 Good afternoon everyone. My name is Dan Mogulov from the Campus Office of Public Affairs. And today we have two unique guests. After two years of meeting campus administrators, we're going to meet the folks who really run the university. That's not a joke. With me today is Amma Sakadiyadu, who is the president of the ASUC. She's a fourth-year political science student, minoring in English and public policy. The daughter of Ghanian. Ghanian immigrants. Amma grew up in Glendale, Arizona, where she lived until she moved to Berkeley for college. As a Cal student, Amma's been a member of the Alpha Phi Sorority and a board member for Berkeley's chapter of the National Organization for Women. She also has been working at the Berkeley City Council. That must be fun. Since her freshman year, where she has developed her love of policy and civic engagement. As ASUC president, Amma hopes to represent the interests of all students on issues such as campus climate, safety, and administrative accountability while supporting the most vulnerable through basic needs, security, and diversity and equity initiatives. After graduation, she hopes to pursue organizing and campaign management. Oliver O'Reilly, immediately to my right here, is the chair of the Academic Senate. Is a professor of mechanical engineering for this academic year. It's repeating, sorry, I forgot to read the second sentence. Serving as chair of the Berkeley Academic Senate. Oliver grew up in Ireland and went to graduate school at Cornell. After a two-year postdoc in Zurich, he started as a faculty member at Cal in 1992. He counts himself to be very fortunate because he thoroughly enjoys teaching in the area of dynamics and continuum to Cal students. You'll have to explain what that means later. And being able to blend his teaching and research interests. He has published several textbooks, all of which are freely available to students. Does that mean without charge? Yeah. Cool. And has had the good fortune to receive several teaching awards, including the campus' Distinguished Teaching Award in 1999. As chair of the Senate this year, his priorities include capital projects, improving the relations between faculty and other groups on campus, and helping to organize the year-long 2020 celebration of 150 years of Berkeley women. Off campus, he enjoys rowing and long-distance cycling, supporting Ireland's rugby teams and Cal athletics, and traveling back to Ireland to hang out with his mother. Did she tell you to write that? No. She's a hoot. I highly recommend hanging out with my mother. So just to get started, first, Oscar, tell us a little bit about, you know, why, what you hope to achieve in the role and sort of what's on your plate right now or on the Senate's plate that, you know, are your priorities and sort of objectives for the year. And Amma, after that, I'll ask you the same thing. So I think the, I would say the main priority on the Senate right now is capital projects and making sure that the approval of the process by which capital projects are approved and vetted on campus is transparent, but it's also expedited because of the seismic results that we've just learned, especially about Evans Hall. Evans Hall is 2,500 students use Evans Hall every day. And so finding, decanting Evans Hall for the faculty, staff, and students that use it, building new buildings, new classroom buildings to accommodate all the stakeholders on campus is, I think, a major priority. So I think the seismic results have just really crystallized this idea that capital projects and also the capital campaign, because we need money, are just really priorities. And I also want the Senate to contribute in a positive way to this. I don't want the Senate to always be the people on the outside who are going, no, we don't like that. I don't like losing my parking. I don't mind if these people lose their parking. I want my department. So I don't want us to be, I really would like us to get away from that dialogue and to contribute positively. And how's that working out so far? I'm working on it. It's a joy. But I'm in the College of Engineering as well. And I've been very fortunate that I served as Barbara Spackman's vice chair. So I learned a lot about just managing and then the upper Hearst controversy, however you really want to call it. That has helped me see a bigger picture of campus and especially how different groups of people on campus communicate in very different ways, some of whom are not very effective at communicating to certain audiences and vice versa. Good. A lot of stuff we'll get into in just a little bit. Amma, for yourself, what's on the agenda? What's your priorities and objectives? What do they look like? I think our priorities are mostly shaped by what feels like the most pressing issues to students right now. A big one for us is basic need security with so much of our student body being housing insecure or food insecure. So we're trying to combat issues like that. Diversity, equity, inclusion is a big one for us because of the campus demographics or something that can feel really alienating to a lot of students and making sure we're providing support for students from underrepresented minorities, academic resources, just kind of figuring out how to bridge the gap between different campus partners like administration and the student body and reflect the concerns of students at large. I think one thing I notice is that I'm really lucky to be in a lot of the spaces that I'm in and most students don't get to have that. So kind of just echoing what I'm hearing are the day-to-day problems from students and helping to amplify those voices to administration. So both of you touched on a similar subject. Actually before I go on, just for those of you who joined us late, if you have questions that come up for you during the course of the conversation, jot them down on the index card that are on your seat, hold them up, somebody will collect them. Anyway, back to what I was saying, both of you brought up a similar subject which is sort of your relationship, the relationship of each of the bodies that you represent ASUC in the Senate to the administration. I've seen in my time here that there's sort of an ebb and flow between confrontation and cooperation. What do you aspire to and where do you think stand, right? Where do you think things stand right now? Let me begin to you. The relationship of the ASUC, what would you like to see and where do you think things actually are right now? I honestly am feeling really hopeful because I think one thing that's distinct about this year is what we're saying as our priorities are also the priorities that we're hearing from administration, possibly probably because these problems are so pressing and so apparent. So when we bring something to administrators, most of the time what we're hearing is we're thinking the same thing, what are your ideas for how to combat that? So I think that puts us in one of the best places that I've seen in my time here in terms of actually getting things done because everyone just wants to see these problems combated. Was that a surprise to you when you came after coming into office? Not necessarily a surprise. I think one thing, we're always a little wary of each other. I think administrators can be a little wary of students because we're pretty aggressive sometimes and then likewise we can be pretty wary of administrators. A lot of the times we see them as kind of like a brick wall where we can't get things done or like a black box where we don't really know what's going on. So I think I personally might have underestimated the transparency and the collaboration that I've received. So I was a little bit hesitant coming into this role but I've been super pleasantly surprised about how much everyone's willing to work with us and how much everyone wants to see the same things get done. And how did things look from Stevens Hall? I think pretty actually fairly very similar. I think you know Paul Alavisatos is his third year as the provost. You can see that like he's evolved into the role. Carol has used all her experience from being a president at Smith, being a former provost here, being a provost here again and just having a very broad vision of the campus. So it's actually been a pleasure working with them. They've come to speak at the senate anytime we've asked them. I also think the new athletics director is terrific and is very open to getting more faculty involvement with student athletes and with the athletics program at Berkeley. So I think there's a lot of, I see it as a lot of positives. I would second what Anna said. So I'm going to step back for a second and talk about how you see the role that each of your organizations or bodies plays because shared governance is something you hear a lot in the context of the university. You don't ever hear that in the corporate world very rarely at least. And you know just like you were talking before about you're the academic senate but your top priority are capital projects and that's not an intuitive connection. So what do you think when you step back a little bit what is the role of the senate and how do you see shared governance on campus? So I see shared governance as the responsibility of the faculty to request transparency and accountability from the administration. We're also responsible for admissions courses of instruction merits and promotions we're advisory on those but our goal our mission as the academic senate is to provide advice to the administration and to expect that advice will be respected. On the flip side I think faculty need to understand that shared governance is a responsibility. It's a privilege and a responsibility and if you go to other campuses they don't have that privilege. You don't have the privilege where your merit case gets forwarded to various committees and then gets decided by your peers and that's their recommendation is forwarded to the chancellor and it will take a lot for the chancellor to say no I really disagree with this. In other campuses the dean can pretty much decide that they don't like you and that's it and you know. Wait wait so I'm starting to interrupt. Are you saying that the level of shared governance on the Berkeley campus is different than other UC campuses? No not on other UCs but compared to other universities around the country. Compared to other universities the senate at Berkeley is the most powerful in the country. Wow. Yeah but it's only I mean that's taken a lot of work and it only really started in 1919. People call it the Berkeley. Seems like yesterday to me. Yeah. We're not that old but it basically started in 1919 where Eidh Wheeler was the president and he wasn't doing very well so they replaced him with three deans. The regents replaced him with three deans which is a disaster. The faculty revolted and then in 1919-1920 the regents gave the senate the faculty senate all these powers on courses of instruction admissions merits and promotion and that changed the whole landscape of Berkeley. Wow. And if you look at Berkeley's trajectory after that it really started to go up like Berkeley's in the 1950s and 60s and it was like a Nobel prize is almost every year. And also faculty knowing that they have a say in their career and their you know and that other faculty have a say in their promotion that that's fair is very valuable. You don't feel you're at the mercy of a chair that doesn't like you or a dean that doesn't like you. You feel you're getting a fair shot. Like when you come to Berkeley you get a tenured faculty position it's there for you. It's not like other schools where they hire five people as an assistant professor and maybe three or two of them will get tenure. There isn't that sense of Berkeley. The sense of Berkeley is that we want you to succeed and we're here to help you succeed and that's fantastic. Alma what about you? I know slightly obviously the shared governance and what's actually provided for in terms of policies is somewhat different but how do you see the ASUC's role in so far as sort of the governance and the operations of the campus are concerned? Yeah I think one thing that is super weird about our student government that not a lot of people know is weird. I think we might be the only student government in the country that's like this. We are our own separate 501c3 nonprofit. We're not under our school's division of student affairs so technically like our senate is our board of trustees. I act as effective CFO or CEO so when we come to the table I think we're almost more like a union in the sense that I can't really like the chancellor like besides me as a student I can kind of be instructed but like the chancellor can't really tell me what to do I can't tell her what to do so we kind of are like negotiating in a more shared governance way than a student government that's funded by their university but also like I guess controlled in a more direct sense than we are. We're funded independently through our through the business of the student union and then through our own separate investment so it's a way different system than a lot of schools have and I think that kind of lets us feel more like partners but it also makes us really really conscious of maintaining that autonomy and like how to best utilize it. I think that's sometimes why we're a bit louder and more aggressive than other school student governments is because we pride ourselves so much on being an independent body but it definitely just changes the way we function. But why is that important? How does the university benefit from the obvious independence that the ASUC has in your opinion? I think it sometimes allows us to be to act as an accountability mechanism more than student governments at other schools can because we don't necessarily have that deference to I guess a higher body and it kind of also makes us feel more represented more inclined to be representative of students because they're technically the ones holding us accountable like our highest that's who yeah that's our accountability mechanism that's who feels like who is in charge of us our boss is just a student body so our first priority is reflecting their concerns and not necessarily what we're being told to do. So speaking of that representativeness I've heard from other students some complaints about the ASUC in the past not this year about take for example the fact that it takes what is it 500 votes to become a senator with the undergraduate student body of 32,000 and the extent to which certain students have felt that sometimes the issues and the ASUC's engagement in issues that extend well beyond campus is an indication that the ASUC sort of has its eyes on the wrong prizes. So what's your response to that to students who express concern about the extent to which the ASUC is really broadly representative and that has sort of its eye on priorities that students share? I think that those are kind of two questions and I think as far as like the representation issue goes it's hard because we do that small quota is important because like our senators are endorsed a lot of time by community so like for example the black community senator would never get elected if quota was higher because they're trying to get elected by a population that's about 1% of 1.9% of the student body I think 1% of the student body is black undergraduates is the most recent stat I've heard I don't know if that's under percent true but it's so hard because you're trying to make sure a lot of those smaller communities voices get get heard which is a really hard thing to do when you want to hear everyone's issues and priorities but I think the claim that we sometimes have our eyes on things that are far from this campus is fair but I also think we do a really we've historically done a bad job of translating the things we do to affect day-to-day student life to the student body so that's something I'm really concerned about is the way we communicate with the people that we serve how we let them know what we're actually doing day-to-day because some of those smaller policies just kind of get swept under the rug or like we focus on some of the bigger more controversial things and I think that's also just how press tends to work the things that we do that are really out of the box are the ones that end up like front page of daily call or front page of brickly site. Like give me an example. Oh shoot. You can think about it. I'm trying to think of a crazy one. This isn't even an us example but if you know like the city of Berkeley did the thing where they changed manholes to maintenance holes because manholes has a gendered connotation and that ended up on like Fox News, National News, like in a matter of hours and it kind of gives you the impression that that's the only thing that Berkeley City Council is working on and it's not. There's a lot of really valuable work not that that's not valuable but there's a lot of really keenly felt work that doesn't get as much press coverage but when those are the things that blow up it makes you feel like it makes the average person feel like maybe they're not being served so we're trying to work on translating our work better to students that's a big concern of mine. We're working really closely with like Daily Cal to try and like make sure we're getting our work out there we're all trying to be more active on social media because that's a big one that's a work in progress. So Oscar in terms of the Senate you know it's interesting the ASCC you guys meet every week right? Every week there's a story in the Daily Cal usually covering every meeting and the Senate seems a little more opaque. The meetings aren't as frequent and a lot of the work that I know that goes on isn't as evident. Right. So kind of open the doors a little bit for us about where do you think faculty are right now after a few tough years in terms of you know sort of what's the sense of the Senate about where the University is and where it needs to go and what its sort of primary challenges are and the extent to which you feel the Senate is representative of 1500 faculty when you know at many meetings there may be a hundred hundred and fifty faculty who show up. Yeah. Two separate questions for you as well. Thank you. So the Senate has 27 standing committees which is a phenomenal number and then we have maybe three to four hundred members of the faculty or active members. So the division council which is the main group we meet every two weeks and then there's a meeting in Oakland of the Assembly or sorry the academic council which is the council for the entire system so I go to that every two weeks as well. So it seems like there's a lot of meetings. There's a lot of engagement. I think faculty I think faculty are concerned about resources actually. I think it's just the last few years of these budget squeezes just has I think it's been really challenging and I think you know it's become there's the number of resources for teaching for teaching assistance seems lower it's certainly lower than it was when I first started here 27 years ago. So there are fewer resources we have to be more careful about our resources and I think there's a feeling like hey we need to get some more money into the system because there's a lot of people with fantastic ideas and we need resources to help those ideas come to life. So that's my take on the Senate is that you know we feel like there needs to be more resources for public education and some of that is I think the campus itself has done a phenomenal job balancing the budget having to make some really hard decisions. I think there's not a department on the campus that hasn't felt the effects of this even ones that people consider to be wealthy. I mean the number of masters programs self-supported degree programs that have exploded on campus in part is because all of these schools feel like we need more money and this is a way of getting more money getting more resources for our program and keeping our program competitive with all these other schools. So I think I would say resources but I feel also think like if you look at Berkeley and you look at all the other public schools across the nation you know funding for public universities fell off a cliff in 2008. Berkeley's reputation has allowed it to keep going a little bit better than other schools but I think we still need we need to somehow figure out how to get the public more support from the public and more support from our politicians for public education. So Alma how does the resource issue look to from the student perspective the campus line for a long time has been that throughout the tough years that it was doing everything it could to protect what it called the academic core? What's your sense about where we are right now in terms of resources and the extent to which the campus has successfully protected that core? I think we definitely feel it in the academic sphere. I think we feel it most strongly when it comes to housing but like the percentage of students that are housed is about I want to say 27 but most students aren't available aren't able to get on campus housing and I think sometimes for us it feels like academics is like that's like way down the line we just want to have a place to live like want to make sure we're like our students are eating and things like that and those are the areas that we feel a smaller budget most strongly but we definitely feel it in larger class sizes and like I know I think the percentage of lecturers to out of total faculty is about 43 percent right now and so that's something we notice too because I know lecturers aren't necessarily receiving the same like level of compensation and so we definitely sense that the budget is smaller and we feel in the academic sphere as well but those those basic needs questions are I think the first thing that comes to mind for students. So I want to just touch on another issue and we'll turn to some questions have come in from folks in the audience one of the things I'm reading a lot about I know the chancellor is talking a lot about around the country they're talking and that's the mental health crisis on campuses across the country. What do you see from a student perspective is this something that's been ginned up by the media or is something really serious and significant happening that we need to pay attention to and do you have any thoughts about what might be behind it if it is something real and significant. The thing about the mental health crisis is that it's so hard to assess in your own generation because my generation is all I really know but I definitely do feel like it's so prevalent amongst like myself and my peers and I think a big driver of it is just that same sense of insecurity I keep going back to like that same like basic needs question but that plays into a lot students are anxious because they don't necessarily know because they're struggling both now and feel a sense that they'll be struggling in the future to even just provide for themselves. The academic pressure is huge a huge factor and also just the competitive competitiveness of Berkeley which I think is something that makes this campus unique and great is how driven all the students here are but also can be so toxic to the individual student and feeling content in what you're doing and being in a place that's healthy like mentally and emotionally and caring for your wellness in that way because for a lot of us who just ends up feeling there's this like mentality of you need to survive not thrive like you just need to do what you're doing get your degree get the best internship the best job and then get out and that I don't necessarily think that that's what the college experience should be. Oliver has been pointed out to me that I've called in Moscow twice I started this a few weeks I have no ideas like I'm an idiot. You've been behind the lectern for a while what are you seeing have there been changes are they substantive and significant and you have a sense of what might be driving them if they are. So I think that so I am my the teenage daughter and in her generation I'm noticing it's it's a so compared to what I was growing up it's certainly it's a totally it's there is a mental health crisis I think and what I see is so when I first started teaching here you know you would get maybe two or three students in a class of 60 or 70 who just wouldn't show up to the final exam and you really had no idea why they stopped coming to class or why they didn't come to the exam now you see students and I don't know if this is me or the student or what factors are involved they will come to you before the final and say look I have a mental health issue can you accommodate me so in some senses the positive is is that people are talking about this now there's much more of an acceptance of mental health and talking about mental health and accommodating students and trying to help people so I from my perspective of just seeing more people coming in talk to talking to me when they do have problems that has certainly gone up whether that's because I'm older I have no idea but I do notice that if you look at the teenagers now and mental health and teenagers is a is a big issue and it's you know those students those students are going to come to college and you know it's it's challenging and I don't think anybody really knows why is it because you all have a you know way more data now like when I was going to college you just hear anecdotally oh this person in this class did like this amazing job in an exam now you hear about it oh this person in this college and this person in this college and this person in this you also it's just a massive wealth of qualitative and quantitative data that can seem overwhelming and just in terms of sheer processing all of that data on a day-to-day basis like even for most of us last week for me last week you know Wednesday and Thursday of last week when all the stuff was going on in Washington it was just I felt like over if I felt like completely overwhelmed by the news and I can imagine that if you're a student and you're hearing all of this data about grades and distributions and the curve this the curve that what the old exams were like that maybe it's a bit too much information and maybe that's not very helpful what else has changed in the classroom during your time as a professor the demographics of the students meaning so you look you look out at the students now and you see you know you see Latina Latino you see Asian white african-american you see the swath of colors that's just completely different it's just it feels a lot more diverse here there's a lot more emphasis on being fair and transparent in your teaching there's a lot like behaviors that used to be acceptable when I started off here like shouting at students and telling them they were stupid is just not acceptable you know and it's not just that it's not acceptable that people will call people out for that yeah which is really the way it should be yeah so I think the campuses I feel the camp in my classrooms the cloud has become more diverse I feel I think there's more an awareness of the human in the classroom there's still a long way to go yeah but I think it's but you know every journey has a beginning yeah I'm betting based on your initial comments that the improved diversity notwithstanding that indeed we do have a long way to go what's the case that you make I mean how do you see the the undergraduate diversity initiative that was announced and how do you make the case for undergraduate diversity for example why is that something that's important I think on one hand just factually we're a public school and we should be educating the population of California not that we shouldn't have students I'm an out-of-state student and not that out-of-state and like international students don't enrich our campus they do and I absolutely think we all belong here but I think that the population of this school should be more reflective of the population of the state of California demographically and it's not it's so distant from what the state of California looks like and then on the other hand there's also the idea that not having a diverse student body diverse faculty diverse administrators it makes it harder for the students that are here from underrepresented minorities to succeed like it's hard to succeed when you don't have professors that look like you or when you don't have advisors that share your experiences to talk to you when you're going to like Tang and people don't necessarily like when the mental health services you're seeking people don't necessarily understand your background or your experiences and so I think it's kind of a it reinforces things because in addition to just admissions and population retention of underrepresented minorities is such an issue underrepresented minority groups are always the first to go on academic probation and the first to leave and so when you have more students to be mentors and to be in community with each other it kind of helps create a culture where students from like every background can succeed here can graduate here can feel at home here and contribute to this campus got it and while you were answering that question all over a question question came in from the audience how does the senate plan to address issues of equity and inclusion for underrepresented minorities on campus well so there's a task force being set up right now and the senate is going to actively participate in that that's one of the that's probably one of the best ways we can do one of the best things we can do I think the other thing we can do is to just basically be positive proponents for their campus and do you know help the campus better classrooms better facilities and help the campus with that and also be more conscious of our roles as teachers and our influence and the fact that you know there are a lot of students in our classrooms that don't that don't relate to us they don't relate to our our background is so different and we need to be aware of that got it another question from the audience for you ama what are effective ways to get feedback from students on proposals or initiatives the best way to hear their perspectives and by there I'm assuming this person means beyond the elected folks who are in the senate and the executive I think it's um well first of all we meet Wednesday evenings at seven thirty feel free to come by come hang out with us but I think one thing that's really nice about the senate and the endorsement model I mentioned earlier is we have 20 senators and each of them represents like a fundamentally different space on campus like for example I was first selected as a senator to represent the Greek community and I had never met about 17 of the other people in like in my senate class before we got involved with that space um just because this campus does feel very much like it's kind of split into different community like sectors and so you kind of you function in your own little bubble and everyone else is functioning in their own little bubble and then you don't necessarily interact with each other but it also means that when the 20 people who are elected by all those different niche areas on campus come together they act as a really broad representative representation of the student body and talking to those 20 people kind of feels like you're talking to a small little sample size of the whole campus and they also have pretty big networks that they can spread information to so I think we act as a pretty good resource to getting things out to the student body at large I might be overplaying our influence just by being in it but I think that's one really helpful way. I hate to interject my own personal or professional interest here but we find it incredibly difficult to communicate with students I mean it suggests that emails are rarely open and do you have a secret for that or do you also find yourself challenged and frustrated in terms of reaching 32,000 or more of your peers? Oh it's definitely hard I think part of that thriving not thriving mentality is that your first priority when you're here for a lot of students is yourself and just like I'm trying to do well in my classes graduate like look out for myself and my friends and like that's kind of I don't really want to be involved or like I'm not gonna answer your survey basically is a lot of students mentality and so it's hard and it's in it's fair because it's really challenging being here but I think it's we try to be intentional about reaching out to students and emphasizing why it's important to participate in things that like your voice matters and even though it might feel like you're just doing a courtesy and providing your input on like this little policy or this little thing like those voices in connection with each other really can make a difference so I think just emphasizing the impact is a really effective way of overcoming that barrier but it's a challenge for all of us and it's hard because like in like our roles and then most roles of students involved in some kind of advocacy position or some kind of outside thing we're also students and I think we forget that that balance is really hard for us for each of us to maintain so it kind of makes sometimes I'm like oh my gosh the emails are so scary and so many of them and it's a challenge for everyone but we're working on it we're working on it on our end too we're trying to get better if you crack that code let us know so same Oliver same person a question for you here and are there ways the senate can promote more diverse graduate admissions and faculty hiring and I want to actually add something to the second part you know I think is what the chance are noted in one of her messages is while the student body turns over substantially and frequently that's not the case for faculty so any objective to sort of create or have a more diverse faculty is going to take a lot of time to play out do you think there's a way to accelerate that or compensate for it or promote that and so does the senate have a role too yeah so there's a committee on equity and climate which gathers data on diversity and equity in for every faculty hire on campus so when a department hires a faculty member they have to justify their selection based on the available talent pool the pool of applicants has to be sufficiently diverse and it has to pass muster at various processes I think every department understands that important of having a diverse faculty but I think one of the issues is it's just going to take it's going to take some time like my department has hired four women in the last 10 years out of maybe 12 faculty hires which is which is more than double the number of women in the department and it's fantastic and everybody appreciates that and it's it's wonderful and the department wants to be no one likes going to a conference where it's 99 male it just it feels like wow this is just this field is just really the 21st century has just sort of left it in the dust and similarly with a department I mean you want a department that's diverse but it does take time because the faculty when they're hired the first most important thing is for them to get you know learn how to do teaching learn how to do research get grants they're almost like invisible in many ways and it's only when you become an associate professor or a full professor that you've time to sort of go out and reach out to the community and you become more visible but the beginning part of it is it is a slow process it I think it takes at least 20 years to do that properly but I do think that a lot of progress has been made and a lot of and a lot of things are just not acceptable anymore which is really wonderful got it I'm the next question from the audience is for you and says asking you about whether you believe that it our administrators aware of the negative effects on students for as a result of reduced staffing and capacity at dining halls like cross roads and also from reduced library hours are there any conversations about this and I'm assuming they mean within the ASUC and within the senate what's your sense about those two issues I know we have conversations about them and it's so hard with questions like that because so often we get to a point where it's like we bring a concern and the answer is capacity-based and not will-based like it's kind of will-based it's will like it's not like there's not a will to fix the problem there's just not capacity to fix the problem is what we kind of hear sometimes both of those things are things that have been brought up and we continue to bring up study space I know is a huge push for on-campus study space different library hours and but then also how that affects people who like work in those study spaces and retain those libraries and it's a really hard question between like balancing the capacity of the administration both financially and personal-wise versus the needs of a growing student body I'm really hopeful about changes that we'll see as far as that goes in like all areas but in those areas like dining halls and study spaces but I think that for so long we've been on a position in a position where we've kind of been playing to my understanding I'm not making the budget but we've been playing like defensive with the budget and we can finally start tackling our problems kind of head on with the balance budget hopefully so I think if there's a time for these things to be addressed it's now you know so what is let's stick with money here for a second you know one of the things that was pointed out recently the Chancellor met with the Daily Caleditorial Board and noted simply that in fact a balanced budget may not necessarily pretend sort of days of easy money if only because for example you know the we're required to increase compensation by three percent of a year so people who work here can keep pace with inflation that in and of itself adds 50 million dollars a year to the campus's budget there is an understandable opposition to tuition increases kind of leaves us with the state how active is the ASUC involved in the state in terms of advocacy and activism in Sacramento or with elected representatives or do you see another way that the university can expand the extent to it it's resources it can tap into yeah we actually have a whole position called the external affairs vice president and we're really lucky this year because our external affairs vice president is also president of the UC Student Association which kind of links all of those offices across the UC system so they're the majority not maybe not majority but like a good amount of their position is just lobbying trying to get higher education funding they were really adamant about pushing for the facilities bond that was just signed and so we're pretty constantly plugged into that across all offices we try and be involved with try to be involved with pushing for funding from the state because we know like that's the avenue we're looking for we don't want to see tuition raised and we don't want to see campus cutting essential services so that's what we're hoping for is state funding investment in public education from Sacramento here's cross yeah yeah so that means so in the context so it seems it seems that the other thing that you're saying is that the and it's understandable just want to confirm it though that sort of the ASUC's opposition to any tuition increases is pretty intractable and firm leaving just the state as the sole solution do you think that's that's correct because we do live in an environment where prices for everything else that we pay go up on a annual basis but it seems like the line on tuition has been pretty firm and pretty strong in recent years it's pretty firm and that has a lot to do with the fact that our cost of living adjustment isn't or cost of living isn't being adjusted so our costs are also going up our housing costs are going on up especially with most students not living on campus our access to like food access to transportation um and so even when the tuition dollars that we're being charged from the university aren't going up the amount it costs to be a Berkeley student is is constantly increasing and maybe in a way that almost feels like more especially because we're at the center of a housing crisis good point Oscar uh I did it again Jesus Oliver sorry and the senate in terms of advocacy in Sacramento it seems like not maybe not quite so much as the students in the administration or do I have that wrong no because we're not a 501 got it and so like the alumni association and ASUC are so they can do things that we can't um so the things we can do there's a new there's a search for a new president that's going to start happening and we need to be very active in that because we need a we need a president who's going to argue for increased state funding for public education and be successful at it in Sacramento because it's you know the number of students on the Berkeley campus has increased by 10 000 in the last decade but the amount of resources to support that has declined um and that has made the housing issue worse as well so we need this I think this one of the important things the senate needs to do this year is to make sure to do everything possible to have to that the regents will select a president who will support and basically be successful in getting more state support for the universities on the other side I think that and I think this hasn't been figured out yet but I think faculty need to figure out how we can advocate better to the public to support the university somehow we're I mean we're not a private so we can't do certain things and we're not we are very prestigious public university but we don't get enough funding we don't get enough support from our alums and we should be able to do that so the question is why aren't we doing that why aren't we achieving that is it because we come across as being just you know is it our the image that we have from the public is it how we reach out to people is it are we just missing what boat are we missing and I think that's a really I think we should start asking those hard questions because I think there's a lot of amazing faculty here who can advocate for the university and who do who are marvelous at reaching out to different communities and we need their help but we need to figure out how they can help us as well so I play devil's advocate a little bit and some of it's it's a line a pushback line that I think we've heard from politicians in the past and you know very often when the university is making a case for enhanced state support there's the idea of sort of a bloated administration we're hearing less of that because if only because of the significant cuts in the size of the administration here on campus in recent years and at times we've also heard but your faculty are working nine months a year and they're teaching a couple of classes a week so why don't you come back to us once they're actually doing full-time jobs and I'm being devil's advocate here what's your I mean what's the response to that because it seems like there's a cultural disconnect between what's happening here inside the campus walls and at times in the public outside in terms of understanding exactly how we roll right so you know most politicians spend a certain portion of their time in legislative session so should we just support them for the times the number of hours they spend in legislative session no because they're out talking to their constituents they're writing letters of support they're drafting bills all faculty are writing letters of support for students preparing lectures learning how to master the materials so when they stand in front of 150 people they don't sound like an idiot they're dealing with student conduct issues maybe they're writing letters of recommendations for students they're doing a lot of other things outside of that they're writing maybe 10 or 15 proposals with a hit rate of one in 10 if you're lucky with NSF and NIH they're trying to support graduate students they're trying to mentor graduate students they're trying to do a whole the job has a huge spectrum but most of us I think actually really enjoy our jobs and that's you know we love what we talk about and teach so that really helps but the one so the one piece I think that we should be arguing about and the one thing I think Berkeley is we've you know Berkeley has become this sort of punching bag where's what people don't realize is that Berkeley has contributed tremendously to the success of California and the success of Silicon Valley like most of the students in engineering they go to work for Apple they go to work for Google they do all the self-driving cars I mean you know one of the alums from my department helped design your most of you have Apple watches they helped design the Apple watch the feedback mechanism on the on the space of it was designed by a Berkeley mechanical engineering student who has four degrees from Berkeley you know all of these things are Berkeley has helped with and I think we need to push back a little bit and say you know we've done an awful lot for this state we need more state support and you're going to benefit from it we're one of the biggest economies in the world and Berkeley has paid a huge part in that massive and I think we need to sort of stand up for ourselves because and we also need to ask all those people who left here who went to Silicon Valley and became very successful made a lot of money we need to ask them to help us again and we need to say you know you came you got an education you went out and you did a fantastic you have had fantastic success please consider helping others who are going to come through Berkeley in the same way who have needs who have housing needs that they need help with so they can be successful the challenges that they face are different than the ones you faced the state support when you were here when I started was 50% now it's 13 and most of our alums don't really know that yeah they think it's just a bunch of faculty who just like go to lecture for two or three hours a week and then they were off playing golf somewhere you know or rugby we're watching rugby we're going to hang out with our mother question another question for you Oliver from the audience here lectures now teach 40 43 percent of classroom hours but enjoy almost none of the privileges you've hailed decision-making power job security the year the administration they are also woefully underpaid what obligation should the faculty senate have to achieve some degree of equity for their lecturer colleagues I think the senate needs to argue that the so the number of unit 18 lectures on campus is about a thousand what did you call them unit 18 lecturers so these are 18 yeah these are not lecturers so lecturers unit 18 lectures lectures with security of employment or teaching professors so it's about a thousand I think the amount that they're paid to teach classes should be increased and should be improved dramatically I think that's like and I think faculty should get behind that effort the effort to support their resistance within the faculty no I think but I think but part of it is that the negotiations are being done with the University of California system and the unit 18 lecturers and we sort of you know it's almost a separate thing but I think everybody realizes that unit 18 lectures need to be paid more money I think there's there's no question that people don't support that I mean and to chime in I think um please and my uh in my conversations with the union that represents um non senate faculty I know like academic senate I believe or maybe independent members are writing a letter in support of the lecturers as they enter in negotiations I think there's definitely support from like y'all's body as well yeah there is support for the lecturers yeah I mean I think most I think everybody on this in this probably I can't speak for everybody there's generally there's a consensus that we need to provide more support for education and that includes better pay that better pay for the people who teach the classes not just faculty so I'm a question for you sticking we're staying within the dollars and sense realm here how involved is the ASUC with philanthropy efforts and external funding opportunities given rising costs and potential tuition hikes um that's one thing that is a big priority for me for the first time we're writing into our bylaws that we want to have a committee that's in collaboration with the department of alumni relations and I think we have a actually have a meeting with them I think next week to find out how we can be involved I think student voices and student testimonies can be really inspiring to donors sometimes so we're hoping for that but I think we also recognize how hard it is to rely on philanthropy as a sustainable funding mechanism just because for like for one thing so many projects are earmarked for or so many gifts are earmarked for a specific purpose which is amazing like a lot of those purposes are amazing like for example we're having transfer transfer student specific housing though on Oxford and university and that was a donor project that was specifically for that purpose but relying on that is hard because like like one initiative funded a scholarship specifically for black students but now that scholarship isn't able to be continued to the degree it was originally started in because the project just is running out of money and so relying on donor dollars is just creates a really hard system where you don't you can't see the future and you can't create sustainable programs but it's definitely like an avenue that we recognize is so valuable and we want to be involved in any way we can so I want to change subject as we're wrapping up here just a little bit so I'm always very wary of painting with a broad brush when it comes to our faculty or our students but I think a decent argument could be made that this community skews left on the political spectrum we're heading in without talking about politics in particular about you know what's happening today in Washington and electoral politics and all the rest share with us for a second your thoughts about the importance of diversity of perspective and how we ensure there is diversity of perspective given that sort of ideological the broader ideological context of higher education in general and maybe Berkeley and specific um Oliver let me start with you on that wow thanks for the easy question I think it's I think there needs to be more of an emphasis on listening even when the one the person that's what you're hearing is pretty you just completely disagree with it I think we need to become I think this needs to become the era of like free listening I think yeah and we need to that I that's my do you think it's a serious challenge I mean do you think it's something is it a real issue for us or is it oh I think it's a huge issue why because we've become so polarized um we've become so polarized and and you know it's like Rashomon you look at the same scene you know with two people and one person looks at you know a politician a on tv and if the politician is on one side they'll completely you know they will completely on their side they completely agree with what they said and then a person on the other side looks at what the politician says and goes come oh completely disagrees with what they say and it just it feels so skewed right now um and it's in it's a very like I think it also happens on the Berkeley campus that we need to we need to learn how to listen to each other and politics is a like an extreme version of it the other version of it is you know with the opera hearse parking that you know one group of faculty were very much against it and the other group of faculty were you know entrenched and supported it and having those two groups of faculty actually listened to each other and sort of try and find some common ground in the middle was actually very difficult and so I think you know that's sort of a microcosm for this bigger picture but I do think we need to learn how to listen to each other much better than we are right now um but I also think we're in a very you know our country is in a very fragile place yeah this is yeah i'm a what do you um I think I have a slightly different take in the sense that I think I know first hand that speech isn't benign and the problem I think that we a lot of us feel and it might be my perspective I it might not be shared is that when speech isn't benign like there's you enter into such a slippery slope like first like an example is um I'm a senior now so I was around for the Milo protests and I know so many people felt like those protests the concern about his presence on campus was such a restriction of free speech but part of that was because at a previous campus he had revealed the documentation status of an undocumented student that's something that puts people in danger I think so many of these speech issues for example when you see a lot of like misogynistic rhetoric a lot of the time that's accompanied by like sexual violence when you see a lot of like when you see students on campus like some groups making mini wall mini border walls and saying build the wall it conflicts with the ability of our undocumented students to feel safe on this campus it conflicts with their learning it conflicts with their their presence on this campus and I think it's so hard because speeches and English minor I think speeches rarely just speech I think that there would be no point in talking if your words didn't have power so recognizing the impact of different people's words is really hard and it's a very hard line to draw in protecting people's legal right to free speech but recognizing the impacts that has for different students especially vulnerable students and do you see does you think the last question then we'll wrap up do you and do you think the ASDC has roles were sort of entering political high season with presidential elections not too far away has the role in trying to help the campus navigate you know those shoals that you're describing yeah I think our job as a body is to be advocates for advocates for students and I think part of what I see our job is and what I intend to do is pointing out those things that folks might not understand about the way speech affects different marginalized groups on campus and the tangible effects of speech I think that's something that we have as a body pointed out in the past and we intend to point out in future because I think from above it can seem like like a lot of what we do seems like temper tantrums and like we have to be there to explain the real world or the real tangible effects on students in their day-to-day lives like like a group's demonstration that isn't exercise with their free speech will make a student not feel safe getting to campus and administrators might not know that outside bodies might not know that and so we are trying to convey that yeah both of your answers really impact the complexity of that question thanks for that and before we wrap up just to note that the next campus conversation will be on October 15th Tuesday October 15th here at the usual hour with David Robinson the chief campus council which I promise will be a really interesting one because he's got his fingers in every interesting complicated putt on at this university and I just really on behalf of everyone I want to thank Amma and Oliver for really a fascinating conversation