The Board of the Berkeley Faculty Association had its first meeting last Thursday, welcoming three new board members: Anne-Lise François, Amanda Goldstein and Mara Loveman.
Among the issues we discussed was the increasing reliance on Public-Private Partnerships to fund housing. So long as the campus is unable to raise its own funds, PPPs will be here to stay, but we want access to the details of the contracts and to play a role in determining the financial risks involved. Last semester the administration rode roughshod over Senate opposition to the Upper Hearst Project – opposition based on the projected costs of affordable housing. This will be a continuing concern as other projects come on line, such as the one for People’s Park announced last week. (See below.)
We discussed the new campus system of distributing FTEs on the basis of departmental “floors”, calculated on the basis of past size and student credit hours. This could hurt certain departments, especially in the humanities, where the number of FTEs is already above their “floor”. We also discussed whether and to what extent the College of Letters and Sciences, home to most of campus teaching, is subsidizing the professional schools.
Two long-standing issues were raised: the pros and cons of inviting lecturers to join our association and the prospects for creating a faculty union that could negotiate with the administration. Both issues become especially pertinent with the erosion of shared governance. We decided to hold two open meetings: one that will address the above issues and a second, led by Chris Newfield, will be on “The University and the 2020 Election”.
Michael Burawoy and Celeste Langan for the Board of the Berkeley Faculty Association