To: Members of the Academic Senate
Dear Colleagues:
Amidst the email deluge, please pause to read Academic Senate news below of concerning trends in faculty hiring and student-faculty ratio at UCLA and across the University of California, a new task force to implement faculty rebuilding and renewal, sobering results from a Systemwide Senate faculty survey about the pandemic and how faculty experience our jobs, and a round-up of Systemwide Senate issues.
But first, a few words about moving forward in the aftermath of the recent strike. During the strike many faculty struggled to balance obligations and values that sometimes competed. Many yet again took on more labor. Now, the university faces the question of how to fund labor at the new contractual levels.The full financial and educational impact is yet to be understood, but one thing seems clear: it will be transformative. Our previous graduate funding model, which was strained, has been broken open. What will — and what should — change in graduate education? How will research change? I urge you to speak up about how UCLA and the UC should answer these questions.
A simple fact should guide us: research and graduate education are core to UCLA’s academic mission.
The University of California has underfunded graduate education for too long, as many Senate and joint Senate-Administration reports showed.* It follows that funding responsibility for reinvestment in graduate education and research should be shared across our whole campus, including by administrative units, and should not borne disproportionately by academic units and faculty PIs. Responsibility further should be shared among the University of California, the state legislature, and federal funders. We faculty must demand that academic units and faculty PIs do not, whether by intention or default, bear the full responsibility for this reinvestment in our core mission. This is an opportunity to make a historic reinvestment in graduate education rather than to reinforce or redistribute its underfunding. I urge each of you to make your voice heard by writing individually to the Senate and Administration, writing collective letters after discussion at faculty meetings and FEC meetings, and participating in our February Legislative Assembly meeting, about which you have received email notice...
Thank you,
Jessica Cattelino
Chair, UCLA Academic Senate
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*https://dms.senate.ucla.edu/issues/issue/?6728.UC.Graduate.Education.Funding.
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The email above suggests that the state should contribute more toward graduate education. We know that the legislature has primarily focused on undergraduate enrollment, as parents (voters) complain that little Tom or Sally didn't get into the UC of their choice. The fact is, however, that there are lots of issues and causes in California, all competing for resources.
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