Earlier today, I was perusing through the news section of the Daily Cal’s website and trying to learn about what was happening in the outside world. For the last few days, my life has been spent studying for the impending doom that is midterms. Scrolling down the pages, I noticed a headline that made me stop and wonder If I had read it correctly: “UC Berkeley accidentally sells misplaced artwork valued at over $1 million for less than $200.”
Soon the initial shock passed and I came to understand that this travesty did in fact occur. It’s strange to think that this stupidity occurred at a time when there is so much stress about the financial future of the university, when every day we read in the paper about some kind of protest demanding fiscal responsibility from our leaders. It’s the kind of situation that makes you stop and wonder. The kind of thing that begs the question: who on earth is running this place. HELLO! IS ANYBODY THERE? BARK TWICE IF YOU’RE IN MILWAUKEE!
I had previously thought that UC Berkeley, being a world-class university and all, would have a world-class administration paving the way for future successes. In my time here, however, I have seen fuck-up after fuck-up on behalf of all the people that are supposed to be in charge. First we saw a failure by school officials to secure a more affordable education for UC students. Later we found out that we shouldn’t expect any accountability for the actions or inactions performed by any of these people. And now we learn that the people we are supposed to trust to make all of the important decisions don’t even understand the simplest of concepts in finance. I mean, c’mon! I’m pretty damn sure that if I said, “Oh hey UC Berkeley, instead of paying my full tuition, can I just give you two hundred bucks?” that wouldn’t fly. Sometimes I just wish that there were some way we could gather the administration, slap them in their collective face and say, “Wake the fuck up guys, get your collective shit together.”
As one of the finest universities in the country, people look at UC Berkeley to forge the path forward. Our school is looked at as one of the great accomplishments in public education. This underpriced art incident will probably be insignificant in the grand scheme of things, but right now it is a reflection of an administration that has in recent years failed to rise to the challenges with which it has been presented. To the University, those million dollars lost were just a small fraction of the billions of dollars with which it operates, but it’s the little inconsistencies that lead to bigger problems.