Report: Affordable Public Higher Education is Possible Today

A report this week from Reclaim California Higher Education (a coalition of faculty and student groups) makes the case that affordable (even free) higher education is within reach for California.

The privatization experiment has failed. The harm to a generation of hard-working, high-aiming young people is proven. It’s time to return to what works: the proven Master Plan for higher education in California. California, with its own resources, can afford to restore top-quality, accessible, affordable college and university opportunity to every qualified student. In fact, Californians can afford nothing less.

You can read a summary and download the entire report at the Reclaim website.

Which Way UCLA? May 6, 12 noon

Save the date!

Which Way UCLA? Faculty and the Future of Public Higher Education

Wednesday, May 6, 12 noon to 1:30 PM
UCLA Faculty Center, Sequoia Room

Buffet lunch will be served

As Janet Napolitano and Jerry Brown battle over tuition increases and state funding for the UC, faculty face eroding compensation and increasing privatization of the university. Is shared governance still meaningful amidst the race for private donations and bond-funded construction? Where is the common ground between tenure and non-tenure system faculty? How does the crisis of student loan debt change our relationship with our students? Join representatives of the Academic Senate, the Council of UC Faculty Associations, and the UC-AFT (lecturers union) for a open forum on faculty and the future of public higher education in the age of austerity.

Moderator: Toby Higbie (UCLA Faculty Association)
Panelists:
Leo Estrada (UCLA Urban Planning, Chair-Elect Academic Senate)
Patricia Morton (UCR, President Council of UC Faculty Associations)
Bob Samuels (UCLA, UC-AFT)

Diversity Requirement Debate Returns

The question of a diversity requirement for undergraduate students in the UCLA College of Letters and Sciences is back on the agenda, this time apparently heading for a vote of the entire UCLA faculty. Last October, faculty in the College of Letters and Sciences voted to adopt an undergraduate diversity requirement, and the measure was approved by the Senate Legislative Assembly. According to a January 26 email to Legislative Assembly members, in December, a group of 59 faculty members petitioned Senate Chair Joel Aberbach asking him to set aside the votes under a little used provision of the Senate Bylaws, which he did. The College Faculty Executive Committee has protested saying, among other things that Aberbach’s interpretation of Senate bylaws,

essentially renders meaningless any action taken by the Legislative Assembly since less than 2% of the faculty can overturn any and all of its actions and send them to a vote of the entire faculty; it also sets a troubling precedent, as it fundamentally undermines the long-held privilege of Faculties to determine the curricula for their students.

We’ve posted the entire email to the LgA members on the news feed: http://uclafaculty.org/2015/02/05/text-of-college-fec-letter-to-senate-lga-members/

Text of College FEC Letter to Senate LgA Members

The following is the full text of an email from the College Faculty Executive Committee (FEC) to members of the Senate Legislative Assembly (LgA) concerning the requirement for diversity-related courses.

From: FEC Chair
Sent: Monday, January 26, 2015 8:01 AM
To: FEC Chair
Subject: College FEC: Message to LgA Members

Dear Colleague,

Since you are a member of the Legislative Assembly of the Academic Senate, we wanted to inform you about a recent development related to a vote made by the LgA on November 20, 2014 to Amend Divisional Regulation A-458(C) in the College of Letters and Science, which would include a diversity-related course in the College undergraduate curriculum. The Academic Senate Office informed the College FEC Chairs on December 28, 2014 that on December 11, 2014, Senate Chair Joel Aberbach received a challenge in the form of a petition referencing Bylaw 155 and “asking for an electronic vote of all Senate faculty on the adoption of a diversity requirement for undergraduates in the College of Letters and Sciences.” (Memo from Senate Chair Aberbach dated December 16, 2014 to the Executive Board).

You may remember that the proposed College of Letters and Science regulation revision was included as a regular agenda item and opened up for a lengthy discussion at the LgA meeting on November 20, 2014. At the meeting, the LgA heard Pro and Con statements and entertained questions from the floor. The LgA meeting was well attended by at least 117 voting members, and a motion was made to approve the College diversity course requirement. The motion was seconded, and the LgA voted decisively to approve the regulation change (85 in favor, 18 against, and 4 abstentions).

You may also remember that after the vote passed, an LgA member who spoke against the Amendment to Divisional Regulation A-458(C) (also one of the faculty who signed a “con” email sent to College faculty on October 24) sought to immediately undo the favorable LgA vote by invoking a rarely used provision of the UCLA Senate Bylaw, Section 155 (B)(1), which states that “actions taken by the LgA shall be submitted to a…ballot of voting members of the Division if the request for the mail or electronic online ballot is made at the meeting at which the issue has been considered and one-third of the members of the LgA present join in the request.” A motion to compel a vote of the full membership of the Division was made, but it fell well short of the required one-third support from LgA members present.

Traditionally, a positive vote by the LgA is the final approval necessary for College curricular changes involving a regulation change. However the Academic Senate Office informed the College FEC Chairs on December 28, 2014 that on December 11, 2014, Senate Chair Joel Aberbach received a challenge in the form of a petition referencing Bylaw 155 and “asking for an electronic vote of all Senate faculty on the adoption of a diversity requirement for undergraduates in the College of Letters and Sciences.” (Memo from Senate Chair Aberbach dated December 16, 2014). In the document accompanying that memo, entitled “Extended Summary of Divisional Bylaws related to the Challenge to the November 20th LgA vote on the College Diversity Requirement,” it is explained that the petition was signed by 59 Divisional (rather than LgA) members (who asked to remain anonymous) “requesting that the issue of the Diversity Requirement for undergraduates in the UCLA College of Letters and Sciences be put to a ballot of voting members of the division” (Extended Summary accompanying memo from Senate Chair Aberbach).

This petition has been accepted by Senate Chair Aberbach. As a result, the favorable vote by the College faculty in October 2014 and the final vote of approval by the LgA in November 2014 are effectively invalidated by individuals who remained unknown outside the Academic Senate office. Instead, the proposal to establish a College of Letters and Science diversity course requirement has been scheduled to be put to a vote of the entire UCLA faculty (approximately 3,600 individuals).

On January 8, 2015, members of the College Diversity Initiative Committee and the College FEC Chairs submitted a formal appeal to Senate Chair Aberbach as well as the UCLA Rules and Jurisdiction committee on the grounds that Bylaw 155 has been misinterpreted and that a petition to take a vote to the full faculty must be made by one-third of the members of the Legislative Assembly. This interpretation is more consistent with the language of the entire 155 bylaw than the interpretation offered in Senate Chair Aberbach’s Extended Summary. Moreover, this interpretation preserves the fundamental principles underlying faculty governance. In contrast, the interpretation presented in the Extended Summary essentially renders meaningless any action taken by the Legislative Assembly since less than 2% of the faculty can overturn any and all of its actions and send them to a vote of the entire faculty; it also sets a troubling precedent, as it fundamentally undermines the long-held privilege of Faculties to determine the curricula for their students.

To date there has been no response to the appeal from Senate Chair Aberbach or the UCLA Rules and Jurisdiction Committee addressing concerns over the interpretation of Bylaw 155 or the decision to allow this petition action to proceed anonymously. Instead, individuals have had to resort to filing requests for a copy of the full petition through the Public Records Act, which was released on January 21 by the Records Management & Information Practices Department. Although the minutes of the LgA meeting have yet to be formally distributed, and Legislative Assembly and Faculty members have not been formally informed, the Senate leadership has already scheduled a campus wide vote based on this petition for February 25 – March 10, 2015.

As a member of the Legislative Assembly, it is critical that you are aware of the current situation because the integrity and legitimacy of the Legislative Assembly are at stake. For your information, we have also included an abbreviated version of the appeal that was submitted as a challenge to the petition.

It is our understanding that a formal letter raising concerns about the lack of transparency of the petition process, the unresponsiveness of senate leadership, and the precedent set by this anonymous petition action is being circulated. However, we are writing you as a member of the Legislative Assembly to inform you of the situation and encourage you to contact Senate Chair Aberbach and the UCLA Rules and Jurisdiction Committee to call for transparency and request that they provide a clear explanation to all UCLA faculty as to 1) their unusual interpretation of Bylaw 155 that has allowed this petition to proceed, 2) their decision to allow this action to occur in secrecy, and 3) why faculty of the College of Letters and Science should not have the autonomy to decide upon their own curriculum — decisions supported by a vote of College of Letters and Science faculty and approved by the Legislative Assembly.

Christina Palmer, Chair Mike Alfaro, Co-Chair
College Faculty Executive Committee College Diversity Initiative Committee

Joseph Bristow, Vice Chair M. Belinda Tucker, Co-Chair
College Faculty Executive Committee College Diversity Initiative Committee

College Diversity Requirement Gathers Support

The following statement has been circulating among faculty today and has about 80 co-signers as of Wednesday afternoon.

We Support the College Diversity Requirement

We, the undersigned faculty of the University of California, Los Angeles, express our enthusiastic support for a College Diversity Requirement for students within the College of Letters and Science. Our signatures reflect our confidence in the process, proposal, and the expected benefits of such a requirement for our students and our campus more generally. We recognize fully that for over 30 years, generations of students have worked hard alongside faculty in achieving this goal and now is the time to bring that long effort to fruition. Through enactment of this measure we will join our colleagues throughout the University of California system in providing pedagogy consistent with our mission to educate the next generation of engaged intellectual leaders in a complex and interconnected global society.

For more information about the College Diversity Initiative please visit votediversity.ucla.edu

Emily Abel, Health Policy and Management

Michael Alfaro, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Institute for Society and Genetics

Paul Barber, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

Ali Behdad, English

Charlene Black Villaseñor, Art History

Maylei Blackwell, Chavez Chicana/o Studies

Dan Blumstein, Chair, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

Karen Brodkin, Anthropology

Carole Browner, Anthropology

Allison Carruth, English, Institute of Environment & Sustainability

Denise Chavira, Psychology

Amander Clark, Molecular, Cell and Developmental Biology

King-Kok Cheung, English

Keith Camacho, Asian American Studies

Erica Cartmill, Anthropology

Tiffany Cvrkel, Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology

Elizabeth DeLoughrey, English

Robin L. H. Derby, History

Michelle Erai, Gender Studies

Christopher Evans, Psychiatry; Director, Brain Research Institute

Robert Fink, Musicology

Jacob Foster, Sociology

Susan Foster, World Arts & Cultures

Lowell Gallagher, English

Adriana Galvan, Psychology, Brain Research Institute

Alicia Gaspar de Alba, Chair, LGBT Studies Program, Chavez Chicana/o Studies

David Glanzman, Integrative Biology and Physiology

Yogita Goyal, English

Carlos Grijalva, Psychology

Akhil Gupta, Anthropology

Sondra Hale, Anthropology, Gender Studies

Tama Hasson, Integrative Biology and Physiology

Courtney Heldreth, Dean’s Life Science Advisory Committee, Psychology Grad Student

Tobias Higbie, History

Alexander Hoffmann, Microbiology, Immunology, and Molecular Genetics; Institute for Quantitative and Computational Biosciences

Grace Hong, Asian American Studies

Darnell M. Hunt, Sociology, Director, Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies

Luisa Iruela-Arispe, Chair, Molecular Biology Institute; Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology

Alicia Izquierdo, Psychology, Behavioral Neuroscience

Tracy Johnson, Molecular, Cell and Developmental Biology

Robin D. G. Kelley, History

Chris Kelty, Institute for Society and Genetics, Information Studies, Anthropology

Raymond Knapp, Chair, Musicology

Kathleen Komar, Comparative Literature

Paul Kroskrity, Anthropology

Anna Lau, Psychology

Jinqi Ling, Asian American Studies, English

Francoise Lionnet, French and Francophone Studies

Arthur Little, English

Jamie Lloyd Smith, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

Kirk E. Lohmueller, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

William Lowry, Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology

Jessica Lynch Alfaro, Institute for Society and Genetics

Kathleen McHugh, Comparative Literature, Gender Studies

Muriel C. McClendon, History

Michael Meranze, History

Claudia Mitchell-Kernan, Anthropology

Harryette Mullen, English

William I. Newman, Earth, Planetary and Space Sciences

Paul Ong, Urban Planning

Aaron Panofsky, Public Policy, Institute for Society and Genetics

Jeffrey Prager, Sociology

Todd Presner, Germanic Languages

Gerardo Ramirez, Psychology

Marilyn Raphael, Geography

Jan Reiff, History, Statistics, Digital Humanities

Alvaro Sagasti, Molecular, Cell and Developmental Biology

Lawren Sack, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

Van Savage, Biomathematics

Jenny Sharpe, English

Ross Shideler, Comparative Literature, Scandinavian Section

Dwayne D Simmons, Integrative Biology and Physiology

Russ Thornton, Anthropology

Christopher C. Tilly, Urban Planning, Institute for Research on Labor and Employment

Aaron Tornell, Economics

Belinda Tucker, Psychiatry, Institute of American Cultures

Christel H. Uittenbogaart, Microbiology, Immunology and Molecular Genetics

Blaire Van Valkenburgh, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

Abel Valenzuela, Jr., Chair, Chavez Chicana/o Studies,

Stephanie White, Integrative Biology and Physiology

Norton Wise, Institute for Society and Genetics, History

William Worger, History

Richard Yarborough, English

Pamela Yeh, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

David Yoo, Asian American Studies

Charles E. Young, UCLA Chancellor Emeritus

Maite Zubiaurre, Spanish & Portuguese

College of Letters and Science Faculty Vote on Diversity Requirement

UCLA faculty with appointments in the College of Letters and Science are voting this week on a proposed Diversity Requirement for undergraduate students in the College. The vote is open between October 24th and October 31st.

The Academic Senate has an extensive informational site (votediversity.ucla.edu) that includes documentation on the requirement, a frequently asked questions section, and a forum for faculty to share information and views on the requirement. The forum includes six separate faculty statements in support of the requirement, and one statement in opposition. An additional statement in support circulating on Wednesday has garnered about 80 co-signers.

The proposal envisions undergraduates taking one 4-unit course that “substantially focuses on diversity issues” and “takes seriously issues of diversity with respect to race, ethnicity, gender, socioeconomic status, sexual orientation, religion, disability, age, language, nationality, citizenship status and/or place of origin.” Courses would be approved by a Senate committee appointed by the Undergraduate Council, could be offered from any university department, and could include community and service learning as well as traditional courses.

The vote is open until October 31st, 2014. Past efforts have seen very low turnout, so be sure to vote if you are in the College of Letters and Sciences!

The Degradation of Faculty Welfare and Compensation

Colleen Lye and James Vernon (UC Berkeley Faculty Association)

UC faculty need to wake up to the systematic degradation of their pay and benefits. In 2009, when the salary furlough temporarily cut faculty salaries between 6 and 10%, faculty were outraged. Yet since then our compensation has been hit by a more serious, and seemingly permanent, double blow.

First, despite modest salary rises of 3% and 2% in October 2011 and July 2013, faculty take-home pay has been effectively cut as employee contributions to pension and healthcare have escalated. Faculty now pay more for retirement and healthcare programs that offer less. Secondly, faculty are no longer treated equally. Different groups of faculty are increasingly pitted against each other as – depending on our age or where we live or when we were hired – we receive different levels of retirement, health and other benefits.

Faculty salaries were already uncompetitive. Even with the recently-announced 3% raise, they remain 10-15% below UC’s own comparator institutions (http://accountability.universityofcalifornia.edu/documents/accountabilityreport13.pdf) and a further 10% behind those of the private 4 — Stanford, Yale, Harvard and MIT –(http://accountability.universityofcalifornia.edu/documents/accountabilityreport13.pdf).

Back in 2009 strong benefits, in the form of pension and health care provisions, once allowed UC to excuse its uncompetitive salaries by reminding us of what it called our ‘total compensation package’ (http://compensation.universityofcalifornia.edu/total_rem_report_nov2009.pdf).

This is no longer true. Now, as continued austerity management grips University administrators, and campaigns are launched to divest public sector workers of their pensions and retiree healthcare, faculty are being stripped of these deferred (and other) benefits.

One reason faculty are largely unaware of the degradation of their benefits is that changes have been made incrementally and target different constituencies. Gone are the days when all faculty and retirees were treated equally and received the same benefits. And yet for all faculty these changes mean we are paying more and getting less.

Firstly, faculty are divided by a new two-tier pension system. The old pension, the so-called 1976 tier, has seen a steady escalation of employee contributions from 0% in 2009 to 8% in 2014. These raises alone mean that faculty take-home pay has deteriorated by as much as 3%.

The new pension introduced for those hired since 2013 has begun with a 7% employee contribution. Despite paying more new faculty get less. The minimum retirement age has been raised from 50 to 55, the retirement age for maximum pension has been raised from 60 to 65, and the lump sum cash-out and subsidized survivor benefits have been eliminated.

Secondly, although there is as yet no legal evidence that retiree health benefits are less ‘vested’ (and thus unalterable except by legislation) than pensions, they have been progressively stripped. And here again different groups of faculty are treated differently.

Since 2010 UC’s contribution to retiree health benefits has fallen from 100% to 70%, but this pales in comparison to the changes introduced in 2013 which have affected 50% of faculty and staff. All new hires, together with those with fewer than 5 years of service, or those whose age plus service is fewer than 50 years, will now receive nothing from UC towards their healthcare if they retire before 55. Meanwhile contributions for those retiring after 56 will be on a sliding scale (depending on length of service) beginning at just 5%!

Worse still, in what is being considered a pilot program by the Regents, retirees no longer living in California have been removed from UC’s insurance plans. Instead they will be given a lump sum of $3,000 per annum to help defray costs not covered by Medicare. This represents a significant shift of the risk and the responsibility for healthcare from UC on to retirees. If it generates the projected $700 million savings of total liability as reported by UCOP’s CFO to the regents this year, it is likely soon to be coming to a group of retirees near you.

Thirdly, in the fall, the majority of faculty and staff were forced to change their healthcare plan in little over two months. We were promised that these had been negotiated to secure great savings for UC and lower insurance rates for all UC employees. It quickly became clear that those lower monthly rates masked a huge turnover in eligible providers, geographically uneven coverage of service (across as well as between campuses), and considerably higher deductibles. It is too soon to calculate how much more faculty are paying for their healthcare, but once again we are certainly paying more for less.

It is time for faculty to wise up to this systematic and universal downgrading of our salaries and benefits that also sets different groups of us on different tracks. The contrast with the new contracts recently signed by CNA, UPTE and ACSFME is worth noting. In addition to significantly improved salaries, these unions have been able to maintain a single-tier pension (for an additional 1% contribution) and retain retiree health benefits.

So how will faculty respond? With a sigh of resignation? A determination to get an outside offer that would increase one’s personal compensation package? Or will we seek better mechanisms that would permit faculty to negotiate all elements of our compensation rather than have it decreed, and diminished, from on high?

How to respond to eroding pay and benefits?

In case you missed it, UC Berkeley Faculty Association co-chairs Coleen Lye and James Vernon have penned a sobering letter to their colleagues across the UC system. It’s time to wake up and take notice of the piecemeal erosion of our pay and benefits, they say. More specifically:

Despite modest pay bumps in 2011 and 2013, increases in pension and health insurance payments mean our take home pay is going down.
The new two-tiered pension means faculty hired after 2013 get less generous retirement benefits for roughly the same cost as everyone else
Current retirees are now paying 30% of the cost of their health insurance and in future retirees will pay much more.
Changes to the health plans represents an additional erosion of benefits and as-yet unclear possible cost increases.

Meanwhile, Lye and Vernon point out that other groups of UC employees have been able to put a halt to similar changes. For instance, unionized nurses and patient care workers negotiated contracts that maintain their single tier pension and retiree health benefits.

How UC faculty will respond to these developments is still an open question. Lye and Vernon ask “Will we seek better mechanisms that would permit faculty to negotiate all elements of our compensation rather than have it decreed — and diminished — from up high?” Or grumble to ourselves while we scan the job boards looking for an outside offer?

Teaching & Learning in the Digital Age: Feb. 27

While the Revolutionary Year of the MOOC has crashed and burned in a flaming heap of venture capital, actually existing online instruction has continued to develop in a more deliberate way at UCLA. Out of the limelight, and mostly outside the much-maligned UC-Online system, departments and individual professors have been piloting online courses in many different flavors.

On Thursday, February 27, the campus community will have a chance to take stock in these developments at the second “Online Summit” sponsored by the Academic Senate, the Library, and other campus units. With the theme Teaching and Learning in the Digital Age–Making It Happen the event is billed as a venue for constructive conversation, rather than a policy forum. The highlight of last year’s Summit was the showcase of faculty work in the new YRL Digital Commons–a feature that will be repeated this year.

So whether you love or hate online education, or are confused and curious, this is a good opportunity to find out what is going on in real classrooms.

Teaching and Learning in the Digital Age: Making It Happen
Thursday, February 27, 9:15 AM to 4 PM
Young Research Library, UCLA
Website: http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/history/reiff/~online/Summit2Index.html

Faculty Strike at University of Illinois Chicago

Faculty at the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC) launched a two-day strike today citing stalled negotiations with university administrators. Several hundred people rallied on the Chicago campus this morning, and picketed classrooms throughout the day.

Faculty decided to unionize in 2012 citing lack of pay raises and temporary pay cuts during the recent financial crisis, among other issues. Adjunct faculty, who are coordinating bargaining with tenure-system faculty, are seeking multi-year contracts as well as better pay and benefits. As evidence that the university can afford their demands, faculty cite a 25% increase in tuition since 2007, rising enrollments, and a $275 million reserve fund. Illinois faculty are also fighting a major overhaul of their pensions by the state legislature.

Faculty are frustrated that 18 months of negotiations have yielded practically no progress of the key financial issues. There is concern that the university is not bargaining in good faith.

Professors Lennard Davis and Walter Ben Michaels note that faculty are striking to preserve the campus’s tradition of serving students of moderate means.

Every entering UIC student takes at least one writing course; most take two. Not surprisingly, our writing courses are overwhelmingly taught by lecturers (i.e. non-tenure track faculty), on year-to-year contracts and paid a standard salary of $30,000. Furthermore, although the administration carries on endlessly about the importance of merit, they’re unwilling to mandate a promotion track for non-tenure track faculty, the whole point of which would be to reward merit.

So what exactly does it mean to insist on the importance of the first year experience and then pay the people most responsible for that experience a wage that virtually requires them to work a second job? What does it mean to claim you want to reward the best and the hardest working when you not only won’t promote them, but you won’t even provide a position they could in theory be promoted to? You’re short-changing both the faculty and the students.

The strike continues tomorrow. You can follow this story at the UIC United Faculty website http://uicunitedfaculty.org/ and on Twitter (@UICUF).