Katehi, faculty agree on message, not who can deliver it

UC Davis Chancellor Linda Katehi on Friday echoed faculty who are calling for a unified amplification of student protester concerns about the price of a University of California education.

Katehi said more tuition increases would be “destructive,” the state was “turning its back” on higher education and that UCD has been “very heavy” with administration.

Some at a special meeting of the Davis division of the Academic Senate expressed doubts, though, that after the Nov. 18 arrest and pepper-spraying of seated, unarmed Occupy UC Davis protesters, Katehi can take a pro-student message to the public.

Others among the approximately 250 people who attended the meeting at the Mondavi Center worried that divisions on campus may be showing through in discussions about the chancellor’s role.

Two petitions are circulating among faculty: one for a vote of no confidence in Katehi, the other for a vote of confidence.

While those votes could take place at the beginning of the winter quarter, faculty representatives did unanimously pass a resolution commending students for speaking out. An encampment remains on the Quad and other protesters are occupying Dutton Hall.

“Universities cannot solve this problem,” Katehi said. “It’s not just the cost we have every year, the health care costs we have every year, it’s the pension issue. The state has turned their back on us, in terms of pension. They don’t contribute a penny.

“That by itself is forcing us to take money away from our students, our faculty, our academic programs to provide for the pension: the promise we’ve made to people who’ve worked so many years for the system.

“We are on a destructive path if the state keeps turning our back on us.”

Katehi said that much of UCD’s $3.2 billion budget is limited in its flexibility, often by restrictions by those funding grants and gifts, but she agreed with faculty that fundraising could be more clearly oriented toward generating student scholarships and reducing campus fees.

“As hard as we work to raise the funds, we cannot match the speed at which the state funds have been taken away from us,” she said. “It’s just a race that we are losing all the time.”

The state has slashed UC and California State University funding by about 25 percent since the start of the recession. Student tuition, meanwhile, has tripled in the past 10 years.

Katehi also agreed with professors about the swollen size of administration.

“When I came to the UC (in August 2009), one of my observations was that the UC, in general, and UC Davis, as part of it, in terms of administrative support, are very heavy,” she said.

UCD is moving toward a shared service center intended to save $25 million between now and 2015-16 and $10 million thereafter. It will do so by reducing 120 to 170 staff positions supporting central administration in human resources, finance and information technology.

That’s one example of what needs to be done, Katehi said.

“Going from there to where we want to be — and we want to be lean and effective — is going to take us time because a university like ours does not have the ability to change quickly,” she said.

UCD also has added some eye-catching salaries at the top under Katehi’s watch, however, including those of Ralph Hexter, provost ($350,000 annual base salary), Harris Lewin, vice chancellor of research ($370,000), and Shaun Keister, vice chancellor for development and alumni relations, a new position ($335,000).

Katehi’s own salary of $400,000 became a bone of contention before she’d even arrived on campus.

At present, signs are that a vote of no confidence in her leadership would likely fall short.

Though many members of the English and physics departments, as well as the board of the 112-member Davis Faculty Association, have called for her resignation, 276 professors have signed onto a letter supporting Katehi in the past week.

“I am struck by a deep division, it seems to me, between the sciences and the social sciences and humanities,” said Anna Kuhn a professor of women and gender studies.

“When I hear my colleagues speak in praise of Chancellor Katehi, it strikes me also that many people on the science side know her personally. Many of us on the humanities and social sciences side do not. I think that that’s unfortunate.”

Carl Whithaus, the director of the University Writing Program, suggested the schism may be between those who primarily teach and those who work in laboratories.

Linda Bisson, chair of the UCD Academic Senate, said that the many emails she’s received from professors showed no such split.

“I think we do need to communicate with each other, we do need to respect different positions, but, at the end of the day, we are one university …,” Bisson said. “I can speak on behalf of the senate and all the folks who have emailed me that there’s one common theme, and that is to maintain access and affordability for all.”

Katehi did have her supporters on Friday. Joel Friedman, a professor emeritus of philosophy, for one, said that, “After the first few days of confusion, I think the chancellor has done a good job of trying to make up for the disaster of Nov. 18.”

More, though, voiced criticism than at town hall with faculty and staff held earlier in the week. There, speakers, who were chosen at random, often praised Katehi’s leadership, if not her handling of the protest.

While she was not often blamed directly by faculty for the actions of police, some professors speaking Friday said that Katehi had set the wheels in motion, then reacted poorly when a video of the pepper-spraying attracted attention from around the world.

“It’s hard for us to envision how you can actually go forward and build the trust you need — not only with the people on this campus, but outside this campus — in order to move forward and realize that vision of a great public university,” said physics professor Daniel Cox.

“The first time you go to the Legislature to talk to them, I can imagine that the first questions they ask will be about pepper spray or it will be in the minds of those legislators. Or when you ask for money from alumni. Or you ask for parents to send their students here, unfortunately, that image will be here.”

Ed Feldman, a professor of veterinary medicine, said he felt “embarrassed” by pepper spray becoming synonymous with UCD.

“I understand that there’s a separation between police and the administration, but someone had to stand up and say, ‘We will not be violent to these children,’ ” he said.

“I’m also angered that the chancellor is telling us about the conversations with students that she’s had over ‘the past two weeks.’ Why isn’t in ‘the last four weeks?’ Why not ‘the last six weeks?’ Why not ‘the last two years?’”

Katehi repeated her refusal to step down, saying great universities weather storms.

UCD can even play a leadership role for universities in putting their focus back on students, she said, starting with her administration.

“We have become, as many other institutions (have), less of a student-centric university than we should have been,” Katehi said.

— Reach Cory Golden at cgolden@davisenterprise.net. Follow him at http://twitter.com/cory_golden.

Short URL: http://www.davisenterprise.com/?p=112410

Posted by Cory Golden on Dec 3 2011.
Last Login: Mon 21 May 2012 03:57:15 PM PDT
Filed under State government, UC Davis. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry