Stand up for UC: Mark Yudof

UC President Mark Yudof calls on the UC community to speak out about the university system's importance to California.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Mark Yudof
• University of California
• Stand up for UC
• state budget
• budget
• advocacy
• Governor Jerry Brown
• students
• faculty
• staff

[Jfrench54]

Close the Merced Campus, cancel UC Irvine's plans for a law school, reduce the salaries of the OP and President Yudoff. There are probably some curriculums that could be placed on hiatus until the economy sufficiently recovers and maybe retire some professors who have been around long enough to "cap out" on their slaries. Canceling building plans is a good idea too - but no more staff paycuts (and we've laid off everyone we can in my division).

[brendanmcox]

Cutting top salaries certainly will not solve the budget problem, but neither will reducing the compensation for a few staff workers, canceling one building project, etc. UC's budget problems can obviously only be solved through an aggregation of cost-cutting measures. However, if the high-level UC employees are not willing to *lead by example,* perhaps it's time to reconsider whether these individuals are fit for the office.

[moravecglobal]

Whining President Yudof: talk no action. Ranking drops for world class preeminent public research and teaching University of California Berkeley (Cal). In 2004 the London-based Times Higher Education ranked Cal the 2nd leading research university in the world, just behind Harvard; in 2009 that ranking tumbled to 39th. By 2011 Cal had not returned to 2nd place. Cal below top ten in tuition to Return on Investment (ROI)

[Mercedmania]

While UC could make cuts, decreasing the opportunity for students, regardless of income, to get a first class education would be penny wise and pound foolish. I grew up in a lower middle class family in New York and am grateful that the City University of New York provided an affordable education to me so I could be the first college graduate in my family. Years later, I became a UC faculty member, even taking a salary cut to do so, because I believed in providing that opportunity to others.

[rocsmom2000]

I hope the UC bigwigs are paying attention to these comments. Us "little people" have been struggling so long - it seems to me that we need to know what kind of living challenges and difficulties each and everyone of them are equally facing. ... yeah. I didn't think so.

[maneeshk88]

This due lives in a mansion and gets a $600,000 yearly salary, and is talkin about fiscal crisis? Yudof pls go.

[pgrigg]

UC could also help itself by publishing more articles on how, exactly, UC has helped our state, and science in general. I googled UC Research that helps people and found some interesting articles. There should be lots more of this. Also, UC is one of the biggest employers in the state. Laying more people off hurts the economy more.

[MORGAN999]

When I started working at UC 9 years ago, there was ONE Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs. Now there are at least SIX that I know of - all 6-digit incomes. The trend has been to cut the wages of the staff, but not down-size our top-heavy administration.

I would like Gov. Brown to stop talking about state employees like we all make loads of money! This '100K a year custodian' idea is total B.S., and makes life very difficult for those making less than 40K per year to live in the Bay area.

[osmanovski]

I am a UC student and I truly believe there is no way we can save the UC if we wants to preserve the quality of the UC system with so little funding. Forget about it.

[SecantAngle]

@jnscromgirl I agree with you 100% that the problems cannot be solved by cutting the already terribly underpaid staff. Here's the real problem with just pointing fingers at the UC fat cats - rather than presenting a unified, accurate message to the state that UC is being hugely underfunded, we instead give them the impression that the funding level is fine if only we cut the fat cat salaries. That just won't do it - the deeper systematic problem must be communicated to the public.

[woppenhe]

If you were retired, on a fixed income, and were losing your home to taxes back then,you wouldn't think that way.

Fact is that CA is a high tax state and this is one of the causes of decreased revenue. Employers and employees look elsewhere to live. Too expensive to live here. We *should* be reducing taxes, and the people and programs dependent on them, rather than increasing. That is why tuition and fees, in view of the default on the Master plan by the legislature, need to rise.

[woppenhe]

Maintain the quality. Quality always wins out in the end. Raise tuition as necessary, as the State withdraws support. Eventually we wil have a quasi private University, because the State has defaulted on its master plan commitment. The politicians don't care about quality. It will just be another contentious budget item to them, and treated exactly that way each budget cycle. Quasi privatizing is the only option that maintains quality.