UCSF Faculty Association

March 7, 2013
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SCFA Online Education Request for Information

March 5, 2013

The SCFA learned last week that the University signed a contract with Coursera without including them in the discussion.  The SCFA, as the bargaining agent for UCSC faculty, should be consulted whenever there is the potential for a change in the relationship between the University and faculty,  that could therefore be subject to collective bargaining. The SCFA is not taking a position at this point on the desirability or undesirability of working with Coursera.  Their concern, at this stage, is the maximal protection of faculty rights and authority, whether faculty participate or not in Coursera-hosted on-line courses. A Request for Information has been made to the university.

This issue touches on many curricular and academic issues including faculty ownership rights to their lectures. In 2000, CUCFA successfully lobbied for legislation establishing that individual professors, and not the University, own the intellectual property in their live performances and course materials. The effect of this legislation is to treat the recording and reuse of courses in the same manner as other forms of faculty publication, and to establish that the University has no more right than a note-taking service or a student with a video camera to publish our courses without explicit written consent. Viewed within this legal framework the contract template [Exhibit G-1] that faculty will be expected to sign before their courses can become available on Coursera appears to put the UCSC campus in the position of becoming the publisher of this material on Coursera and other platforms. “I hereby irrevocably grant the University the absolute right and permission to use, store, host, publicly broadcast, publicly display, public[sic] perform, distribute, reproduce and digitize any Content that I upload, share or otherwise provide in connection with the Course or my use of the Platform, including the full and absolute right to use my name, voice, image or likeness (whether still, photograph or video) in connection therewith, and to edit, modify, translate or adapt any such Content (“Content Enhancements’) for the purposes of formatting or making accommodations to make Content accessible to persons who have disabilities.” Moreover, both Exhibits G-1 and G-2 contain language indicating that the University’s rights to publish “Content” would include distribution to “persons” and “entities” other than Coursera.

Any proposed contract between UCSC and members of our bargaining unit for publishing their courses online could be considered a change in the terms and conditions of that faculty member’s employment that is, at least arguably, subject to mandatory collective bargaining before the proposed contracts are offered to and signed by individuals. In deciding whether to invoke its right to bargain, SCFA would naturally be interested in the specific terms of such contracts (e.g., their revocability, exclusivity and the rights of signatories to participate in and be informed of any monetization that occurs). And in deciding what our collective bargaining position should be SCFA will also be interested in the consequences of permitting and incentivizing individual members of our bargaining unit to agree to terms under which new or existing UCSC courses will be made available online to students on our own campus and/or at other institutions (including for-profits) where they might, at any time in the future, be taken for credit toward a UCSC degree. Depending on the campus administration’s answers to these questions, the foreseeable consequences could affect the terms and conditions of employment for members of our bargaining unit, whether or not they as individuals agree to participate in Coursera. Finally, there is the question of what incentives might be given to present and especially future faculty to make the campus a publisher of their courses online. Any system of incentives to publish courseware through the campus (whether in the form of carrots or sticks) would almost certainly change the employment relation between the UCSC campus and all members of our bargaining unit.

These issues were not discussed with the SCFA, the exclusive bargaining unit for the UCSC faculty, prior to the signing of the contract between Coursera and UCSC. Since contracts to be offered by UCSC to individual instructors will constitute new terms of employment for members of our bargaining unit, we ask that all contract negotiations between the University and members of our bargaining unit be halted until the SCFA has received sufficient answers to its informational requests (including but not limited to those below) in order to determine whether to seek collective bargaining.

To expedite our consideration of collective bargaining we submit the following Request for Information:

  • Was there a confidentiality agreement between Coursera and the campus? If so, at whose initiative was such an agreement undertaken? Who were the parties to this agreement on UCSCs side? If any Senate faculty were parties to the agreement, does the administration consider them to have been acting on behalf of the Senate? Was there any other form, official or unofficial, in which the Senate was consulted prior to signing the contract with Coursera? [SCFA has a responsibility under HEERA to determine in what manner the Senate was consulted, and on what range of issues, before determining how broad or narrow its role as a collective bargaining agent can be.]

 

  • Has any member of SCFA’s bargaining unit, other than administrators, signed the agreement needed to post their classes on Coursera? If so, we hereby request copies of the executed documents in addition to a full report of any side-letters and/or additional understandings about the nature and amount of any consideration offered or expected. More generally, SCFA asks that the UCSC administration, as a signatory to the contract with Coursera, clarify its view of the UCSC/Instructor agreements provided as Exhibits G-1 and G-2 attached that contract. Are these “forms” of agreement required by Coursera subject to negotiation and modification with individuals and/or (potentially) with SCFA? If so, would the campus expect such modifications to take the form of a change in the release document provided by the campus to Coursera or the form of a separate agreement setting additional terms and conditions on the employment relationship between the instructor and the campus? [This request is material to our need to know the new terms and conditions of employment that have been or will be offered to at least some members of our bargaining unit. To the extent that such terms have already been offered and accepted without notice or consultation with SCFA, we will need to determine what further requests to make regarding the actual commencement of such courses while discussions about bargainability take place.]

 

  • What contracts have been signed by other campuses and/or UCO) with other online providers, including but not limited to EdX and Udacity? [While we do not assert the right to be involved in contracts other than those between the UCSC campus and UCSC Senate faculty, we believe the terms and conditions of these other contracts, which should be a matter of public record, will be directly relevant to our eventual assessment of whether the terms that UCSC has negotiated with Coursera are advantageous or not.] •What plan does the campus have for monetizing its contract with Coursera? In what form, if any, does it expect participating faculty and/or the faculty as a whole to benefit from that plan? •What plan does the campus have to reduce instructional costs as a result of its contract with Coursera? In what form, if any, would members of our bargaining unit benefit from that plan?

We consider this letter to place the campus on notice that some of the issues arising out of its contract with Coursera may be collectively bargainable and that it should cease implementation of those aspects of that contract until the issue have collective bargaining has been addressed in future meetings between us.

February 28, 2013
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Taxing Tobacco for Higher Ed: The wrong way to go

Submitted by sglantz on Thu, 2013-02-28

Gavin Newsom, California’s lieutenant governor, has filed an initiative to increase the tobacco tax by $1 with the money devoted to student financial aid for higher education.   This initiative spans two areas in which I have been active for decades: tobacco control and higher education funding.

My involvement in higher ed financing issues includes years of service on both the UCSF Committee on Academic Planning and Budget and the UC Systemwide Committee on Planning and Budget, including serving as chair of both committees.  I am now a vice president of the UC Council of Faculty Associations, with a focus on budgetary issues and have done an analysis of what it would cost to press the“;reset” button on higher ed in California to roll fees back to where they were in 2000, restore state funding to where it was then per student, and open the doors to the thousands of young Californians who have been pushed out of higher ed.  It turns out that it would only cost the median California tax return $48 (i.e., $24 a  person on a joint return) to accomplish this, something that is eminently doable it the political will was there.  (This work was recently discussed in theChronicle of Higher Education.)   I am also active in the Campaign for the Future of Higher Education, which is working to inject a faculty perspective on these issues.

So I am obviously committed to restoring funding and opportunity to higher education in California.

But the Newsom initiative is the wrong way to do it for three reasons:

First, it is unfair and inappropriate to tax smokers, a small and shrinking fraction of California’s population, to pay for something that has nothing to do with smoking.

Second, while the proposed tax would provide some temporary relief for the huge tuition increases that have been imposed on young people and their families in California to make up for (part of) the cuts in state support, the reality is that this is a declining revenue source so would not fix the problem in the long or even intermediate term.  It could have the effect of creating theappearance of solving the problem of restoring public higher education and make it harder to enact real solutions.

Third, research we have conducted on virtually every tobacco tax initiative ever run (and experience since we published our work) shows that the tobacco companies will use the “fairness” argument above to convince the public to defeat the Newsom initiative.

So I am opposing it and urging all my friends in higher education to do the same.

I do, of course support increasing the tobacco tax.

It is just that it has to be the right tobacco tax.

And what would a right tobacco tax look like?  All the money should go to pay for things related to smoking.

For California, this would mean:

1.       Giving first priority to rebuilding the California Tobacco Control Program that the voters created when they saw through a massive campaign by Big Tobacco and passed Proposition 99 in 1988.  This program has been an enormous success, cutting smoking in half and saving Californians over $134 billion in medical costs alone.  But, because of inflation it is running out of money.  The first, and most important use of a tobacco tax should be to fund the program at the level recommended in the 2007 US Centers for Disease Control Best Practices for Tobacco Control.This would amount to about $500 million a year, adjusted for inflation.

2.       The second priority should be to see that smoking cessation services are also funded at CDC recommended levels  (about $100 million a year).

3.       The third priority should be to rebuild California’s Tobacco Related Disease Research Program (also created by the voters when they passed Proposition 99).

4.       A small amount of money should go for actually collecting the tax (as Prop 99 allows) and to the Attorney General for enforcing California’s efforts to keep Big Tobacco under control as well as “backfill” existing programs (early childhood education and breast cancer research) that are funded by tobacco taxes and will see a drop in revenues because of the increased price of cigarettes.

5.       Some of the money (after the priorities above have been met) could also go for medical services to treat people with tobacco-induced disease.  (This is also an element of Proposition 99, although smoking prevention and cessation and research should be the top priorities.)

All this could be done within existing structures that were created when the People of California passed Proposition 99 and which have a successful track record of nearly a quarter century of effective service to the public.

Ideally the California Legislature would enact such a measure.  It would be good for the people of California and the California economy by keeping the 80 cents of every dollar spent on cigarettes that now flows out of state to Philip Morris and Reynolds right here in California.  But Assembly Speaker John Perez has a reputation of being in Big Tobacco’s pocket, Governor Jerry Brown took about $30,000 from Altria and vetoed a bill to make nursing homes smokefree (channeling Philip Morris), and the Democrats are reluctant to use their super-majorities to raise taxes.

So, the Legislature is worth a try, but unlikely to succeed.

That leaves another initiative.  While Philip Morris and Reynolds squeaked out a defeat of Proposition 29 last year (by 0.4%, the narrowest initiative election in California history),past experience shows that a cleaner proposal like the one I am suggesting would be easier to pass and harder for Philip Morris and Reynolds to attack.

Of course, Big Tobacco would fight this proposal too – probably even more violently than the Newsom proposal – because it would not only raise the price, but would rapidly reduce industry sales and profits.

But past experience shows that the public will support such a clean tobacco play.

Anybody want to play?

http://tobacco.ucsf.edu/taxing-tobacco-higher-ed-wrong-way-go

February 7, 2013
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Funding Higher Education: the Search for Possibilities

The national Campaign for the Future of Higher Education is releasing a series of papers titled “Funding Higher Education: The Search for Possibilities.”

The Council of UC Faculty Associations contributed one of the papers in the series. CUCFA Vice President and UCSF Faculty Association Board Member Stanton Glantz, as principal author of that paper, will be participating in the news briefing on February 12.

 

Please help spread the word to your local faculty and local media, or via your social media channels. Details are in the press release (pasted below):

Campaign for the Future of Higher Education For Release: February 6, 2013 Contact: Lisa Cohen, 310-395-2544 or Alice Sunshine, 510-384-1967

 

FUNDING HIGHER EDUCATION: THE SEARCH FOR POSSIBILITIES NATIONAL TELEPHONE NEWS BRIEFING Tuesday, February 12, 10 am Pacific/1 pm Eastern Call (800) 553-0273  / Ask for “Campaign for the Future of Higher Education”

 

  • The three authors of working papers on new ways to fund higher education will explain their proposals and take questions from the news media, including campus reporters and education bloggers.
  • The briefing begins a drive by CFHE for faculty to step up our role in the search for new possibilities that will save access to higher education and strengthen our nation’s middle class.
  • The briefing takes place on Abraham Lincoln’s birthday. Lincoln signed the 1862 Morrill Act that initiated America’s public higher education system, starting with Land Grant Colleges. Today that system spans the nation but is on the road to elimination.

FOR RELEASE FEBRUARY 6, 2013 — In the United States, quality public higher education was once accessible to most Americans able to benefit from it.

The way it worked was simple—taxpayers funded public colleges and universities sufficiently so that students who were prepared to work a few hours a week could complete their degrees in a relatively short time with a minimum amount of debt. For those with even greater need, government provided state grants and Pell grants.

This system worked well for decades and opened the door to opportunity for millions of Americans.

Now, we are told we can no longer afford this. We believe that is wrong.

The Campaign for the Future of Higher Education has begun a drive to involve our nation’s college and university faculty in the search for better solutions than funding cuts, privatization, soaring tuition and academic shut-downs.

Our nation has arrived at our current quandary for a variety of reasons. One is surely a failure of imagination, a set of assumptions that profoundly limits our ability to think about possibilities.

Three working papers released by the Campaign for the Future of Higher Education aim at stimulating a more thoughtful, fact-based, national conversation about paying for higher education in this country.

 

THREE IDEAS TO FUND HIGHER EDUCATION IN AMERICA

Two of the CFHE working papers address the common assumption that funding higher education through public means rather than through skyrocketing tuition is simply impossible.

One explores the notion of free higher education and examines what the actual cost to provide such an ideal would be. Bob Samuels, a University of California faculty member in San Diego, argues we could make big strides towards free public higher education by reallocating current governmental expenditures for higher education and by eliminating regressive tax breaks.

The second paper, using the state of California as a test case, looks at the real magnitude of returning to recent, more adequate levels of state funding for higher education. Stanton Glantz, a professor at UC San Francisco, describes that  “reseting” higher education funding to more adequate past levels would require only very small adjustments in the median income tax return.

The third paper explores a currently unused tax revenue source that could be tapped if there were the political will to provide adequate public funding for higher education. Rudy Fichtenbaum, an economics professor at Wright State University in Ohio and national president of the American Association of University Professors, explains how to achieve vastly improved funding for higher education through a miniscule tax on selected financial transactions.

Members of the news media, including campus/student reporters and bloggers on education issues, are invited to a news briefing on Tuesday, February 12 (10 am Pacific/1 pm Eastern) to hear a short discussion by the three authors and to ask them questions about their proposals.

To join the call: • Call (800) 553-0273  / Ask for “Campaign for the Future of Higher Education” • You may dial up to 5 minutes before the start time

To see the papers in advance: • Send an email request to dchernow@calfac.org • Go to http://biz127.inmotionhosting.com/~future58/workingpapers/

Please note: the CFHE web address will change on Sunday, February 10. After that time, you can see the papers at www.futureofhighered.org/workingpapers.

These working papers are meant to encourage discussion, foster debate, and generate action. We invite faculty members and higher education supporters, particularly those with direct experience in America’s classrooms with students, to add thoughts about these models and ideas about others through the comment section of the CFHE website.

We also invite you to post on the CFHE Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/FutureofHigherEd and to follow CFHE on Twitter @FutureofHE or using #FutureofHE.

BACKGROUND

We must provide the advanced education needed to sustain our economy and to undergird our democracy. America is not broke, and these creative ideas show that we can afford to keep the doors of opportunity wide open. Indeed, we cannot afford to shut them.

It is unfortunate for our nation that leaders and policy-makers are giving up the dream of affordable public higher education for Americans. The door into the middle class is slamming shut for those who want to rise and the position of middle-class Americans and their children is shaky, at best.

In place of the tested and successful engine of opportunity—state colleges and universities—corporate reformers are calling for privatization, higher tuition, and even shuttering traditional colleges for middle-class and working Americans.

Millions who persist in pursuing college confront enormous debt that will shackle them for the rest of their lives, threatening our national economy on a scale equal to the home loan debacle.

Saddest of all, few who are calling for this brave new world of higher education are considering a lesser education for their own children. Harvard, Stanford, Yale, and many flagship public universities will remain in place for elites to enjoy. Rather, this lesser education will be reserved for those who cannot afford an increasingly rationed liberal arts curriculum.

And yes, the need is immediate and urgent. Consider this report published in the February 2012 issue of Postsecondary Education Opportunity, ominously titled “The Race to Zero.” This report takes historical data on state spending and projects future state expenditures for higher education based on that data.

The study finds that if current trends in funding public higher education continue, in 2022 Colorado will be the first state to hit zero funding for higher education. Alaska will follow in 2027. More than a dozen other states will hit zero by 2050. California will reach zero funding for public higher education in 2052. By 2100, state support for higher education will zero out in 24 other states, leaving roughly 10 states with continued support.

The “new normal” myth driving this trend is based on the lie that there is no money to fund public higher education and the misguided notion that students should be responsible for their own education because they benefit the most from it.

While CFHE takes no position on these proposals, we do believe that the current trend of publicly defunding higher education is an educational crisis that needs our attention.

Until we as a nation entertain options other than privatization of public higher education, which has reaped gigantic profits for edu-businesses but massive debt and dashed dreams for millions of Americans, we will not solve the problem.

We do not pretend to have exhausted all possibilities with these papers. We urgently need a national conversation about one, whether we want to head in the direction that “new normal” politics is taking us, and two, what better ideas can help us do the best possible job as we address changes in our society and our nation.

In reality, everyone benefits from an educated population and America has prospered more when excellent public higher education was affordable. These papers, we hope, will start a discussion about alternative models to fund higher education in our nation.

January 30, 2013
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UC’s Management Continues its Super-Sized Growth

by Charles Schwartz, UC Berkeley

 

It has been two years since my last presentation of data on the bloated growth of management at the University of California, covering the span 1991-2010. (See the post here in March 2011.)

The following graph includes the newest official data: up to October 2012.

image001

This shows the continuing outsized growth of the management cadre (defined as the employees classified in Senior Management Group and Management & Senior Professionals): their numbers grew by 252% over the 21 year period while total employee numbers grew by a mere 51%. (The total number of employees shown in this graph is scaled down so that one can compare the relative growth, over time, of each population.)

For another comparison, the latest total number in this management category (SMG + MSP) is 9,457 FTE (full time equivalent employees) while the number of Regular Teaching Faculty is 8,657 FTE.

Similar graphs for each individual campus of the university system can be found here (.doc) or here (.pdf).  For several campuses we note a mild decrease in the Management numbers in the past few years but then a new upward surge with the latest data.

Elsewhere I have written about the repeated requests for UC’s top officials to either justify this apparent bloat or to get rid of it; and their inability to do either.  My previous estimate was that, if the apparent excess is not justifiable, then UC is wasting something like $1 Billion per year.

The Governor has recently shown some interest in the University and its financial problems. He has called for lowering costs, avoiding further tuition increases and reducing executive salaries. Many people have criticized the Board of Regents for setting corporate scale salaries for the top executives they appoint at UC; and fixing that bad habit would be good for the soul of this public institution. In defense, the UC President and his minions often point out that the total amount of money paid to the Senior Management Group is rather small. So, a better line of attack would be to hold them accountable for this whole mass of bureaucratic excess which they have created

January 13, 2013
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Online Education in the Media – January 2013

January 2013 – There has been an explosion in the mainstream press already this year concerning online education.  Here is a s synopsis of relevant  links that represent just a few of the articles that have been published.

 

Whose Online? What Online?

Sebastian Thrun founder of Udacity… insisted, online courses will not offer educational advantages if they simply try to transfer the classroom experience into a digital form.  Putting faculty in front of cameras and simply recording their lectures will only dehumanize the process of learning and serve to debase the practice of teaching.  Online will be an advantage only when it can be put together to do exercises that cannot easily be done in a classroom (and not simply in the sense that you can get more people to see a lecture) and when those exercises can be combined with a renewed attention to person to person pedagogical contact… I wish that there was evidence that the Regents understood this point.  But judging by the close there was none.  Regent Pattiz continues to think of online as if higher ed is the music business where you purchase a download of a discrete chunk of content rather than–as Thrun and others tried to convey–an ongoing process of directed learning.  Regent Reiss, not showing the sort of attentive learning one might wish, trotted out the tired cliche about the end of the “sage on a stage” not realizing that the implications of the presentations by EDx, Coursera, and Udacity was that the teacher as director (and not as “guide on the side”) becomes even more important in these models.

Read full article [here]. by Michael Meranze, Remaking the University.

 

UC may increase online courses

With insistent urging by the governor and in light of a failing online program, the University of California Board of Regents discussed ideas on Wednesday to increase the number of online courses at the UC – but have yet to lay out further concrete plans. “It’s no secret that (the) UC has hit a wall with regard to traditional instruction methods,” said UC President and ex-officio Regent Mark Yudof at the opening of the meeting. “The finances simply no longer exist to support the old model of instruction in the same ways.”

Read full article [here]. by Kristen Taketa, The Daily Bruin.

 

Editorial: UC push for online education is too strong

The University of California is using hyperbolic language to push forward an expansion of the system’s online education program, an unproven and expensive tactic for improving the University’s course offerings. At Wednesday’s meeting of the UC Board of Regents, UC President Mark Yudof said “It’s not secret that the UC has hit a wall with respect to traditional educational methods.” Yudof added that it is not financially feasible to continue focusing on improving “brick and mortar,” or traditional education. In addition to the $750,000 grant and the $6.9 million line of credit dedicated to the program, of which a significant amount has been spent, Gov. Jerry Brown’s recent budget proposal suggests both the UC and the CSU receive $10 million to continue developing their online education programs. The suggestion that online education is a more valuable avenue to develop than in-classroom education is flawed… Before emphasizing the importance of funneling millions of taxpayer dollars into a largely undefined expansion of the program, working with a small-scale program, put together carefully with student input, would be far more beneficial to the students. In the meantime, much of the financial and working effort the UC is putting into UC Online could be put into improving on-campus educational resources that students definitely need.

Read full article [here]. by The Editorial Board, The Daily Bruin.

 

As California Goes?

California is the Fertile Crescent for massive open online course providers, at least the for-profit ones. The state is also shaping up as a testing ground for phase two of the MOOC experiment, which includes fees and a path to college credit, and where public colleges try to use material from MOOCs to help meet student demand in gateway courses… Gov. Jerry Brown wants California’s public institutions to take a hard look at MOOCs. Along with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, he is encouraging experimentation with MOOC platforms for introductory and remedial courses.

Read full article [here]. by Paul Fain, Inside Higher Education.

 

UC online courses seen as inevitable

Within five years, students at the University of California will likely take 10 to 15 percent of their courses over the Internet, UC President Mark Yudof said Wednesday in San Francisco at a marathon discussion of online education with the regents, Gov. Jerry Brown and three rising stars in the world of classroom-free courses. Yudof said he’ll provide incentives for faculty to develop online courses to ease overcrowding in the most popular freshman and sophomore courses. And he said UC is working to overcome technical difficulties preventing students from taking online courses developed on campuses other than their own. Student Regent Jonathan Stein warned that students are concerned that trading the benefits of campus and classroom for computerized education would be a “degradation of the UC experience.” Yudof said that no student will be forced to take classes online, but that the migration is inevitable.

Read full article [here]. by Nanette Asimov, The San Francisco Chronicle.

 

UC regents pledge to expand online education in next few years

University of California leaders pledged Wednesday to sharply expand online education over the next few years, possibly aiming to have UC students take about 10% of all their classes online — averaging four courses toward their degree… Yudof promised that the new classes would be of high academic quality and would not cause layoffs. The regents were under pressure from Gov. Jerry Brown to take such steps, and last week Brown’s budget proposed giving UC $10 million next year to help finance new online courses, primarily entry-level general education courses that are now overcrowded… Just a day earlier, Brown announced the start of a pilot partnership between San Jose State and Udacity, a Silicon Valley online education group, to create low-cost online classes in entry-level subjects. Brown also plans to attend next week’s meeting of the Cal State University trustees.

Read full article [here]. by Larry Gordon, The Los Angeles Times.

January 11, 2013
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What Brown’s budget proposal means for UC

Governor Brown released his 2013-14 budget proposal yesterday. He is proposing increasing state general fund money to UC from $2.504 billion in the 2011-12 year to $2.567 billion in 2012-13, and $2.846 billion in 2013-14. UC is one of the few areas of the state budget to see a funding increase in the budget proposal. However, note that state funding of UC topped out at $3.323 billion in 2001-02 without adjusting for inflation and when student enrollment was about three quarters what it is now.

Brown is proposing a 5% state funding increase in 2013-14 and 5% the following year, then 4% increases each of the next two years. In exchange for this steady increase in funding, Brown expects UC to freeze fees at the current level for the next four years. He also wants UC to improve outcomes and reduce costs. The Governor’s proposed budget does not include enrollment targets (the university is anticipating a modest enrollment growth of 1%). $10 million of this state funding is earmarked for online education.

The Governor is also proposing to limit the number of course units the state would subsidize for each student. For the first two years, the limit would be 150 percent of degree requirements (180 units for a standard bachelor’s degree), but then ramping down to one extra year of full-time attendance.

As in last year’s proposal, the Governor is planning the controversial shift of general obligation bond debt service into UC’s budget. This time there is language that specifies money saved through this effort is to be used for UC’s educational mission.

The Higher Education pages of Brown’s budget proposal are at: http://www.ebudget.ca.gov/pdf/BudgetSummary/HigherEducation.pdf

UC’s response to the budget proposal: http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/article/28917

January 11, 2013
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How Much Would It Cost to Restore California’s Public Higher Ed (January 2013 update)?

Raising revenue has become such a taboo subject in California politics, but restoring quality public higher education in California can be done. For the median California tax return (individual or joint), restoring the entire system while rolling back student fees to what they were a decade ago would cost $48. next April 15. Read “Financial Options for Restoring Quality and Access to Public Higher Education in California: 2012-13” at the Keep California’s Promise website.

September 25, 2012
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Not a “town hall”…

September 25, 2012 by admin

Please join us for a conversation and organizing meeting among faculty from the Northern California UC campuses to discuss faculty visions for the UC system over the next year and beyond. In recent years, the campuses have confronted a seemingly endless string of state, UCOP and campus administration generated atrocities and bad ideas. All too often our energies are depleted in responding to the latest local fiasco or outrage. In this gathering, we hope to do something different and less reactive: to meet colleagues at other campuses concerned with these issues and continue to build cross-campus contacts, discussions and community; to further define a set of specifically faculty perspectives on the project of the public university and our role within it; and to begin to hammer out multiple possible interventions in the current morass. Chris Newfield, author of Unmaking the Public University, will be joining us and will start with some brief thoughts on the current situation, and then we will open to a broader discussion.

Sponsored by the Berkeley Faculty Association and FOG (Faculty Organizing Group, UCSC). Sunday September 30, 12:00-3:00. Wheeler 330, UC Berkeley.

July 19, 2012
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Where’s UC Online Now and How Will We Get Our $7 Million Back?

 

Wendy Brown
Outgoing Co-Chair, Berkeley Faculty Association

On July 16thand 17th, The New York Times featured stories on the launching of Coursera, a blockbuster online higher education project emerging from a spectacularly successful Stanford experiment two years ago.

Still in the early stages of development but already reaching hundreds of thousands of learners, Coursera promises to disseminate academic knowledge for free to anyone with access to a computer. The courses are not offered for credit although certification of completion is available. This “impediment” (which reminds us that online learning is not a direct substitute for classroom learning) does not seem to be one. Millions around the world are registering for fall 2012 Coursera courses.

Many elite universities have signed on to Coursera, including Princeton, Stanford, Penn, Duke, Hopkins and a range of publics, among them Illinois, Michigan and Virginia. The University of California (with the exception of UCSF) is notably missing from the list of participating universities.

Where is UC? As you will recall, last year Berkeley Law School Dean Edley borrowed $7 million from UCOP to launch a UC for-profit online higher ed project, one that he promised would lead the way in the elite higher ed market, reap hundreds of millions of dollars for the university AND produce social justice as it extended a UC education to those who could not afford to leave home. Many of us were skeptical at the time, though our concerns were largely brushed aside. Edley also promised to raise private funds for the pilot exploration of this project. When this fundraising effort failed, he turned to the depleted coffers of UCOP to finance the pilot, claiming that it was a loan which would easily and quickly be repaid. (Why, one might ask, would UCOP fund something that major foundations, with their fingers on the pulse of online higher ed, would not?)

As Coursera and other elite online endeavors sailed the winds of open sourcing and brought ever more universities and constituencies on board, the UC online project kept shifting course. Would it provide a wholly online UC degree as Edley initially hoped? Or would it provide UC lower division courses to UC students so the University could enroll more students without expanding physical campuses or hiring more faculty? Or would it sell UC-branded courses to non-UC students (as the pilot project has done)? Would it be a substitute for, a supplement to, or a commercialized knock-off of a UC on-campus education? Would it sell the courses at the price of on-campus tuition or at a substantial discount? If the former, how would it compete with cheaper or free courses and if the latter, how would it make money? The question of when and how campus Senate committees would be involved in authorizing courses and credits was also constantly shifting and deferred.

Fast forward to the present. Dean Edley is not out front on this project any more. In fact, his leadership role appears nowhere on the UCOP website devoted to the project; he is listed only as a member of a faculty oversight committee. And UCOP Vice Provost Daniel Greenstein, Dean Edley’s partner in developing and promoting the project, has left UC for a position at the Gates Foundation.

Now in charge of UC Online is Keith Williams, a lecturer in Physical Education and Biology at UC Davis whose office is at the Hickey Gym.

So, who is responsible for repaying the $7 million loan that Edley and Greenstein got from UCOP to fund the pilot? When students renege on their loan payments, the Federal government garnishes their wages, should they be lucky enough to have any. When a department overspends its annual budget, available funds for the following year are reduced, and heads may also roll. But when an online pilot project doesn’t make its payments, what happens? Who is responsible? Who or what pays?

Shouldn’t we be able to see the loan repayment schedule for UC Online? And is it possible that we should stop throwing good money after bad, fold UC Online, sign on to Coursera, and get back to the important business of protecting what remains of UC on-campus instruction?