14 protesters arrested at UC regents meeting in San Francisco

Fourteen people were arrested today for disrupting a UC regents meeting in San Francisco with protests and chants against employee pay cuts and proposed student fee increases. Shouting “Whose university? Our university!”, the demonstrators had their hands bound behind their backs by UC police and were escorted out of the meeting room at the Mission Bay campus of UC San Francisco.

The meeting resumed after about 15 minutes. The demonstrators were to be cited for trespassing and unlawful assembly and would be released without bail, police said.

The regents are meeting today and Thursday to discuss a proposal to hike system-wide undergraduate student fees by an additional $2,514 over the next year, starting with a mid-year increase this winter. If approved by the regents in November, the basic UC undergraduate fees would rise to $10,302 by next fall, which would be about 44% more than in the fall 2008. The first portion would be a $585 rise for the rest of the current school year starting in time for the winter quarter or spring semester.

-- Larry Gordon

Comments

[Ty Ladd]

University of California, Berkeley is going pro”with its endowment that is. The university has set up a new investment firm to manage a $736 million fund, which until now has been run by a team of volunteers through the not-for-profit University of California, Berkeley Foundation.
The new entity, UC Berkeley Management Company, will be run by John-Austin Saviano, who was named president and CIO. Saviano most recently was a senior consultant in the Menlo Park, Calif. office of investment consulting firm Cambridge Associates.
This is a turning point for the UC Berkeley Foundation endowment, said Scott Biddy, president of the UCBF. With diminished state support that now accounts for just one-fourth of the campus budget, this is a critical time to launch this effort. The University needs a variety of revenue streams to achieve a stable and secure financial future, and managing and building the endowment is key to this objective.
The total UC Berkeley endowment is estimated at $2.3 billion as of June 30. This reflects the combined value of separate endowment pools managed by the UCBF (valued at $736 million as of June 30) and the UC Regents (estimated at $1.6 billion as of June 30).

[tom]

"Whose university? Our university!" How cute. Grown men and women protesting that somebody else should pay for their education. Why is that again?

[Luz]

Apparently, Tom does not understand the concept of "public education."

[viewer]

With all due respect, these are hard times for everyone, including the people who are paying for the University through their taxes. Get a summer job -- you'll be able to raise $215.40.

[viewer]

With all due respect, these are hard times for everyone, including the people who are paying for the University through their taxes. Get a summer job -- you'll be able to raise $2514.40.

[Luna M]

Dear Tom:

Starting one's adult life by being $100000 in red due to tuition fees is as absurd as it can be. Not many people can afford it. Working to pay for studies frequently leads to poor class performance... Students should focus first on their education. It's the only way they will be able to outperform competitors from other countries where public education is accessible to most adults.
In an advanced socio-economic society, education should be a priority. Unless you think that we can balance the budget by becoming a body-building champion and enter politics later on.
One last thought: I hope that you are not one of the people complaining that better-trained, better-educated foreigners are taking your jobs. It's pure capitalist competition, you know.

[Ty Ladd]

With the creation of the new entity, UC Berkeley Management Company, the endowment will be managed by a professional staff overseen by a dedicated board of directors. The average salaries of professional managers who manage an endowment of this size range from $350,000 to $700,000; for endowments valued from $1 billion to $2 billion, the range is $600,000 to $800,000.

Hooray! More work for the wealthy!

[James Leech]

I think the protestors primary objection is how the university is allocating resources. It has been in the news and should surprise no one to hear that the cost/burden the student incurs has far outpaced increases in wages. Recently my law school has announced it will increase tuition 14% over the next two years. Where is this extra money going? I think this is the million dollar question. How can schools who educate youth justify raising tuition (increasing the debt burden young people must bear) fasting than wages grow? These are difficult questions. I have no idea where the extra tuition goes. Maybe the increasing technological world demands it, but the law school still primarily consists of a professor (with a book) lecturing in front of a hundred law students. In a way, one generation is drowning another generation in debt and the question we should all ask ourselves is whether or not the student is benefiting from his school spending more.

[B T]

$10K per year is a lot of money. It is a terrible situation to raise fees like this. But it would still be a bargain at twice the price. Ask the students at Stanford, UOP, USC, or Santa Clara Uni. What would ANY of the UCs cost, if the state were not paying MOST of the bills at it is?

Public Education at the university level is not just handing out freebies. People will just have to work harder for what they want.

[Ke]

Hard for students to get summer jobs when, because of cutbacks, they have to take classes year-round just to graduate in something approaching four years. Some of the UCs are considering offering required courses (like English Comp) only in the summer as they can get more money this way in fees. When I went to college in the 1980s, yes, students could spend leisurely summers working (I attended summer school one year out the four), but that's no longer feasible if you intend to complete college before you're 30.

[Mike]

We Californians are a pretty self-destructive lot. In the name of limiting taxes, we are starving our once world-class university system. This, in turn, contributes to our economic woes, since we are failing to produce the same number of employable graduates who help fuel our economic health. Even those who show contempt for the American tradition of public education will feel the negative effects of its steady deterioration. There are not a lot of lifeboats on this ship.

[Andrea]

"Get a summer job." An easy lament from someone who knows nothing about the students who attend the UC. A great many of the undergraduates in the UC are already working half- to full-time during the regular school year and holidays to pay for their education, barely making ends meet as it is. Your brush-off supposes that UC students do not work, and that $2514.40 is an insignificant sum to them. You are so very wrong on both these counts.

For the citizens of California to not realize that the University (and CSU and community colleges) belongs to them and not just the people running or attending it is a great travesty, and it worries me greatly. This is a PUBLIC university, and to treat it as anything but would be a great disservice to the tax-paying citizens of this state.

[BOB]

Get a summer job? In this economy? HA

[Big Sam]

Whose university? The State of California. The position of the protesters were either 1) being a student (which I hope the Dean of Students remedies and shows these snots the door or, 2) a disgruntled employee, who instead of being grateful for having a job, when so many others do not, the Personnel Department should show them the door.

There is a time and place for everything. I may not agree with the President, but I would not yell at him in front of the other members of Congress...I could not think of anything more low class than what was done to him and the signal it sent to leaders in other countries that our President is not to be taken seriously because he was not even shown the courtesy his office demands.

The reason I mention these two seemingly unrelated news stories, is because they are related. There is a time and a place for everything, and once this country gets over this Mau-mau'ing the regents or the President just to catch their five minutes of fame, and instead are shown the back of a patrol car, then perhaps a kinder more gentler nation will emerge having first having been forged from a not so kind response to these types of outbursts.

[deadbear]

As I understand it, the arrestees were UC staff (not students) protesting the Regents' and UC President's mishandling of state revenue reductions. Also was a large crowd outside raising up a storm.

[Rich Gibson]

The AAUP and the Rouge Forum and many others have endorsed the September 24 UC walk out. When they say Cutback, We say Fight Back. There is a direct line of the promise of perpetual wars and bad jobs or no jobs to booming inequality to education and service cuts. That line can only be broken by direct action from rank and file people who understand that what is afoot, everywhere, is intense class war masked by nationalism, racism, religious hatred, etc. Connecting reason to power is the counterbalance.

[Marlena]

Gee "Big Sam" arresting people for speaking out........ that's something they would have done at Tara.

[shawna]

price is going up and qaulity is going down. this is not a sustainable path if we expect UC to stay the well established and honorable school system it is. let's not forget how it has contributed to our local, state and national community.

[Jaime Ocampo]

Where is the bailout for our universities? It is a shame that we as tax payers have to provide billions of dollars to all these greedy people and we cannot supply an affordable education to our youth. I pay almost 50% of taxes and we don't have an affordable health system or education system. Where is that money going? Oh I forgot its for all those greedy , disgusting Wall Street people.

[melissa]

STUDENTS pay more for an education giving less.
FACULTY wages cut, while workload increases.

upper management in bed with privatized companies.

hell yea, RISE UP.

[HOMERUN]

Hopefully protesting the proposed education fee hikes...wow...
What can help keep fee hikes at zero...is to eliminate some people on the uc payroll that have no business being on the state employee payroll...
there are some who put themselves off to the public as a private business to clients who need their services...
Since they are on the state employee payroll with benefits then their clients out in the private sector of business is actually getting a conflict of interest person...
only looking out for their employer interest - the state - when there is an matter between state and a private person client...conflict of interest.
They need to be taken off the public payroll because they mis-represent themselves as a private sector business.

[Nancy Ellis]

How do other industrial nations manage to educate their population without cost to the students?

Even Cubans get free education at the college level.

nellis

[allie]

I hardly doubt the people who stormed in the room in protest were people seeking 15 minutes of fame. Sometimes drastic measures have to be taken in order to have your voice be heard. You really think the Regents have enough time to listen to the plight of people in their leisure time? These are people who should take pay cuts themselves, and are relatively sitting pretty and unaffected compared to those beneath them.

If screaming and protesting is the only way to show a powerful entity that this is sucking the soul out of you, then so be it. It's not as if you could just call and make an appointment. Do you have any idea how hard it is to talk to people in higher positions? It's as if they have no time for those who have legitimate concerns, like those shelling out the extra $2000.

Shortfall, yes. Times of crisis, yes. Are people simply pulling money out of their butts? No.

[vincent]

for those like Tom, viewer, and B T who seem to doubt the need for higher education reform--think about this:

in 1972, the Federal Pell Grant program covered 72% of higher education costs. Last year, the Federal Pell Grant only covered 32% of these costs.

What happened? there's a systemic problem in the "marketplace" of higher education that seems to place greater value in competing to produce the next biggest scientific innovation, rather than investing in sustainable growth. i am not against innovative ideas. i am against the means by which achieving these ideas limits access and opportunity. and thus far, it seems to me that administrators are more concerned about where they stand in the US News & World Report annual rankings, than they are with meeting the educational needs of students.

see here for more info: www.studentsoverbanks.com

[wholesalers]

Why is that again?