Yudof Issues Statement on Events at UC-Berkeley

Statement on student protests (11-16-11)

I am proud of UC students who are speaking out with passion and conviction in support of public higher education across the state. I was moved last night by the sight of thousands of students who peacefully demonstrated in UC Berkeley’s Sproul Plaza, and by those who traveled to Sacramento to protest state disinvestment in our colleges and universities.

Free speech is in the DNA of the University of California, and public protest is an important part of our history. Free speech is often contentious, as is democracy. I want all of our students to know that I fully and unequivocally support their right to protest peacefully.

At UC Berkeley, a process is in place to review the violence of last week. Like Chancellor Birgeneau, I was distressed by what I saw, both as a parent and as president of the University of California. Whether there or elsewhere, I have absolute confidence that our chancellors will do what is right and necessary to ensure that the campuses where our students live and learn provide an environment for robust but peaceful discourse. The safety of our students must be protected, always.

In difficult times like these, it sometimes can be too easy to lose sight of the larger picture. UC students, faculty, staff and our regents all share a passion for the University and its role in shaping a better society. We also suffer together the strains caused by what has been a long pattern of state disinvestment in the University of California. And, as a result, we should stand together in common cause to do everything in our power to convince the state’s political leadership that higher education represents not a cost, but the most enlightened investment any state can make.

I also want to offer the heartfelt sympathy of the entire UC community to the family of Christopher Travis, the student who died of wounds suffered yesterday at the Haas Business School in a shooting incident unrelated to the Sproul Plaza activities. It is an absolutely tragic situation for all involved, for Mr. Travis, the students who were placed in jeopardy and the staff and police who quickly responded and took action.

Source: http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=10150370976853379

CSU Offers Negotiating 101: Maybe UC Should Enroll

President Yudof gave assurance in advance of the event that if the legislative “trigger” is pulled – and cuts are therefore made in the UC budget – there won’t be a midyear tuition increase. Some might see this assurance as an invitation to be shot.

President Yudof is apparently going to offer the Regents a budget plan for next year with the assurance that if the state grants it as proposed, there will be no tuition increase next year. He does not say what will happen to tuition if the budget plan (and the increase contained in it relative to this year) is not approved.

CSU seems to be taking a different approach. It is following an “if-then” strategy, according to the LA Times this morning:

California State University students could see tuition rise 9% next fall unless the state boosts funding to cover enrollment growth, urgent maintenance, student services and other costs, officials said Wednesday…

Full article at http://www.latimes.com/news/local/education/la-me-calstate-tuition-20111110,0,200187.story

As it happens, we do have a lesson from Negotiating 101:

UC Budget Proposal for 2012-13 Readied for Regents

President Yudof’s UC budget proposal for 2012-13, scheduled for discussion at the Regents on Nov. 17, is now posted. The key links are

http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/regents/regmeet/nov11/f12.pdf

and

http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/regents/regmeet/nov11/f11attach.pdf

The proposal includes a request for increased “core” funding by 8%. Notably included is a contribution to the UC pension – which the state has not been doing since contributions resumed. There appears to be an arbitrary request for one fourth of the employer contribution ($87.6 million). See the last page of the second link. Why just one fourth is requested is not clear. Since this seems to be public pension year, given the governor’s pension proposals, getting a contribution from the legislature to the pension may be a long shot. There may well be a response that the entire state and local pension issue needs to be studied before something “new” is done for UC. Of course, paying in to the pension is not new; it was routinely done before the contribution holiday.

A press release on the budget proposal is at http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/article/26629

See also this piece in which Yudof promises no midyear tuition increase if the state budget trigger is pulled:

http://blogs.sacbee.com/capitolalertlatest/2011/11/uc-no-tuition-increase-even-if-mid-year-budget-trigger-pulled.html

That’s nice – but not exactly optimum bargaining strategy. (See prior posts if you don’t know what the trigger is and how it affects UC.)

From the UCOP-top-website-press-releases-as-of-today file

MERCED — Chancellor Dorothy Leland of the University of California, Merced, said today (Oct. 3) the 6-year-old campus has made significant contributions to the state through its innovative research and that more investment is needed for it to meet its promise to bring greater economic prosperity to the San Joaquin Valley, the fastest-growing region in the state…

UC President Mark G. Yudof, along with some 300 community members, formally welcomed Leland to the university during a ceremony today in the Carol Tomlinson-Keasey Quad…

With countries such as Saudi Arabia, China and India aggressively funding higher education infrastructure for research, Leland called on public and private partners to continue their investment in UC Merced so the campus can build more research facilities and teaching labs, hire additional faculty members and expand research related to public health and medicine, among other fields. “In short, what UC Merced needs now is for the state and federal government, business and industry leaders, philanthropic foundations and individuals to step up and invest in this young university’s extraordinary promise to improve lives and bring economic prosperity to the valley,” Leland said…

Full release at http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/article/26414

In short, what she would like in resources is:

Cal State-Westwood?

Gov. Pat Brown signs the Donahoe Act in 1960 implementing the Master Plan for Higher Education.

The LA Times ran an editorial yesterday, lamenting rising tuition at UC and the lack of state support. It also threw out some suggestions. Among them:

…The university also should consider a temporary policy that favors admission to students in the immediate geographical area for a certain percentage of new undergraduates. That way, more students could live at home and avoid the hefty cost of a dorm. UC campuses are not usually commuter schools, but troubled times call for a willingness to make sensible changes…

Actually, many undergrads enter UC and UCLA as transfer students from local community colleges which are a) inexpensive and b) allow living at home. CSU campuses are also an option. Indeed, that was what the Master Plan was all about, i.e., differentiating the three higher ed segments. The LA Times’ suggestion above is essentially a kind of Cal State-Westwood, Cal State-Berkeley, etc., idea.

The real story here is that President Yudof came to the Regents in September with a proposal for a multi-year schedule of tuition increases in the light of failing state support and that the Regents did not go for it – or for any other solution. (The audio of that session was posted yesterday on this blogsite.) It appears that the old adage about not calling the question before counting the votes was ignored in that episode.

Is the Regents non-action on the Yudof proposal the result of a lack of confidence in the President of UC? Until now, the Regents pretty much endorsed presidential proposals for tuition hikes. In any event, what needs to happen is not implementation of some ad hoc suggestion such as that made by the LA Times. Rather there needs to be a process involving UC (not just UCOP but the faculty and Academic Senate), the Regents, the governor, key people in the legislature, various interest groups in the state, and others that is aimed at looking at the budget outlook and negotiating an accord. The Regents are evidently tired of being in a reactive mode in which the state cuts the budget and tuition is hiked in response – with the Regents then getting the blame.

The full LA Times editorial is at http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/opinionla/la-ed-uc-20111009,0,5898256.story

Too Far, Too Fast?

You may have noticed in yesterday’s LA Times or other papers that CSU Chancellor Reed said he will NOT ask for a multi-year plan involving scheduled tuition increases:

California State University will not seek a second tuition increase this academic year even if it suffers a further $100-million cut in state funding, the system’s chief executive said Wednesday. Chancellor Charles B. Reed, addressing trustees who were meeting in Long Beach, also rejected adopting a multi-year budget that would incorporate annual tuition increases. Some higher education leaders argue that such a move, though controversial, would provide stability and help campus leaders, students and parents better manage education costs…

Reed downplayed the prudence of the multi-year approach, arguing that the current budget volatility made it “too difficult to plan in this environment.”

Full story at http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-calstate-trustees-20110922,0,4287564.story

The article also contrasted the Reed approach with the Yudof approach. As readers of this blog will know, UC President Yudof presented a multi-year tuition increase plan at the September Regents meetings – apparently assuming that the Regents would adopt it. They didn’t. (Preliminary audio of some of the September Regents meeting is on this blog; we will post the entire meeting when we get the recordings from the Regents.)

There is an old political adage about not calling the question unless you have counted the votes. Up to now, President Yudof’s recommendations on budgets, tuition, etc., have been pretty much rubber stamped by the Regents, although some dissents have been heard from a minority. CSU’s Reed seems to have learned something from the UC-Yudof-Regents episode. There may be consequences down the road if there is now a gap between the UC President and the Regents.

Sometimes, going out too far and too fast leads to unforeseen results:

Regents Go Off UCOP Script

Maybe next time, UCOP might try to put the Regents meeting at the above location rather than at UC-SF. See below:

UC regents balk at mandating annual tuition hikes (excerpts)

Nanette Asimov, San Francisco Chronicle, Sept. 16, 2011

San Francisco — The University of California regents dodged a controversy Thursday by ignoring a proposal from UC President Mark Yudof that would have mandated annual tuition increases of 8 to 16 percent for the next four years. Instead, the regents turned their meeting at UCSF’s Mission Bay campus into a therapy session of sorts, gnashing their teeth about the steep drop in state funding – nearly $1 billion in the last two years – and debating whether they could get California corporations to kick in millions of dollars to UC. The regents also approved raises and incentive plans for 18 executives, with funding for all but one coming from private sources, such as hospital revenue.

…Negotiating with Sacramento is “a waste of our time,” said Regent Dick Blum. Instead, the regents should approach people “who actually can write a check,” he said. “Chevron, Apple, Cisco and Google – all these companies sitting on money they don’t know what to do with.” Regent David Crane picked up on the theme, urging colleagues to “start acting like you’re a private university. Get real – and don’t fool yourselves and think the Legislature will turn around, or you’ll be waiting for Godot,” he said, referring to the Samuel Beckett play in which the protagonists wait in vain.

…Chairwoman Sherry Lansing suggested they form subcommittees to tackle each approach. The bottom line, she said, is, “I don’t want to bring this (proposal) forward in November.” Later, UC Executive Vice President Nathan Brostrom, who helped craft the plan, said the idea (of tuition increases) was not quite dead…

Full article at http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2011/09/16/MNGI1L4J52.DTL

We will eventually have an audio of this meeting posted. We do have a recording of the script that was supposed to have been followed:

PS: There is the old political adage about not calling the question before you have counted the votes.

Regents to Be Asked to Leave Pay Increases to the President

There will be other items on the agenda of the upcoming Regents meeting (July 12-14) apart from the budget-related tuition increase discussed in early blog posts. For example, the Regents are asked to delegate certain authority over pay increases to the UC president:

Regents Policy 7203, adopted in November 2005 and subsequently amended in July 2010, established the goal of obtaining, prioritizing, and directing funds, to the extent such funds were available, to increase salaries to achieve market comparability for all groups of employees over a ten year period. Upon adoption, the policy included language requiring annual approval by the Regents of campus and Office of the President allocations for this purpose. Approval of campus allocations is inconsistent with both past practice and the President’s role as steward of the operational and transactional aspects of the University operating under the direction of the Regents. Determining allocations for each campus is a responsibility that more appropriately rests with the President as a means of implementing the policy goals established by the Regents.

Therefore, the Regents are requested to amend the policy to rescind the requirement that the Regents approve campus and Officehttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif of the President allocations of salary funds. All other aspects of Regents Policy 7203 remain unchanged.

Full report at http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/regents/regmeet/jul11/c3.pdf

And who would know better?

PS: Although there are no surprises given previous statements from UC, the report on the tuition increase is at http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/regents/regmeet/jul11/f10.pdf

Deeply Disappointed

When the previous (and now-vetoed) state budget was enacted, President Yudof and Regents Chair Gould put out a strong press release condemning the action. Now that we a new budget with the same cut and a trigger that could add still more cuts, the press release reaction seems rather tepid, given that this is the second time around:

UC statement on state budget plan

2011-06-28

The following statement about the budget plan announced by Gov. Jerry Brown and the Democratic leaders of the state Legislature was released today (June 28) by the University of California Office of the President:

The latest state budget plan is deeply disappointing. If the governor and Legislature impose $650 million in funding cuts on the University of California, the impact will be felt by Californians in every part of the state. Because cuts of this magnitude inevitably will drive up tuition for public university students and their families, we cannot stand silent. While we recognize the enormity of the fiscal challenge facing the state, we continue to oppose further cuts, and support any efforts that will restore long-term stability to state funding of higher education.

http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/article/25843

There is a Regents meeting coming up soon. Is this all that will be said?

Yudof Ruminates on Privatization

On his Facebook page and on YouTube, President Yudof ruminates on privatization in general, e.g., roads, postal services, and of higher ed in particular.

The YouTube version is below. The Facebook written version (which skips a few ad libs) is at http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=10150181306213379

He attributes the trend toward de facto privatization of higher ed in part to demographics and the aging of the baby boom:

…Now, part of this can be explained by demographics. In the early 1960s, 57% of American families had children under the age of eighteen. Today, that number hovers around 46%. Along these same lines, American senior citizens now receive more than seven times the amount of federal benefits that American children do…