Campus representatives exchange views on budget crisis

“We’re in a great deal of trouble,” said Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost Scott Waugh, describing a situation which originally began as budget cuts for one academic year but “turned starkly grimmer” as the state’s budget problems worsened. “As dependent as the core of our institution is on the state budget,” he said, “this has had an absolutely devastating effect — as you all know, because you’ve all personally experienced this, either as students with increased fees or faculty and staff with a reduction in your income.”  

 

For the current fiscal year, UCLA faces a budget shortfall of about $100 million, according to Steve Olsen, vice chancellor for budget, finance and capital programs.

 

The state budget cut to UCLA is actually $131 million, plus additional unfunded costs such as utilities and health insurance premiums. However, savings from staff and faculty furloughs plus revenue from a student fee increase this quarter bring the shortfall to $100 million.

 

The magnitude of this deficit and a state budget that continues to falter, Waugh said, have campus leaders “taking the position that we have to prepare for the worst,” including the consideration of long-term institutional changes that can be made without compromising quality education and research.

 

“It’s going to require our effort over a number of years. But I’m confident we can do it,” Waugh said, adding, “We’re looking forward to working with everybody in the community to find solutions to these problems … and keeping UCLA a great university.”

 

Claudia Mitchell-Kernan, dean of the Graduate Division and vice chancellor of graduate studies, said that UC is not alone in its difficulties: “For nearly two decades, it has been evident that public universities are faced with a common challenge: how to maintain and enhance quality in an era of scarce resources.”

 

The problem is exacerbated in California, where support of public education as a whole has declined. “The train has really been off the tracks for decades,” Mitchell-Kernan said.

 

She also spoke of the danger of losing hard-won ground in “the struggle to achieve diversity,” an issue that was echoed by several speakers as well as concerned audience members.

 

Robin Garrell, UCLA’s Academic Senate chair and professor of chemistry and biochemistry, shared insights from an Oct. 14 Academic Assembly meeting at which UC President Mark Yudof spoke with faculty leaders from all ten UC campuses. Yudof’s goals, she said, are “to stabilize UC’s budget, reset the funding basis and fight like hell with Washington and Sacramento for support.” State support, she said, comes to $7,778 per student today, down almost 50 percent since 1990, when the state contributed $15,000 per student.

 

Garrell urged faculty members to take on advocacy roles for the university, from joining UCLA Government and Community Relations’ Bruin Caucus to publishing op-eds.

 

UCLA students talked about the effects of budget cuts in their academic lives and those of fellow students. Undergraduate molecular biology major D’Juan Farmer, financial supports commissioner for UCLA’s Undergraduate Student Association Council, expressed concerns about cutbacks in such valued resources as writing classes. Miguel Lopez, a student in the Graduate School of Education & Information Studies and vice president of the Graduate Students Association, pointed to increased class sizes, which, for him, as a teaching assistant, “compromises the quality of education.”

 

Two speakers criticized steps already taken by UC leadership in response to the budget crisis. Robert Samuels, a lecturer in the Writing Programs and president of the University Council of the American Federation of Teachers, said that President Yudof “shouldn’t have come up with [student] fee increases” but “should have forced the governor to make an agreement.”

 

Mark Sawyer, associate professor of Afro-American studies and political science and director of UCLA’s Center for the Study of Race, Ethnicity and Politics, said that faculty furloughs cause a “substantial loss of credibility to the university” and that this has repercussions in future faculty recruitment and retention.

 

Sawyer also advised critics of UC leadership to “drop the waste, fraud and abuse talk,” saying that it only serves to further erode public support. Instead, Sawyer said, “Focus on sounding the alarm and getting students and faculty working together.”

 

Also speaking at the colloquium was George Lakoff, UC Berkeley professor of linguistics and cognitive science, who is seeking voter support for an initiative to restore majority rule — in place of the current two-thirds vote — in the California legislature on matters related to the budget.