. And he can’t fire them, either. UC is highly autonomous, in management and in budget. That has some advantages and some disadvantages.
The problem is this column muddies everything. There is little question that the number of UC administrators grew beyond what was needed and that they tend to be paid too much. But that’s not where Yudolf’s money is going.
You send your child to a UC? Who do you want teaching them? UC faculty are being cherry picked by the droves by other (any of them public) universities. You do what you can stem the flow of the faculty. Staff? They have been cut so deeply that any relief is a good thing. Do they compare to city employees that can retire at nearly full benefits at 50? No….and no.
Get real – this column constantly escalates the language and rarely does any real digging into issues. Like, hmm, what about that city manager salary posting…
[i]”UC faculty are being cherry picked by the droves by other (any of them public) universities.”[/i]
Is there a real study showing this? I am not saying you are wrong. I just wonder if this claim is based on an actual study or if it is based on anecdotes?
How do UC salaries compare with those at, say, Michigan or Texas or UVa?
One thing which seems evident to me is that the UC med schools have plenty of money to pay their faculties. These 7 are UCSF’s top paid employees:
Timothy H Mccalmont UC SAN FRANCISCO PROF OF CLIN -MEDCOMP-A $1,902,464.00
Philip E Leboit UC SAN FRANCISCO PROF OF CLIN -MEDCOMP-A $1,854,158.00
Anthony Azakie UC SAN FRANCISCO ASSOC PROF IN RES-MEDCOMP-A $1,221,896.00
Stanley B Prusiner UC SAN FRANCISCO PROFESSOR-MEDCOMP-A $803,617.00
Thomas P Vail UC SAN FRANCISCO PROFESSOR-MEDCOMP-A $770,105.00
Michael S Conte UC SAN FRANCISCO PROFESSOR-MEDCOMP-A $749,901.00
Michael T Lawton UC SAN FRANCISCO PROF IN RES-MEDCOMP-A $736,998.00
I cannot imagine that Texas or Michigan or UVa are bidding away these professors.
Here is a complete list of the salaries of 905 people at UCSF ([url]http://www.sacbee.com/statepay/?name=&agency=UC+SAN+FRANCISCO&salarylevel=200000[/url]) who make more than $200,000 per year.
@Don: Are you saying that the People of the State of California do not have legal sovereignty over the UC Regents?
[i]”Just as an aside, I think salaries are way out of whack in this country. You have people like Lady GaGa making multi-millions when she can’t even sing, while really good musicians are making peanuts. CEOs of failing corporations are making obscene salaries, while the lowly worker is making peanuts. Teachers/average professors are making mediocre salaries, while lifeguards in some cities are making far more. Something is really wrong w this picture… “[/i]
Don’t worry too much Elaine. Democrats are getting their way reducing the gap between wealthy and poor.
In 2007, 390,000 tax filers reported adjusted gross income of $1 million or more and paid $309 billion in taxes. In 2009, there were only 237,000 such filers, a decline of 39%. Almost four of 10 millionaires vanished in two years, and the total taxes they paid in 2009 declined to $178 billion, a drop of 42%.
Studies have consistently shown that management is much more likely to blame pay as the reason employees leave than do employees. Employee generally quit their boss, not their company.
Think about it… as a boss you would naturally blame something other than your poor management skills for your poor record of employee retention. And, you would naturally need to pay more to attract and retain quality employees.
[i]Are you saying that the People of the State of California do not have legal sovereignty over the UC Regents? [/i]
Effectively, no, they do not. Legally maybe, but it can’t really be implemented. The UC is very much an independent body.
It would be almost impossible for a governor to fire the UC President, even if he really, really wanted to. Nor could the legislature do it. Nor can they, as a practical matter, withhold funds, and they don’t control the majority of the funds the Regents disburse. To a large extent, the university is already privatized. Note in the Wikipedia article below how the 12-year terms affect the ability of any sitting governor to have any control over the management of UC.
[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regents_of_the_University_of_California[/url]
Here is their budget breakdown showing revenue sources:
[url]http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/factsheets/thefacts_budget_07_14_11.pdf[/url]
@Don: Sorry, Don. There’s no such thing as “effectively yes” or “effectively no” when the issue is an all-encompassing one like sovereignty. You know the answer, and the answer is: Yes. The People can do whatever they want with the University, given the resolve to do it.
How much of the raise money will be borrowed by students? The state has placed this burden on students by underfunding the University. Instead of taxing or borrowing to fund UC the state cut its contribution leaving the students holding the bag with non-dischargeable debt for the well deserved raises of faculty. See the link:
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/08/the-debt-crisis-at-american-colleges/243777/
To medwoman: How do you feel about this (see below)?
[quote]Timothy H Mccalmont UC SAN FRANCISCO PROF OF CLIN -MEDCOMP-A $1,902,464.00 [/quote]
@brian: [i]You know the answer, and the answer is: Yes. The People can do whatever they want [/i]
Really? Please describe the mechanism by which the people would effect the removal of the UC President.
ERM
I suspect that you probably know how I personally feel about it on a moral level, since on other posts I have stated that I feel that compensation in this country is completely unjust. But then, I would favor a single party payer, paying instead of charging students to get their education, and flattening wages so that everyone doing a constructive service of any type would be ensured a living wage, housing, clothing, health care, and oh, yes, did I mention education? Yes, I know, how much more to the left could I get?
However since that is not the world in which we live, the real comparison for the top ranked MD professor in the UC system would have to be compared to his counterparts at Stanford, Harvard and other comparable Institutions. It would also have to be compared to the common levels of compensation for his specialty. As it turns out, Dr. McCalmont is a dermatopathologist. This is one of the more highly specialized combined disciplines. It involves completing medical school and residency, usually at or near the top of your class, since training programs are amongst the most competitive. After that, the successful applicant will be looking at another three to four years of specialized training at wages which are usually around 40-50,000 per year for 60-70 hour work weeks. The starting salary for a dermatopathologist right out of training is somewhere in the $ 300,000 dollar range. This is with no experience, no publications, no significant teaching experience except that provided to the younger residents. So, given that Dr. McCalmont is the multiply published head of one of the most highly regarded departments of it’s kind in the state (when I was at Stanford 25 years ago, the two departments would sometimes confer on their most challenging referral cases) I cannot judge what his compensation should be within our current system. Should it be on a par with his equivalents at private institutions in order to retain someone with truly rare knowledge and credentials, or are we going to cede excellence to the private institutions so that only the rich, well connected, foreign or rare truly token underprivileged who can get in on a full scholarship has access to the training needed to excel ?
I for one, am eternally grateful to Social Security, the taxpayers of the state of California, and the federal taxpayers without whose very generous support, I would never have been able to become a doctor. It saddens me that we are choosing to gut this previously wonderful system rather than support it.
Don Shor
To continue my uncharacteristically gloomy ( probably because I am currently home in bed sick) thoughts on the current state or our public educational system, I would like to propose a mechanism by which the public might dispose of the UC President. Let’s just continue to refuse to raise taxes to support our public educational system, eventually the top tier of administrators compensations will no longer match what they can make in the private sector and they will leave voluntarily. While I personally would not mind this outcome on the administrative level for reasons stated previously, I do think we owe it to our students to provide the best educators we can find. For years the UC system has ranked as the top public institution in many fields, and has some of the top programs in the nation, both public and private included. Just one example is UCBs Integrative Biology program which is the top ranked program nationally. These cuts while they might rid us of overpaid (in my opinion)
Administrators, it will eventually rob us of our best researchers, teachers, doctors …. It is up to the voters of the state of California to decide whether it is worth it to allow people in my income bracket ( a little less that for a freshly minted dermatopathologist) and above to keep our capacity for an over the top style of luxurious living on the off chance that our spending ( forget about job creation since that obnpviously hasn’t happened) will provide the spark necessary to improve the economy. My view is that it will not. After all it hasn’t so far. But we do have another choice. We could put our money where our collective mouths are with regard to support for education. We could tax the truly wealthy and corporations (which after all our Supreme Court and GOP frontrunner have declared to be people) and put that revenue towards education. I doubt we will since we are seeing a definite trend towards downplaying the importance of education in this country. But we could, if we had the will.
@Don: Don, first you tell me. Is the University of California a state agency or not?
No, Brian, it is not IMO a state agency, in that it is not under the direct management of the executive branch and its leaders are not publicly elected (I realize some of the regents are ex-officio elected officials). There may be some other way you would consider it a state agency, but it is highly autonomous.
This isn’t a game of riddles. My point is that the ability of the state legislature and the governor to affect the management of UC is very limited. I don’t even know if the governor can fire a UC Regent. They serve 12 year terms. Brown hasn’t even appointed any yet. The majority are Schwarzenegger appointees. The budget is managed by the Regents, and they are not directly answerable to the governor or the legislature.
Even if the state legislature cut off all state funds, the UC system could continue to function. They could jack up fees, increase their income from other sources, and go completely private.
Oh, and I thought I was being gloomy !
medwoman… sounds like either you are a “basic” christian or a communist. They both espoused “to each, according to their need, and from which, according to their ability”… both viewpoints have great merit… but are they “real”?
To medwoman: If the good Dr. is worth $1.9 million, Yudoff will certainly argue he is worth $800,000. After all, Yudoff administers an entire university system. And there is the rub – when we get into the “keeping up with the Jones” routine, we get into the “paying what we cannot afford” syndrome – the Luis Vitton luggage instead of the serviceable luggage. I know that is an oversimplification of a difficult issue, but you catch my drift…
hpierce
“both viewpoints have great merit….but are they real ?
I do not choose to characterize or label my belief system.” But I would be happy to put forth a few principles that I believe to be true.
1) We are the only species ( as far as we are aware) on this planet that has the ability to look forward, conceive, design and implement changes that have the potential to drastically alter not only our own future, but that of the entire planet. Whether we gained this status by intelligent design or by evolution, or some combination of these or other processes means not one whit to me.
2) Since we are unique in this capacity, we are unique in our responsibility.
3) Whether “they are real”or not is entirely up to us. We make our world according to what we can imagine and the outcomes of our day to day choices, both large and small. I truly believe that with our overall wealth as a nation,, we have the ability to provide the basics for our entire population. We simply are not choosing to do so.
ERM
I am sure you are correct that this is exactly what Mr. Yudoff would argue. Which gets to the heart of my recommendation for totally restructuring our means of compensation. I believe that if someone is providing a service that is of benefit to the society, whether as a student, a doctor, a garbage collector…., they should be compensated for their time, not according to their job classification. I believe this because their is only one thing that is worth the same to all of us, and that is our time. Much potential good is wasted in our society in fruitless argument over whether a doctor should make more than a lawyer……Think what we could achieve if we put these resources which are squandered on political campaigns (as just one example) into educating our students.
@Don: Don, click on “U” on this link and scroll down:
http://www.ca.gov/CaSearch/Agencies.aspx
I work on campus as a non union staffer and make under 100K per year. I have been working there for 30 years. I have seen budgets go up and done and merit increases disappear due to insufficient funds and be replaced with a minimal 2% across the board pay increase be implemented for years. I have been a middle manager on and off for about 20 years. I have only had the opportunity to grant my staff MERIT increases ONE TIME. The rest of the time the “merit” program has been a joke. I was around when it was implemented under the PPS program when Gardner was president. It was a corporate model of compensating people for performance. It sounded good and looked good on paper, but UC could not support the $$ it took to manage such a program. They also had little to no programs in place to train managers and supervisors to allocate merits appropriately. When you don’t work in a system that generates money you don’t get the culture that breeds people to make money for the company. That is not what “institutions” do. At UC there are many ways to excel and stand out. People need to be rewarded in different ways and merit $$ are not it at the UC or any state system. It doesn’t work. I am disgusted that UC is allocating money for raises of any kind. I would rather they took this money and kept my benefit costs down. Holy cow. This is as stupid as it comes. It is embarrassing. I seriously doubt that we will be given enough money to offer anything worthwhile to staff as a merit. After years of going without it will be a joke and backfire with the staff. I have seen it before. UC needs to grow a pair and tell people that want more money to go ahead and leave California. Go ahead and take your family somewhere else. You will be back. Living in California is a real bonus from many parts of the country and UC should put a premium on it and instead of thinking they have to compete dollar to dollar with other campuses. Will this type of strategy be hard? Yes it will. Will some people leave? Yes they will, but the word will be out – if you want to be a researcher in California you have to want to work for people at UC who are more focused on the work and not the money. If you are not that type of person, then we don’t want you. That culture needs to become stronger and be ingrained in staff and faculty. It used to be there and it slipping away with every wave of retirements. People work here today because it is a job not a career of service to students and to make California and the world a better place. It used to be that way and it can be again, but the Regents need to get away from the corporate model. It has ruined the university system.
steel
Thank you for sharing your viewpoint, and for adding what I feel is frequently overlooked. There are people who will work for reasons other than how much money they can make. One has to look no further than our community clinics where the staff and practitioners work for far less than they could make in private practice or corporate medicine, simply because they believe in what they are doing.