Category Archives: Budgets & Funding

Radical Caucus of MLA statement on California Budget Cuts

Fight Back Against Budget Cuts At California Colleges And Universities

The Radical Caucus of the Modern Language Association supports the California students, faculty and campus workers who are fighting against budget cuts, fee increases, furloughs, and firings. We encourage all MLA members to support the Californians’ fightback.

This year California cut more than $800 million from the University of California (UC) statewide budget, $500 million from the California State University (CSU) system, and $700 million from California Community Colleges (CCC). University and college administrators reacted by eliminating programs and support services, reducing enrollments, offering fewer courses, cutting staff and faculty salaries via furloughs, and laying off hundreds of instructors and non-academic campus workers. To make matters worse, UC and CSU have hiked their fees by 32%, placing the cost of attending college out of reach for many students from low and middle income families. As a result of California’s downsizing of higher education, CSU will cut its enrollment by 40,000 students over the next two years, and CCC will force out a whopping 250,000 students. Working-class families, already facing a 12.2% unemployment rate in California, will be the hardest hit. Since September 24 of this year, thousands of students, workers and faculty have organized teach-ins, rallies, demonstrations, marches, walkouts, strikes and occupations to stop the cuts. Even though university administrators claim that students have the right to “free speech,” protesters at various campuses have been beaten by the police and arrested..

The California budget cuts?and the fee increases at four-year schools?smack of racism because students of color will feeel the effects of these cuts the most. But the cutbacks are also racist in a more devastating political sense. Tragically, while CSU will reduce enrollment by 40,000 students next year, the state has approved AB 900, a law that allocates $7.7 billion to add 40,000 new beds for prison inmates?on top of the $12 billion a year the state spends on prison operating costs. By 2012 California will spend more on prisons than it does on education. There is a direct correlation between the lack of educational opportunities and imprisonment: 18-to-24-year-old male high school dropouts have an incarceration rate 31 times that of males who graduate from a four-year college. And California’s prison inmates are overwhelmingly Black and Latino. Every dollar cut from higher education increases the likelihood of young men of color being siphoned away from higher education and toward a racist prison system.

The financial problems of colleges and universities are directly linked to US capitalism’s current economic crisis?the biggest economic downturn since the Great Depression. With the collapse of the banking system last year, predatory banks and speculators wiped out vast amounts of capital, including capital used to sustain colleges and universities. While the federal government has spent billions to bailout banks and corporations, it has invested only a pittance on bailing out schools and colleges. In an exposé of capitalist greed, the California Budget Project has shown that California’s 1993 tax cuts benefiting corporations and the wealthy cost the state $11.7 billion in 2005-6 and $12 billion in 2007-2008. Had the state continued taxing at rates equal to those fifteen years ago, there would be no budget crisis in California—or at least it would be far less severe. What’s more, the economic crisis is bound up in a larger global crisis involving imperialist occupations and war. The US spends close to a trillion dollars a year on wars to dominate oil production and pipelines in the Middle East and Central Asia. Obama’s recent escalation of the wars in Afghanistan-Pakistan (at $30 billion and counting) and the continued occupation of Iraq make clear that this president plans to continue Bush’s policy of overspending endlessly on wars.

The struggle against budget cuts at UC, CSU and CCC is a political struggle: a fight against the decision of the state to make students, faculty and workers pay for the profit losses of capitalist corporations. MLA members should support the movement of students, faculty and workers in California because their fight is our fight. We support a second federal stimulus bill to fund higher education nationwide. We support Californians’ fight to abolish racist prisons and increase state funds for higher education: “No cutbacks! No fee increases! No furloughs! No firings!” We don’t want pie in the sky. We want to restore the 1960 California Master Plan for Higher Education in which public colleges were free for all and which guaranteed a place for all California students who wanted to go.

Pittsburgh unis say ‘no’ to city on $5 million

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: Schools say ‘no’ to city on $5 million
Mayor says he’ll ask Council to OK tax on tuition

Pittsburgh’s universities told Mayor Luke Ravenstahl yesterday they won’t agree to his call for them to contribute $5 million to city coffers to avoid a tax on tuition paid by students.

Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09346/1020439-53.stm#ixzz0ZoifXXJt

California Faculty Association offers restructuring proposal for CSU and UC

Daily Titan: California Faculty Association offers restructuring proposal for CSU and UC

The California Faculty Association discussed the issue of restructuring in the Cal State University and University of California systems on Tuesday. The CFA authored a white paper, a report addressing the issue, entitled “’Restructuring’ the CSU or Wrecking It?”

The press conference call focused primarily on the effects that restructuring has had on CSUs because of the elimination of academic programs that are significant in higher learning.

C.W. Post faculty union rallies over cuts

Newsday: C.W. Post faculty union rallies over cuts

The faculty union president at the C.W. Post Campus of Long Island University suggested Tuesday that financial mismanagement has led to cuts in student services and educational offerings – allegations strongly denied by the campus provost – and layoffs among support staff, which the provost called minimal.

The Rise of the No-Show

The Chronicle: The Rise of the No-Show

At a conference I recently attended, a sizeable wave of paper presenters failed to attend. The papers were submitted back in February, but travel funds had since vanished and, in some cases, wages had been cut and the presenters could not afford to pay for the airfare/hotel out of their pockets. In the past, a no-show was the kiss of death toward future presentations, but I had the definite sense that most of the attendees felt genuine empathy toward the folks who were unable to attend.

SUNY Weighs the Value of Division I Sports

The New York Times: SUNY Weighs the Value of Division I Sports

New York’s state university system is among the largest in the country, but it has never been known for athletic prominence, unlike major public institutions in states like Florida, Pennsylvania and Michigan.

D. J. Rivera, one of Binghamton’s stars last season, was one of six players dismissed from the team this fall.
SUNY officials aimed to change that in 1986, when the trustees lifted a ban on athletic scholarships and cleared the way for the system’s four research universities — Buffalo, Stony Brook, Albany and Binghamton — to upgrade their sports programs.

Library sit-in at UCSC

Contra Costa Time: More than 100 students stage protest in UCSC library

SANTA CRUZ – More than 100 students occupied the UC Santa Cruz Science and Engineering Library Friday night in protest of budget cuts and the decision to close the library at 5 p.m. on Fridays and all day Saturdays.
According to student protester Brian Glasscock, the protesters had permission from library administration to do the overnight sit-in. As students flo

UK: University presses ‘struggling’ in recession

Bookseller.com: University presses ‘struggling’ in recession

A number of the UK’s university presses are “struggling” to keep their heads above water in the face of the recession and pressure from rising student fees.

There is a move to create a Europe-wide association for university presses, with one of its main aims to support publishers, but it was revealed this week that Middlesex University Press will close by the end of the year.

UC Berkeley faculty wants sports subsidies stopped

AP: UC Berkeley faculty wants sports subsidies stopped

BERKELEY, Calif. — Faculty at the University of California, Berkeley, are crying foul about the millions of dollars in subsidies directed to the school’s athletic department.
The campus Academic Senate on Thursday voted 91-68 in favor of a nonbinding resolution calling for an end to campus support of the Department of Intercollegiate Athletics and requiring a plan for paying back loans already made.

Iowa: Cuts sought from UNI faculty

WCF Courier: Cuts sought from UNI faculty

CEDAR FALLS —- Unionized faculty members at the University of Northern Iowa today will hear details about possible changes President Benjamin Allen would like to make in salary and benefits to help cut about $8.4 million from the school’s budget.

Hans Isakson, president of UNI’s faculty union, said a lot of people have been talking about the president’s request and he wants to make sure that everyone has the right information

Texas employee union targets UT layoffs

The Daily Texan: Employee union targets UT layoffs

More than a thousand students, professors and faculty have put their names on a petition to protest proposed layoffs during the new budget cycle. The Texas State Employees Union is organizing the petition and asking participants on campus to call the UT Board of Regents, UT President William Powers and state legislators with their concerns.

Michigan State U. May Cut at Least 9 Academic Departments

The Chronicle: Michigan State U. May Cut at Least 9 Academic Departments

Michigan State University has proposed a series of program cuts to cope with declining state support, according to reports in the Lansing State Journal and The State News. The proposed cuts include closing at least nine departments and more than a dozen degree programs, among them the classics, veterinary technology, retailing, and American studies.

The state’s 2009-10 budget, signed on Friday, provides no money for the merit-based Michigan Promise Scholarship but retains $31.7-million in need-based grants for students at private colleges, the Detroit Free Press reported. The budget also spares Michigan State’s agricultural extension services.

When Is a Suspension Not a Suspension?

Inside Higher Ed: When Is a Suspension Not a Suspension?

Officials at Southwestern College, a community college outside San Diego, moved Friday to explain why three faculty members have been barred from teaching or stepping foot on the campus for more than a week, but the answers aren’t quelling faculty anger.

The college has been facing scrutiny over its action against four professors (one of whom was soon permitted to resume teaching) the day after a student-organized campus protest against budget cuts, and about how the administration has responded to them. While the college didn’t explain why it barred the professors — including the president of the faculty union — from the campus, officials denied that the move had anything to do with the protest.

Nebraska: Metro CC sues five other colleges

The Omaha World: Metro will sue other com. colleges

Metropolitan Community College will sue Nebraska’s five other community colleges, trying to wrest away millions of state aid dollars that Metro leaders say rightfully belong to their school. The planned lawsuit, authorized Tuesday night by Metro’s board, will be filed in Lancaster County Court “in the very near future,” Metro laywer Bob Canella said.

Is your “fiscal crisis” real?

howtheuniversityworks.com: Is your “fiscal crisis” real?

Is your administration using “the economy” as an excuse to extort more work for less pay from an already over-burdened faculty?

Buying Howard Bunsis a plane ticket to your campus might be the best investment you can make right now.

California’s Crisis of Higher Education

IndyMeida: California’s Crisis of Higher Education

On October 21, 2009 – hundreds of students at Fresno State walked out of their classrooms and held a rally at the university’s Peace Garden to protest the massive cuts to higher education and the California State University system. Students voiced their concerns with the unprecedented tuition increases, canceled classes, furloughed faculty and staff, and reduced enrollment opportunities. They then took their message to the sidewalks and streets of the campus calling out to students, faculty, and staff to take a stand and join the walk out. Many did. By the time the march reached Shaw and Cedar Avenues, all four street corners were overflowing with students speaking out on behalf of themselves and the future of higher education in the state. “I hope that this walkout will increase community awareness that the budget cuts to the CSU are delaying our graduations, forcing would-be students out, and creating a precedent that “its ok” to cut education when really funding education gives back in more ways than one,” explained Whitney Thompson, a women’s studies major at Fresno State and a spokesperson for Students for Quality Education, the organization spearheading the event. At the end of the march, the students presented Dr. Welty with a list of demands, which Welty indicated he would address at a later meeting.

More Anger After College Statement on Suspension of 4 Profs

Inside Higher Ed: More Anger After College Statement on Suspension of 4 Profs

Southwestern College, a community college outside San Diego, has been under fire since last week’s suspension of four faculty members, following a protest that criticized the administration. With professors saying that they are being punished for expressing their views, the college late Monday issued a new statement — but that statement (while noting that one suspension has been lifted) only further angered the professors. The statement says: “Four faculty members were placed on paid administrative leave on Thursday, October 22, 2009, and three faculty members remain on paid administrative leave at this time, pending the outcome of the investigation. Please understand that no formal charges or allegations have been made against any College faculty member or employee at this time. The student rally held between 11 a.m. and 12 p.m. on October 22, 2009, is not the focus of the investigation. The college is investigating safety and security issues that arose after the approved organized student rally. The college respects, values and is committed to lawful free expression and the student rally provided an opportunity for our students to voice their concerns and to underscore the challenges that all community college students, and community colleges, are experiencing. The college is committed to maintaining a safe environment for our students and staff, which is the focus of the investigation.”

College officials did not respond to requests for clarifications on the statement. But Philip Lopez, an English professor who is president of the faculty union, said that the statement only added to the questions about the incident. If the college is now on record as saying that there are no charges or allegations, why is it appropriate to remove faculty members from their classes and ban them from campus, he asked. Lopez said this action violates basic due process rights. “If there are no charges, why were we placed on leave?,” he asked. “Rumor? Reputation? Union-busting? Poor personal hygiene?”

Can Free Speech Be Furloughed?

Inside Higher Ed: Can Free Speech Be Furloughed?

On Thursday, several hundred students at Southwestern College, a community college outside of San Diego, held a peaceful protest over budget cuts that are leading to the cancellation of more than 400 additional course sections next semester. On Friday, the students got a sign that someone was paying attention to the protest, but they didn’t get the response they wanted: Four faculty members were immediately suspended and barred from the campus or using the campus e-mail system.

Profs fear deep cuts at cash-poor U of Manitoba

Winnipeg Free Press: Profs fear deep cuts at cash-poor U of M
President hires consultants to find savings

University of Manitoba professors are nervously watching the direction president David Barnard is taking the campus as funding falls far short of needs — and they fear he may be ‘picking winners’ while leaving many departments and faculties to face cuts.

Cal State LA holds teach-in about cuts

PCC Courier: Cal State LA holds teach-in about cuts

The California Faculty Association and the Students for Social Justice/No Cuts Coalition presented a teach-in for California college students regarding recent budget cuts and enrollment fee increases Tuesday at Cal State LA.