Robert Powell, chair of the Faculty Senate at UC Davis, wrote the following editorial for the Sacramento Bee:
Mark Yudof has been roundly criticized for likening his role as the president of the University of California to being the caretaker of a cemetery. On Nov. 18, faculty and staff learned that it is the policymakers and leaders of state government who are the caretakers for the cemetery that holds the tens of thousands of dreams of K-12 students and the countless visions of innovators.The beginning of the last chapter of the greatest public university in the world can be found among the pages of the report of the Legislative Analyst Office at www.lao.ca.gov. Its authors make it clear that in the current political climate the state of California will not honor its commitments to faculty, staff and future generations of students.
The report assumes the state will not provide the UC with the necessary budget to recover from two years of draconian cuts. Even worse, it assumes there will be no money to grow our student body to allow for increased access to higher education. It also offers no hint that UC should continue to be supported in its role as an absolutely critical part of the economic engine that has made California and innovation synonymous.
The policies assumed in this report will, out of necessity, change the UC: It cannot survive as we know it.
Access to a University of California education is contingent upon a system comprising many campuses, each of which offers a world-class education. The promise of economic development that attends outstanding institutions of higher learning is spread more broadly across the state as campus research enterprises grow, and more students receive graduate and professional degrees.
Instead of shrinking the university's ability to educate those who help fuel the state's economy, we should be expanding the promise of economic development that the University of California has made to the state's citizens and, until now, fulfilled. For example, if we educate fewer engineers and scientists, we eliminate the possibility of building the highly qualified work force required for a competitive economy.
The faculty who I know in UC do not want the "flexibility" to reduce enrollments implied by the LAO report; rather, we are more than willing to meet our responsibility to educate students when the state stops neglecting its responsibilities to be a full partner in supporting that education. The day the LAO report was released, students protested the UC Regents' approval of a 32 percent fee increase. The students should be angry — they should be furious. But let's make it clear — their fees are not going to pay for their education. They are paying for a generation of government by voter initiative and for the collective tendency of state leaders to support prisons or other items that can easily be reduced to election slogans instead of supporting public education. New fees allow the state to decrease money promised to UC in support of students and use it elsewhere.
What is unwritten in the LAO report is the direct benefit to the state's economy produced by the UC. Every dollar the state invests in UC returns more than $5 to California, directly producing an annual net return of more than 500 percent on the state's investment. This is further multiplied as the money we spend filters through the community: every dollar spent by UC Davis grows to return more than $1.75 to California. More to the point, every two employees at UC Davis create enough economic activity to support the hiring of one employee outside the university.
What venture capitalist would not want a nearly guaranteed 600 percent annual return on her investment? Yet that sort of strategic thinking is ignored in policy discussions, at least those that are apparent to us.
The report of the LAO makes it absolutely clear that it is the current policy of the state of California to privatize the UC, drastically undermining access of all qualified students promised by the master plan. I have met no faculty member who wants this. We share a deep belief in the ideals of the UC, its incredible ability to inspire researchers and students and the promise that underlies access for qualified students.
Our faculty members produce the knowledge that will underpin the next chapters in California's history. As teachers, we stimulate the thinking that enables our students to start a new chapter in their biographies. We are determined to do everything within our power to ensure that the story of UC continues to be what it has been for the last 150 years — chapter upon chapter of education, innovation and service to the state of California, the nation and the world.
Just as our students protesting today should be angry, so too should their parents and, indeed, all of the citizens of California. They should tell their elected representatives that they want their public university to remain public, act in the service of the state and be accessible to all eligible students.
A noteworthy story, passed on by my friend Steve Forcey.
Earlier this year the President of Peru, Alan Garcia, sold the rights to explore, log and drill 70% of his country's portion of the Amazon rainforest to international oil companies, saying "There are millions of hectares of timber there lying idle." But indigenous people live there. They blockaded the rivers and roads to keep the companies out. Garcia responded by declaring a state of emergency and sending in the military. On June 5th they opened fire on the protesters with live ammunition and stun grenades:
But then something surprising happened. The Peruvian Congress, presumably shamed by this incident, repealed the laws that allowed oil company drilling, by a margin of 82 votes to 12. Garcia was forced to apologise. The protesters have celebrated and returned to their homes in the Amazon.
But of course the battle is not over.
Iran's national poet, Simin Behbahani, has written a poem about the situation in Iran - the re-election of Ahmadenijad, followed by protests which the government has violently tried to crush. You can hear it here:
It turns out that Elsevier has been publishing a phony medical journal: the Australasian Journal of Bone and Joint Medicine! It's run by the pharmaceutical company Merck, the secret goal being to advertise Merck products:
© 2009 John Baez
baez@math.removethis.ucr.andthis.edu