UC Campuses Revolt
Update 1:01 p.m.
University Professional and Technical Employees join the UC walkout in response to UC president Mark Yudorf’s unfair labor practices and recent state funding cuts.
According to the UPTE Media advisory, not only are students feeling the affects of the fee hikes, enrollment cuts, and increased class sizes, UC executives are receiving salary increases while technical and labor workers are taking hits with work furloughs and pay cuts.
In a UC Regents minutes report released on September 17, several UC executives were given higher salaries. Some increases were as high as $45,000 from an annual salary of $180,000 to $225,000 to Assistant Vice President Barbara Allen Diaz of the Agricultural and Natural Resources, UCOP.
“With one hand, they furlough frontline employees who provide essential services, and with the other, they grant UC’s top officials lavish pay raises. It’s unconscionable,” said Carolan Buckmaster, UPTE’s San Diego president and staff researcher.
Full article can be accessed at: http://www.upte.org/about/press/2009-09-24.pdf
Full Regents minute report can be accessed at: http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/regents/aar/septc.pdf
Michael Jaramillo
Arts and Entertainment Editor
Some students sit out the walkouts
Update 12:06 p.m.
Walkouts are in progress throughout the state to protest budget cuts in education, fee hikes and class cancellations but not all students are ready join the cause.
Elaine Wang, an 18-year-old UC Riverside freshman, said the walkout is important, but she and her freshman peers do not know if they should join the movement or not.
“As freshmen, some of us are really confused,” Wang said. “But the budget cuts are a real time crisis. They affect faculty and students greatly.”
The 19-year-old UCLA junior Jessica Chu expressed a similar view.
“I think it is definitely important for us [students and faculty] as a school to demonstrate our opinions on issues as important as this one,” Chu said. “By walking out, students are able to display their unhappiness in a way that is rational and non-violent.”
She added that it is important not only to make a statement but also to do so in a way that is beyond reproach.
Angela Tsai
Opinion Editor
Protesters stand minimally clothed to protest fee hikes Tuesday. Photo courtesy of The Sacramento Bee.
Naked protest at UC Davis Tuesday set stage for today’s walkouts
Update 11:27 p.m.
Walkouts are planned at several UC and CSU campuses today including Cal Berkley, Cal State Fullerton and UC Davis.
The Sacramento Bee reported that UC Davis activist Sarah Raridon, 21, and about a dozen others protested fee hikes Tuesday. They held signs advocating a walkout today and encouraging others to join in the article said.
Ashley Khawsy, 20,a student at UC Davis, confirmed reports of campus protests today.
“There’s a picket line around the perimeter of my campus and a rally planned at noon in our quad,” she said.
Khawsy supports the walk out movement and said that the faculty and students are the ones suffering during these drastic budget cuts.
“The UCs are public schools and are supposed to be affordable but with all the tuition hikes planned, only the upper-class or more well off will be able to afford a public university education, which defeats the point of a public school.”
Khawsy also confirmed reports of a protest of students stripping down to their underwear in order to show their displeasure with the states cut of education funding.
In a statement on the UC Davis website Chancellor Linda Katehi said,”When UC decided that faculty furlough days could not be taken on instructional days, it was thinking of students. Even in this financial crisis, the university wants to do everything it can to ensure that you continue to receive a world-class education.”
1,221 professors have signed an online pledge at ucfacultywalkout.com to participate in the protests today.
The Daily Clog, a blog by Cal Berkeley’s Daily Californian newspaper, has a list of events planned at that campus. It can be accessed by visiting the blog at http://clog.dailycal.org/2009/09/23/your-guide-to-walkout-festivities/ .
Frank Cardenas
News Editor
ABC 7 video on walk outs
Video courtesy of abc 7 news.
UC walk-outs planned
Students and faculty are walking out this morning across all 10 UC campuses in protest of budget cuts and layoffs.
The walkouts began at 7 a.m. at all major UC campuses and are continuing the throughout the day.
State and community colleges are also participating in the walkouts. Mt. SAC’s large student community is going to join the rally at 10 a.m.
The walkouts are gaining momentum through social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter.
Staff Writers
Shadi Jurdi and Mo Torres
