UC Student Walkout Stop Tuition Hikes, Save Public Education, Walkout 9/24

E-mail Grad Instructors!

Do your part by e-mailing your graduate student instructors and teaching assistants, letting them know that you support the walkout. Ask them not to cross the picket line on 9/24 or to hold an in-class teach-in about the crisis. Use the form below to quickly e-mail them!

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Your Graduate Instructors

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Dear [[ Professor's Name Will Go Here as you Entered It ]], I am a student in one of your classes, and I am writing to ask you to support the UC Walkout this Thursday, September 24th. On returning to campus, it’s become more apparent that faculty, students, and workers are being forced to bear the burden of closing the budget gap created by the state legislature’s decrease in UC funding by 20%. I know that these are difficult economic times, but I cannot agree that the UC budget should be balanced by penalizing the people who make the UC possible. This is taking place through fee increases, furloughs, pay cuts, and layoffs to students, faculty, and staff. Especially when there are other options open to UC administrators, including redirecting the surpluses created by the UC’s revenue generating units (such as its medical centers), cutting the UC’s highest-paid executives, and reducing the massive proliferation of administrative positions in the UC Office of the President(*), we feel that the UC Regents and UCOP are doing a grave wrong. Student fees already contribute almost as much to the UC budget as funding from the state legislature (students: $2.5 billion, legislature: $2.6 billion). UC President Yudof’s proposal to raise student fees by an additional 32% over the next year, for an unprecedented increase of $2,500, will bring student fees to over $10,000 a year for resident students for the first time ever, leading the UC further away from its original mandate to provide free public education to the students of this state. There is a budget crisis, but there is also a crisis of priorities. This Thursday’s walkout will serve to protest both the legislature’s defunding of public education and President Yudoff and the UC Regents’ decisions to follow a path towards privatizing the UC system. If this 32% fee increase goes through it will mean a serious blow to the quality, accessibility, and diversity of the UC system. And it will open the door for further fee increases in the years to come, which will systematically price out California students from what was once the educational jewel of this state. Think of this walkout as a way to help us, your students, save $2,500. Think of it as a way to bring public awareness to the privatization of public education in California. Think of it as a first step towards reversing these cuts and returning to a public UC system that we can all be proud of, and be a part of. Know that you will not be alone in supporting us: This walkout has been unanimously endorsed by the American Association of University Professors, the UC Students Association (the representative body for all 225,000 UC students), UC unions UPTE and CUE, and the ASUC (student government) Senate and Graduate Assembly of UC Berkeley, as well as thousands of professors and graduate students throughout the UC system. This Thursday, September 24th, thousands of undergraduates, graduate students, faculty, and staff from across the state will be walking out for these and other reasons. I am writing today to ask you to join us. Here is what you can do to support the walkout: 1. Walk out on the 24th. Don’t come to class, and instead join the picket lines (12,000 UPTE workers will be holding an unfair labor practice strike on UC campuses state-wide, CUE workers will be conducting a sympathy strike with them. They ask for all UC students and faculty not to cross their picket lines, which can be found at http://www.upte.org/strikelocations.html). 2. If you absolutely must conduct class on the 24th, we ask that you quickly take care of any administrative business necessary, then devote the rest of the class time to holding a teach-in with us, your students, about the budget crisis and the walkout (a Teach-In Kit can be found at http://saveuc.org/ under “Get Educated”). If possible, we then ask you to walk out, with your class, and join the picket lines. 3. Please add your name to the list of grad students in solidarity against the budget cuts at http://www.gradstudentstoppage.com/ 4. Email your students to let us know that you are participating in the walkout, and why. There is no one that we look up to more than our professors, and you, our grad students. Undergraduates are struggling to come to grips with the crisis that we are asked to bear the cost of. Your advice and principled stand on this issue mean more to us than any set of statistics or speeches. We need your guidance, but most importantly, we need you to tell us that you to stand with us. 5. Share this email with your colleagues, and ask them to join the walkout. I have also sent an email to our professor for this course, asking them what I have asked you. Thank you for your support. ____________________ (*) For more information on where student fee money goes, and the alternatives to raising student fees, please refer to the reports of Charles Schwartz, a retired UC Berkeley Physics professor who has been conducting an in-depth analysis of the UC budget. His website is: http://universityprobe.org/. We particularly recommend these two reports: 1. Follow the Student Fee Money http://universityprobe.org/2009/09/follow-the-student-fee-money/#more-503 and 2. Persistent Dishonesty from the UC Office of the President http://universityprobe.org/2009/09/persistent-dishonesty-from-ucop/#more-524