In an interview Tuesday, UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert Birgeneau responded to criticism of the controversial report he and other campus officials released Monday urging for increased local governance at UC campuses.
The proposal — which recommends that campuses be given control over approval of capital projects, academic programs and salaries — was criticized by UC President Mark Yudof in a Monday statement. Members of the campus community, who do not support devolving certain financial powers to individual campuses, have also expressed disapproval of the proposal.
“I’m troubled by the possibility of campuses setting student tuition and their own scale for faculty pay,” said Jonathan Stein, the UC Student Regent-designate. “It has the potential to make … ‘flagship’ UC campuses more expensive and harder to access for middle-class students.”
In the Tuesday interview, Birgeneau said the proposal was made public to initiate a discussion on how UC governance should evolve.
“It’s a natural evolution of the UC system because the UC system has always been agile in adapting to the realities of the situation at that time,” he said.
The proposal comes at a time of transition for the campus and the university, with Birgeneau expected to step down as chancellor at the end of the calendar year and pressure by student leadership to increase student involvement in systemwide governance.
The UC Student Association has begun pushing the UC Board of Regents to add non-voting student members to most board committees, and ASUC student leaders opened an application process for UC Berkeley students to directly interact with the Yudof-convened search committee to select Birgeneau’s replacement at their first meeting on May 4.
As a response to prior complaints by students, the proposal suggests appointing two students to be voting members of the proposed campus boards that UC regents would also sit on.
According to Birgeneau, the proposal was written after extensive discussions with Yudof, UC Academic Senate chair Robert Jacobsen, various UC chancellors, two UC regents and campus student leadership.
Yet it has been met with criticism by campus School of Information Professor Yale Braunstein, who contends that there is “considerable evidence that the quality of local decision-making is not high enough to justify devolving any additional budget or financial powers to the campuses.”
Birgeneau said the proposal will continue to change as input is received from members of the campus community.
“Let me emphasize that this is meant to be a working document, and it’s our best thoughts, but we don’t pretend that we have the final answer,” Birgeneau said. “So we expect this to evolve over time, and student input will be an important part of it.”
Amruta Trivedi is the lead academics and administration reporter.
Correction(s):
A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that UC Berkeley chancellor Robert Birgeneau consulted with UC Academic Senate chair Robert Anderson. In fact, he consulted with Berkeley Division of the Academic Senate chair Robert Jacobsen.
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So fitting that Birgeneau pushes for this now, as he’s already on the way out.
What you needed was a real leader who would have stood up at the beginning of Fall 2010 and said to the students and faculty “I’m going to buck the Regents, and we’re going to take control of this situation, because if we don’t, it will be worse for the faculty, staff and research in the long run and we’ll never get student costs under control – now who’s with me?” Things could have been done. The VAST majority of the campus-by-campus shortfalls are due to health and pension. People could have stepped up and put it on the line and volunteered to go without for a short period of time. Bureaucratic resistance to UCOP and the Regents’ directives could have been accomplished. Let people sue and threaten to sue — the point would be to push the political process to solution. Yeah, whoever was chancellor in that situation would probably lose their job and would probably have been removed — which would only have emboldened the faculty and students.
The problem was that Yudof skillfully bought off the faculty and administrators early on by promising to protect them and their benefits relative to the staff and students. By accomplishing a divide and conquer strategy, there was no base for a university president to build a rebellion on. Now, NOW of course they are starting to realize that Yudof’s promises were all bs anyways and that the university will be hurt more in the long run and NOW they realize the opportunity to take control that they HAD and WASTED. But, you know, these things require sacrifice and being willing to go without, and doing things that comfortable, insulated academics and administrators at other schools don’t have to do. So, if you don’t want to do it the hard way, if you don’t want someone to stand up and lead and put it on the line, then you get this gutless, anemic, two-years-after-the-fact-when-it-might-have-been-remotely-useful report from a lame duck, which will hit everyone in their now-entrenched positions (which offer no hope of actually solving anything, just perpetuating the unsustainable), generate some brief explosions, and then be ignored as the downward spiral continues.
Over a 20 year period, the Berkeley campus administration allowed the Division of Intercollegiate Athletics to create a $156 million in debt for the campus – with no plan or ability to repay it. And that does not include the ongoing stadium renovation: another $270 million in unfunded liability. FAIL.
Shocking incompetence, to say the least. Why does Birgeneau think decisions belong in the hands of local administrators who have a track record of irresponsible failure?
A UCPD cop lied to me about section 626 of the CA state penal code. The officer claimed the CA legislature delegated authority to make criminal law – even to regulate firearms – to the Regents. When I look at the text of the law provided by the state, I see that this is flatly false (at least from the time of that conversation to the present).
UC is always crowing about how the grad. students here are the ‘best and brightest’, yet they think we are too lazy or stupid to simply look at the text of the law, as provided by the state. FAIL.
Even calling in a simple plumbing repair on campus results in absurdity. I called departmental building maintenance four times over the course of a month, every time they said ‘we’re on it’ but took no action. But one email to their supervisor – cc’d to my PI – and the plumber showed up the next day. FAIL.
FACE FACTS: THE CAMPUS ADMINISTRATION LIES CONSTANTLY.
IN CONDUCTING ITS AFFAIRS, THE ADMINISTRATION LIES TO EVERY OTHER PARTY.
Maybe you should read the whole proposal to find out that it asks for student “representatives” on these Board to be appointed by the admin, rather than elected by their peers. This is obviously inadequate as far as accountability goes.
Chancellor Birgeneau was the leader of Operational Excellence which tried to save money by centralizing administration and decision making to remove redundancy and cut costs. Now Birgeneau is arguing that decentralization is the way to go for UC?
It does seem like Birgeneau is trying a last minute attempt to have certain groups change their opinion of him, but will it really improve his legacy if BAMN students like him?
I would question the ability of individual campuses and of the UC having people in place to make decisions. The UC and Cal are in the positions they are in, because both levels have been less than effective at making decisions and at working with the legislature and governor. I would really tend to oppose students having too much authority, because our student government has shown a lack of focus on school issues in favor of pursuing non-school issues.
I like this!
GO BIRGENEAU!!