Sham shared governance?

The OC Reg’s Gary Robbins reports that, with the support of the AAUP, a group of UC professors are urging their colleagues to “stage a one day walkout on September 24th to protest the deep financial cuts that are being made throughout the system as a result of the state budget crisis.”

UCI professors urged to stage one day walkout

Professors are pissed that their input and suggestions are being ignored, so a few of them composed and signed a letter (on Aug. 31) that urges colleagues to stay home on the 24th.

One of the signers, Professor Catherine Liu (Film & Media Studies/Comp Lit) says that most instructors will show up that day for a “teachable moment” to clue students in.

The letter reads, in part:

Dear Colleagues,

…It is now finally inarguable that the polling of the faculty on significant matters is a fig leaf for the will of the Chancellors and the Office of the President. We stand corrected: shared governance is merely the polite name for emergency powers.

…On July 29, the Academic Council, representing the Academic Senates of all ten campuses, voted unanimously for systemwide implementation of at least six instruction-day furloughs over the academic year, with permission for campuses to have up to ten such days.

This recommendation—based on the expressly stated will of the faculty—was summarily rejected by the Chancellors and the Office of the President.

The reason for this unilateral decision is clear: the administration seeks to evade public accountability for the manner in which it has managed the budget crisis. It was the “optics” of the Senate Council’s recommendation that were judged untenable. The Office of the President has failed to arrive at a plan that would protect the interests of both students and workers. It wishes to disguise the harm this failure has done to the University’s mission…. …UCOP has flagrantly erased the difference between a furlough and a paycut, presenting the latter in the guise of the former.
…
We call for the suspension of faculty teaching on [Sept. 24] pending three demands, which we understand as absolutely minimal:

1. No furloughs or paycuts on salaries below $40,000.
2. The immediate institution of the Academic Senate Council’s July 29 recommendation
regarding the implementation of furloughs.
3. Full disclosure of the budget….

Recently, in local student newspapers:

Tuition Increases Across the Country (The Cypress Chronicle)

George McGovern speaks at convocation (The Chapman U Panther)