Changing Universities
Unconscious Racism at the University of California
Currently, the University of California appears to be facing several unrelated problems that bring into focus the central issue facing all public universities: how can schools maintain access, affordability, and quality during a time of decreased public support. For many people inside and outside of higher education, the solution to this problem is to push states to increase their funding for higher education; however, this necessary correction is only part of the problem: universities need to not only campaign for more money, but they also have to show that they are using their funds in an effective and efficient manner. Moreover, public universities need to actively fight ethnic and racial conflicts that threaten to arise during times of economic downsizing.
While at first glance the question of racism seems to be unrelated to the issue of funding, it is evident from recent events at the University of California that increased racial tensions often occur during an economic downturn. In fact, one obvious connection between racism and economics concerns enrollment policies and decisions. As many people have reported, less than 2% of the undergraduates at several of the UC campuses are African American, and although this low level of enrollment might not be blamed directly on racism, the effects of this situation is to fan racial tensions. Not only do some African-American students feel that they are not welcomed on their campuses, but studies show that when an ethnic or racial group only represents a small minority, the people from the dominant group revert to unconscious prejudices to categorize and stigmatize the minority group.
In his book, The Hidden Brain, Shankar Vedantam reviews the latest studies of how racism works, and he documents some surprising findings. One of the more upsetting discoveries is that children as young as three-years-old will associate positive traits with white people and negative traits with black people regardless of the race of the child or the attitudes of the children's parents and teachers. As Vedantam stresses, these associations are learned through cultural experience and continue to exist in the unconscious of people even if these same individuals espouse tolerant and progressive stances on a conscious level. From this perspective, the only way to fight racism is to openly admit that we all harbor racist associations and that we need to become aware of our unconscious tendencies.
Another interesting finding that Vedantam analyzes is the notion that people equate blackness to crime and welfare on an unconscious level. In reviewing several psychological tests that are based on word and picture associations, we are confronted with the fact that even if politicians do not mention race when discussing crime and welfare, people draw associations between deviance and blackness in their hidden minds, and these associations often determine how people vote.
To read more, click here.
While at first glance the question of racism seems to be unrelated to the issue of funding, it is evident from recent events at the University of California that increased racial tensions often occur during an economic downturn. In fact, one obvious connection between racism and economics concerns enrollment policies and decisions. As many people have reported, less than 2% of the undergraduates at several of the UC campuses are African American, and although this low level of enrollment might not be blamed directly on racism, the effects of this situation is to fan racial tensions. Not only do some African-American students feel that they are not welcomed on their campuses, but studies show that when an ethnic or racial group only represents a small minority, the people from the dominant group revert to unconscious prejudices to categorize and stigmatize the minority group.
In his book, The Hidden Brain, Shankar Vedantam reviews the latest studies of how racism works, and he documents some surprising findings. One of the more upsetting discoveries is that children as young as three-years-old will associate positive traits with white people and negative traits with black people regardless of the race of the child or the attitudes of the children's parents and teachers. As Vedantam stresses, these associations are learned through cultural experience and continue to exist in the unconscious of people even if these same individuals espouse tolerant and progressive stances on a conscious level. From this perspective, the only way to fight racism is to openly admit that we all harbor racist associations and that we need to become aware of our unconscious tendencies.
Another interesting finding that Vedantam analyzes is the notion that people equate blackness to crime and welfare on an unconscious level. In reviewing several psychological tests that are based on word and picture associations, we are confronted with the fact that even if politicians do not mention race when discussing crime and welfare, people draw associations between deviance and blackness in their hidden minds, and these associations often determine how people vote.
To read more, click here.
March 4th UCLA Recap
On March 4th, a UCLA coalition of students, workers, and faculty held two rallies, a teach-in, and a sit-in. All of these events were very energetic, and we made sure that our demands were heard by the public and the administration. In fact, early pres reports showed that the media were making the connection between the state reduction of funding and the fact that students are now paying more for less.
At the noontime rally, attended by close to a thousand people, groups from all sectors of the UCLA community came together to speak as one voice. After a series of passionate speeches and chants, the entire crowd marched across the campus, and a couple hundred of students, workers, and faculty started an occupation of the central administration building. Many people stayed in the hot hallway in front of the Chancellor’s office for over six hours, and the time was filled with speeches, music, and an open debate concerning what to do next. While the coalition demanded to speak to the Chancellor, a group of police were protecting his office, and he was not seen during the entire day. During part of the sit-in, CNN did a live broadcast that can bee seen ">here.
At 3:00 p.m., a teach-in with over two hundred students and faculty was held outside Powell library. After a series of passionate speeches and presentations by faculty and graduate students, the crowd marched over to Murphy Hall and joined the coalition outside of the Chancellor’s office. While the plan was to lead a march into Westwood, the coalition decided to stay inside and outside of Murphy Hall.
At 4:30, a second rally was held at Bruin Plaza with the general theme of “Protect Public Education, Protect Public Workers.” Teachers and students from local K-12 schools, community colleges, and California State Universities joined together to protest and to hear a great series of speakers. After this rally, many people marched back to Murphy Hall where we found that the building entrances were now being blocked by police. Since we could not enter the building, we held another rally outside of Murphy Hall. During most of these events, KPFK radio was broadcasting live from UCLA, and you can hear three great hours of coverage and interviews by clicking here and here. For a discussion of where we go next, click here.
At the noontime rally, attended by close to a thousand people, groups from all sectors of the UCLA community came together to speak as one voice. After a series of passionate speeches and chants, the entire crowd marched across the campus, and a couple hundred of students, workers, and faculty started an occupation of the central administration building. Many people stayed in the hot hallway in front of the Chancellor’s office for over six hours, and the time was filled with speeches, music, and an open debate concerning what to do next. While the coalition demanded to speak to the Chancellor, a group of police were protecting his office, and he was not seen during the entire day. During part of the sit-in, CNN did a live broadcast that can bee seen ">here.
At 3:00 p.m., a teach-in with over two hundred students and faculty was held outside Powell library. After a series of passionate speeches and presentations by faculty and graduate students, the crowd marched over to Murphy Hall and joined the coalition outside of the Chancellor’s office. While the plan was to lead a march into Westwood, the coalition decided to stay inside and outside of Murphy Hall.
At 4:30, a second rally was held at Bruin Plaza with the general theme of “Protect Public Education, Protect Public Workers.” Teachers and students from local K-12 schools, community colleges, and California State Universities joined together to protest and to hear a great series of speakers. After this rally, many people marched back to Murphy Hall where we found that the building entrances were now being blocked by police. Since we could not enter the building, we held another rally outside of Murphy Hall. During most of these events, KPFK radio was broadcasting live from UCLA, and you can hear three great hours of coverage and interviews by clicking here and here. For a discussion of where we go next, click here.
March 4th: The UC Movement Against Privatization
When students and workers say they are fighting the privatization of the university, they are resisting six inter-related trends: 1) the shifting of costs from the public to the individual; thus while the state reduces funding, the individual students are being asked to make up for the differences through higher fees; 2) the university is being run more like a private profit-centered business than a not-for-profit public institution; in this structure, costs are socialized, while profits are privatized through the rise of an administrative class; 3) the move from a peer review system for public workers to a private model of free agent contract negotiations; 4) The move to individualized, online learning; 5) The student focus on earning individual grades over social learning and collaboration; and 6) the move to have private donors and private corporations fund the research mission.
On March 4th, throughout the state, these privatizing tendencies will be confronted by the push to defend public education and public workers. For a list of rallies and protests, click here. Also, to read my Huffington Post article on the UC coalition demands, go here. Please come out and support our actions to protect high quality public education in the state of California.
On March 4th, throughout the state, these privatizing tendencies will be confronted by the push to defend public education and public workers. For a list of rallies and protests, click here. Also, to read my Huffington Post article on the UC coalition demands, go here. Please come out and support our actions to protect high quality public education in the state of California.
March 4th: UC Faculty Step Up Their Efforts to Defend Public Education
Two recent letters written by UC senate faculty show how professors are getting engaged in defending the importance of public education in the state of California. One letter, originating from UC Santa Cruz, begins in the following manner: “The future of the University of California, and public education in California more generally, is under extreme threat. Governor Schwarzenegger and the State Legislature have slashed funding, and the UC Regents, Office of the President, and campus administrations have responded with measures that undermine the core teaching, research, and service mission of the university: student fees have been raised dramatically, hiring has been frozen, faculty and staff have been furloughed, lecturers have been fired, and many staff positions have been consolidated or eliminated, even as salaries of the highest UC executives have been increased. Market standards have superseded the values of intellectual creativity and excellence. Next year’s planned cuts will only accelerate these trends. The defunding of public higher education makes a college education inaccessible to many Californians, especially those already most disadvantaged; it endangers the vibrancy and livelihood of the state; it lowers the quality of life of all of its inhabitants” (click here for the entire letter)
Faculty and Chairs from UCSB have also circulated the following letter in support of the March 4th protests and rallies: “We, as Department Chairs in the Social Sciences and Humanities and Fine Arts at the University of California, Santa Barbara, endorse the statewideDay of Education on March 4, 2010. We support the efforts, organized by representatives of the entire educational community--administrators, teachers, staff, students, alumni, and concerned parents and students of
the UC, CSU, CC and K-12 systems--to demonstrate the need for a renewed commitment to public education. As UC faculty, we struggle with increased workloads and reduced pay. We see austere student fee hikes, overcrowded classes, graduate students squeezed, overworked and demoralized staff, worker layoffs, shrinking departmental and curriculum budgets, and eroding funding to student services. How long can the UC maintain itself as a top quality, Tier I research university? Meanwhile, K-12 schools face severe budget cuts and curricular pressures created by the demands for standardized testing, a situation of concern to us since the products of the K-12 system become our students and the country's future citizenry.
It's time to stop and reverse this steady defunding and degradation of our educational system and to defend a first-rate public education. We urge you to support our students' organizing efforts in support of the statewide March on Sacramento on Thursday, March 4.”
These letters show that the UC faculty are not only concerned about their own institutions, but they are also worried about the plight of public education in general in the state of California. Moreover, these letters call for all of us to participate in actions on March 4th. Next week, everything changes.
Faculty and Chairs from UCSB have also circulated the following letter in support of the March 4th protests and rallies: “We, as Department Chairs in the Social Sciences and Humanities and Fine Arts at the University of California, Santa Barbara, endorse the statewideDay of Education on March 4, 2010. We support the efforts, organized by representatives of the entire educational community--administrators, teachers, staff, students, alumni, and concerned parents and students of
the UC, CSU, CC and K-12 systems--to demonstrate the need for a renewed commitment to public education. As UC faculty, we struggle with increased workloads and reduced pay. We see austere student fee hikes, overcrowded classes, graduate students squeezed, overworked and demoralized staff, worker layoffs, shrinking departmental and curriculum budgets, and eroding funding to student services. How long can the UC maintain itself as a top quality, Tier I research university? Meanwhile, K-12 schools face severe budget cuts and curricular pressures created by the demands for standardized testing, a situation of concern to us since the products of the K-12 system become our students and the country's future citizenry.
It's time to stop and reverse this steady defunding and degradation of our educational system and to defend a first-rate public education. We urge you to support our students' organizing efforts in support of the statewide March on Sacramento on Thursday, March 4.”
These letters show that the UC faculty are not only concerned about their own institutions, but they are also worried about the plight of public education in general in the state of California. Moreover, these letters call for all of us to participate in actions on March 4th. Next week, everything changes.
A Response to Some Critics: Funding and Accountability
Chris Newfield has recently posted a response to my work on his blog “Remaking the University.” I appreciate this opportunity to dialogue with Chris and address some of my thoughtful critics. Perhaps my discourse is sometimes unclear, but I have tried to maintain the dual strategy of arguing for more state funding and holding the university accountable. For instance, I have promoted the California Democracy Act to change the way the state legislature votes on budgets and revenues, and I have also supported Alberto Torrico’s bill, AB 656, to tax oil extraction and use the revenue for higher education. Moreover, we have been told that because of the protests that I helped to organize at UCLA on November 18-19, the governor has decided to increase the funding for the university. I am also aware, however, that it will take a long time before we change how the state votes on taxes, and so in the meantime, it is essential to fight for more funding and to make sure the money we do get will be spent in a transparent and effective manner.
The next area of controversy is the question of how student fees and state funds are spent, and if undergraduates are being asked to fund things that are not connected to their education. I have shown that while students and the state pay more than $20,000 per student, less than a third of this amount goes to undergraduate instruction and related costs. In my most recent calculation, I have included the full cost of a professor’s salaries, and so unlike, Charles Schwartz, I am not splitting off departmental research from instruction. What I am doing is trying to trace how students end up paying for administration and infrastructure that has no relation to their education.
Yet, I also do want to focus on how undergraduate instruction is a low priority, and even at the wealthiest campus, classes are getting bigger, courses are being eliminated, tutoring and support is being reduced, and students are paying much more. A major reason for this problem is that most of the undergraduate teaching has been shifted to lecturers and graduate students, but the university hides this fact, and continues to fund these positions as if they are temporary. We are now witnessing the results of this non-transparency; due to a claim of a fiscal emergency, lecturers face layoffs and grad students can’t find employment. Someone must be held responsible for this sorry state of affairs, and a state audit will help clarify how money is really spent in the UC system.
In one of my Huffington Post article, “How American Universities Became Hedge Funds,” I have proposed a solution to many of these problems, which is to develop three forms of professors: researchers, teachers, and hybrids. While the hybrids will be judged on their research and teaching, the researchers will be evaluated for their research, and they will not be forced to teach. Likewise, the people committed to teaching will be given tenure, they will not have to concentrate on research.
In many ways, this solution is only a slight adjustment to what is already going on, but there are three major changes: 1) people whose main responsibility is undergraduate instruction will get tenure; 2) researcher who do not or cannot teach will be allowed to concentrate on what they do best; and 3) we will clarify how money is spent in the system.
One reaction to my proposal is that I am undermining the heart of a research university, which is the combination of research and teaching. However, the hybrids will be rewarded for their ability to combine research and instruction. Moreover, we already have many professors who rarely teach, and some teachers who do important research. If we do not clarify these positions, all we can do is to lie to the state and the public about how we really spend our money.
The next area of controversy is the question of how student fees and state funds are spent, and if undergraduates are being asked to fund things that are not connected to their education. I have shown that while students and the state pay more than $20,000 per student, less than a third of this amount goes to undergraduate instruction and related costs. In my most recent calculation, I have included the full cost of a professor’s salaries, and so unlike, Charles Schwartz, I am not splitting off departmental research from instruction. What I am doing is trying to trace how students end up paying for administration and infrastructure that has no relation to their education.
Yet, I also do want to focus on how undergraduate instruction is a low priority, and even at the wealthiest campus, classes are getting bigger, courses are being eliminated, tutoring and support is being reduced, and students are paying much more. A major reason for this problem is that most of the undergraduate teaching has been shifted to lecturers and graduate students, but the university hides this fact, and continues to fund these positions as if they are temporary. We are now witnessing the results of this non-transparency; due to a claim of a fiscal emergency, lecturers face layoffs and grad students can’t find employment. Someone must be held responsible for this sorry state of affairs, and a state audit will help clarify how money is really spent in the UC system.
In one of my Huffington Post article, “How American Universities Became Hedge Funds,” I have proposed a solution to many of these problems, which is to develop three forms of professors: researchers, teachers, and hybrids. While the hybrids will be judged on their research and teaching, the researchers will be evaluated for their research, and they will not be forced to teach. Likewise, the people committed to teaching will be given tenure, they will not have to concentrate on research.
In many ways, this solution is only a slight adjustment to what is already going on, but there are three major changes: 1) people whose main responsibility is undergraduate instruction will get tenure; 2) researcher who do not or cannot teach will be allowed to concentrate on what they do best; and 3) we will clarify how money is spent in the system.
One reaction to my proposal is that I am undermining the heart of a research university, which is the combination of research and teaching. However, the hybrids will be rewarded for their ability to combine research and instruction. Moreover, we already have many professors who rarely teach, and some teachers who do important research. If we do not clarify these positions, all we can do is to lie to the state and the public about how we really spend our money.
Why Tuition Goes Up and Quality Goes Down at American Universities
The New York Times has recently reported that a record number of Americans think that universities are now being run like business: “Most Americans believe that colleges today operate like businesses, concerned more with their bottom line than with the educational experience of students, according to a new study. And the proportion of people who hold that view has increased to 60 percent, from 52 percent in 2007.” People not only feel that the corporate mentality is hurting higher education, but they also think that university’s could do more while spneding less: “colleges could admit a lot more students without lowering quality or raising prices, and that colleges could spend less and maintain a high quality of education.” In other words, people believe that the business people running universities are bad for business, and these schools should be able to increase enrollments and lower costs, while improving the quality of instruction.
In response to this popular sentiment about the failures of American universities and colleges, the Times cites administrators who argue that due to the labor-intensive nature of higher education, costs cannot be contained and quality will inevitably suffer as students are forced to take out huge loans to pay for escalating tuitions. Of course, what these administrators fail to mention is that a major reason for the constant increase in costs is the constant increase in administrators and staff.
As I have previously documented in this blog, what is really going on in higher education is that administrators and staff are receiving a larger part of the budget pie, while practically everyone else is being asked to do more for less. Moreover, while the number of non-faculty employees goes up, administrators demand larger compensation packages and more power to make crucial decisions that were once the purview of professors.
Instead of simply bemoaning this situation, we have asked the state to audit the UC system, and the state has now approved our request. One of our central concerns is to see how administrative positions are funded and what really happens with state funds and student fees. Without this type of budget transparency, it will be very difficult to control the expansion of the administrative class. After all, the only people who can begin to reduce the cost of administration are the administrators themselves. However, we can pressure these people to do the right thing.
In response to this popular sentiment about the failures of American universities and colleges, the Times cites administrators who argue that due to the labor-intensive nature of higher education, costs cannot be contained and quality will inevitably suffer as students are forced to take out huge loans to pay for escalating tuitions. Of course, what these administrators fail to mention is that a major reason for the constant increase in costs is the constant increase in administrators and staff.
As I have previously documented in this blog, what is really going on in higher education is that administrators and staff are receiving a larger part of the budget pie, while practically everyone else is being asked to do more for less. Moreover, while the number of non-faculty employees goes up, administrators demand larger compensation packages and more power to make crucial decisions that were once the purview of professors.
Instead of simply bemoaning this situation, we have asked the state to audit the UC system, and the state has now approved our request. One of our central concerns is to see how administrative positions are funded and what really happens with state funds and student fees. Without this type of budget transparency, it will be very difficult to control the expansion of the administrative class. After all, the only people who can begin to reduce the cost of administration are the administrators themselves. However, we can pressure these people to do the right thing.
State Senate is Considering an Audit of the UC System
On Wed, February 16th, Senator Leland Yee will present an official request for the state auditor to examine the finances of the University of California. This audit request has been developed by Yee’s office in conjunction with the California Federation of Labor, UC-AFT, UAW, AFSCME, UPTE, and CNA, and the central areas of concern are how does the UC spend state funds, what levels of unrestricted funds does the university have at its disposal, how does the UC fund administrative positions, how much money is going to instruction, and what does the university do with the overhead income generated from external grants. The state auditor will also be determining how the university allocates and tracks funding for non-salary expenses, like travel, consultants, entertainment, and supplies.
The unions have been asking the university to provide this type of information for years, and we hope that if the senate approves of the audit, we will finally have the answers to many of our questions. In Senate Yee’s press release concerning the audit request, he stresses the fact that the UC budget has not been transparent, and the university seems to generate a new financial scandal every month. One of Senator Yee’s major concerns is the accountability of UC’s administrators, and he hopes the audit will shed light on how the UC spends funds coming from the state and student fees.
While some faculty and students may fear that this is the wrong time to look at how the UC spends its money because any negative finding could result in a further decrease in state funding for the UC system, the unions and several legislators feel that the best way to ensure future funding is to enhance the university’s budget transparency. Once the state has a better understanding of how the university spends its public and private funds, it will be easier for the state to allocate needed funding for the core mission.
If you are interested in supporting this audit, please write an email to Senator Yee’s office at Nicolina.Hernandez@sen.ca.gov
The unions have been asking the university to provide this type of information for years, and we hope that if the senate approves of the audit, we will finally have the answers to many of our questions. In Senate Yee’s press release concerning the audit request, he stresses the fact that the UC budget has not been transparent, and the university seems to generate a new financial scandal every month. One of Senator Yee’s major concerns is the accountability of UC’s administrators, and he hopes the audit will shed light on how the UC spends funds coming from the state and student fees.
While some faculty and students may fear that this is the wrong time to look at how the UC spends its money because any negative finding could result in a further decrease in state funding for the UC system, the unions and several legislators feel that the best way to ensure future funding is to enhance the university’s budget transparency. Once the state has a better understanding of how the university spends its public and private funds, it will be easier for the state to allocate needed funding for the core mission.
If you are interested in supporting this audit, please write an email to Senator Yee’s office at Nicolina.Hernandez@sen.ca.gov
The Gang that Can't Count Straight: Responding to UC's Responses
In response to my Huffington Post article, “How Universities Became Hedge Funds,” Peter Taylor, CFO of the UC Budget called into question my research and some of my claims. Taylor’s first complaint is that I misrepresented President Yudof’s explanation of why the UC system lent the state $200 million in the summer of 2009 after the state cut the university’s budget by $600 million: However, if you look at the video of Yudof’s explanation of the deal, he says exactly what I indicated. Moreover, Taylor supports my claim that the university would rather spend on construction rather than instruction by stressing how the UC lent the money so it could continue with several new building projects: “UC did loan $200 million to the state of California, but what Samuels failed to say was that the state had stopped funding vital capital projects at eight UC campuses, facilities essential to the UC education, research and public service mission. The state spent that money on 18 projects on UC campuses, including cutting-edge telemedicine facilities that will allow medical professionals at hospitals to serve patients in rural and poor communities.”
The next central bone of contention is my claim that the UC lost $23 billion in its endowment and pension funds. Taylor responds in the following way: “It’s laughable to compare UC endowment investments to elite private schools such as Harvard and Yale, whose endowments – and losses – dwarf UC’s. While it’s true that everyone lost money in the global financial meltdown, the University of California lost several percentage points less than Harvard or Yale. Our investment asset allocation was very different, and much more conservative. Even in the best of times our highly restricted endowment adds just one percent ($214 million) to our yearly operating income.” However, in my article, I wrote about the “pension and investment portfolios,” and if we look at UC’s own audited statements from September 30 2007 and March 31 2009, we see that the consolidated assets went from $74.6 billion to $51 billion. Moreover, if we look at the endowment performance in 2008, we also find that the UC has been underperforming in comparison to almost all of the other major universities. In fact, Charles Schwartz has shown that since the management of the pension investments was outsourced in 2000, the UC has performed far worse than Calpers and Calstirs, the two largest education pension funds in the state.
While Taylor claims that my article lacks facts, and I should look at the UC’s budget documents, I have shown that Taylor’s office continues to put out false information. For instance, in Yudof’s letter outlining the need for a furlough plan, it is clear that he misrepresented the true fiscal status of the university: “For the current fiscal year, the Governor’s revised budget proposes a combination of one-time and permanent State funding reductions totaling $816.6 million, $640 million of which is offset by the allocation of federal economic stimulus monies (American Recovery and Reinvestment Act [ARRA]).The remaining shortfall in FY 2008-09 of $176.1 million is partially offset by the 7% student fee increase in that year, leaving a net reduction for FY 2008-09 of $77.4 million.” This claim that the UC lost $176 million in 2008-09 was used to justify reducing everyone’s salaries through the furlough plan, but if we look at UC’s own audited financial statements, we find that in 2008-09, they UC’s allocation from the state increased by over $300 million (Page 52 of the annual financial statement).
The furlough letter contained many similar misleading representations: “While the recently approved 9.3% student fee increase for FY 2009-10 will generate, net of financial aid, $125.9 million in revenues to offset the $619.3 million reduction, the net State funding shortfall of $493.4 million for FY 2009-10 coupled with the $77.4 million shortfall in FY 2008-09 requires immediate system wide and campus actions.” The first thing to correct is the notion that there was a $77.4 million shortfall in 2008-09. The truth is that the UC got $3.2 billion from the state in 2008-09, and the university also generated an additional $100 million from the initial fee increase. What this tally also does not include is the cost savings from reducing student enrolments by 2,300; moreover, the 2009-10 decrease in state funding was offset in part by an additional fee increase of $126 million, and the addition of more federal recovery money.
While Taylor attacks me for not looking at the UC’s budget documents, it should be clear by now that the UC’s own documents are highly confusing and often missing important pieces of information.
The next central bone of contention is my claim that the UC lost $23 billion in its endowment and pension funds. Taylor responds in the following way: “It’s laughable to compare UC endowment investments to elite private schools such as Harvard and Yale, whose endowments – and losses – dwarf UC’s. While it’s true that everyone lost money in the global financial meltdown, the University of California lost several percentage points less than Harvard or Yale. Our investment asset allocation was very different, and much more conservative. Even in the best of times our highly restricted endowment adds just one percent ($214 million) to our yearly operating income.” However, in my article, I wrote about the “pension and investment portfolios,” and if we look at UC’s own audited statements from September 30 2007 and March 31 2009, we see that the consolidated assets went from $74.6 billion to $51 billion. Moreover, if we look at the endowment performance in 2008, we also find that the UC has been underperforming in comparison to almost all of the other major universities. In fact, Charles Schwartz has shown that since the management of the pension investments was outsourced in 2000, the UC has performed far worse than Calpers and Calstirs, the two largest education pension funds in the state.
While Taylor claims that my article lacks facts, and I should look at the UC’s budget documents, I have shown that Taylor’s office continues to put out false information. For instance, in Yudof’s letter outlining the need for a furlough plan, it is clear that he misrepresented the true fiscal status of the university: “For the current fiscal year, the Governor’s revised budget proposes a combination of one-time and permanent State funding reductions totaling $816.6 million, $640 million of which is offset by the allocation of federal economic stimulus monies (American Recovery and Reinvestment Act [ARRA]).The remaining shortfall in FY 2008-09 of $176.1 million is partially offset by the 7% student fee increase in that year, leaving a net reduction for FY 2008-09 of $77.4 million.” This claim that the UC lost $176 million in 2008-09 was used to justify reducing everyone’s salaries through the furlough plan, but if we look at UC’s own audited financial statements, we find that in 2008-09, they UC’s allocation from the state increased by over $300 million (Page 52 of the annual financial statement).
The furlough letter contained many similar misleading representations: “While the recently approved 9.3% student fee increase for FY 2009-10 will generate, net of financial aid, $125.9 million in revenues to offset the $619.3 million reduction, the net State funding shortfall of $493.4 million for FY 2009-10 coupled with the $77.4 million shortfall in FY 2008-09 requires immediate system wide and campus actions.” The first thing to correct is the notion that there was a $77.4 million shortfall in 2008-09. The truth is that the UC got $3.2 billion from the state in 2008-09, and the university also generated an additional $100 million from the initial fee increase. What this tally also does not include is the cost savings from reducing student enrolments by 2,300; moreover, the 2009-10 decrease in state funding was offset in part by an additional fee increase of $126 million, and the addition of more federal recovery money.
While Taylor attacks me for not looking at the UC’s budget documents, it should be clear by now that the UC’s own documents are highly confusing and often missing important pieces of information.
UCLA Hires Tainted Firm to Restructure
While campuses cut classes, raise fees, furlough employees, and lay off instructors, they have been hiring outside firms to help them restructure. A few months ago, Berkeley announced that it would pay Bain and Company $3 million to suggest ways to reduce the Cal budget, and now UCLA has hired the Huron Consulting Group to assist in the campus’ restructuring. Not only should we question the cost of bringing in outside firms to perform tasks that could be handled internally, but we need to ask about the role of shared governance when an outside group is hired to make important decisions that will affect all aspects of the university.
One has to wonder if the administrators who hired Huron looked into this firm’s recent past. As Chicago Business reported last summer, this consulting group has been in disarray since it admitted to its own false reporting of internal profits. It turns out that this company, which is supposed to investigate the finances of other companies, has been misrepresenting its own finances on a regular basis: “Huron said it would restate results for the three years ended in 2008 and for the first quarter of 2009, resulting in a halving of its profits, to $63 million from $120 million, for the 39-month period.” We are not talking here about a small one-time accounting error; rather, this accounting firm has consistently misrepresented its own earnings, and the story gets much worse.
The reason why Huron had to admit to its habit of inflating earnings is that someone found out that thre was a secret agreement between Huron and the shareholders of the companies it was restructuring: “The company said its hand was forced by its recent discovery that holders of shares in acquired firms had an agreement among themselves to reallocate a portion of their earn-out payments to other Huron employees. The company said it had been unaware of the arrangement.” After Huron revealed in the summer of 2009 that it had participated in this kick-back scheme, its stock went down 70%, and it replaced its entire management team.
The Huron Group was created from the remnants of the Arthur Anderson firm after the Enron scandal, and Reuters has reported that many experts believe that the corrupt culture of the old firm has found its way into the new company. Just as Anderson concentrated on maximizing their own fees at the expense of the companies it was investigating, Huron appears to be profiting by forcing companies to pay them off while they are restructuring their business practices.
According to another business news outlet, the SEC is currently investigating Huron for the way it bill its clients,and while one of the main functions of this firm is to make sure that institutions follow accounting laws and regulations, they are now facing numerous investigations and lawsuits.
Some UC faculty might be interested to know that the head of the company, who has been forced to step down, has been accused of forcing employees to contribute to Mitt Romney’s run for president, and the management has had its own inflated compensation requests rejected by the company’s shareholders.
Didn’t UCLA looked into any of these issues when they decided to hire Huron to restructure the campus? It only took me a few minutes of using Google to find several articles documenting this company’s questionable practices and horrible reputation. We have to ask why didn’t any of the highly compensated administrators sitting on the new restructuring committee examine this company before they committed to paying a large sum of money to do the job they should be doing themselves in the first place.
One has to wonder if the administrators who hired Huron looked into this firm’s recent past. As Chicago Business reported last summer, this consulting group has been in disarray since it admitted to its own false reporting of internal profits. It turns out that this company, which is supposed to investigate the finances of other companies, has been misrepresenting its own finances on a regular basis: “Huron said it would restate results for the three years ended in 2008 and for the first quarter of 2009, resulting in a halving of its profits, to $63 million from $120 million, for the 39-month period.” We are not talking here about a small one-time accounting error; rather, this accounting firm has consistently misrepresented its own earnings, and the story gets much worse.
The reason why Huron had to admit to its habit of inflating earnings is that someone found out that thre was a secret agreement between Huron and the shareholders of the companies it was restructuring: “The company said its hand was forced by its recent discovery that holders of shares in acquired firms had an agreement among themselves to reallocate a portion of their earn-out payments to other Huron employees. The company said it had been unaware of the arrangement.” After Huron revealed in the summer of 2009 that it had participated in this kick-back scheme, its stock went down 70%, and it replaced its entire management team.
The Huron Group was created from the remnants of the Arthur Anderson firm after the Enron scandal, and Reuters has reported that many experts believe that the corrupt culture of the old firm has found its way into the new company. Just as Anderson concentrated on maximizing their own fees at the expense of the companies it was investigating, Huron appears to be profiting by forcing companies to pay them off while they are restructuring their business practices.
According to another business news outlet, the SEC is currently investigating Huron for the way it bill its clients,and while one of the main functions of this firm is to make sure that institutions follow accounting laws and regulations, they are now facing numerous investigations and lawsuits.
Some UC faculty might be interested to know that the head of the company, who has been forced to step down, has been accused of forcing employees to contribute to Mitt Romney’s run for president, and the management has had its own inflated compensation requests rejected by the company’s shareholders.
Didn’t UCLA looked into any of these issues when they decided to hire Huron to restructure the campus? It only took me a few minutes of using Google to find several articles documenting this company’s questionable practices and horrible reputation. We have to ask why didn’t any of the highly compensated administrators sitting on the new restructuring committee examine this company before they committed to paying a large sum of money to do the job they should be doing themselves in the first place.
Reading Yudof’s Playbook: An Inside Look at the Future of the UC
James Garland’s Saving Alma Mater: A Rescue Plan for America’s Public Universities is a great summation of everything that is currently wrong with American universities. While the intention of the book does not appear to be to provide a framework for how to destroy higher education, the text provides the playbook for any administrator who wants to justify the privatization of public universities. Garland’s main argument is that public institutions should wean themselves off of their dependence on state funds by raising tuition to whatever level the market will handle. In fact, when he was president of Miami University in Ohio, this is exactly what Garland did. In one year, he more than doubled tuition from $8,300 to $18,000 (xvii). Garland claims that the result of this experiment was that enrollments for first-generation students went up 40% and enrollments for minority students increased 25%. By using a high tuition, high aid model, this administrator argues universities can bring in more money and still attract underrepresented students.
Not only does Garland’s claims fly in the face of national statistics, but his own use of numbers is highly suspect. First of all, if the whole goal of raising tuition is to bring in more money so the university does not have to rely on unpredictable state funding, someone must be paying a lot more money. Moreover, if all of the students from Ohio are receiving some form of financial aid, it must be that out-of-state students are paying much more, so in-state students can pay less. Overall, this model reduces the number of in-state students and forces a reliance on wealthy out-of-state enrollments.
Of course, this is the model we have already seen with the University of Michigan and University of Viriginia, and it appears to be the model that the University of California is currently pursuing. As Peter Sacks has documented in his book, Tearing Down the Gates, in 1992, a third of University of Michigan (Ann Arbor) students were from lower-income families, but by 2002, only 13% were eligible for Pell grants. This precipitous loss of lower-income students also occurred at the flagship public universities of Virginia, Illinois, and Wisconsin. Between 1992 and 2002, the percentage of students receiving Pell grants at the University of Wisconsin at Madison went down 28%, while University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign went down 15%. Furthermore, after reducing its reliance on state funding by rapidly increasing its tuition, the University of Virginia saw its percentage of students eligible for Pell grants drop to just 8%.
Garland does not concentrate on this question of equity, and instead, he insists that the only way to keep universities solvent is to allow for the free market to balance supply and demand, and therefore universities should not rely on state subsidies to balance their books, and they also should not allow states to regulate their tuition. Here we see the neoliberal playbook in its purest form: the government should be eliminated so the free market can function in its pure state.
Garland attaches this need to break the relation between the public university and the state to global trends that no one can prevent. According to this common fatalistic logic, states will continue to reduce their funding for universities because they have lost their tax base due to the movement of jobs overseas (xi). Furthermore, since most of the costs for universities are fixed (tenure, healthcare, and building maintenance), the only thing a university can do is to either constantly raise tuition or lower the educational quality by replacing tenure-track faculty with part-timers and expanding class sizes, while neglecting the need for repairs and upkeep.
Of course, most universities have selected both strategies because for the last thirty years, we have seen a constant increase in tuition combined with a downsizing of the faculty. In fact, one of the giant holes in Garland’s book is he does not see how universities have simply shifted their funding structures by making undergraduate students pay for the constant increase in administration and research budgets. In other words, as the quality of undergraduate education has been downsized, the cost has gone up because the price of tuition is unrelated to the quality of education.
While Garland’s book is full of holes and contradictions, it is worthy of a read for one reason: it appears to be the training manual for university presidents like Mark Yudof. Virtually every claim and strategy discussed in this work has been recycled and re-presented by the UC president.
Not only does Garland’s claims fly in the face of national statistics, but his own use of numbers is highly suspect. First of all, if the whole goal of raising tuition is to bring in more money so the university does not have to rely on unpredictable state funding, someone must be paying a lot more money. Moreover, if all of the students from Ohio are receiving some form of financial aid, it must be that out-of-state students are paying much more, so in-state students can pay less. Overall, this model reduces the number of in-state students and forces a reliance on wealthy out-of-state enrollments.
Of course, this is the model we have already seen with the University of Michigan and University of Viriginia, and it appears to be the model that the University of California is currently pursuing. As Peter Sacks has documented in his book, Tearing Down the Gates, in 1992, a third of University of Michigan (Ann Arbor) students were from lower-income families, but by 2002, only 13% were eligible for Pell grants. This precipitous loss of lower-income students also occurred at the flagship public universities of Virginia, Illinois, and Wisconsin. Between 1992 and 2002, the percentage of students receiving Pell grants at the University of Wisconsin at Madison went down 28%, while University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign went down 15%. Furthermore, after reducing its reliance on state funding by rapidly increasing its tuition, the University of Virginia saw its percentage of students eligible for Pell grants drop to just 8%.
Garland does not concentrate on this question of equity, and instead, he insists that the only way to keep universities solvent is to allow for the free market to balance supply and demand, and therefore universities should not rely on state subsidies to balance their books, and they also should not allow states to regulate their tuition. Here we see the neoliberal playbook in its purest form: the government should be eliminated so the free market can function in its pure state.
Garland attaches this need to break the relation between the public university and the state to global trends that no one can prevent. According to this common fatalistic logic, states will continue to reduce their funding for universities because they have lost their tax base due to the movement of jobs overseas (xi). Furthermore, since most of the costs for universities are fixed (tenure, healthcare, and building maintenance), the only thing a university can do is to either constantly raise tuition or lower the educational quality by replacing tenure-track faculty with part-timers and expanding class sizes, while neglecting the need for repairs and upkeep.
Of course, most universities have selected both strategies because for the last thirty years, we have seen a constant increase in tuition combined with a downsizing of the faculty. In fact, one of the giant holes in Garland’s book is he does not see how universities have simply shifted their funding structures by making undergraduate students pay for the constant increase in administration and research budgets. In other words, as the quality of undergraduate education has been downsized, the cost has gone up because the price of tuition is unrelated to the quality of education.
While Garland’s book is full of holes and contradictions, it is worthy of a read for one reason: it appears to be the training manual for university presidents like Mark Yudof. Virtually every claim and strategy discussed in this work has been recycled and re-presented by the UC president.
Race to the Bottom: A Critical Response to the UCLA Humanities Task Force
For the past nine months, an ad hoc task force has been meeting in order to rethink the structure of the humanities division at UCLA. All people interested in the future of higher education should be concerned with this report that makes several questionable recommendations. While the authors claim that their main emphasis is not to slash the budgets of these programs, it is clear that their central focus is to reduce labor costs at the university: “Language instruction is labor-intensive and tends at UCLA to employ non-ladder instructors unprotected by tenure. Because of this, we expect there to be substantial pressure to ease the language requirement, which would not only blatantly contradict all three of the “chief campus priorities of excellence, diversity, and community engagement” (which our charge letter reasonably reminds us to “bear in mind”), but would also in our opinion be disastrous on multiple levels.” Reading this opening salvo, one would think that report would endorse protecting language instruction and non-tenure-track faculty (lecturers), but we soon learn that this ad hoc faculty committee (with no lecturer representation) attempts to imagine a world without lecturers.
As this report constantly points out, lecturers are the least expensive teachers, and they teach many--if not most--of the required classes in the humanities, but they are also the most vulnerable during a budget crisis, and so the campus must find a way to staff undergraduate courses without these teachers. The first recommendation is to strengthen the foreign language programs by moving up to half of the classes to summer and online: “Active use of the Summer Sessions would produce two immediate and direct benefits: (1) pressure would be lessened upon those language programs that are currently overburdened between September and June; (2) revenue could be generated during the summer to fund both lecturers and graduate students. We estimate that as much as 40-50% of language teaching could be moved to the summer, and even more if we consider the undeveloped potential for an affiliated Online Language Program, based upon the profitable, technically established model in place for the last five years at UCLA’s TFT. Enrollments and income will both grow. Non-UCLA students could be specifically targeted, not only from elsewhere within California, but also abroad.” What this report does not mention is that by moving half of the courses to summer, UCLA would be able to lay off all of its language instructors, and then hire these faculty members back without benefits and at much lower salaries. Since summer session is only partially covered by the lecturers contract, the summer teachers could be paid at a low rate and would lose all of their job protections.
Of course, the other major part of this initiative is the question of the effectiveness of online language instruction. In fact, much of this report is spent defending the idea that the turn to online learning will not undermine the reputation of the institution; rather, the task force claims that UCLA will be able to position itself as a leader of high quality digital learning: “UCLA’s great reputation would assure the popularity of our online courses, especially given the complete lack of competition today in the “high-end” realm of learner-centered, distance pedagogy.” As someone who has written an entire book on the subject of how online education undermines the value of research universities, I would argue that the lack of competition stems from the realization that most online programs end up to be very expensive and result in a low level of student retention. That is not to say that we should not use new media in our classes; rather, we cannot employ these new technologies to completely replace in-class instruction.
In one of the most dubious parts of this report, the writers claim that the turn to online writing instruction will actually save money and jobs: “Online learning offers the potential to achieve several concrete goals: improvement in students’ time-to-degree; a lessening of pressure in overcrowded classrooms; the generation of funds in order to save lecturers’ positions; and the emergence of UCLA as the leader in top-quality, i.e., not cut-price, distance education.” First of all, if you move courses to summer and online, you will not need any lecturers, except for the ones you hire on the cheap during the summer. Second of all, the reason why online programs costs so much is that they require a tremendous amount of equipment, staff, electricity, and administration; moreover, most studies of online education show that these programs hurt the ability of students to graduate on time because so many students drop out or do not complete their courses.
Perhaps the most noxious part of this plan is the idea to force students to pay extra to fulfill their language courses in the summer: “Because many students might prefer to avoid the added expense of summer study, a respectful hierarchy would need to be established among participants. If languages were indeed offered year-round, it would be only fair to give Majors and Pre-Majors in the relevant departments first choice during the school year. Language instruction that is traditionally oversubscribed, such as Chinese and Spanish, could require transfer or “external” students from other departments to satisfy their language requirements during the summer.” I believe this passage is positing that students who are not majoring in a specific language would have to take the course during the summer or some other program that requires payment. Instead of students being able to study their home language at UCLA, they would now have to pay extra for the privilege of language instruction.
As language instruction gets squeezed, the plan is to set up a new Humanities Institute and develop a new major in Digital Humanities. While these programs might seem like good ways of rethinking the humanities, these new initiatives would surely cost a large amount of money, and one has to question why UCLA is pursuing a policy of eliminating all lecturers due to budgetary concerns as it embarks on projects that require new administrators, faculty, and staff. Furthermore, the report reveals that the humanities have been kept afloat by their reliance on courses taught by lecturers, but now they are going to eliminate their own cash cow: “Humanities generating over $59 million in student fee revenue, while spending only $53.5 million (unlike the Physical Sciences, which come up several million dollars short in this category). Writing Programs alone generates $4.3 million dollars in fee revenue at a cost of only $2.4 million. These profits will increase as student fees increase; they would be even greater if we figured in a share of the over-enrollment subsidies due from the state. In pursuing our vital, non- profit mission of advancing knowledge and teaching, the Humanities is not only a bargain, but also a profit-generating entity. Massive cuts in the Humanities instructional budget are not only destructive to the core mission of the University; they are also financially unjustifiable.” According to this analysis, the Writing Programs generates a large profit for the humanities, and any cut to this program would be destructive to the core mission and financially unjustifiable; however, the report fails to mention that all of the faculty in the Writing Programs have been given one-year layoff notices. While we expect that some of these layoffs will be rescinded, the current plan is to replace many of the lecturers with graduate students and faculty from other programs.
In one of the only other mentions of writing instruction in the report, the authors actually suggest placing faculty from other departments who continue to have low workloads into writing classes: “Faculty whose courses are insufficiently enrolled could be assigned to appropriate courses in the Humanities Institute, The Language Center, or the Writing Programs (as is already the case in at least one department). Department chairs will be responsible for making such assignments, and for assuring that faculty teaching in the writing program are sufficiently trained through the program’s pedagogy course.” In this structure, teaching in the Writing Programs would be the ultimate threat to tenured professors. Here we see how the most popular and profitable program at UCLA is represented as the worst form of punishment for underutilized faculty.
Not only does this task force suggest moving language courses to the summer and online, but it lists over a hundred high-enrollment courses from all over the curriculum that could be shifted to the summer. If the university actually followed the advice of this report, we would see most of the required undergraduate courses placed online, and students would have to pay extra for the privilege of taking these classes of questionable quality. One of the justifications for this move is that the high-enrollment classes already suffer from a low level of quality: “most of our GE/Lower-Division students have some experience of classes that are so big, they’d be better off watching a video performance, a close-up broadcast that is paused and (re)considered at their own pace. The bigger classes often offer no contact with the professor, in any case. Hence the number of students in the back row(s) “taking notes” on their laptops, many of whom are actually polishing their Facebook profiles. (The same students, no doubt, also wish they were at home, watching a popular BruinCast of the same information. This is an online program, in fact, that is now so popular it has caused lecture attendance to decrease!).” In other words, large lecture classes already provide such a poor level of instruction and interaction that we might as well move the whole thing online. It is amazing that these thoughtful advocates of the humanities are actually recommending the destruction of higher education and effective undergraduate instruction.
As this report constantly points out, lecturers are the least expensive teachers, and they teach many--if not most--of the required classes in the humanities, but they are also the most vulnerable during a budget crisis, and so the campus must find a way to staff undergraduate courses without these teachers. The first recommendation is to strengthen the foreign language programs by moving up to half of the classes to summer and online: “Active use of the Summer Sessions would produce two immediate and direct benefits: (1) pressure would be lessened upon those language programs that are currently overburdened between September and June; (2) revenue could be generated during the summer to fund both lecturers and graduate students. We estimate that as much as 40-50% of language teaching could be moved to the summer, and even more if we consider the undeveloped potential for an affiliated Online Language Program, based upon the profitable, technically established model in place for the last five years at UCLA’s TFT. Enrollments and income will both grow. Non-UCLA students could be specifically targeted, not only from elsewhere within California, but also abroad.” What this report does not mention is that by moving half of the courses to summer, UCLA would be able to lay off all of its language instructors, and then hire these faculty members back without benefits and at much lower salaries. Since summer session is only partially covered by the lecturers contract, the summer teachers could be paid at a low rate and would lose all of their job protections.
Of course, the other major part of this initiative is the question of the effectiveness of online language instruction. In fact, much of this report is spent defending the idea that the turn to online learning will not undermine the reputation of the institution; rather, the task force claims that UCLA will be able to position itself as a leader of high quality digital learning: “UCLA’s great reputation would assure the popularity of our online courses, especially given the complete lack of competition today in the “high-end” realm of learner-centered, distance pedagogy.” As someone who has written an entire book on the subject of how online education undermines the value of research universities, I would argue that the lack of competition stems from the realization that most online programs end up to be very expensive and result in a low level of student retention. That is not to say that we should not use new media in our classes; rather, we cannot employ these new technologies to completely replace in-class instruction.
In one of the most dubious parts of this report, the writers claim that the turn to online writing instruction will actually save money and jobs: “Online learning offers the potential to achieve several concrete goals: improvement in students’ time-to-degree; a lessening of pressure in overcrowded classrooms; the generation of funds in order to save lecturers’ positions; and the emergence of UCLA as the leader in top-quality, i.e., not cut-price, distance education.” First of all, if you move courses to summer and online, you will not need any lecturers, except for the ones you hire on the cheap during the summer. Second of all, the reason why online programs costs so much is that they require a tremendous amount of equipment, staff, electricity, and administration; moreover, most studies of online education show that these programs hurt the ability of students to graduate on time because so many students drop out or do not complete their courses.
Perhaps the most noxious part of this plan is the idea to force students to pay extra to fulfill their language courses in the summer: “Because many students might prefer to avoid the added expense of summer study, a respectful hierarchy would need to be established among participants. If languages were indeed offered year-round, it would be only fair to give Majors and Pre-Majors in the relevant departments first choice during the school year. Language instruction that is traditionally oversubscribed, such as Chinese and Spanish, could require transfer or “external” students from other departments to satisfy their language requirements during the summer.” I believe this passage is positing that students who are not majoring in a specific language would have to take the course during the summer or some other program that requires payment. Instead of students being able to study their home language at UCLA, they would now have to pay extra for the privilege of language instruction.
As language instruction gets squeezed, the plan is to set up a new Humanities Institute and develop a new major in Digital Humanities. While these programs might seem like good ways of rethinking the humanities, these new initiatives would surely cost a large amount of money, and one has to question why UCLA is pursuing a policy of eliminating all lecturers due to budgetary concerns as it embarks on projects that require new administrators, faculty, and staff. Furthermore, the report reveals that the humanities have been kept afloat by their reliance on courses taught by lecturers, but now they are going to eliminate their own cash cow: “Humanities generating over $59 million in student fee revenue, while spending only $53.5 million (unlike the Physical Sciences, which come up several million dollars short in this category). Writing Programs alone generates $4.3 million dollars in fee revenue at a cost of only $2.4 million. These profits will increase as student fees increase; they would be even greater if we figured in a share of the over-enrollment subsidies due from the state. In pursuing our vital, non- profit mission of advancing knowledge and teaching, the Humanities is not only a bargain, but also a profit-generating entity. Massive cuts in the Humanities instructional budget are not only destructive to the core mission of the University; they are also financially unjustifiable.” According to this analysis, the Writing Programs generates a large profit for the humanities, and any cut to this program would be destructive to the core mission and financially unjustifiable; however, the report fails to mention that all of the faculty in the Writing Programs have been given one-year layoff notices. While we expect that some of these layoffs will be rescinded, the current plan is to replace many of the lecturers with graduate students and faculty from other programs.
In one of the only other mentions of writing instruction in the report, the authors actually suggest placing faculty from other departments who continue to have low workloads into writing classes: “Faculty whose courses are insufficiently enrolled could be assigned to appropriate courses in the Humanities Institute, The Language Center, or the Writing Programs (as is already the case in at least one department). Department chairs will be responsible for making such assignments, and for assuring that faculty teaching in the writing program are sufficiently trained through the program’s pedagogy course.” In this structure, teaching in the Writing Programs would be the ultimate threat to tenured professors. Here we see how the most popular and profitable program at UCLA is represented as the worst form of punishment for underutilized faculty.
Not only does this task force suggest moving language courses to the summer and online, but it lists over a hundred high-enrollment courses from all over the curriculum that could be shifted to the summer. If the university actually followed the advice of this report, we would see most of the required undergraduate courses placed online, and students would have to pay extra for the privilege of taking these classes of questionable quality. One of the justifications for this move is that the high-enrollment classes already suffer from a low level of quality: “most of our GE/Lower-Division students have some experience of classes that are so big, they’d be better off watching a video performance, a close-up broadcast that is paused and (re)considered at their own pace. The bigger classes often offer no contact with the professor, in any case. Hence the number of students in the back row(s) “taking notes” on their laptops, many of whom are actually polishing their Facebook profiles. (The same students, no doubt, also wish they were at home, watching a popular BruinCast of the same information. This is an online program, in fact, that is now so popular it has caused lecture attendance to decrease!).” In other words, large lecture classes already provide such a poor level of instruction and interaction that we might as well move the whole thing online. It is amazing that these thoughtful advocates of the humanities are actually recommending the destruction of higher education and effective undergraduate instruction.
UCI Medical Center Neglects Patients, Sells Body Parts, and Gets Bonuses
The UC Regents have voted to spend over $3 million on bonuses to medical center administrators during a time when they are raising student fees, reducing salaries (furloughs), laying off workers and lecturers, and pleading poverty. The justification for these raises is that the university needs to pay the market price for these extraordinary individuals. Of course, this means that all of the other workers are not worthy of market-based salaries. Moreover, the regents have argued that since only a small part of the medical centers’ budgets are funded by the state, the medical executives do not have to share in their current austerity measures. This claim neglects the fact that state funds have built the medical centers and these institutions gain access to grants and prestige because they are associated to the University of California.
On the same day that the regents voted on these special executive pay increases, the Los Angeles Times reported that the UCI medical center was once again facing an investigation by the federal government for the medical center’s lack of oversight. Here are some of the problems cited by the federal investigation:
* An 82-year-old man was mistakenly given a narcotic patch by a medical resident, without approval of doctors or pharmacists. The patch led to an overdose that required emergency intervention and may have contributed to his death a week later.
* A patient in the neuropsychiatric unit fell twice in three days and despite yelling "Help me, doctor, help me," suffered a head injury and had to be taken to intensive care.
* An on-call resident did not respond to repeated emergency pages from nurses in the neurological intensive care unit, where a patient with an irregular heartbeat languished for more than an hour.
• Pharmacists failed to monitor and store drugs correctly, allowing nurses to carry narcotics in their pockets and inject patients without proper oversight.
Of course, everybody makes mistakes, but when there is a long history of repeated mistakes, the administration should be held accountable.
As the LA Times story reminds us, “In 2005, the hospital closed its liver transplant program after The Times reported 32 people died awaiting livers in 2004 and 2005, even as doctors turned down organs later successfully transplanted elsewhere. In 1999 and 2000, the university's Willed Body Program drew criticism after its director performed unauthorized autopsies and sold body parts. In 1995, a team of fertility doctors at the school's Center for Reproductive Health was accused of stealing patients' eggs and embryos and implanting them in other patients without permission.”
One has to wonder if an institution with such a bad track record should be allowed to give its executives huge bonuses.
On the same day that the regents voted on these special executive pay increases, the Los Angeles Times reported that the UCI medical center was once again facing an investigation by the federal government for the medical center’s lack of oversight. Here are some of the problems cited by the federal investigation:
* An 82-year-old man was mistakenly given a narcotic patch by a medical resident, without approval of doctors or pharmacists. The patch led to an overdose that required emergency intervention and may have contributed to his death a week later.
* A patient in the neuropsychiatric unit fell twice in three days and despite yelling "Help me, doctor, help me," suffered a head injury and had to be taken to intensive care.
* An on-call resident did not respond to repeated emergency pages from nurses in the neurological intensive care unit, where a patient with an irregular heartbeat languished for more than an hour.
• Pharmacists failed to monitor and store drugs correctly, allowing nurses to carry narcotics in their pockets and inject patients without proper oversight.
Of course, everybody makes mistakes, but when there is a long history of repeated mistakes, the administration should be held accountable.
As the LA Times story reminds us, “In 2005, the hospital closed its liver transplant program after The Times reported 32 people died awaiting livers in 2004 and 2005, even as doctors turned down organs later successfully transplanted elsewhere. In 1999 and 2000, the university's Willed Body Program drew criticism after its director performed unauthorized autopsies and sold body parts. In 1995, a team of fertility doctors at the school's Center for Reproductive Health was accused of stealing patients' eggs and embryos and implanting them in other patients without permission.”
One has to wonder if an institution with such a bad track record should be allowed to give its executives huge bonuses.
On Cary Nelson’s No University is an Island
Cary Nelson’s new book, No University is an Island, brings together many of the different issues currently facing the University of California and other higher education institutions. While his main theme is academic freedom, he is able to locate this central educational value at the intersection of several interlocking forces: privatization, casualization, corporatization, and globalization. Nelson, the current president of AAUP, asks the essential question of what happens to the ability of faculty to teach, research, and communicate when profit has replaced the public good, and when public institutions are being privatized while job security is being casualized. By invoking the general concept of neoliberalism, Nelson is able to show how even the most secure and privileged faculty are threatened by the growing power of business-oriented administrators who have wrestled most aspects of shared governance away from professors. From his perspective, without tenure, there can be no academic freedom, and without academic freedom, there can be no shared governance.
I was surprised to note that virtually all of the examples of corporatization and privatization that Nelson documents from around the world have recently occurred in the UC system. This includes administrators pushing expensive, untested online programs, faculty having their emails read, Right-wing groups trying to censor teachers, the creation of ad hoc committees to circumvent normal shared governance, the push to defund the humanities, the creation of false budget emergencies to enact hidden agendas, and the persecution of university whistleblowers to name just a few. Not only have I discussed all of these issues in my blog, but my program has been victimized by all of these destructive processes.
Not only did I discover this year that some administrators were receiving all of my program’s emails, but our campus, UCLA, recently had to fight an outside Right-wing group that was paying students to record teachers saying anti-conservative and “anti-American” things. If this was not bad enough, UCLA recently decided to set up their own internal web site so that students and other community members could report acts of bias. This type of digital surveillance system surely has a chilling effect on academic freedom.
Of course, one of the greatest threats to academic freedom that Nelson discusses is the growing use of contingent faculty who often have no academic freedom protections. While the union contract regulating the lecturers in the UC system gives the non-tenured faculty the same academic freedom rights as the tenured faculty, lecturers often have to self-censor themselves because many of them rely on getting high student evaluations to keep their jobs, and most of these contingent faculty members can be fired without just cause. We have found that even the lecturers with job security and due process can be eliminated if the university declares a fiscal emergency.
The greatest strength of Nelson’s book is that it constantly returns to the idea that only the faculty working collectively can defend the university as a public good. By chiding some of his colleagues for focusing too much on their own careers, he makes a strong plea for all of us to take back our institutions. Furthermore, by documenting cases of effective faculty resistance, Nelson provides a glimmer of hope in these dark times.
I was surprised to note that virtually all of the examples of corporatization and privatization that Nelson documents from around the world have recently occurred in the UC system. This includes administrators pushing expensive, untested online programs, faculty having their emails read, Right-wing groups trying to censor teachers, the creation of ad hoc committees to circumvent normal shared governance, the push to defund the humanities, the creation of false budget emergencies to enact hidden agendas, and the persecution of university whistleblowers to name just a few. Not only have I discussed all of these issues in my blog, but my program has been victimized by all of these destructive processes.
Not only did I discover this year that some administrators were receiving all of my program’s emails, but our campus, UCLA, recently had to fight an outside Right-wing group that was paying students to record teachers saying anti-conservative and “anti-American” things. If this was not bad enough, UCLA recently decided to set up their own internal web site so that students and other community members could report acts of bias. This type of digital surveillance system surely has a chilling effect on academic freedom.
Of course, one of the greatest threats to academic freedom that Nelson discusses is the growing use of contingent faculty who often have no academic freedom protections. While the union contract regulating the lecturers in the UC system gives the non-tenured faculty the same academic freedom rights as the tenured faculty, lecturers often have to self-censor themselves because many of them rely on getting high student evaluations to keep their jobs, and most of these contingent faculty members can be fired without just cause. We have found that even the lecturers with job security and due process can be eliminated if the university declares a fiscal emergency.
The greatest strength of Nelson’s book is that it constantly returns to the idea that only the faculty working collectively can defend the university as a public good. By chiding some of his colleagues for focusing too much on their own careers, he makes a strong plea for all of us to take back our institutions. Furthermore, by documenting cases of effective faculty resistance, Nelson provides a glimmer of hope in these dark times.
Connecting the Dots: UC Regents Meeting 2010
One of my favorite assignments for students is that I give them several headlines from the day's news and ask them to connect the different stories together. The idea behind this exercise is that people need to overcome the fragmented nature of our information society. So, let us take a look at the top five headlines from the January 21st UC Regents meeting: 1) UC approves bonuses for hospital execs; 2)"> Waiting lists to be established at most UC campuses, regents say; 3) UC regents approve Cal stadium retrofit; 4) Regents to back UC students protest at Capitol ; 5) UC leaders wary of governor's budget promises
At first these stories appear to go in different directions, but there is an underlying logic that connects the dots: The UC system is continuing its recent push to increase the compensation of its highest earners and embark on expensive construction projects as it limits undergraduate enrollment and attacks the state for not supporting higher education. While the UC administration says that it has to raise student fees and limit access because state funding is down, it also argues that it must pay top administrators higher salaries in order to keep them from going elsewhere.
The new twist to this old tune is that the regents and President Yudof are trying to co-opt the recent protests by students, faculty, and unions. We now have to imagine the regents and President Yudof locking arms with students marching through the streets of Sacramento demanding that legislators fully fund the UC system. In response to this fake claim of solidarity, several unions have released the following statement:
“To Defend Education, Reverse the Hikes and Cuts:
Open Letter to UC Regents and the People of California
The UC Regents claim to be on the side of students, staff, and faculty in defending public education, but their actions speak otherwise.
On January 20, UC President Mark Yudof and other UC Regents announced to the press that they support the March 4 Strike and Day of Action to Defend Public Education. Yet at that very meeting they awarded $3.1 million more in executive bonuses.
This is a cynical publicity stunt, and we do not buy it.
If the UC Regents were serious about supporting the students, staff, and faculty of the UC system, they would immediately reverse the 32% fee hike and roll back the catastrophic layoffs and cuts they have imposed. The future of public education in California for all working people and communities of color is at stake.
The UC Regents claim that the University of California is broke and therefore they argue that "we must work together to pressure Sacramento." But if the UC is broke, why are the Regents giving out millions in executive bonuses? If the UC is broke, why did the Regents recently loan the State of California nearly $200 million dollars? And if the UC Regents are "on our side," why have UC police consistently been sent in to repress peaceful protests?
Independent analyses of the UC budget testify to a simple and disturbing fact: the fee hikes and layoffs in the UC system are a result of a priorities crisis, not a "budget crisis." Indeed, the UC made record profits last year. The conclusion: UC Regents can and must use their millions of dollars in reserve funds to reverse the fee hikes, cuts, and layoffs.
Furthermore, we do not accept that the UC system be funded at the expense of pre-K, K-12, Community Colleges, the CSUs and adult education, as well as other public services. All levels of education must be fully funded and quality education must be equally accessible to all Californians and immigrants.
On March 4, 2010, tens of thousands of students, teachers, and workers and their organizations in all sectors of public education and across the public sector will organize mass strikes and protests against the priorities crisis of both Sacramento and the UC, CSU, CC, and K-12 administrators.
Until the UC Regents and Sacramento reverse the fee hikes, cuts, and layoffs, we pledge to continue to deepen this growing movement. We refuse to let this struggle be co-opted.”
At first these stories appear to go in different directions, but there is an underlying logic that connects the dots: The UC system is continuing its recent push to increase the compensation of its highest earners and embark on expensive construction projects as it limits undergraduate enrollment and attacks the state for not supporting higher education. While the UC administration says that it has to raise student fees and limit access because state funding is down, it also argues that it must pay top administrators higher salaries in order to keep them from going elsewhere.
The new twist to this old tune is that the regents and President Yudof are trying to co-opt the recent protests by students, faculty, and unions. We now have to imagine the regents and President Yudof locking arms with students marching through the streets of Sacramento demanding that legislators fully fund the UC system. In response to this fake claim of solidarity, several unions have released the following statement:
“To Defend Education, Reverse the Hikes and Cuts:
Open Letter to UC Regents and the People of California
The UC Regents claim to be on the side of students, staff, and faculty in defending public education, but their actions speak otherwise.
On January 20, UC President Mark Yudof and other UC Regents announced to the press that they support the March 4 Strike and Day of Action to Defend Public Education. Yet at that very meeting they awarded $3.1 million more in executive bonuses.
This is a cynical publicity stunt, and we do not buy it.
If the UC Regents were serious about supporting the students, staff, and faculty of the UC system, they would immediately reverse the 32% fee hike and roll back the catastrophic layoffs and cuts they have imposed. The future of public education in California for all working people and communities of color is at stake.
The UC Regents claim that the University of California is broke and therefore they argue that "we must work together to pressure Sacramento." But if the UC is broke, why are the Regents giving out millions in executive bonuses? If the UC is broke, why did the Regents recently loan the State of California nearly $200 million dollars? And if the UC Regents are "on our side," why have UC police consistently been sent in to repress peaceful protests?
Independent analyses of the UC budget testify to a simple and disturbing fact: the fee hikes and layoffs in the UC system are a result of a priorities crisis, not a "budget crisis." Indeed, the UC made record profits last year. The conclusion: UC Regents can and must use their millions of dollars in reserve funds to reverse the fee hikes, cuts, and layoffs.
Furthermore, we do not accept that the UC system be funded at the expense of pre-K, K-12, Community Colleges, the CSUs and adult education, as well as other public services. All levels of education must be fully funded and quality education must be equally accessible to all Californians and immigrants.
On March 4, 2010, tens of thousands of students, teachers, and workers and their organizations in all sectors of public education and across the public sector will organize mass strikes and protests against the priorities crisis of both Sacramento and the UC, CSU, CC, and K-12 administrators.
Until the UC Regents and Sacramento reverse the fee hikes, cuts, and layoffs, we pledge to continue to deepen this growing movement. We refuse to let this struggle be co-opted.”
As Protesting Students were Beaten, Regents Approved More Executive Increases
During the last UC Regents meeting in November at UCLA, while students were being tasered, pepper sprayed, and beaten for protesting a 32% fee increase, the regents were meeting privately doing what they do best, which is to grant special compensation packages for star administrators. While people often think the money for these escalating salaries and perks just comes out of thin air, I have been arguing that the money funding these increases is taken from reduced wages for most employees and increased fees for students. Of course, due to the fact administrators are often paid out of a combination of endowment funds, grant overhead, state funds, service profits, and student fees, it is virtually impossible to trace how administrative salaries are being funded, and this is one reason why we have called for a state audit of UC’s finances.
Reading the latest list of the approved exceptions to the UC’s own compensation policies, one gets a feeling that the regents are going out of their way to rationalize these high compensation packages during a time of a “fiscal emergency.” The discussion of new raises starts out by calling attention to the claim that the highest paid administrators are actually underpaid, “While the University is often criticized in the media for its compensation actions, individuals familiar with the relevant fields are concerned that the University does not properly compensate some of its highly qualified employees. This matter needs to be included in the University’s advocacy with representatives in the Legislature. Regent Blum recalled that the University’s compensation procedures were extremely inadequate three to four years earlier; there has been significant progress since that time. He expressed concern, however, about the salary level of UC chancellors and referred to a ranking of Association of American Universities institutions by the salary level of campus leaders; UC campuses were low in that ranking. This should be a matter of concern for the University.” As I have pointed out before, the UC often fudges its compensation studies by only including base pay in its comparisons, and as we shall see, a large part of the total compensation for administrators comes from non-base pay. Moreover, I am pretty sure that legislators do not want to increase the funding for the UC so it can use it for raises to top executives. In fact, Alberto Torrico, the Assembly Majority Leader, has said explicitly that he wants to make sure that any new funds going to the UC system are not just used to increase the cost of administration.
Here is a typical example of the many different perks that were approved during the regents meeting: “Appointment of Mona Sonnenshein as Acting Associate Vice Chancellor and Chief Executive Officer, UC San Diego Medical Center, effective August 22, 2009 and continuing until the effective date of the appointment of the new CEO. Continuation of current base salary of $514,700 and eligibility to participate in the Clinical Enterprise Management Recognition Program (CEMRP) with a maximum potential incentive of up to 25 percent of base salary. Additional items of compensation include: Per policy, standard pension and health and welfare benefits and standard senior management benefits (including senior management life insurance, executive business travel insurance, and executive salary continuation for disability); Per policy, a five percent monthly contribution to the Senior Management Supplemental Benefit Program; Mortgage Origination Program loan, previously approved by the Regents.” It is not enough for this administrator to get a salary of over $500,000, but she also is able to increase her salary by an additional 25%, and she receives costly senior management benefits, a supplemental benefits contribution, and a free mortgage. None of these extra perks show up in the official listing of her compensation, so we have no way of knowing her actual total compensation.
In their justification for several large compensation increases for medical administrators, the regents argue that these employees are not funded out of state funds, so they should be able to be granted these huge packages. However, Senator Grassley’s investigation into the UC’s medical centers is trying to determine how these positions are funded since they seem to be funded by multiple sources. Moreover, it is still unclear why the medical employees are treated as a special class; for instance, most of the medical faculty, who are the highest paid faculty in the UC system, did not have to participate in the furlough plan. The regents appear to believe that medical centers are their own special universe, and even though the medical facilities were built through state funding, and the medical centers continue to use state-funded faculty and students, this group of employees does not have to share in the fiscal emergency. Here is just a small list of some of the compensation increases approved during the last regents meeting:
1. Kenneth M. Jones as Chief Operating Officer
a. Promotion to Chief Operating Officer classified at SLCG Grade 115 (Minimum $416,300, Midpoint $541,200, Maximum $666,100).
b. Per policy, a base salary increase of $77,400 (16.5 percent) to increase his current base salary of $470,200 to an annual salary of $547,600.
2. Sheila Antrum as Chief Nursing and Patient Care Services Officer
a. Promotion and interim re-slotting to SLCG Grade 110 (Minimum $239,700, Midpoint $307,200, Maximum $374,500), with continued title of Chief Nursing and Patient Care Services Officer.
b. As an exception to policy, continued administrative stipend of $37,500 (15percent) to increase her current base salary of $250,000 to an annual salary of $287,500. Per policy, continued eligibility to participate in the Clinical Enterprise Management Recognition Program (CEMRP) at the Tier II level with a target of 15 percent and a maximum potential incentive of up to 25 percent of base salary.
3. Susan Moore as Acting Chief Financial Officer
a. As an exception to policy, extension of appointment as Acting Chief Financial Officer. This represents an exception to policy which allows for acting Senior Management Group appointments to be up to 12 months in length.
b. As an exception to policy, continued administrative stipend of $58,625 (25percent) to increase her current base salary of $234,500 to an annual salary of $293,125. Continued classification at SLCG Grade 107 (Minimum $172,300, Midpoint $218,700, Maximum $265,000) as well as Management and Senior Professional (MSP) Grade 7. Slotting for Acting Chief Financial Officer is SLCG Grade 114 (Minimum $372,900, Midpoint $483,400, Maximum $593,800).
c. The stipend amount will be increased as the base salary is increased, so the stipend will equal 25 percent of the base salary, at a 100-percent-time appointment.
d. Per policy, continued eligibility to participate in the Clinical Enterprise Management Recognition Program (CEMRP) at the increased Tier II level with a target of 15 percent and a maximum potential incentive of up to 25 percent of base salary.
We must remember that these raises and exceptions were given during a time of a fiscal crisis, and while the university appears to have no money to hire new faculty or to fund required courses and student support services, it always has enough money for a new administrative increases.
At one point in their discussion of raises, the regents do mention that they have frozen increases for executive salaries, but they follow this recognition of their own laws, with another call to suspend the rules: “At the January 2009 special meeting, the Regents approved the Proposal to Freeze Senior Management Group Salaries and Suspend Bonus and Certain Other Variable Pay Plans (Item C1), an action to freeze salary for members of the Senior Management Group (SMG) for fiscal year 2008-09 and fiscal year 2009- 10 and to impose certain additional restrictions on participation in bonus, incentive and variable pay programs for that same time period as well as fiscal year 2007-08. The salary freeze included a provision allowing for SMG members who hold an academic appointment in addition to their staff role, and who receive an academic merit increase resulting in the faculty salary exceeding the staff salary, to receive an adjustment to the staff salary so that the staff salary matches the faculty salary. Approval is requested for this type of salary adjustment for Vijay Dhir, Dean – Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science, effective November 1, 2009. Mr. Dhir’s administrative salary has fallen behind his underlying adjusted faculty appointment salary ($300,300, inclusive of 2.5 summer ninths) thus disadvantaging him in serving as Dean. In addition, his salary reflects a significant market lag and has fallen behind more recent hires of deans of engineering at other UC campuses whose salaries more appropriately reflect market rates. The proposed action will bring Mr. Dhir’s administrative salary equal to his adjusted faculty salary and, as a result, better align him with his cohorts both within UC and in the marketplace.”
Of course, we would all liked to be paid our fair market value, but as I have shown before, only some UC employees are considered to be market worthy.
Reading the latest list of the approved exceptions to the UC’s own compensation policies, one gets a feeling that the regents are going out of their way to rationalize these high compensation packages during a time of a “fiscal emergency.” The discussion of new raises starts out by calling attention to the claim that the highest paid administrators are actually underpaid, “While the University is often criticized in the media for its compensation actions, individuals familiar with the relevant fields are concerned that the University does not properly compensate some of its highly qualified employees. This matter needs to be included in the University’s advocacy with representatives in the Legislature. Regent Blum recalled that the University’s compensation procedures were extremely inadequate three to four years earlier; there has been significant progress since that time. He expressed concern, however, about the salary level of UC chancellors and referred to a ranking of Association of American Universities institutions by the salary level of campus leaders; UC campuses were low in that ranking. This should be a matter of concern for the University.” As I have pointed out before, the UC often fudges its compensation studies by only including base pay in its comparisons, and as we shall see, a large part of the total compensation for administrators comes from non-base pay. Moreover, I am pretty sure that legislators do not want to increase the funding for the UC so it can use it for raises to top executives. In fact, Alberto Torrico, the Assembly Majority Leader, has said explicitly that he wants to make sure that any new funds going to the UC system are not just used to increase the cost of administration.
Here is a typical example of the many different perks that were approved during the regents meeting: “Appointment of Mona Sonnenshein as Acting Associate Vice Chancellor and Chief Executive Officer, UC San Diego Medical Center, effective August 22, 2009 and continuing until the effective date of the appointment of the new CEO. Continuation of current base salary of $514,700 and eligibility to participate in the Clinical Enterprise Management Recognition Program (CEMRP) with a maximum potential incentive of up to 25 percent of base salary. Additional items of compensation include: Per policy, standard pension and health and welfare benefits and standard senior management benefits (including senior management life insurance, executive business travel insurance, and executive salary continuation for disability); Per policy, a five percent monthly contribution to the Senior Management Supplemental Benefit Program; Mortgage Origination Program loan, previously approved by the Regents.” It is not enough for this administrator to get a salary of over $500,000, but she also is able to increase her salary by an additional 25%, and she receives costly senior management benefits, a supplemental benefits contribution, and a free mortgage. None of these extra perks show up in the official listing of her compensation, so we have no way of knowing her actual total compensation.
In their justification for several large compensation increases for medical administrators, the regents argue that these employees are not funded out of state funds, so they should be able to be granted these huge packages. However, Senator Grassley’s investigation into the UC’s medical centers is trying to determine how these positions are funded since they seem to be funded by multiple sources. Moreover, it is still unclear why the medical employees are treated as a special class; for instance, most of the medical faculty, who are the highest paid faculty in the UC system, did not have to participate in the furlough plan. The regents appear to believe that medical centers are their own special universe, and even though the medical facilities were built through state funding, and the medical centers continue to use state-funded faculty and students, this group of employees does not have to share in the fiscal emergency. Here is just a small list of some of the compensation increases approved during the last regents meeting:
1. Kenneth M. Jones as Chief Operating Officer
a. Promotion to Chief Operating Officer classified at SLCG Grade 115 (Minimum $416,300, Midpoint $541,200, Maximum $666,100).
b. Per policy, a base salary increase of $77,400 (16.5 percent) to increase his current base salary of $470,200 to an annual salary of $547,600.
2. Sheila Antrum as Chief Nursing and Patient Care Services Officer
a. Promotion and interim re-slotting to SLCG Grade 110 (Minimum $239,700, Midpoint $307,200, Maximum $374,500), with continued title of Chief Nursing and Patient Care Services Officer.
b. As an exception to policy, continued administrative stipend of $37,500 (15percent) to increase her current base salary of $250,000 to an annual salary of $287,500. Per policy, continued eligibility to participate in the Clinical Enterprise Management Recognition Program (CEMRP) at the Tier II level with a target of 15 percent and a maximum potential incentive of up to 25 percent of base salary.
3. Susan Moore as Acting Chief Financial Officer
a. As an exception to policy, extension of appointment as Acting Chief Financial Officer. This represents an exception to policy which allows for acting Senior Management Group appointments to be up to 12 months in length.
b. As an exception to policy, continued administrative stipend of $58,625 (25percent) to increase her current base salary of $234,500 to an annual salary of $293,125. Continued classification at SLCG Grade 107 (Minimum $172,300, Midpoint $218,700, Maximum $265,000) as well as Management and Senior Professional (MSP) Grade 7. Slotting for Acting Chief Financial Officer is SLCG Grade 114 (Minimum $372,900, Midpoint $483,400, Maximum $593,800).
c. The stipend amount will be increased as the base salary is increased, so the stipend will equal 25 percent of the base salary, at a 100-percent-time appointment.
d. Per policy, continued eligibility to participate in the Clinical Enterprise Management Recognition Program (CEMRP) at the increased Tier II level with a target of 15 percent and a maximum potential incentive of up to 25 percent of base salary.
We must remember that these raises and exceptions were given during a time of a fiscal crisis, and while the university appears to have no money to hire new faculty or to fund required courses and student support services, it always has enough money for a new administrative increases.
At one point in their discussion of raises, the regents do mention that they have frozen increases for executive salaries, but they follow this recognition of their own laws, with another call to suspend the rules: “At the January 2009 special meeting, the Regents approved the Proposal to Freeze Senior Management Group Salaries and Suspend Bonus and Certain Other Variable Pay Plans (Item C1), an action to freeze salary for members of the Senior Management Group (SMG) for fiscal year 2008-09 and fiscal year 2009- 10 and to impose certain additional restrictions on participation in bonus, incentive and variable pay programs for that same time period as well as fiscal year 2007-08. The salary freeze included a provision allowing for SMG members who hold an academic appointment in addition to their staff role, and who receive an academic merit increase resulting in the faculty salary exceeding the staff salary, to receive an adjustment to the staff salary so that the staff salary matches the faculty salary. Approval is requested for this type of salary adjustment for Vijay Dhir, Dean – Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science, effective November 1, 2009. Mr. Dhir’s administrative salary has fallen behind his underlying adjusted faculty appointment salary ($300,300, inclusive of 2.5 summer ninths) thus disadvantaging him in serving as Dean. In addition, his salary reflects a significant market lag and has fallen behind more recent hires of deans of engineering at other UC campuses whose salaries more appropriately reflect market rates. The proposed action will bring Mr. Dhir’s administrative salary equal to his adjusted faculty salary and, as a result, better align him with his cohorts both within UC and in the marketplace.”
Of course, we would all liked to be paid our fair market value, but as I have shown before, only some UC employees are considered to be market worthy.
Four Real Ways to Reduce the California Prison Budget
Governor Schwarzenegger has recently argued that we need to increase the funding of higher education by decreasing the costs of incarceration; however, his suggestion to privatize the prisons is not only unlikely to save money, but it could result in increasing costs by having the private prisons fight for more prisoners.
If you really want to reduce the prison budget, there are four things that need to be done, and the first is to reduce the high rate of return to prison, which in California approaches 70%. Cleary, there is a lack of rehabilitation and education that is causing most of the prisoners to return. If you do not sop this revolving door, you cannot restrain costs.
The second problem has to do with sentencing laws, especially the three strikes rule. Many people are serving long and expensive prison terms because their third offense was for drug use or a failure to report to their parole officer. We need to make sure that the third offence is a violent crime and not a violation of parole or some minor drug charge. We also have to decriminalize marijuana use and other minor offenses.
The third issue concerns the fact that the majority of inmates never graduate high school. We need to invest in retention and prevention programs, and this means we cannot cut the K-12 budget like the governor recently proposed. In fact, while Schwarzenegger was right to point out the shift of state funding from higher education to prisons, he needs to realize that we can only reduce the cost of prisons if we get people to graduate from high school, and if more people graduate, we will also have to expand our funding for higher education.
Another issue is to restrain the rising costs of the prisons themselves. This would entail reducing prison administration and controlling salaries and benefits for correctional officers. Also, through telemedicine, the cost of medical care in our prisons can be controlled.
Most experts studying the costs of incarceration in California agree on these types of measures, but the governor, in his obsession with privatizing everything, simply picked a crazy free market solution that flies in the face of common sense solutions.
If you really want to reduce the prison budget, there are four things that need to be done, and the first is to reduce the high rate of return to prison, which in California approaches 70%. Cleary, there is a lack of rehabilitation and education that is causing most of the prisoners to return. If you do not sop this revolving door, you cannot restrain costs.
The second problem has to do with sentencing laws, especially the three strikes rule. Many people are serving long and expensive prison terms because their third offense was for drug use or a failure to report to their parole officer. We need to make sure that the third offence is a violent crime and not a violation of parole or some minor drug charge. We also have to decriminalize marijuana use and other minor offenses.
The third issue concerns the fact that the majority of inmates never graduate high school. We need to invest in retention and prevention programs, and this means we cannot cut the K-12 budget like the governor recently proposed. In fact, while Schwarzenegger was right to point out the shift of state funding from higher education to prisons, he needs to realize that we can only reduce the cost of prisons if we get people to graduate from high school, and if more people graduate, we will also have to expand our funding for higher education.
Another issue is to restrain the rising costs of the prisons themselves. This would entail reducing prison administration and controlling salaries and benefits for correctional officers. Also, through telemedicine, the cost of medical care in our prisons can be controlled.
Most experts studying the costs of incarceration in California agree on these types of measures, but the governor, in his obsession with privatizing everything, simply picked a crazy free market solution that flies in the face of common sense solutions.
Defending Public Education and Public Workers at UCLA
UCLA students, faculty, workers, and unions have been organizing a series of events to help protect public education and public workers in the state of California. Here are some upcoming actions:
1. Jan 19th: No More Back of the Bus Education: A Rally in Honor of MLK. Noon, in front of Kerkhoff. Help Defend Underrepresented Students! (Click here for flyer).
2. Jan. 23rd at 1: UCLA Public Forum with Assembly Speaker Karen Bass (Moore Hall 100); Rally to Defend Public Education at Bruin Plaza at 2
3. March 4th: DAY OF ACTION: MASS RALLY & MARCH to Defend Public Education and Public Workers, NOON, BRUIN PLAZA
UCLA Fights Back Coalition meets every Tuesday, 6:00 pm, 3rd Floor Lounge, Public Affairs
At these events, we will be passing out petitions for the California Democracy Act. This constitutional amendment would allow budgets and revenue bills to pass by a simple majority (for more info click here).
We will also provide information on Alberto Torrico’s Bill to tax oil extraction and use the money for higher ed (for more info, click here).
1. Jan 19th: No More Back of the Bus Education: A Rally in Honor of MLK. Noon, in front of Kerkhoff. Help Defend Underrepresented Students! (Click here for flyer).
2. Jan. 23rd at 1: UCLA Public Forum with Assembly Speaker Karen Bass (Moore Hall 100); Rally to Defend Public Education at Bruin Plaza at 2
3. March 4th: DAY OF ACTION: MASS RALLY & MARCH to Defend Public Education and Public Workers, NOON, BRUIN PLAZA
UCLA Fights Back Coalition meets every Tuesday, 6:00 pm, 3rd Floor Lounge, Public Affairs
At these events, we will be passing out petitions for the California Democracy Act. This constitutional amendment would allow budgets and revenue bills to pass by a simple majority (for more info click here).
We will also provide information on Alberto Torrico’s Bill to tax oil extraction and use the money for higher ed (for more info, click here).
Defending Public Education and Public Workers at UCLA
UCLA students, faculty, workers, and unions have been organizing a series of events to help protect public education and public workers in the state of California. Here are some upcoming actions:
1. Jan 19th: No More Back of the Bus Education: A Rally in Honor of MLK. Noon, in front of Kerkhoff. Help Defend Underrepresented Students! (Click here for flyer).
2. Jan. 23rd at 1: UCLA Public Forum with Assembly Speaker Karen Bass (Moore Hall 100); Rally to Defend Public Education at Bruin Plaza at 2
3. March 4th: DAY OF ACTION: MASS RALLY & MARCH to Defend Public Education and Public Workers, NOON, BRUIN PLAZA
UCLA Fights Back Coalition meets every Tuesday, 6:00 pm, 3rd Floor Lounge, Public Affairs
At these events, we will be passing out petitions for the California Democracy Act. This constitutional amendment would allow budgets and revenue bills to pass by a simple majority (for more info click here).
We will also provide information on Alberto Torrico’s Bill to tax oil extraction and use the money for higher ed (for more info, click here).
1. Jan 19th: No More Back of the Bus Education: A Rally in Honor of MLK. Noon, in front of Kerkhoff. Help Defend Underrepresented Students! (Click here for flyer).
2. Jan. 23rd at 1: UCLA Public Forum with Assembly Speaker Karen Bass (Moore Hall 100); Rally to Defend Public Education at Bruin Plaza at 2
3. March 4th: DAY OF ACTION: MASS RALLY & MARCH to Defend Public Education and Public Workers, NOON, BRUIN PLAZA
UCLA Fights Back Coalition meets every Tuesday, 6:00 pm, 3rd Floor Lounge, Public Affairs
At these events, we will be passing out petitions for the California Democracy Act. This constitutional amendment would allow budgets and revenue bills to pass by a simple majority (for more info click here).
We will also provide information on Alberto Torrico’s Bill to tax oil extraction and use the money for higher ed (for more info, click here).
How the UC Hides its Money
In notes from the Regents Committee on Finance meeting from Nov. 18 2009 , one sees how the UC is able to bring in a record level of revenue but still claim that it has no money. During Assistant Vice President Plotts presentation of the Annual Financial Report, we are told that, “The University’s total assets were $42 billion, an increase of approximately $74 million over the previous year. Total liabilities were somewhat over $22 billion. Liabilities increased by $2.3 billion over the same period. Net assets were slightly under $20 billion and declined by $2.25 billion.” This combination of good and bad news is highly confusing, but the first thing to stress is that the main reason that the liabilities have increased by $2.25 billion is that due to a recent accounting law change, the UC is declaring on its books over $1.5 billion in future healthcare costs for retirees. As the report later notes, the UC is not actually spending this money or saving it up; instead it is merely listing the projected future costs on its ledger, and this move allows it to hide a large chunk of its unrestricted funds. In Plotts’ own word, “The obligation for retiree health, mentioned above, is $1.5 billion; but the University has funded only $279 million of this expense. The difference is recorded on the balance sheet as a liability.” Through this accounting move, $1.2 billion that could be used for any purpose, like closing the UC budget gap, simply goes away, but in reality, it does not go anywhere.
The use of the unfunded healthcare liability to hide the true state of the UC’s finances is revisited later on in the report: “Mr. Taylor responded that the decline in unrestricted net assets is due to a variety of causes. The increasing cost of the retiree health program is probably the largest single factor. Campuses are drawing on different sources of revenue to bridge over difficult financial times, and spending down unexpended plant funds on construction projects.” In this statement, the budget director claims that the biggest reason for the loss of unrestricted funds, which could have been used to close the budget gap, is the retiree healthcare liability, but we have to remember that the UC is not actually spending this money. It is therefore unclear why he connects the healthcare of retirees with the fact that the campuses are spending down their reserves.
In a very telling moment, Plotts declares, “There is no free-floating reserve that can be applied to UC financial problems.” I think he protests too much in this report because he spends an extensive amount of time justifying the lack of unrestricted funds, while he also reveals an increase in revenue. Not only is the UC hiding its money through its unfunded retiree healhtcare liability, but it is clear that the system pools money from many different sources, and then invests it through its endowment and short term investment pool. Moreover, since these investments lost a lot of money in the fiscal year ending July 1, 2009, Plotts is able to declare that the UC has lost most if its unrestricted funds: “These assets have sometimes been mistakenly thought of as a free-floating reserve. These funds are allocated in advance to a wide variety of academic and student programs. Mr. Taylor emphasized that, on June 30, 2007, the University’s unrestricted net assets were $6.5 billion; now, two years later, on June 30, 2009, unrestricted reserves were at $3.54 billion, a decline of $3 billion. He projected that, by June 30, 2010, these reserves will be below $1 billion.” According to this statement, there are no unrestricted funds because all of the money is dedicated to academic and student programs; however, these funds have gone down over $5 billion in the last two years, and they will go down even more this year. The first thing to point out is that these funds have recently gone up quite a bit, so does that mean that several billion dollars are now accessible? Or does this mean that when the investments lose money, everything has to be cut, but when the investments gain, none of the money can be used?
This report indicates that the UC did have a lot of unrestricted funds, but this money has been lost by the poor return in its investments: “unrestricted net assets, not restricted by an external party but committed internally, declined by almost $1.8 billion.” As the unions have been arguing for a long time, most of the UC’s money is only restricted by its own priorities, and this statement admits that these funds are not restricted by law or some external authority; however, the new claim is that these funds have now been mostly lost.
Another way that the university hides its revenue and available funds is by simply misreporting funding its gets from different sources. While its own audited financial statements show that the UC received an increase in state funding for the year ending in July 2009, this report claims a massive loss: “The University will always show an operating loss, because State educational appropriations are required to be reported as non-operating revenues, which declined by about $1.75 billion this year. The decline in non-operating revenues reflects reduced State educational appropriations and a decline in the fair value of investments.” Since state appropriations actually went up during this period, it must be that these state funds were lost by being invested.
What I suspect is going on is that the UC is placing funds from many different sources, including student fees and state funds, into its investment accounts. By using this structure, the system is able to hide its unrestricted funds and to redirect money from its investment accounts into its chosen priorities, which is often increasing the compensation of the star administrators, faculty, and coaches. The end result of this process is that the UC declares that it is broke, while it raises record revenue and redistributes income from the poorest students and workers to the wealthiest employees
The use of the unfunded healthcare liability to hide the true state of the UC’s finances is revisited later on in the report: “Mr. Taylor responded that the decline in unrestricted net assets is due to a variety of causes. The increasing cost of the retiree health program is probably the largest single factor. Campuses are drawing on different sources of revenue to bridge over difficult financial times, and spending down unexpended plant funds on construction projects.” In this statement, the budget director claims that the biggest reason for the loss of unrestricted funds, which could have been used to close the budget gap, is the retiree healthcare liability, but we have to remember that the UC is not actually spending this money. It is therefore unclear why he connects the healthcare of retirees with the fact that the campuses are spending down their reserves.
In a very telling moment, Plotts declares, “There is no free-floating reserve that can be applied to UC financial problems.” I think he protests too much in this report because he spends an extensive amount of time justifying the lack of unrestricted funds, while he also reveals an increase in revenue. Not only is the UC hiding its money through its unfunded retiree healhtcare liability, but it is clear that the system pools money from many different sources, and then invests it through its endowment and short term investment pool. Moreover, since these investments lost a lot of money in the fiscal year ending July 1, 2009, Plotts is able to declare that the UC has lost most if its unrestricted funds: “These assets have sometimes been mistakenly thought of as a free-floating reserve. These funds are allocated in advance to a wide variety of academic and student programs. Mr. Taylor emphasized that, on June 30, 2007, the University’s unrestricted net assets were $6.5 billion; now, two years later, on June 30, 2009, unrestricted reserves were at $3.54 billion, a decline of $3 billion. He projected that, by June 30, 2010, these reserves will be below $1 billion.” According to this statement, there are no unrestricted funds because all of the money is dedicated to academic and student programs; however, these funds have gone down over $5 billion in the last two years, and they will go down even more this year. The first thing to point out is that these funds have recently gone up quite a bit, so does that mean that several billion dollars are now accessible? Or does this mean that when the investments lose money, everything has to be cut, but when the investments gain, none of the money can be used?
This report indicates that the UC did have a lot of unrestricted funds, but this money has been lost by the poor return in its investments: “unrestricted net assets, not restricted by an external party but committed internally, declined by almost $1.8 billion.” As the unions have been arguing for a long time, most of the UC’s money is only restricted by its own priorities, and this statement admits that these funds are not restricted by law or some external authority; however, the new claim is that these funds have now been mostly lost.
Another way that the university hides its revenue and available funds is by simply misreporting funding its gets from different sources. While its own audited financial statements show that the UC received an increase in state funding for the year ending in July 2009, this report claims a massive loss: “The University will always show an operating loss, because State educational appropriations are required to be reported as non-operating revenues, which declined by about $1.75 billion this year. The decline in non-operating revenues reflects reduced State educational appropriations and a decline in the fair value of investments.” Since state appropriations actually went up during this period, it must be that these state funds were lost by being invested.
What I suspect is going on is that the UC is placing funds from many different sources, including student fees and state funds, into its investment accounts. By using this structure, the system is able to hide its unrestricted funds and to redirect money from its investment accounts into its chosen priorities, which is often increasing the compensation of the star administrators, faculty, and coaches. The end result of this process is that the UC declares that it is broke, while it raises record revenue and redistributes income from the poorest students and workers to the wealthiest employees
The Next Big Social Movement?: UC in The New Yorker
The New Yorker Magazine recently had an extensive article on the UC system, and the general frame was that President Yudof is deeply unpopular, the university is broke, and people are rebelling. While the idea that an institution with a record level of revenue has no money is ridiculous, the article did a good job at highlighting many of our recent struggles. For example, a very interesting quote came from Alberto Torrico, the majority leader in the state assembly, who was asked about his new plan to fund the UC system: ”If I gave them a blank check, they'd use it for administrative costs instead of education.” Torrico, who is one of the only legislators in Sacramento who is working on securing funding for the UC system, is right to stress that if the state gives the UC more money, they may just use it to hire more administrators.
Torrico’s bill, AB 656, which would put a 12.5% tax on oil extraction in California and send $1.3 billion to higher education each year, has received no official support from Yudof or the Regents. In fact, when Yudof was asked about this bill, he said that he was unhappy that only 25% of the funds would go to the UC system. In response to Yudof’s discontent, Torrico told The New Yorker reporter that he would say the following to the UC president, “"Do you want twenty-five percent of a billion-plus, or one hundred percent of nothing?" 'Cause I can give you that very easily.” Torrico is displaying here the sentiment of many Democratic legislators who are tired of being attacked by Yudof for never giving the UC system enough money.
Another thread of the article is that there is a new movement arising from the University of California fiscal crisis, and it is unclear, which direction the movement will lead. On the one hand, a new spirit of student and faculty activism is bringing hope to many people inside and outside of the UC system, but, the article stresses that it is unclear what can be accomplished and how long the students, unions, and faculty can work together.
In my travels to New York and Philadelphia over the winter break, I kept hearing about the revolution in California. It seems that people are looking at us to start a new social movement, even if no one can define the target or the goals of the movement. I was surprised to hear on one radio show in New York, the argument that the only progressive social movement in the country challenging the current economic system is the one at the University of California. As strange as it may seem, we have become a small ray of hope for people fighting the privatization of the public sphere and the casualization of the labor force. Let’s hope that we can live up to the expectations of those around the country. Everything starts in California—not only the bad but sometimes the good.
Torrico’s bill, AB 656, which would put a 12.5% tax on oil extraction in California and send $1.3 billion to higher education each year, has received no official support from Yudof or the Regents. In fact, when Yudof was asked about this bill, he said that he was unhappy that only 25% of the funds would go to the UC system. In response to Yudof’s discontent, Torrico told The New Yorker reporter that he would say the following to the UC president, “"Do you want twenty-five percent of a billion-plus, or one hundred percent of nothing?" 'Cause I can give you that very easily.” Torrico is displaying here the sentiment of many Democratic legislators who are tired of being attacked by Yudof for never giving the UC system enough money.
Another thread of the article is that there is a new movement arising from the University of California fiscal crisis, and it is unclear, which direction the movement will lead. On the one hand, a new spirit of student and faculty activism is bringing hope to many people inside and outside of the UC system, but, the article stresses that it is unclear what can be accomplished and how long the students, unions, and faculty can work together.
In my travels to New York and Philadelphia over the winter break, I kept hearing about the revolution in California. It seems that people are looking at us to start a new social movement, even if no one can define the target or the goals of the movement. I was surprised to hear on one radio show in New York, the argument that the only progressive social movement in the country challenging the current economic system is the one at the University of California. As strange as it may seem, we have become a small ray of hope for people fighting the privatization of the public sphere and the casualization of the labor force. Let’s hope that we can live up to the expectations of those around the country. Everything starts in California—not only the bad but sometimes the good.