mikecerang

what are your views on this historic event that affects all of the UC system?

Lightsout565

For those who have no idea
Walkout called over UC budget cuts

hoedown

IMO, they'll be preaching to the choir. It will get positive attention from those who are sympathetic to higher education and who feel that cutting higher education is shortsighted.

Those who already have negative views of the University system will dismiss it as an insensitive, out-of-touch gesture from a bunch of spoiled, overprivileged ivory tower types. I am sure we can look forward to reaction like, "How dare they complain, when they get paid $100,000+ for six hours per week of actual work, plus summers off." Because, of course, a professor is only working when he is lecturing in front of a class. *rolleyes*

Undergirding it all is my pessimism that CA could do anything to change the dire funding situation.

I would think its primary benefit might from a morale standpoint--it must be hard to just have all this negative news handed down, with nothing to do but take it. A walkout is a statement, and maybe people really need to make one.

maxellis

What is this, high school?

Bay

I think it is stupid. Do they think the administration doesn't already know they are not happy about budget cuts and increased tuition? Who in the world would be happy about these things? Duh.

hmom5

Who isn't sympathetic? And is there anyone in CA who thinks UC students or profs are spoiled?

There is a simple reality: the money just isn't there. CA has made an amazing number of horrendously stupid fiscal decisions and there is no government run entity that will not participate in making up for them.

No amount of protesting will make the funds appear.

And do we really agree the profs should have the right to cut teaching days and already short office hours? Will it benefit the students to let them do that as opposed to cutting their beloved research days? I think the students don't even know what they'll be protesting in this case.

While a 30% increase is a bitter pill, it still leaves these schools a relative bargain.

CA needs to get real.

hoedown

I assumed--perhaps mistakenly--that CA had the same kind of detractors that MI has. It is very much the case in my state that some people do not value the contributions of higher education; they think that it's a private, not public good, and that campuses are rife with idleness and irrelevancy.

seano314

Unless the students and staff participating in the walk out plan to raise a few million dollars during the day's time, the walkout will only make a bad situation worse.

rebelambitions

I'm a USC student and while I admire the ambition these students have, I agree with one of the previous posters about "preaching to the choir". A walkout isn't going to do anything but annoy administrators. The real battle is in Sacramento; protest to the state legislators, not school employees. What makes any of these students think that the faculty have any say in the states fiscal planning? The cuts come from the state, the administrators are FORCED to find ways to cut spending to compensate. I'm sure theyve exhausted all options too. I feel bad for the UC system, no school deserves to have their state funding cut so drastically and CA has made this practice all too common. From a Trojan to the Bruins: best of luck in your fight against the idiots in Sacramento.