SAVE the University has circulated the following statement to the UCB administration. It concerns the manifest failings of the new AP Bears on-line system for documenting faculty activity for promotion — replacing the old annual bio-bibliography. Unfortunately, AP Bears is cumbersome and time-consuming, wasting valuable faculty and staff time & energy. SAVE appeal on APBears
Statement on Pension Reform at UC Presented to UC Regents, Dec. 13, 2010 by Richard Walker, Vice-Chair of the Berkeley Faculty Association The Berkeley Faculty Association (BFA) is deeply concerned about the state of the University of California Retirement Plan (UCRP). The UCRP’s Defined Benefit Plan is billions of dollars in arrears because contributions were suspended twenty years ago. The failure to fund UCRP has several causes, the most fundamental of which is the permanent fiscal crisis of the state of California and the political failure to support our system of public higher education – including the pension fund. The University made things worse by halting contributions to the fund over the same 20-year period. The effects of these failures [...]
Speech to the Regents on the UC “Commission on the Future” Report December 13, 2010 Wendy Brown Emanuel Heller Professor of Political Science Co-Chair, Berkeley Faculty Association, UC Berkeley wlbrown@berkeley.edu Historically, UC has offered the unparalleled combination of premier faculty, path-breaking research, top-ranked graduate programs, and sterling undergraduate education available to the top 8th of California high school students. All of these are now seriously threatened by the state fiscal crisis and the Commission on the Future is to be commended for thinking hard about how to secure faculty, research and graduate programs amidst these threats. What it proposes to throw under the bus, however, is undergraduate education–both its access by California students and its quality. This is particularly evident [...]
The Daily Californian Online UC Commission on the Future Releases Final Report By Jordan Bach-Lombardo Contributing Writer Monday, December 6, 2010 Category: News > University > Higher Education With the University of California facing an increasingly precarious financial situation, the university’s Commission on the Future unveiled its final recommendations for maintaining the UC’s fiscal viability on Monday. The recommendations focus on various methods to generate revenue for the university in a time of drastically reduced state funding for the system’s 10 campuses, including increasing the number of out-of-state students, negotiating better cost recovery rates to reduce research overhead costs, increasing the amount of money yielded through private fundraising and increasing the revenue generated by the UC’s self-supporting programs. “UC is [...]
UC panel’s plan to raise money comes under fire Justin Berton, Chronicle Staff Writer Tuesday, December 7, 2010 The University of California should admit more out-of-state students and offer online classes and three-year degrees as a way to raise money, a UC commission said Monday. A report from the UC Commission on the Future said that if the university doesn’t take such measures, it could be faced with a $3 billion budget shortfall over the next decade. That in turn could force the university to continue raising tuition, cut enrollment, reduce financial aid and lay off staff, the panel said. The commission’s recommendations will go before the UC Board of Regents at its meeting next week in San Francisco, but [...]
APPEAL TO SUSPEND “APBEARS” UNTIL IT WORKS PROPERLY TO: EVC George Breslauer CC: Vice Provost Sheldon Zedeck, Associate Vice Provost Angelica Stacy, Associate Vice Chancellor Shelton Waggener, Dean Andrew Szeri; campus offices FROM: The SAVE Coordinating Committee Evidence and testimony from across campus document that APBears was “rolled out” in a condition unfit for the use of staff and faculty. Moreover, it is potentially damaging to faculty who are now preparing dossiers for promotion review (see below). It is widely understood that some administrators in charge of this system knew about its deficiencies but suppressed this knowledge and refused to correct problems so as not to miss their “rollout” deadline. If they have not apprised you of this situation, we [...]