Note to readers: A version of the following letter was sent from UC Berkeley Professor CatherineCole to her students during the first week of courses in fall 2009. She has adapted the letter to fit a more public context.

September 2, 2009Dear students,As you know, the state of California and the University of California are presently in a major funding crisis. The full landscape of this situation really became clear only in late June/early July2009, which was precisely the time I (like many other faculty) was leaving the country toconduct my research. I followed the emerging situation via e-mail as best I could. The state of California failed yet again to pass a budget, so the university (along with a host of other socialservices) must cope with a sudden and very large cut in state funding. The president of all tencampuses, Mark Yudof, went to the UC Regents in July to ask for the power to declare a state of fiscal emergency, a power that was granted. The Regents have begun mandatory furloughs thatreduce the pay of some faculty and staff. They have also cut the pay of all faculty and staff by 4to 10 percent. In addition, they have raised fees for students. We are all reeling from thesuddenness and unprecedented nature of these changes.I write today because there is a great mobilization effort going on at this very moment. There istalk of a UC-wide system walkout in September. There is talk of a “teach in” about the budgetcrisis in October. And there is talk of a formal vote of no confidence from the Academic Senate. Iam writing to you becauseI want you to know there might be interruptions in the delivery of your education this semester.I want to warn you to be very suspicious of people who talk about the dynamic, mutuallyenriching exchange we have together every day in the classroom as something that is“delivered.” Your education is not a package, and your professors are not Fed Ex.Finally, I want to persuade you that the underlying causes of this disruption in your educationhave profound significance for you. At stake is the prestige of the institution that will grant your degree. The University of California will be at the top of your résumés for the rest of your life.For faculty, the University of California is “just” a line item on one’s work history. I am writingtoday to tell you just how much I care about this particular line item on my résumé. We face acomplex and confusing set of challenges, and while I cannot claim in any way to be an expert, I present below my assessment of the situation as succinctly as possible. It is my opinion thatUniversity of California President Yudof and the Board of Regents are handling this situation inways that are deeply disturbing and destructive.

I can live with a budget cut. I can live with apay decrease for one year, two years, or even three. But I cannot tolerate a fundamentalalteration of the core values of the University of California, the institution I have chosen tomake my academic home. I believe that the changes that President Yudof and the Regentshave been enacting over the past few months will cause such a fundamental alteration.

As someone who has worked for the University of California for 13 years, I can say withoutreservation that I love this university and have chosen to work here, turning down offers to work other places

. I believe deeply in our public mission and the values of access, excellence, andshared governance that are central to our goals.

I am proud to work for a campus of the UCthat is ranked by many as the number one public university in America. I am especially proudand honored to have the opportunity to teach our extraordinary graduate students, and I knowthat for many of them, Berkeley’s values of access and excellence are the main reason they choseus over other institutions. I deeply value the fact that our undergraduate student body isr emarkably diverse. Berkeley has more students on Pell grants (government grants thatf und students with the least economic resources) than all the Ivy League schools put together. Many of my undergrad students are the first in their families to get a higher education. Many of them areworking, sometimes even full time, to put themselves through college. They approach our exchange together in the classroom as a privilege rather than an entitlement, and it is my privilege to teach them because they are so committed, bright, and curious. I went into universityteaching because of the ideals and values that guide my encounters with students every day. I didnot choose this job for the money. I am distressed and deeply concerned that UC's Office of thePresident and the Board of Regents are using the present budget crises to alter the focus andmission of the university in ways that are instrumentalist and utilitarian and that show littlerespect for the role of the liberal arts in producing effective and thoughtful citizens.

I am also concerned about the way the Office of the President and the Board of Regentsshow a lack of respect for shared governance.

Each UC campus has an Academic Senatewhose members include all tenure-track faculty members. This body shares power with thedeans/chancellors and other administrators, and various committees of the senate are intimatelyinvolved in decisions about budget, hiring, promotion, tenure, and all matters with regard tocurriculum.“The Academic Senate operates as a legislative body and as a system of faculty committees. UChas a dual-track system of authority and responsibility which presumes that faculty are bestqualified to chart the University's educational course, while the administrators are mostcompetent to direct its finances and organization. In practice, these domains overlap and areinterdependent. To function successfully, faculty and administrators depend on a high level of consultation, trust, mutual respect and a tradition of collegial collaboration.” (From UCSC senatewebsite. For a rich analysis of the UC’s tradition of shared governance, see HYPERLINK "http://academic-senate.berkeley.edu/about/documents/PP_JD_SharedGov_1.98_1.pdf "http:// academic-senate.berkeley.edu/about/documents/PP_JD_SharedGov_1.98_1.pdf .)The mechanisms in place for our university operations are relatively transparent and democratic,and because of this the University of California has been, historically, a fair and good place toget tenure. This is something that I love to brag about when we are recruiting new junior faculty.Unlike the process at most private universities, at UC, one’s path through the tenure process isclearly articulated. There are checks and balances all along the way. A candidate can requestcopies of pivotal assessment documents, and he or she has recourse to appeals. What this means

is that one’s future is not contingent upon one key relationship: that between the untenured professor and his or her chair or dean. Compared to many private universities, UC faculty arerelatively protected from having personal vendettas or patronage relationships determine their futures. This shared governance system doesn’t operate quickly. It’s slow and deliberate and a lotof smart people weigh in, keeping the organization’s eyes on both the fiscal bottom line and thestandards of academic excellence and integrity that are central to our mission.

Shared governance was suspended in July when President Yudof and the Regents declareda fiscal state of emergency and launched the Gould Commission on the Future of theUniversity of California

. The Gould Commission is supposed to redefine the future of theUniversity of California. (See HYPERLINK "http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/article/21526"http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/article/21526

) This commission is to“change how we do business,” in the words of Yudof. It is the centrality of the word “business”in Yudof’s phrasing that sends a clear indication of the direction that future will take if we decideto follow his leadership. I did not go into a “business” when I decided to pursue a PhD. I wentinto a profession--the profession of higher education. This profession is built around the corevalues of teaching, research, and public service.In its first iteration, the composition of the Gould Commission did not include one professor from the Colleges of Letters and Sciences on the ten UC campuses. Faculty representation on thecommission (which was minor) came only from the professional schools, specifically medicine.The signal this sends is that professional degrees (and, tellingly, the most profitable ones, theones that garner private and corporate monies) will be central to the future of the UC but thatdisciplines like biology, art, physics, literature, math, anthropology, sociology, linguistics,theatre, and rhetoric are not important.

Historically within the UC, such a commission wouldnever have been formed without consultation through the university's shared governancestructures, which include Academic Senates on all ten campuses and a UC-wide AcademicSenate.

The scope of the mission of the Gould Commission is of profound significance to both thecurricular/education and organizational/financial future of the entire University of California.Forming such a commission without widespread consultation with faculty, forming such a commission with so little faculty representation, and having that limited faculty representationinclude such a highly selective set of disciplines certainly violates the mutual trust and respectupon which our shared governance is based. If faculty are best qualified to chart the university'seducational course, shouldn't they be widely represented on and be consulted about such animportant commission from its inception? The commission's mandate includes such topics as"What educational delivery models will both maintain quality and improve efficiency for theuniversity's future?" There’s that word “delivery” I spoke about earlier. It means

teaching

. Thecommission is asking which models of

instruction

will be most effective. These are matters of curriculum! As such, they are really matters pertaining directly to faculty.