Prompted by the furloughs announced in summer 2009, a small group of faculty met to reactivate the BFA to protect faculty interests, broadly construed, amidst the current crisis. An October 2009 election brought in a new BFA Board of Directors and officers, after which the BFA swung into action.

In the fall, we set up a new website, ran a membership drive, and connected with other groups of faculty, students, and staff concerned with current and future threats to the integrity of the University of California.

In the spring, BFA began to work on the state political front. BFA officers met with several California legislators to discuss the endangered future of UC. With the help of funds from a private donor, BFA and SAVE organized buses for over 200 UC faculty members to participate in the March 4th “Educate the State” rally at the Capitol.

As the year came to a close, BFA wrote and disseminated reports sounding alarms on the condition of faculty pensions, the Gould Working Groups recommendations (Regents’ Commission on the Future of the University), and on threats to the campus child-care centers. We will continue to monitor cost-cutting moves stimulated by Operation Excellence (“the Bain Report”) in order to guard against adverse impacts on programs across campus.

BFA remains gravely concerned about the endangerment of shared governance harbored by UCOP approaches to the current crisis, especially those that would dramatically transform undergraduate education at UC. In response to a UCOP proposal for a revenue-generating “cyber-campus,” BFA is now tentatively planning a one-day conference in the fall to examine the merits and pitfalls of on-line university degrees.

Wendy Brown, Co-Chair
Chris Rosen, Co-Chair
Dick Walker, Vice-Chair

Henwood on debt & education

Bob Samuels of the AFT has written a provocative analysis of how universities, including UC, joined the game of finance in the go-go years of rising markets and deepening debt — in place of secure funding.  And have increased the risk of losses and lessened public control of state institutions.

BFA Board minutes 1-22-2010

Jue&Thesis-Money Not the Only Threat

Glazer_Levine_article

We’ve added a link to a new report from the state’s Legislative Analyst Office on the state’s master plan for higher education. It provides a brief but succinct overview of the plan, talks about how out of alignment the system now is relative to the plan, then throws out some rather alarming suggestions for rethinking the plan.  Good lord!  Forget about access and affordability and do more testing! No student left behind – unless you can’t get in or can’t afford to come!

Faculty need to think through these things before they get thought through for us!

Chris Rosen

by Bob Meister,

President, Council of UC Faculty Associations (CUCFA)

Professor of Political and Social Thought, UC Santa Cruz

UC feels free to use Educational Fees however it pleases without

accountability. That’s why it can pledge “ed fees” as collateral for

construction bonds and use them to pay debt service.[1] In the past week,

I have discovered another, equally disturbing, consequence of UC’s refusal

to be accountable for its use of “ed fees:” It has allowed (or perhaps

more accurately used) the rapid growth in “ed fees” to dramatically

increase the disparities in the per student funds it provides to each

campus. As tuition rises, students are not getting what they think they

are paying for on their own campuses, and the entity they are paying has

not been transparent about where the money goes…

The rest of this article is available on the CUCFA website at

http://www.cucfa.org/news/2009_nov10.php

SUPPORT ACCESSIBLE HIGH QUALITY PUBLIC EDUCATION IN CALIFORNIA

California’s public higher education is at a turning point due to the

state’s systematic defunding of the Community College, Cal State, and

University of California systems. Most immediately, the University of

California Regents will vote at their November 17-19 meeting on a

proposal to increase student fees by 32% over the next year. This fee

increase would be in addition to the 9.3% increase that took effect at

the beginning of the 2009/2010 academic year. UC student fees have more

than doubled in the last decade, and with the proposed increase the cost

to attend the UC will have tripled since 2000/2001. Meanwhile, in all

three systems, class sizes are increasing, programs and departments are

at risk, and student debt is rising. As student fees increase, students

receive a lower quality education for a higher price.

The Santa Cruz Faculty Association has created three petitions. One is

addressed to the UC Regents and demands that they vote against the

proposed student fee hikes and that they aggressively pursue the

restoration of public funding to the levels laid out in the 1960

California Master Plan for Higher Education. A second is addressed to

California state legislators and demands that they vote to restore state

funding of public higher education in California to the levels laid out

in the 1960 California Master Plan for Higher Education. A third,

addressed to the Governor, demands that he submit a budget that restores

state funding of public higher education in California to the levels

laid out in the Master Plan.

The Regents meeting is Nov. 17-19. The battle over public higher

education is NOW! We need your signatures NOW!

After signing the three petitions below, forward this message to your

friends, parents, colleagues, neighbors, to the cashier in the grocery

store, tell everyone you know that we need to act now to restore

quality, affordable and accessible public education to the State of

California.

Tell the UC Regents to stop the fee hikes:

http://checkingeducation.com/petition/ucregents

Tell your Legislator to restore state funding for public higher

education: http://checkingeducation.com/petition/legislators

Tell the Governor to restore state funding for public higher education:

http://checkingeducation.com/petition/governor

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