Note to readers: A version of the following letter was sent from UC Berkeley Professor Catherine Cole to her students during the first week of courses in fall 2009. She hasadapted the letter slightly to fit the more public context of this website.

September 2, 2009Dear students,As you know, the state of California and the University of California are presently in amajor funding crisis. The full landscape of this situation really became clear only in lateJune/early July 2009, which was precisely the time I (like many other faculty) wasleaving the country to conduct my research. I followed the emerging situation via e-mailas best I could. The state of California failed yet again to pass a budget, so the university(along with a host of other social services) must cope with a sudden and very large cut instate funding. The president of all ten campuses, Mark Yudof, went to the UC Regents inJuly to ask for the power to declare a state of fiscal emergency, a power that was granted.The Regents have begun mandatory furloughs that reduce the pay of some faculty andstaff. They have also cut the pay of all faculty and staff by 4 to 10 percent. In addition,they have raised fees for students. We are all reeling from the suddenness andunprecedented nature of these changes.I write today because there is a great mobilization effort going on at this very moment.There is talk of a UC-wide system walkout in September. There is talk of a “teach in”about the budget crisis in October. And there is talk of a formal vote of no confidencefrom the Academic Senate. I am writing to you because

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I want you to know there might be interruptions in the delivery of your educationthis semester.

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I want to warn you to be very suspicious of people who talk about the dynamic,mutually enriching exchange we have together every day in the classroom assomething that is “delivered.” Your education is not a package, and your professors are not Fed Ex.

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Finally, I want to persuade you that the underlying causes of this disruption inyour education have profound significance for you. At stake is the prestige of theinstitution that will grant your degree. The University of California will be at thetop 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 amwriting today to tell you just how much I care about this particular line item on myrésumé. We face a complex and confusing set of challenges, and while I cannot claim inany way to be an expert, I present below my assessment of the situation as succinctly as possible. It is my opinion that University of California President Yudof and the Board of Regents are handling this situation in ways that are deeply disturbing and destructive.

Ican live with a budget cut. I can live with a pay decrease for one year, two years, oreven three. But I cannot tolerate a fundamental alteration of the core values of theUniversity of California, the institution I have chosen to make my academic home. I

believe that the changes that President Yudof and the Regents have been enactingover 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 saywithout reservation that I love this university and have chosen to work here, turningdown offers to work other places

. I believe deeply in our public mission and the valuesof access, excellence, and shared governance that are central to our goals.

I am proudto work for a campus of the UC that is ranked by many as the number one publicuniversity in America. I am especially proud and honored to have the opportunity toteach our extraordinary graduate students, and I know that for many of them, Berkeley’svalues of access and excellence are the main reason they chose us over other institutions.I deeply value the fact that our undergraduate student body is remarkably diverse.Berkeley has more students on Pell grants (government grants that fund students with theleast economic resources) than all the Ivy League schools put together. Many of myundergrad students are the first in their families to get a higher education. Many of themare working, sometimes even full time, to put themselves through college. They approachour exchange together in the classroom as a privilege rather than an entitlement, and it ismy privilege to teach them because they are so committed, bright, and curious. I wentinto university teaching because of the ideals and values that guide my encounters withstudents every day. I did not choose this job for the money. I am distressed and deeplyconcerned that UC's Office of the President and the Board of Regents are using the present budget crises to alter the focus and mission of the university in ways that areinstrumentalist and utilitarian and that show little respect 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 Regents show a lack of respect for shared governance.

Each UC campus has anAcademic Senate whose members include all tenure-track faculty members. This bodyshares power with the deans/chancellors and other administrators, and variouscommittees of the senate are intimately involved in decisions about budget, hiring, promotion, tenure, and all matters with regard to curriculum.“The Academic Senate operates as a legislative body and as a system of facultycommittees. UC has a dual-track system of authority and responsibility which presumesthat faculty are best qualified to chart the University's educational course, while theadministrators are most competent to direct its finances and organization. In practice,these domains overlap and are interdependent. To function successfully, faculty andadministrators depend on a high level of consultation, trust, mutual respect and a traditionof collegial collaboration.” (From UCSC senate website. For a rich analysis of the UC’stradition of shared governance, seehttp://academic-senate.berkeley.edu/about/documents/PP_JD_SharedGov_1.98_1.pdf .)The mechanisms in place for our university operations are relatively transparent anddemocratic, and because of this the University of California has been, historically, a fair and good place to get tenure. This is something that I love to brag about when we arerecruiting new junior faculty. Unlike the process at most private universities, at UC, one’s

path through the tenure process is clearly articulated. There are checks and balances allalong the way. A candidate can request copies of pivotal assessment documents, and heor she has recourse to appeals. What this means is that one’s future is not contingent uponone key relationship: that between the untenured professor and his or her chair or dean.Compared to many private universities, UC faculty are relatively protected from having personal vendettas or patronage relationships determine their futures. This sharedgovernance system doesn’t operate quickly. It’s slow and deliberate and a lot of 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 Regentsdeclared a fiscal state of emergency and launched the Gould Commission on theFuture of the University of California

. The Gould Commission is supposed to redefinethe future of the University of California. (Seehttp://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/article/21526

) This commission is to “changehow we do business,” in the words of Yudof. It is the centrality of the word “business” inYudof’s phrasing that sends a clear indication of the direction that future will take if wedecide to follow his leadership. I did not go into a “business” when I decided to pursue aPhD. I went into a profession--the profession of higher education. This profession is builtaround the core values 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. Facultyrepresentation on the commission (which was minor) came only from the professionalschools, specifically medicine. The signal this sends is that professional degrees (and,tellingly, the most profitable ones, the ones that garner private and corporate monies) will be central to the future of the UC but that disciplines like biology, art, physics, literature,math, anthropology, sociology, linguistics, theatre, and rhetoric are not important.

Historically within the UC, such a commission would never have been formedwithout consultation through the university's shared governance structures, whichinclude Academic Senates on all ten campuses and a UC-wide Academic Senate.

The scope of the mission of the Gould Commission is of profound significance to boththe curricular/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 limitedfaculty representation include such a highly selective set of disciplines certainly violatesthe mutual trust and respect upon which our shared governance is based. If faculty are best qualified to chart the university's educational course, shouldn't they be widelyrepresented on and be consulted about such an important commission from its inception?The commission's mandate includes such topics as "What educational delivery modelswill both maintain quality and improve efficiency for the university's future?" There’sthat word “delivery” I spoke about earlier. It means

teaching

. The commission is askingwhich models of

instruction

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