An Opportunity to Go Beyond Meet and Greet

Yesterday, this blog noted that President Yudof "hoped" to meet with Governor Brown. Today's news is that a meeting will occur this morning. From Capital Alert:

Higher education brings out big guns today in the budget wars, with University of California President Mark Yudof, California State University Chancellor Charles Reed and Community Colleges Chancellor Jack Scott pleading their case for sparing colleges and universities from more cuts. They kick off Higher Education Advocacy Day at 9 a.m. on the Capitol's west steps. Gov. Jerry Brown is set to meet with them privately later this morning.

Full article: http://blogs.sacbee.com/capitolalertlatest/#ixzz1IenLHu6n

Of course, there have been previous meetings of UC presidents with governors, as the photos above show. (Respectively, Yudof-Schwarzenegger, Dynes-Schwarzenegger, Atkinson-Davis.) It's no secret that Gov. Brown does not have spare change for UC and the meeting could thus turn out to be no more than a "meet and greet" with no substance.

The state could help, however, by making a pension contribution to UC - not in cash, which it doesn't have - but via an IOU. This was done under Gov. Deukmejian, for example, when the state was also in a cash crunch. It is worth listening to what former Gov. Deukmejian said about UC a few years ago:

Jerry, are you listening?