GSOC Curriculum—Winter 2010
Teach-In Notes
(A lot of detail is included here in order to give teachers the flexibility to read their
audiences and emphasize the points they think are most relevant. Key points are
in bold.)
Intro: We’re here to:
- provide some information on how the budget cuts and privatization are
affecting your experience at UCSC
- explain how the university is being restructured and describe the different
perspectives on privatizing the university.
- talk a little about the protests that happened last quarter and what
students are already doing to protect their education
Section I: How Budget Cuts are Affecting Students Now
- Tuition Increases
o You probably already know that the Regents voted to increase
your tuition by 32% on November 19th.
o But you might not know that this was in addition to a 9% increase
passed last May.
o You may be fortunate enough to have the resources to cover these
increases. However, even if you can afford to pay over $10,000
per year for school, you should know that you’ll be getting
less for your money.

More Limited Admissions
o In the 2009-2010 school year, the UC admitted 1,477 fewer
freshmen than it did the year before.1
o UC’s Office of the President is proposing a plan to cut UC
enrollments by 8-10,000 over the next few years.2
o The UC is also reserving more spots for out-of-state students
who can afford to pay about $30,000 per year in tuition.
 Next fall UC Berkeley will increase the percentage of
non-resident freshmen from 14% to as much as 23 % of
the incoming class of 2010-11.3
 This also means that 600 Californians eligible for
admission to UC Berkeley next year will not get in.4
“UC Releases Fall 2009 Admissions Data,”
http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/article/20902
2
“Approval of the 2010-2011 UC Budget,” University of California Office of the President, available at
www.ucop.edu
3
Philip Matier and Andrew Ross, “UC Berkeley to admit more out-of-state students”, San
Francisco Chronicle, October 21, 2009
4
Ibid.
1
GSOC Curriculum—Winter 2010
-
Declining Accessibility.
o According to a study released in early January 2010, UC Berkeley
ranks among the lowest in the nation in terms of enrollment
rates of underrepresented minorities.5
o Rising Student Debt. Average student loan debt rose nearly 20%
in the first 5 years of the 21st century; for students of color, the
increase has been between 80 and 100%.6
o As fees go up, students of color and low-income students are
increasingly unable to pay for a UC education, thus creating an elite
educated class of white upper middle-class students.7 Optional:
Short film trailer about student loan default
(http://vimeo.com/2618035).

Declines in Quality
o Increased class sizes mean less individual attention from
professors and TAs.8
o Fewer classes are being offered each quarter. This winter UCSC
cut course offerings by 11%, the highest drop of all the UC
campuses,9 making it increasingly difficult to for students to get the
classes they need to graduate on time.10
o Fewer resources for students.
 Departments and programs across campus that
emphasize community and accessibility have seen their
budgets slashed.11 Such as:
 the Community Studies department,
 the Chicano and Latino Resources Center,
 The Equal Opportunity Programs Office, among other
programs.
 Library hours have been drastically cut by more than 20
hours per week. (In 2007-08, the library was open 7 days a
week, and weekday hours were 8am to midnight. This year,
the library is open from 10-10 on weekdays and closed on
Saturdays.)
Nanette Asimov, “UC minority enrollment among lowest in the nation,” San Francisco Chronicle, Jan.
14, 2010,
6
http://www.gradstudentstoppage.com/a-note-to-students-of-color-completing-the-work-of-prop209/.
7
http://www.gradstudentstoppage.com/a-note-to-students-of-color-completing-the-work-of-prop209/
8
“Approval of the 2010-2011 UC Budget,” University of California Office of the President, available at
www.ucop.edu
9
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-classes20-2010jan20,0,4770272.story
10
Chris Newfield, “UC Budget Questions and Answers,” available at
www.teachthebudgetucsc.org
11
Tamar Lewin, “University of California Makes Cuts After Reduction in State Financing,” New
York Times, July 10, 2009
5
GSOC Curriculum—Winter 2010
o Fewer Choices. Many majors are in threat of disappearing.
 The Humanities Division is considering major cuts to the
language program that would get rid of Portuguese,
Russian, Hebrew and Hindi, as well as replace
instructors with decades of experience teaching
language with inexperienced graduate students.
o Faculty Flight. The UC will continue to lose its best faculty as it is
unable to offer competitive salaries or a supportive working
environment. Others are laid off.
o Effects at UCSC: The cuts are being distributed unevenly. The
brunt of the burden is being born by Humanities and Social
Sciences Divisions. While so far only 3 faculty positions were
lost in Science and Engineering, 40 faculty positions have
been cut from Humanities and Social Sciences.
Q: But isn’t this just the result of bad economy? Isn’t this just a temporary
situation?
A: The changes we are seeing now are the result of decisions made in 2004
to dramatically restructure the university through a process known as
privatization.
Privatization involves the transfer of a government service or responsibility to
the private sector. In the case of the UC, this has meant a plant to force private
individuals to shoulder more of the cost of higher education and to solicit more
corporate sponsorship.
Section II: The Story of Privatization
- In 2004, years before the current economic crisis, Governor Arnold
Schwarzenegger met with then UC President Bob Dynes, and his
counterpart at CSU, Charles Reed, and pressured them to sign the 2004
“Higher Education Compact.”12
- With this compact, 3 key individuals—without any public debate—
decided to fundamentally change the model for supporting higher
education in California.
- The compact abandoned the view of higher education as a public
good and redefined it as a private good. The plan said that the UC
would begin to shift the financial burden onto students through
higher tuition, and to begin to look for private sources of funding,
such as corporate donations and grants.
- The changes that we are seeing today in the quality of education and
the priorities of the state and the UC administration are a result of this
shift in thinking and commitments that were made six years ago.
12
This section is based on a lecture by UC Professor Stanton Glantz. A recording of that lecture can be
found at http://www.youtube.com/user/caltvinfo#p/u/48/vgDmft3DtMQ
GSOC Curriculum—Winter 2010
-
Since you, the students, are most directly affected by this change, it’s
important you understand the perspectives and the debate.
Privatization vs. Public Good: Two Perspectives.
The Argument for Privatization:
- The argument for privatization comes out of neoliberal ideology, which
argues that markets are best at creating efficiencies.
- Supporters of privatization say that government bureaucracy is
inefficient and expensive, and that when government services are
privatized, they are forced to compete and thus become more
efficient.
- Second, since individuals with a college degree on average are able
to attain higher incomes than high school graduates, students and
their parents should assume more of that financial burden.
- Finally, since corporations benefit from research innovations and
from having well-trained employees, they should pay directly for
these services and should have a larger influence on the university.
Public Good: The Critique of Privatization
Privatization does not equal Efficiency
- Critics of privatization argue that it is the UC’s undemocratic structure
that produces inefficiencies.
- Though the UC is said to be a public university, the Board of Regents,
which oversees the UC’s $18 billion-dollar budget, consists of mostly
unelected and unaccountable political appointees.
- Each appointment is supposed to be vetted by a Senate Advisory
Committee representing the interests of voters. The Governor has
appointed 9 Regents since 2004 and the advisory committee has not
met once in that time.13
- According to Professor Stanton Glantz, the UC is wasting $600 million a
year on a growing management bureaucracy that is not directly
involved in teaching or research, the core functions of a university. 14
- Between 1994 and 2009, the ratio of senior management to faculty
jumped from 2/5 to 1/1.15
- Finally, as in the corporate world, executive compensation seems to
be a priority for the Regents: On the same day that UC regents cut
$813 million from UC budgets (July 2009), which led to pay cuts for
those earning under $40,000, they gave pay and stipend raises to
Thomas Jue and Jerold Theis, “Money isn’t the only problem facing the UC system,” San Jose Mercury
News, Jan. 21, 2001
14
Ibid
15
Thomas Jue and Jerold Theis, “Money isn’t the only problem facing the UC system,” San Jose Mercury
News, Jan. 21, 2001
13
GSOC Curriculum—Winter 2010
-
over two dozen executives. Many of these executives earn from
$250,000 to more than $500,000 a year.16
Even as the UC Regents have increased tuition by a total of 40% over the
last three quarters, they have continued at every meeting to approve
millions of dollars in merit bonuses for top-earning executives.17
Public Benefit
- Critics of privatization argue that higher education benefits the
community as a whole.
o University educational attainment is highly correlated with the
income of everyone in a state. More educated workers means
faster economic growth and more high-paying, knowledge-based
job.
o When fewer people have access to higher education, the
whole community suffers.
- They point to California’s history of affordable higher education and
economic growth:
o In 1960, the Master Plan for Higher Education in California set
public education as a public priority, a central role of the
government.
o It promised every California student an affordable (initially
free) seat at an appropriate institution of higher education.18
o Under this plan, California built one of the finest institutions of
higher learning in the world.
o In the years since then, the UC system has contributed to
making California the 8th largest economy in the world and the
largest in America; to helping establish Silicon Valley and the
entertainment industry; and to making California the leading
agriculture state.19
o Higher education in California created one of the most skilled
and highly productive populations in history, the inventors of
new technologies, popular arts, and entire industries that make
California one of the most prosperous and equitable economies in
the world. (NOTE: Choose from the following facts according to
your audience.):
 UC faculty and alumni have founded 1 out of every 4
biotech companies in California.
 Nearly 60% of the state’s IT and communications firms
have UC alumni as executives.
16
Asimov, Nanette. "Execs Still Get Raises as UC cuts Staffing, Pay." 7 August, 2009. San
Fransisco Chronicle. http://www.sfgate.com/cgibin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/08/06/BASG194N2P.DTL
17
See reports of the Regents’ Committee on Compensation at http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/regents
18
“A Master Plan for Higher Education in California, 1960-1975,” available at
http://www.ucop.edu/acadinit/mastplan/mp.htm
19
www.keepcaliforniaspromise.org
GSOC Curriculum—Winter 2010

-
For the past 12 years, UC has developed more patents
than any other university in the nation—and its
researchers produce on average three new inventions a
day.
 UC is working with K-12 schools across the state to improve
student achievement and is spearheading “Cal Teach,”
which will train 1,000 new math and science teachers
annually for public schools statewide.
They note that privatization reduces the quality and scope of research.
o Under privatization, research and teaching would be shaped
by special interests looking for a direct return on their
investments.
o This would mean devaluation of basic research in favor of applied
research, increasing inequality in resources between different
departments,
o This may also mean different tuition cost for different majors and
cutting or closing of departments deemed to not have
sufficient “market value,” such as ethnic studies, history of
consciousness, and even large cuts in departments we think of
as central to the university, such as literature, history, and
languages.
o Privatization means that business and corporations that sponsor
departments influence what is researched and studied in the
university. For example, Harvard Medical school is supported by
big pharmaceutical companies and now has 3 professors
researching sleep disorders. At the same time, no Harvard Medical
school professor is researching the effects of Malaria and HIV in
the 3rd world.
o
POINT: Even those who do not go to college benefit from having a
large college-educated population, which generates innovation,
propels economic growth, and creates jobs.
Section III: What Privatization Means for the Future of the UC
[Optional: Play Wendy Brown’s description of privatization at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aR4xYBGdQgw (fast forward to 15:24)]
More of the Same: Privatization means a continuation and acceleration of
the changes we are seeing:
- increases in tuition and class sizes. The Academic Senate
estimated that a “public funding freeze” would require tuition to
increase to $15-17,000 a year.
- reductions in class offerings and diversity,
- declining accessibility,
- and overall declines in the quality of education.
GSOC Curriculum—Winter 2010
Increasing inequality
- As tuitions increase, fewer Californians will be able to afford to attend
college, meaning less opportunity for social mobility and less
diversity within the university and the middle class.
A Case Study: The University of Michigan
- The University of Michigan has chosen a semi-privatized model. The
results may be instructive on what California can expect:
- Admission standards were relaxed to increase out-of-state
enrolment.
- By 2003, over half of Michigan’s freshman class came from
families with six-figure incomes in a state where only 13% of
families earn that much.
- The University of Michigan has also fallen in national rankings,
according to U.S. News and World Report.20
Q: So what can we do about it?
A: The protests of last quarter made some important impacts, but the state is still
moving towards privatizing the university.
Section IV: Effects of Last Quarter’s Protests
- On November 19th, students on every UC campus across the state
protested the Regents’ vote to increase tuition by 32%. The protests
got the attention of both the Governor and UC President Mark Yudof.
Schwarzenegger:
o Noted that the state spends 10% of its general fund on prisons
and only 7% on higher education. He proposed to reverse that
ratio, guaranteeing that 10% of the state’s general fund would
go to funding higher education. 21
o One of Schwarzenegger’s spokespeople stated, “Those protests
on the U.C. campuses were the tipping point”22.
Yudof:
o At the last Regents meeting on January 20th, President Mark
Yudof and some of the Regents said they would support a
student march on Sacramento.23
o Up until the protests of last quarter, Yudof and the UC Regents
had done nothing to advocate for the university’s core mission
of education or to influence the state’s budget plans.24
Chris Newfield, “Understanding the Crisis at UC”, Available at www.keepcaliforniaspromise.org
“Schwarzenegger’s Higher Ed Constitutional Amendment: All PR.”
http://keepcaliforniaspromise.org/628/governor-schwarzeneggers-constitutional-amendment-on-highered-lots-less-than-meets-the-eye
22
Steinhauer, Jennifer. “Schwarzenegger Seeks Shift from Prisons to Schools.” The New York Times.
6 January 2010: Web.
23
Nanette Asimov, “Regents to back student protests at capitol,” San Francisco Chronicle, 1/21/2001
24
Glantz, Stan. “Moving Forward From the 2009 Budget” http://keepcaliforniaspromise.org/1
20
21
GSOC Curriculum—Winter 2010
A Reason for Hope, but still much to be done:
- While these reactions show that student protest has had some effect,
the actions proposed by Schwarzenegger and Yudof do not address the
underlying problems that have led to the current situation of the UCs
and higher education in California.
No Guarantee
o First, Schwarzenegger’s plan does not guarantee that funding
for higher education will not continue to shrink. California’s
general fund has been steadily shrinking for the last decade or
more. Even if California higher education gets 10% of the state
budget, this might turn out to be a tiny piece of a shrinking pie.
 California’s prisons have been under federal receivership
since 2004 because prisoner healthcare was so bad
there that it killed several inmates and was deemed
unconstitutional.25
 The proposal to save money by pulling yet more money
out of this already broken system is not an acceptable
way forward.
Bigger Problems:
o The problems facing the UC are not just about state funding, but
about the UC administration’s shifting priorities and lack of
transparency and accountability.
o Finally, the governor and the UC administration continue to frame
this as a temporary budget crisis, when it is in fact part of a
larger plan to privatize the University of California.
Section V: Action
- The process of privatization is happening in all sectors of public
education across California. Students, faculty, and workers across the
UCs, the CSUs, the community colleges, and K-12 schools are organizing
against the privatization of public education in California.
March 4th
- Over 800 representatives of these groups came together on October
24, 2009 at a conference in Berkeley and chose March 4th as a state-day
of action.
- At UCSC, students are planning a campus-wide student strike. The
UAW, the TA union, is supporting this effort and all campus unions
have expressed solidarity with these actions.
- We invite all students, workers, and faculty to observe this important
show of opposition to the current direction of public education in
California.
25
Solomon Moore, “Paring Plans for Healthcare in California Prisons,” NYT, May 31, 2009
GSOC Curriculum—Winter 2010
Support the Strike
- SIGN THE STRIKE PLEDGE
o Observe this important show of student opposition to the
current direction of public education in California.
- SPREAD THE WORD: Let your student reps, professors, and TAs
know you support the strike!
o Tell your reps in student government to support the strike!
o Let your professors and TAs know that you will not be in class that
day and ask them not to hold class!
o Ask your professors and TAs to teach this important lesson to their
other classes and sections.
- JOIN the Movement!
o If you are interested in helping organize this important day, please
attend the General Assembly, a large meeting of all student
groups organizing to fight the budget cuts. Location: Kresge
Town Hall. Time: 6pm. Dates: 2/10, 2/24
March 1st March on Sacramento
- After the display of strength of the student movement in November, the
UC Administration has decided to call for a march on Sacramento on
March 1st to ask the legislature for more money for the UC Administration.
- The UC Student Association has called for a Lobby Conference from
Feb. 26 to March 1st. Talk to the Student Government to get involved.