Campus deans and student leaders will meet Tuesday for the second installment of the Future of Public Universities forum, which will feature five speakers who will discuss the roles of taxation, citizenship and protest in the current higher education financial crisis.
The forum — which will take place from noon to 2 p.m. in Wheeler Auditorium — will feature Henry Brady, dean of the Goldman School of Public Policy, campus performance studies professor Catherine Cole, Student Regent Alfredo Mireles, Jr. and Student Regent-designate Jonathan Stein as speakers. Former Stanford University President Donald Kennedy, who is also an expert in environmental science and policy, was recently added to the speaker panel.
The Council of Deans Task Force on the Future of Public Universities has worked since June to organize a series of four forums on public higher education, according to Mark Richards, executive dean for the College of Letters and Science and an organizer of the series.
“We wanted to create a forum or venue to have an open and stimulating conversation about the future of public higher education not only just in Berkeley or California, but really the whole country,” he said.
The October forum focused on social inequality and opportunity and featured UC Berkeley professor of public policy and former U.S. Secretary of Labor Robert Reich. Forum organizers hope to increase the number of student attendees in contrast with the October forum’s low turnout by shortening presentations and including a group discussion segment moderated by ASUC President Vishalli Loomba where the audience can ask questions, Richards said.
Cole, who is currently researching ways of restructuring public education, said her talk will focus on citizenship and protest. She said such forums should have been held earlier after major protests such as the November 2009 Wheeler Hall occupation.
“It comes two years too late, but better late than never,” she said.
She added that in light of recent Occupy protests, it is “very hard for people to have that conversation when our campus doesn’t respect the rights of its own citizens.”
Mireles, who has visited every UC campus to speak about its financial situation, said he will be addressing dwindling state funding for the university.
“I, too, think that the UC should be free,” he said. “But if the state continues to cut and if we want to maintain our level of excellence, we have to be realistic.”
The drastic drop in funding is caused by a shortfall in state revenue, the majority of which comes from income and sales and corporate taxes. Brady’s talk will focus on the role taxation plays in supporting public higher education, which he describes as “the way we pay for things that we want and need.”
“Taxation is the price of civilization,” he said. “Public education is a public good that typically would not be supplied enough without some public support.”
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“…discuss the roles of taxation, citizenship and protest in the current higher education financial crisis.”
Notably absent from discussion is the role of high public employee benefits and pensions, something even a liberal Democrat like Governor Brown is not afraid to bring up. And of course when a bunch of liberals get together they never talk about reducing some social services as a way to fund higher education. Their answer to everything is just tax tax and more tax.
” The drastic drop in funding is caused by a shortfall in state revenue, the majority of which comes from income and sales and corporate taxes. Brady’s talk will focus on the role taxation plays in supporting public higher education, which he describes as “the way we pay for things that we want and need.”
“Taxation is the price of civilization,” he said. “Public education is a public good that typically would not be supplied enough without some public support.”
I hope these folks will address the root cause which is the antibusiness/pro-union, high tax Lib infested environment in Cali. If you promote lower tax rates, growth and employment, the revenues will follow.
If Cali fails to do this, the declining revenue death spiral will continue.