UC Students And Faculty Walk-out Of Class
Targets Of Protest Included Faculty Furloughs And Tuition Hikes
© Jon Pike
Sep 24, 2009
Students and faculty marched together to protest budget-cutting plans at the University of California System campuses. The University System’s Board of Regents approved a plan by system President Mark Yudof that would result in higher tuition and unpaid furlough days for system faculty.
The University of California system is composed of 10 campuses. It is a distinct set of campuses from the 23 campus California State University System. Under what is known as the Californian Master Plan for Higher Education, the University of California Campuses comprise the public research universities that are owned by the state. Under this plan, the State University System is primarily for undergraduate programs and some Master’s programs . The Community College system only sees to the first couple of years of a four-year degree and associate degrees.
The state of California’s fiscal woes have been well-documented in the news media. The goal of the furlough and tuition-hike plan is to fill an over $800 Million hole in the system budget.The protesters who turned out today argue that the approach being taken by the system is the wrong one.
Parts Of The Furlough Plan
Faculty were angered over a call to require that all faculty members take 11-unpaid days as furloughs.
A petition against the furlough and in favor of a day of walk-outs and teach-ins, that was signed by over 1,200 system faculty stated the following demands:
- No furloughs or pay cuts on salaries below $40,000
- The immediate institution of the Academic Senate Council's July 29 recommendation regarding the implementation of furloughs.
- Full disclosure of the budget
The action by faculty was supported by the University Student Association, a state-wide organization of student governments, who passed a resolution that said that the furloughs and tuition hikes would result in:
“…pay cut reductions between 4 and 10 percent, major cuts to programs and student services, major cuts to in-state enrollment, layoffs, the elimination of positions, workload increases, increased class sizes, tutoring reductions, and library closures; in addition to multiple and catastrophic increases in student fees, continuing to diverge from the principles of the California Master Plan for Public Education.”
The day of protest was held at the same time that the system is being struck by technical employees of the system over labor negotiations.
Walk-out Sizes Varied From Campus To Campus
There are estimates that about 400 students and faculty members walked out at UC-San Diego. Crowd estimates were considerably larger at UC-Berkeley. An unscheduled march following a rally on the campuses famed Sproul Plaza, the site of many 1960s protests, included thousands of students and faculty. The march ended tying up traffic on nearby Shattuck avenue.
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