scare tactics + faculty response

From U of T administration regarding potential T.A. strike.

"HR #38, 2011-12

To:       PDAD&C
Professional and Managerial Staff

From:   Angela Hildyard, Vice-President Human Resources & Equity
Cheryl Misak, Vice-President and Provost

Date:    February 16, 2012

Re:       Message to all CUPE 3902 Unit 1 members

The University will continue to work in good faith and with optimism that the coming week, when we are again in mediation, will see a resolution to the current impasse between it and CUPE 3902 Unit 1.

That said, it would be remiss not to begin to prepare for a potential strike. The University has made an offer addressing all of the Union’s major concerns and has provided improvements in most areas, without any concessions from employees. That offer was unanimously recommended to the membership by the CUPE bargaining committee. A small proportion of CUPE's membership, approximately 5% of the bargaining unit, came to the meeting and rejected that offer. This puts us all in a difficult situation, from which we must all try to extract ourselves.

In a recent memo, the Union has suggested the University of Toronto Administration is encouraging Union members to continue working during a potential strike and engaging in 'scare tactics'. Lest there be any misperceptions, we would like to clarify for you the University’s position.

Contrary to the earlier accusation of some CUPE members, the University does not intend to engage in a lockout. We will respect the rights of those who want to continue to work and we will respect the rights of those who want to strike. And contrary to a recent CUPE memo, the University is not engaging in and will not engage in 'scare tactics'.

The Union, however, must respect the same legal obligation that applies to the University not to “seek by intimidation or coercion” to compel you to exercise a particular right under the Labour Relations Act. Under the Act you have the right to choose to continue to work, as well as the right to strike. Neither party may coerce you to decide one way or the other.

CUPE also is suggesting to its members that they will be on the payroll in February whether or not they are working. While it is true that the February pay will go out in advance of a potential strike, I'm sure that all members will see that the University will have to subtract the proportion of the February pay from the next paycheck, whenever that is, for those members who did only partial work that month. To do otherwise would be unfair to those who choose to exercise their legal right to continue to work.

CUPE has said that choosing to work during a strike “could get you kicked out of the union.” That is up to them. But what they did not tell you is that doing so cannot get you kicked out of your job. If you continue to work you remain employed by the University in the normal manner and have rights as a bargaining unit member even if you are no longer a member of the Union.

CUPE has said that if you choose to work during a strike you “could lose your benefits.” The only employment benefit you could lose is that the Union could decide to deny your participation in their Financial Assistance Fund, to which the University contributes. We hope that they would not engage in such punitive action against those who exercise their legal and democratic rights. As for the Health Care Spending Account, your participation would continue, although it is true that Union members control its administration. Again, we hope that the Union would not apply its rules of administration in a punitive manner.

All this said, the University very much hopes that we can avoid a strike and we encourage all CUPE 3902 Unit 1 members, whatever their views, to attend the February 24 Membership meeting and make those views clear."



Faculty response.

"Public Letter to the Provost of UofT, Professor Cheryl Misak

We are writing to you as members of the faculty of the University of
Toronto who are concerned about the current labour dispute between the
administration and CUPE 3902, the union representing our Teaching
Assistants. We urge you to consider their three basic, popular demands:

1.Increase TA wages and benefits in step with inflation

2.Reinstate funding for senior Ph.D. students

3.Improve quality of tutorials and lab work

These demands are very reasonable and intimately tied to our
intellectual passions and interests. Accepting them appears to us to be
the ethical and the professional thing to do. The proposed 1.8% salary
increase falls short of the 2.8% rate of inflation. We view this as a
cheap attempt to balance the budget at the expense of a group that is at
the core of our academic mission and the university?s claims to
excellence ? our Ph.D. students. Since the last strike in 2000 resulted
in a considerable improvement of graduate funding, the administration
has incrementally eroded the agreement and since May 2011 no new bargain
has been struck. Under these circumstances, the quality of our Ph.D.
students will inevitably drop (if it has not already) as current TA?s
are forced to cope with underpayment and overcrowded tutorials and labs.
Moreover, we fear that the best incoming Ph.D. candidates will accept
offers from other universities where their subsistence is respected and
better represented. The current situation makes it difficult for us to
advise, with good conscience, prospective Ph.D. candidates to take up
their basic offers of acceptance at UofT.

We believe that our undergraduates deserve the administration?s full
commitment to the best university education in Canada. The
administration may find it expedient to treat our Ph.D. students
primarily as exploitable labour to provide undergraduate teaching on a
shoe-string. This would be short-sighted and detrimental to our
undergraduate students? learning experience. Moreover, as faculty we
consider our TAs junior and future colleagues, academics who will carry
on our research, teaching and critical, independent thinking, and we,
therefore, stand in solidarity with them.

We trust these arguments will influence you to come to an agreement with
the union that will weigh up the far-sighted gains in striking a deal on
the three central issues above and that is, therefore, in the interests
of the entire academic community of the university - colleagues,
undergraduates and graduates."

Brand Name Education

"...(A)n elite education inculcates a false sense of self-worth. Getting to an elite college, being at an elite college, and going on from an elite college—all involve numerical rankings: SAT, GPA, GRE. You learn to think of yourself in terms of those numbers. They come to signify not only your fate, but your identity; not only your identity, but your value. It’s been said that what those tests really measure is your ability to take tests, but even if they measure something real, it is only a small slice of the real. The problem begins when students are encouraged to forget this truth, when academic excellence becomes excellence in some absolute sense, when 'better at X' becomes simply 'better.'"

"Being an intellectual means thinking your way toward a vision of the good society and then trying to realize that vision by speaking truth to power. It means going into spiritual exile. It means foreswearing your allegiance, in lonely freedom, to God, to country, and to Yale. It takes more than just intellect; it takes imagination and courage. 'I am not afraid to make a mistake,' Stephen Dedalus says, 'even a great mistake, a lifelong mistake, and perhaps as long as eternity, too.” Being an intellectual begins with thinking your way outside of your assumptions and the system that enforces them.'"

From here.

All Bets Are Off

Old anxieties replaced by new ones. Being in grad school has exposed my intellectual inadequacies. Nope, it's not hummblebraggery. When I read, my mind wanders. It is unable to grasp the main arguments of the text. Instead, the focus is on the details--the mind arrested by a turn of phrase or the neatness of a new idea. Or it just wanders, aimlessly, resorting to a (photographic) nostalgia--a nagging homesickness for a home that never was. The burnished glow of nostalgia is intensified by the actual quality of the sunlight of Los Angeles, something that is missing in cold Toronto. Writing is tougher because I am beholden to unrealistic expectations. Recent essays have been unsatisfactory since they were caught between expectation and experimentation. One has to go all the way--towards experimentation and the possibility falling flat in the face. Which reminds me: there is too much "safe" scholarship around. I feel that it's too early into apprenticeship to rebel, but I can't imagine studying something that will have no connection with the pressing issues of the moment, namely environmental and economic collapse. The department hefe has already chastised me for my odd way of formulating stuff; the result, he claims, would be unemployment. But if we are at edge of the precipice, shouldn't we all push ourselves and push our ideas to their limits? Failure is the usual way of doing and thinking about things.

To Blog or To Facebook or To Tumblr?

Status Queue

Street art by Stinkfish

Facebook status updates as diary. A year of crisis and mini-crisis.

January
...discovers that melancholy without irony is not worth talking much about.
...interns at a place where young folks are encouraged to create their own paths in life, while a few feet away, just outside the building, are day laborers who must have journeyed harder and farther. Who will ask them about their longings?
...After Jandek, everything else is just noice.
...keeps trying on prosthetic ghost limbs.
...attempts to mimic Yahoo Babelfish: Uno, this crash won't end in the well, like yore 13?
...Dear stars, please look after those who are driving 13 hours tonight to be with their beloved.
...would like to comb your hair.
...just found out that he was left-handed as a child!

February
..., in a dream, was told he was an alien by an alien...
...wonders if the stray cat was expressing an opinion by pissing on today's papers?
...Insomnia, thy name is Egypt.
..., when in doubt, applies glitter.
...is calling it a Mizoguchi moon.
...London calling.
...wonders if the attraction to sleep is because it is an alternative (or escape) from linear thinking which there is too much of.
...is being psyopsed by one of the cats.

March
...finds it difficult to absorb the news but would like to share it with <3 friends.
...misses Final Cut Pro. I hardly knew ya.
...may need to detach from his detachment.
...wholeheartedly supports "the people demand the army returns the popcorn machine" movement.
...hopped unto the anxiety train. Choo-choo.
...suddenly finds the phrase 'pleasures of exile' annoying as hell.
...is having mightmares.
...complimented a plant, twice.
..."But I'm not good with anger. I go straight to depression." (Bored to Death)
...dreamt that his tax preparer was also his psychiatrist.
...is inclined to take arbography, if all else fails.

April
...4:44 p.m.
...dreamt of a pen and pencil that jumped to their deaths.
...is getting an I patch.
...was unable to determine if it was a burning book or a book about fire.
...notes that the body remembers it differently.
...name dropped Fragonard and Ai Weiwei in a dream set in a hospital.
...can only afford a second-hand poem.
...Dial it down, sunshine.
...'s eyes were dilated for envy.

May
...may have uttered the following in his sleep: "I come from the future. Listen to what I have to say..."
..."Number 7 has no answers."
..., observing today's clear skies, wondered about the cloud control units.
...'s mother's sighs are like daggers.
...will be citing grudges, slights, and snubs in the MLA format.
...longs to be a region-free player.
...Friends, let's slip away...
...Month of May, you have been unkind.
..."Don't get high on your own supply."
...'s timepiece insists that he's in another time zone.
...'s fam is hellbent on sending him off to the equivalent of Siberia.
...needs to be in a square. Pronto.

June
...Poll: Lil white lies (others not hurt) to achieve goal or tell truth and blow lifetime opportunity?
...dreamed of overpriced lemons.
...has a pinky toe situation.
...Oh June, how could you?
...'s tendency to misread is getting out of hand: "unmarried emails" made him look twice.
...has been to the moo-vies.
...This light, this wind, at this hour, induces reverie.
...was told the following: "You have nothing here. You only have the sunshine."

July
..."Even if it isn't as it should be, even if they make it hard, where else would we go? Who else would have us?" (Treme)
...lost his sideburns to summer.
...Maple syrupy day.
...is breaking up with Los Angeles.
...had an L.A.-centric diva dream. Just before quitting: "I come in on time. I have the least retakes. And I have an Emmy."
...got a ticket.
...is drunk on nostalgia...
...dreamed that the world momentarily lost written communication...
...highly recommends shredding old paperwork (credit card bills, embarassing poetry, clippped articles, etc.) as therapy. Side effects may include nostalgia.
...went to a taco spot called Taco Spot in Eagle Rock where he supposes that there are eagles and rocks?
...may be trading CA for .ca.
...did Porto's in Downey and Glendale within a 24-hour period.


August
...Dude, vivre sa vie.
...When in doubt, bow or nod profusely. [omgwtf.jp]
...spoke to his daddy-p for the first time in 19 years. [omgwtf.jp]
...is completely, absolutely sold on mechanized butt wash. [omgwtf.jp]
...One typhoon is enough.
...On my profile page it says, .
...was told by his well-meaning uncle to have kids so that there will be someone who will pray for me at the even of my passing and for someone to (literally) pick up the bones. That's it, when do I become Canadian? [omgwtf.jp]
...impatiently awaits for his clothes to dry on the clothesline while the sea breeze tells him to wait till morning.
...observes that in the go-go-go economy of Okinawa, fueled by tourism from mainland Japan, Taiwan, and China, some of the locals are left out by the financial rewards, resorting to a kind of traditionalism (like my uncle's decision to live farther inland and tending to small plots of land) which is in fact a reaction to an alienating capitalist wave of 'foreign' investment.
...went ahead and ordered the goya juice.
...bypassed the McDonalds and KFC for the goya burger.
...was told that the food and water placed before a closed stall were for the stray cats that roam the market at night.
...stands out for perspiring all day the whole thirteen days he has been here, and may have produced extra sweat glands in the process.
...went to the corner store (to flee from his uncle's) and met a lady and her dog companion Nora who have been hiking around the island for the past few days.
...attended a neighborhood (obon) block party which was held underneath an old tree filled with fruit bats.
...is terribly glad that the kids (nephews and nieces) have not yet called him ojisan...
...is going to jigoku for the crushes he has had in Oki. [omgwtf.jp]
...For those in the know: Vancouver. Study permit (5 years). Bam!
...It's awfully expensive here in Toronto. Send me your love and $.
...found the first apartment viewing a disaster, not for himself, but for the person who was showing the place. [Toronto Rooms]
...envies the middle-aged Spanish couple who take their time preparing their meals at the hostel. Yesterday, they had shrimps and pasta, and they also cleaned the communal kitchen for the rest of us.
...'s hostel is in the middle of a business district where nattily dressed men pretend they're not robots with their averted gazes and their look-at=me gait.
...may have to take antibiotics regularly if he's to rent a room at this place. [Toronto Rooms]
...spent about 15 minutes talking to the potential landlady about rental matters, and then proceeded to talk an hour and 15 minutes more conversing about other stuff, like Herzog's latest film, vacationing in Cuba for the winter, and why liquor stores in Toronto are ran by the government. And oh yeah, the place is sweet. [Toronto Rooms]
...went inside the old church across the street from the hostel and lighted a candle and watched the flames go by...
...was told by his Brazilian and German hostelmates that he looked partly Latin and assumed that he was part Mexican. Verdad?
...feels like a semiotic mess.
...will be a T.A. for an undergrad film history course but isn't allowed to take a graduate level film history class.

September
...managed an incomplete sentence at today's seminar while his classmates spoke in paragraphs. Plan B: Bartending school.
...misses hearing random Spanglish.
...is watching live Caltrans footage.
...wonders why there's no trace of snow on the university website.
..., ugh, snap out of it!
...How can I be homesick for places that were never my home? ...Am I mistaking homescikness for something else like a longing for a home, THE home?
...'s first day as a TA started out really badly but also got an applause at the end of class...
....produces a crypto-accent when he gets nervous.
...found out its called shorelessness.
...scoffs at calling it fall or autumn and prefers calling it as pre-winter.
...was told about cyborgs and aborigines in hushed tones while in the library also know as The Fortress.

October
...is another one of those dodgy exiles doing something called comparative literature.
...was told in a dream that his Kanji is like a crooked lane in his hometown.
...wonders how to turn doubts into donuts.
...Dear Friday, I'm already looking forward to sharing a drink with you.
...stands by his X.
...is still coming to terms with fragments of disbelief that comes his way like falling leaves.
...keeps forgetting that he's no longer talking with Americans...

November
...'s inability to cook has reportedly been turned into an Estonian family's cautionary tale.
...Occupy Melancholia.
...wonders aloud if Occupy (and other historic events in 2011) will affect the direction of his studies...
..."Those who do not move, do not notice their chains." (Rosa Luxemburg)
...can't wait for the new year (1968)!
...Eisenstein, did you ever hear of livestreaming?
..."Remember MacArthur Park!"
...kept on Googling to find out what it was called: snow.


 December
...thinks this is potentially life changing: "Why does it have to be between two national literatures (or cinemas)? Why can't it be a question? (E.C., September 2011)
...fantasy Facebook check-in would look like this: "--at LAX."
...is going home after this exam and watching an Ozu film.
...politely asked his host how she seasoned the fish. It was chicken.
...went to a holiday choir program last night and kept thinking that the music would fit in well with the end of the world, which only made him want to rush out of the auditorium to go see "Melancholia" again.
...just realized that X stands for ten, also.
...is a flaming pinata.
...is paying up in besos.
...is no longer negotiating with nostalgia. Capish?
..."You say L.A. like you're from there." Verdad?
..."You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world. But then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me the most were the very things that connected me with all the people who are alive, who have ever been alive." (James Baldwin) Happy holidays. Now go read.
...is considering being reincarnated as a neon sign.
..., in a dream, was presenting on Van Gogh use of space and poetics of objects (none of which I know anything in my waking life) only to be informed by the professor (who comes out of a booth wearing goggles) how all this relates to photography...
...asked Santa for a teleportation device.
...proceeded to chop onion with sunglasses.

"WE ARE NOT CONTINGENT: An Adjunct Manifesto"

"We are the non-tenure track faculty who now constitute two-thirds of the instructional workforce at universities and colleges across the nation. We are frequently invisible to administrators, yet we are the first professors and instructors that undergraduate students meet on their journey to becoming engaged learners. We are the majority. We have been silent too long, and it is time for us to reclaim our voices and outline our demands.  

WE ARE ESSENTIAL. Words carry within them powerful connotations. Contingency implies that we, as non-tenure track faculty, are incidental or even accidental to the educational mission of the colleges and universities where we work. No employees, regardless of their field, would willingly apply this stigma to themselves. To continue calling ourselves “contingent labor” is to accept the fate that has been chosen for us by administrators who view us as easily disposable freelancers or potential tenure track faculty in a period of transition.  
Recently, Robert Perkins and Carla Weiss’s “Part-Time Faculty in Higher Education: A Selected Annotated Bibliography” repeated several truisms that many of us off the tenure track have already known. Among them was that “Most law holds that part-time faculty have no claim to their jobs and may be replaced at will.” But the time has come for a shift, and changing the way we describe ourselves is only the beginning.  
If we continue to think of ourselves as contingent labor, we also tacitly accept these beliefs about who we are and what we do:

• That we have no meaningful connection to the mission of our respective institutions
  
• That we are not worthy of career advancement
  
• That we are forever ineligible for a stable salary and benefits
  
• That we do not deserve representation within our departments or schools
  
• That we have not earned the right to job security
  
• That we are not worthy of respect.  
  

WE WILL NO LONGER SILENTLY ACCEPT THESE BELIEFS. Although we once were the temporary or freelance employees that the name “contingent labor” implies, today non-tenure track faculty form the backbone of undergraduate education. We are still hired by the course, semester, or academic year, yet we now represent the foundation of most college and university instruction. We are also the face of higher education to our students, who are typically freshman and sophomores, as we are generally assigned to core curriculum courses. Most undergraduates, in fact, do not have the opportunity to take courses with tenured or tenure track faculty until their junior or senior years, a piece of information conveniently left out of most college orientation sessions.
OUR STUDENTS DESERVE BETTER CONDITIONS. IF WE, THE BACKBONE OF THE SYSTEM, FAIL TO PROVIDE THEM, WHO WILL? Our unions have increasingly become stuck in the struggle to secure health care and retirement benefits for adjunct faculty as well as to create a class assignment strategy based primarily on seniority. They have been hacking at the leaves of the weed without uprooting the deep structures that nourish the problem. This myopic focus on self-centered details at the expense of the larger problem is a symptom of the fact that we are a majority that has — as yet — failed to comprehend its true strength. We need to not only recognize that strength, but also to utilize it on behalf of our students, who are paying more than any other generation before them for an education while receiving less in return.
In just ten years, for example, tuition at Columbia College Chicago has risen more than 80%. As reported in the November 7 issue of the college newspaper, the Columbia Chronicle, today it costs an average Columbia College undergraduate approximately $20,000 in tuition and fees to attend the school, while in 2001 that same cost was $11,000. This does not include the cost of room and board, which causes the amount to skyrocket to nearly $50,000 per year. This inflationary trend is also pervasive in Illinois; as reported in Laura Perna and Joni Finney’s “A Story of Decline: Performance and Policy in Illinois Higher Education,” released this November, tuition increased 100% at public four-year universities from 1999 to 2009.
What have students obtained with that inflation? Not much, it seems. Classrooms are more crowded than ever, and facilities are in constant need of repair. Also, students are primarily taught by us — adjunct faculty who are marginalized within our departments to such an extent that many choose to teach our courses and leave campus as soon as possible. We realize that this is bad for both ourselves and our students since it prevents the necessary interaction outside of the classroom needed to insure student success, yet we are constantly told that we have no incentive for loyalty to our institutions. It is time for our administrators to enforce the truism that we are a vital part of our schools’ missions.
WE STAND IN SOLIDARITY WITH OUR STUDENTS AGAINST THE CORPORATIZATION OF HIGHER EDUCATION. Until now we have labored in solitude — either to improve our own individual work conditions, or, in the hopes of advancement, to promote the administrators’ ideals rather than stand in solidarity with our students. We have witnessed, and, through our complacency, abetted the transformation of higher education into a corporation. We failed to see the depth and breadth of this transformation — believing still in the old narrative that hard work, a college degree, and perseverance would serve our students and ourselves in the end. We have worn the humanitarian mask that hides the universities’ bad faith towards its students and their parents, but we will adopt this facade no longer. We care for our students and refuse to allow administrators to treat undergraduates simply as revenue generators.  
WE WILL NO LONGER LABOR FOR THE ADMINISTRATORS. WE WILL LABOR INSTEAD FOR THE GOOD OF OUR STUDENTS. We stand in solidarity with students who are crushed by the weight of student debt and are terrified at the prospect of not finding career employment that will provide a living wage. We stand in solidarity with all those who have the courage to agitate, speak out, and mobilize on behalf of higher education. We share a common cause — the belief that an educated citizenry and a robust middle class are necessary for the survival of our nation. We stand in solidarity with all who want a better future for themselves, their students, and their society. Moreover, we challenge administrators to join us in this cause by changing their current course of behavior.
WE, AS NON-TENURED FACULTY, CALL FOR REFORM FROM WITHIN THE CURRENT SYSTEM. WE DEMAND THAT OUR ADMINISTRATORS ADOPT THESE CHANGES: 
 

• All hiring and firing of adjunct faculty will be handled by a non-partisan committee composed of tenured and non-tenured faculty in the same discipline, a union representative (if applicable), and a human resources staff member.
  

 

• All adjunct faculty will be hired on a contract that is a minimum of one year and a maximum of five. No longer will adjuncts be hired by the semester or the class.
  

• Tenure will be opened to all faculty. The current system treats adjunct status as a stigma and blocks advancement from within. Even in corporations, this does not align with common practice.
  

• Evaluation of all faculty for tenure and promotion will be based on three components: a dossier of research and/or educational materials, teaching evaluations, and a classroom visit report from a senior member of the faculty in their discipline.
  

• Governing bodies of an institution, such as departmental committees and faculty senates, will be comprised of representatives in a ratio that mirrors that of the faculty.  For instance, if adjuncts represent 77% of the total faculty at a college of university, they must account for 77% of the departmental committee appointments and faculty senate membership.
  

• Courses will be assigned based on expertise. Many of us hold degrees and experience that allow us to teach courses at the intermediate and advanced level, yet because we are deemed “contingent,” we are only assigned introductory-level classes. Not only is our current system of course assignment arbitrary and unfair, but it shortchanges our institutions. By adopting this practice, our institutions will be supporting greater diversity and innovation of instruction.
  

• Salaries will be based on experience in a field of study, evidence of quality teaching practices, adoption of innovation in instruction, job performance, and length of service.
  

WE HAVE LABORED TOO LONG WITH THE IMPRESSION THAT WE ARE CONTINGENT. WE HAVE FAILED TO ACT WHILE HIGHER EDUCATION AS A WHOLE HAS AVOIDED ADDRESSING THE PROBLEMS OF ITS CURRENT SYSTEM. WE WILL REMAIN COMPLACENT NO LONGER. In the Port Huron Statement of 1962, Students for a Democratic Society President Tom Hayden articulated our concerns brilliantly, albeit in a way that underscores our current failure to act: “If we appear to seek the unattainable, as it has been said, then let it be known that we do so to avoid the unimaginable.” As educators, we have witnessed the disaster that has unfolded in higher education. We refuse to wait silently for the unimaginable: the day that a college education is only available to our society’s elite. The time has come to address the growing gap between the skyrocketing cost of education and its decreasing quality. We ask all who are concerned, including administrators, to join us as we take action to insure that future generations will have access to education and, with it, the chance of a better life." From here.

Fall of the UC System?

From Prof. Wendy Brown's article "When The Public University Can No Longer Afford Itself: The Impending Crisis in UC Graduate Programs." From here.

"Here are some rough numbers that make the point. In the 2000-01, when in-state tuition/fees were about $3400 and non-resident tuition/fees were $13,700, and when competitive fellowships were a bit lower than they are now, supporting a grad student who was a California resident cost approximately 21K annually and supporting one from Chile cost about 32K (This is the combined cost of tuition plus a fellowship, or tuition plus a GSI-ship or GSR-ship.) Today, with in-state tuition/fees at 15K and out-of-state tuition/fees at 30K, it costs approximately 36K/year to support the Californian and 51K/year to support the Chilean. If the UCOP-planned tuition increases occur over the next four years, in 2016-17, the cost would be over 42K/year for the California resident and over 55K (possibly as high as 60K) for the non-resident.

Thus, in 2000-01, for an entering graduate student cohort of fifteen, the cost of supporting a class of thirteen non-residents and two California residents for a year was approximately 458K. Today, that cohort costs approximately 735K and in 2016-17 it would be approximately 900K, almost twice what it was at the beginning of the century. On the other side of the ledger, allocations for graduate programs are shrinking, not growing. Indeed, part of the way that UC is managing budget cuts is by cutting funding to graduate programs.

The increase in graduate student cost and decrease in allocations for graduate student funding means that departments are now looking at admitting and enrolling cohorts of less than half the size of a decade ago. Moreover, they can no longer afford non-U.S. students (who never become eligible for in-state tuition rates) and are eyeing affirmative action for Californians (who cost significantly less in their first year). The elimination of international students and growing preference for Californians presents the wonderful irony of departments trying to end-run the revenue-generating strategies of their own institution. (Neoliberal entrepreneurial strategies produce great numbers of such ironies.) But it also represents another serious blow to UC graduate programs on top of shrinking cohort size. While UC’s undergraduate mission should be aimed at Californians, strong Ph.D programs must attract and enroll the best students in the world–that is what secures their excellence and renown. But the opposite is happening in each case: UC seeks to enrich its coffers by decreasing the proportion of Californians in its undergraduate population while graduate programs aim to cheapen costs by favoring Californians and eliminating foreign students.

The effects of the crisis for graduate programs resulting from tuition increases are just beginning to be felt but departments are panicking as they take them in. Smaller and weaker graduate student cohorts will have multiple ramifications: Faculty will have fewer graduate students to mentor, do less graduate teaching and work with less talented students with lower placement prospects. This will drive away the best UC faculty and make it difficult to recruit the best new faculty talent. Together these effects will lead to drops in department rankings which will further dampen interest in UC by superlative faculty and applicants to Ph.D programs. At this point you can see the whole downward spiral–there goes the quality that UCOP and the UC Senate were trying to preserve. Undergraduate education too, will be effected by declining quantity and quality of graduate student instruction, which will surely lead some excellent would-be UC undergraduates to go elsewhere for their education.

Of course, some might argue that the shrinking market for Ph.Ds warrants a compression of graduate programs. But the demand for Ph.Ds is probably changing more than it is shrinking. Certainly faculty research positions in the letters and science will constrict, but massive numbers of Ph.Ds will be needed to staff the on-line and other factory-style undergraduate courses looming on the horizon. The soon-to-be lower-ranked UC graduate programs would be just the right source for such workers."