Faculty have no confidence in Katehi
We, the undersigned UC Davis faculty, are compelled by evidence available now to publicly state we have no confidence in the ability of Chancellor Linda Katehi to lead us forward. In our view, the Nov. 18 events and their aftermath have overwhelmed her effectiveness despite her previous accomplishments.
Chancellor Katehi showed poor judgment before the pepper-spray incident by sending the police to remove tents without first personally engaging the Occupy UC Davis students; in so doing, she ignored alternative models for positively moving forward with the activists, as exemplified by actions at Duke and Columbia, or more recently with Occupy San Francisco. She displayed a dangerous ignorance or disregard for the potential for violence given brutal police action against Occupy protests at UC Berkeley, and in Oakland and other cities.
After the incident, following a halting progression of public statements, she claimed to accept responsibility with her words, but in deed distanced herself by directing blame and questions to the police and a vice chancellor. Additionally, the stated rationale to remove the tents (student safety) is belied by more than a week of peaceful, safe encampment.
Finally, the pepper-spray incident has triggered an undeniable international storm of negative discussion and images of the campus and chancellor. This makes her role as chief public spokesperson for the university difficult at best. In particular, we believe she lacks credibility to advocate for the Occupy students’ legitimate concerns (accessible, affordable quality university education without crushing student debt and better post-baccalaureate economic opportunity).
Although we know many of our faculty colleagues continue to back the chancellor while the investigations are under way, we are compelled by the evidence available now and support the pending submission of a petition to the Davis Academic Senate calling for a formal vote of no confidence in her leadership.
Daniel L Cox, Professor of Physics
Patrick Carroll. Professor of Sociology
David Copp, Professor and Chair, Philosophy
Christina Cogdell, Associate Professor, Design
Markus Luty, Professor of Physics
Scott Shershow, Professor of English
Juliana Schiesari, Professor of Comparative Literature
Gregory J. Dobbins, Associate Professor of English
John Conway, Professor of Physics
Clarence Walker, Distinguished Professor of History
Karen Ann Watson-Gegeo, Professor of Education
Richard Scalettar, Professor of Physics
Scott Simmon, Professor and Chair, English
William Lucas, Professor and Chair, Plant Biology
Elizabeth Constable, Associate Professor, Women and Gender Studies
Noah Guynn, Associate Professor of French & Italian
Blake Stimson, Professor of Art History, Cinema and Technocultural Studies Program
Robert May, Professor of Philosophy & Linguistics
Flagg Miller, Associate Professor Religious Studies, Director of the Graduate Group in Religion, Director of the Middle East / South Asia Program
Christyann Darwent, Associate Professor, Anthropology
Daniel Ferenc, Professor of Physics
Naomi Janowitz, Professor, Religious Studies
David J. Webb, Senior Lecturer, Physics
David Wittman, Associate Professor of Physics
Joe Kiskis, Professor of Physics
Joe Wenderoth, Professor of English
Nathan Brown, Assistant Professor of English
Josh Clover, Professor of English
Don Abbott, Professor of English
Roberta Millstein, Professor of Philosophy
Gail Finney, Professor of Comparative Literature and German
Seeta Chaganti, Associate Professor of English
Omnia El Shakry, Associate Professor, History
Elizabeth Freeman, Professor of English
Katayoon (Katie ) Dehesh, Professor, Plant Biology, Chair of Designated Emphesis in
Biotechnology
Hsuan Hsu, Associate Professor, English
Julia Simon, Professor and Chair, Department of French and Italian
Marisol de la Cadena, Professor, Anthropology
Jeff Fort, Assistant Professor of French
Marusa Bradac, Assistant Professor of Physics
Brenda Deen Schildgen, Professor of Comparative Literature
Ali Anooshahr, Associate Professor of History
Steve Boucher, Associate Professor, Agricultural and Resource Economics
Seth Schein, Professor of Comparative Literature
Raúl Aranovich, Associate Professor, Linguistics
Robert Svoboda, Professor of Physics
Marjorie Longo, Professor of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science
Gergely Zimanyi, Professor of Physics
Suad Joseph, Anthropology and Women and Gender Studies
Pieter Stroeve, Distinguished Professor of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science
Jaimey Fisher, Associate Professor of German and Cinema and Technocultural Studies
Marcel Rejmanek, Professor of Evolution and Ecology
Susette Min, Assistant Professor of Asian American Studies
Susan L. Ustin, Professor of Environmental Resource Science, Department of Land, Air, and
Water Resources
Bettina N’gweno, Associate Professor, African and African American Studies
Baki Tezcan, Associate Professor History and Religious Studies
Maxwell Chertok, Professor of Physics
Suzana Sawyer, Associate Professor, Anthropology
Kentaro Inoue, Associate Professor of Plant Sciences
Robert L. Gilbertson, Professor of Plant Pathology
Rida T. Farouki, Professor, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
John Terning, Professor of Physics
Frances Dolan, Professor of English
Robert Ostertag, Professor of Cinema and Technocultural Studies
Michael Carter Professor, Agricultural and Resource Economics
Tim Choy, Associate Professor of Anthropology and Science & Technology Studies
Neil Larsen, Professor of Comparative Literature
Paul A. Erickson, Associate Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
Yin Yeh, Professor Emeritus of Applied Science-Engineering
Quirino Paris, Professor of Agricultural and Resource Economics
Giacomo Bonanno, Professor of Economics
N Sukumar, Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Mani Tripathi, Professor of Physics
James Crutchfield, Professor of Physics
Steve Carlip, Professor of Physics
Hsin-Chia Cheng, Professor of Physics
Sheldon Lu, Professor of Comparative Literature
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I’m a graduate student at UCD, and I thank all the faculty who signed this petition.
I am a graduate student at UCD and also wish to express my appreciation for this letter and those who signed it.
I am an undergraduate student at UC Davis and wish to express my sincere disgust to the faculty for their hasty calls for the Chancellor’s resignation. I want to reiterate what I said to the chair of the English department, and that is that your views do not express the views of all the students, only the views of the most vocal.
I am a UCD alumni and I am proud of the faculty who openly voice their opinions about the leadership at our school. As for Chris Brown, this letter isn’t claiming to speak on behalf of all the students at Davis, just the faculty who are listed above. And maybe you and others who feel the way you do should be as “vocal” about your feelings as these professors are.
I wish the title of this article was ‘->Some<- faculty have no confidence in Katehi'. If you were to glance at the article you might think that this is a view held by all, or nearly all, faculty (which is possibly the case but not all faculty have indicated their position).
The letter from Katehi’s supporters was published on Nov. 30 under the headline “Katehi Has Faculty Support.” Yet Keith Bradham waited until this letter appeared to proclaim his love for the plural indefinite article.
I am a graduate of UC Davis and I thank the faculty for signing this letter. Kathehi must go.
Thank you for writing this letter. You may not express the views of everyone, but you take a stand on principle. The principle that Chancellors have no impunity. The principle that one must accept responsibility for one’s actions. The principle that it is wrong to use force to disperse peaceful protesters. You may not represent everyone, but you represent the best values of free and human inquiry.
I suggest the long list of faculty who signed this letter need to square off against the long list of faculty who signed the opposite letter in a serious game of dodge ball. Winners take all.
Watch the 30 minute video of the incident, not just the hand picked snippets that were originally fed to the press, I think many will change their view of what actually happened (that is if you can be fair minded). The students asked for it.
In her first e-mail to the UC Davis community Katehi said she and her administration had “no option but to ask the police to assist in their [the tents] removal.” Really? I can think of many, many options. At that point, from the other information provided, all she had done was send a letter asking for the tents to be removed. So what other options did she have? — a) approach the students herself and engage them in a discussion of their concerns b) ask a representative such as Fred Wood, the Vice Chancellor for student affairs to talk with the students. c) Suggest the students draft a letter of their complaints and make a time to meet with them later… etc. In other words, I can think of many options — why call in the police when its fairly clear that it would only lead to the kind of mess she now has on her hands. It’s what happened in Berkeley and its what also happened in 2009 when the students were arrested for occupying Mrak. So I think there are some basic points that can be learned from studying Katehi’s management of these events: a) she doesn’t learn from mistakes b) she doesn’t really grasp the financial pressures that a lot of the students are under and c) she has little empathy for student issues (she may have grown already from this experience however). Yes, it appears from the 30 minute video that the police were ‘surrounded’ but they also demonstrated that they could easily have stepped over the seated protesters and left. Using pepper spray was abuse of power and calling the police in the first place could be thought of in that way too — an over-reaction to student problems that could have been handled with a much more nuanced understanding of the situation and a lot more care and compassion.
From today’s San Francisco Chronicle: “San Francisco’s Occupy movement was left reeling after police raided the 142-tent encampment before dawn Wednesday, arrested 70 protesters and confiscated truckloads of goods.”
In the end, San Francisco was unable to resolve the paradox that both the city of Davis and UC Davis will eventually have to face. Namely, that if the establishment embraces it, then it isn’t civil disobedience.
I counted 78 signatures on this letter and noticed that most of them are from the humanities. Is there a reason that few faculty from the hard sciences are among the signatures?
“Is there a reason that few faculty from the hard sciences are among the signatures?”
Yes there is.
J Kerr, Jack Prais: of these there is a sizable fraction from science/math (30 of 78), just fyi. Greg K, it is true that the night this letter was sent the Occupy SF encampment was taken down. At the same time, there was a negotiated tolerance for a two month period and no reported violence at the takedown. In other examples of civil disobedience (e.g., the notable example of Julia Butterfly Hill in the Luna redwood tree) a negotiated, respectful standoff is reached which does not imply an authority complicit as you suggest in civil disobedience.
We must act now to slow UC Davis and UC Berkeley campus brutality. UC Berkeley Chancellor Birgeneau’s campus police report to the chancellor and the campus police take direction from the chancellor. University of California (UC) campus chancellors vet their campus police protocols. Birgeneau allowed pepper spray and use of batons to be included in his campus police protocols.
Chancellor Birgeneau’s campus police use brutal baton jabs on students protesting increases in tuition. UC Berkeley Chancellor Birgeneau and UC Davis Chancellor Katehi are in dereliction of their duties.
Birgeneau and UC Davis Chancellor need to quit or be fired for permitting the brutal outrages on students protesting tuition increases.
Opinions? Email the UC Board of Regents marsha.kelman@ucop.edu
As an alum I could not agree more with these faculty members. It’s the right call. Don’t forget the first group of students she sprayed was the 150 student-athletes who lost their teams because she said she couldn’t afford them anymore. But that was then. Now she wants to “go big time” with football and basketball and is willing to throw tens of millions of dollars into that fool’s game, thus invalidating her previous contention. With this Chancellor this sort of thing will keep happening until we’ve all been sprayed. I’ve seen enough. She must go now.