Tag: occupyucdavis

According to UC Davis news release (UC Davis News & Information :: Dateline :: UC Davis to host regents, “teach-ins”)

“UC Davis is preparing for a day of civil discourse and peaceful expression, as the campus hosts members of the University of California Board of Regents and faculty and students organize “teach-ins” on public disinvestment in higher education, the Occupy movement and other topics.” 

“If you’re planning to attend the UC Davis portion of the audioconference, please be prepared for a search of backpacks – and don’t bring banners or bottled water, which will not be allowed in the ARC ballroom.”

Just got this email and it seems worth sharing

Dear Colleagues,


On Friday we sent all of you a link to the Faculty Code of Conduct that includes on page three a statement of academic freedom rights. The Davis Division of the Academic Senate Committee on Academic Freedom and Responsibility unanimously voted to issue the following statement:


“The UC Davis Academic Senate Committee on Academic Freedom and Responsibility (CAFR) condemns violence as well as directives and policies that are likely to lead to it.  The role of a university in society is to serve as a beacon of compassion and tolerance to foster thoughtful discourse. Academic freedom is the pilot light protecting knowledge production and should protect all members of the university engaged in civil discourse without fear or threat of coercive retaliation or physical harm.  In light of an emerging pattern of policies and behaviors counter to these principles, we call on all University of California administrators to undergo training in the importance of academic freedom and how to protect and foster it against financial, political, and social pressures. We also plan to review recent events in order to assess to what degree academic freedom rights were violated and to make policy recommendations to safeguard academic freedom at University of California campuses. – unanimously agreed by CAFR members”




Linda F. Bisson
Chair, Davis Division of the Academic Senate
Professor, Viticulture and Enology

Just got this email about the call for a General Strike apparently from OccupyUCDavis folks. It was from someone I do not know named Eric Lee. Not sure if he is a UC Davis student or not.

Dear UC Davis Faculty Member,

On behalf of the 99.5% of students, faculty, and workers who voted in favor of a General Strike to be held this coming Monday, November 28th, we are asking that you cancel your scheduled classes or hold your class on the quad this coming Monday in solidarity with your fellow community members against the terrible acts of police brutality committed this past week on our campus.

Our call for a walk-out lies on a series of undeniable principles of equality and democracy that we all share:

1) The right to peacefully redress government for grievances of social inequality under the first amendment

2) The right to not be brutally beaten for exercising these rights

3) Teachers, TAs, professors, faculty, and staff have the right to tenure and a fair wage

4) Education is a social right and fee-increases and budget cuts are unnecessary given the obscene plundering of the economy by the richest Americans over the past years

5) The fight for education is synonymous with the fight for equality in all social realms: housing, food, healthcare, transportation, energy, etc.

6) The US Government’s prioritization of war and tax cuts for the rich above social services for working Americans is unjust and should be reversed

This is a call to join the walkout against police brutality and social inequality. We are making space and facilities (white boards, etc.) available for all who are interested in holding class on the quad. Any special requests by teachers and faculty will be accommodated to the best of our ability.

Please respond to this email letting us know which of the three options you will be choosing:

a) I plan to cancel all classes Monday

b) I plan to hold classes in the quad Monday

c) I do not plan to cancel classes and I do not support the fight for public education

Please let us know of your plans ASAP.

Thank you for your cooperation!

-Occupy UC Davis
– – –
Note: A link to the General Strike proposal can be found here:
http://reclaimuc.blogspot.com/2011/11/uc-davis-strike-call.html

Just got this email:

Faculty and staff are invited to a town hall meeting on Tuesday, November 29, in Freeborn Hall from 4:00-5:30 p.m.  The meeting will be an open discussion with Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi, Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor Ralph Hexter, and Matt Carmichael, Acting Chief of the UC Davis Police Department.

For background regarding the use of pepper spray against protesters last week and the campus response, please see http://chancellor.ucdavis.edu/initiatives/campus_protests/. Sincerely,
Linda P.B. Katehi
Chancellor

I went by the UC Davis Quad (the scene of the pepper spray incident Friday) today after class and took a look at the growing camp.  I thought I would take some pics that I think symbolize the Quad in part to me.  The Quad is a place for relaxation much of the time.  And it is also a place for gatherings.  The fact that the current gathering has tents is perhaps unusual.  But the fact that students are gathering at the Quad to express themselves is not.  I hope people do not come away from the pepper spray story with a view that the Quad is somehow being taken over for “expression.”  Whether you support the growing camp or not, the Quad is historically a place where expression comes in many forms.  Today, what stood out to me, were all the signs sitting there for student groups that are used for recruitment at various times.  Below is a slideshow of these signs:

And for those without flash I am inserting all the pics below …

Just got this email. Not sure what it means though …

*This message is being sent on behalf of the Academic Senate*

The Divisional Chair and members of the Executive Council were invited to a meeting today with members of Occupy UC Davis. We were pleased to meet with these students who have been involved with a call for a general strike on Monday, November 28. The call can be found here. The general strike has been called in conjunction with a meeting of the Board of Regents to be held in part on the Davis campus on Monday. A link to the meeting call can be found here.

In making their decisions concerning their instructional activities on November 28, faculty should be aware of the contents of the Faculty Code of Conduct, which can be found here.

There has been a call for a general student strike on Monday at UC Davis.  This is partly in relation to the pepper spraying incident but apparently more about access to education and budget cuts and such.  I just got this message from the Dean of the College of Biological Sciences regarding this

To All Faculty, Students, and Staff:

Some of you may have heard or read that there will be a general strike on Monday, November 28, 2011.  Please note that the campus is open for business as usual and students should plan to attend courses as scheduled unless they hear otherwise directly from their instructor.  This expectation applies equally to all Faculty, Lecturers, Teaching Assistants, and Associates.

Please have a safe and restful holiday break.

James E.K. Hildreth, PhD, MD
Dean
College of Biological Sciences
University of California, Davis

Well, this could be a set up for some complex interactions Monday. As many who read this blog know, I am incredibly disturbed by the pepper spray incident.  I am also very upset about the budget cuts and the challenges facing students on campus.  I am committed to working to fix the things that are broken at UC Davis and to also help students in as many ways as possible deal with tuition and fee increases.

I note, I have been attending the rallies and the protests on campus in the last few days.  I have made food donations to the OccupyUCDavis group and I plan to donate time, equipment and more food as well.  I am very supportive of their right to protest and in some of the complaints they have raised.  And I believe that it would be helpful if all faculty and staff on campus support the protests in some way as we need a show of force/solidarity in response to the pepper spray incident.

However, that does not mean I would walkout on teaching class.  I am not teaching that day, but a colleague is.  And I personally am planning on being there.  I do not think faculty should walkout and not teach Monday as this does not seem fair to students who want to go to class.  I would be fully supportive of faculty protesting, walking out on administrative activities, and doing other forms of protest.  But if I was scheduled to be teaching, most likely I would hold my class. I am open to being convinced otherwise but faculty walking out to “support” students and the challenges in access to education seems wrong.  I would love to hear people’s opinions on this issue …

Note – in 2009 there was also a proposed walkout at UC Davis.  The situation then was different – there was no horrendous pepper spraying incident, for example.  But the underlying issues were similar – fee increases, budget cuts, students suffering, etc.  So I thought it might be relevant to repost some postings from then.

• Blog post of mine: Why I do not endorse the UC Faculty Walkout —
• Davis Vanguard Blog post about an Editorial I cowrote on the walkout Nude Protestors Demonstrate That the Emperor Has No Clothes

Here is the text of an Editorial that I wrote for the Sacramento Bee with Winder McConnell from UC Davis:

Sacramento Bee, The (CA) 2009-09-23 EDITORIALS METRO FINAL A19    
Jonathan Eisen and Winder McConnell


Special to The Bee 


UC Davis professors ‘walkout’ debate: Teaching is more than just about being paid 


There’s a cacophony of voices of late on the University of California, Davis, campus and in the media related to the state and UC administration’s handling of recent educational budget cuts. Spurred on in particular by complaints about the UC administration’s decision to furlough faculty but to not permit furloughs to occur on “instructional days,” many faculty have signed on for a “walkout” scheduled Thursday.


While the proposed walkout has now expanded to include student groups, unions and others protesting a variety of issues, all this chatter has spurred the two of us to think about a couple of very basic questions that drove us to do what we do today:
Where would we be today as professors without students? And, just as important, where would those students be without us?
As each of our colleagues makes his or her personal decision as to whether to walk out Thursday, we’d like to make a case for why it’s wrong for faculty to cut class.


Simply put, we see it as a moral, pragmatic and political misstep for faculty to abandon their classrooms and their students.
The two of us couldn’t be more different: Jonathan is a scientist, a professor of evolution and ecology, and medical microbiology and immunology, who has been at UC Davis for 3 1/2 years after spending eight years at a private research institute. Winder is a humanist, a professor of German who has been at UC Davis for 31 years and who served as a department chair under nine deans. And yet, it’s hard for either of us to imagine being more passionate about anything other than the classroom experience.


Yes, we have many time-consuming responsibilities as faculty members, including research and public service. But UC Davis has more than 31,000 students — more than 24,000 of them undergraduates — and we have a commitment to them, first and foremost, as educators. Our commitment to teaching is not simply because we’re getting paid to work. It goes much deeper than that.
In a typical academic quarter, we have 10 weeks — and only 10 weeks — to interact with students in ways that could change the course of their lives and careers. In that regard, the classroom is sacrosanct. Our time there is not something that’s up for negotiation. Whether to be there is not negotiable.


And so it’s painful to us that much of the basis for the proposed walkout is literally that many faculty wanted to “spread the pain” to students to make a political point about the effects of furloughs on education. This is an unacceptable use of students as pawns in this high-stakes game, especially those students and their families who are already shouldering a heavy financial burden that is soon likely to get much heavier.


Indeed, what kind of message does faculty members cutting classes send out to those students and their families who work hard to afford a world-class UC education? Do we really want to add more fuel to the fire of higher education naysayers who would question, “What are they teaching out there?” and, “How many classes does a professor teach, anyway?”


We accept that the entire UC system could do a better job of communicating to Sacramento’s policymakers about the “pain” and “consequences” of budget cuts, and that teaching less would be a way to show that the cuts have a real impact on education. But abandoning the classroom is the wrong way to go. It would be a horrible political move right now. California’s budget could still go down next year and there could be more cuts. If UC works to build political capital in the coming year, then perhaps we will avoid some cuts next time around. But if we slash instructional time as a way to spread the pain, it will come back to bite us.


Then there is the practical or pragmatic argument. Jonathan is teaching an introductory biology course in the fall to about 700 students. The class has four lectures a week for each of two sections and coordinated labs running in parallel taught by teaching assistants. How would we redesign this class, and hundreds of others, to accommodate furlough days? We could hand out lecture notes, pile on the reading and simply tell the students, “Well, we are not going to teach as much as normal, but you are still expected to learn as much. You’ll just have to do it on your own.”


We know we’re not alone. The independent, dues-paying Davis Faculty Association recently asked its 166 members whether the association should support the walkout. Of those who cast ballots, 65.7 percent voted “No.” None of us wants these miserable budget conditions and furloughs. We all want to work together next year to impress upon policymakers in Sacramento that deeper education cuts and higher student fees are not the pathways to training California’s next generation of leaders and entrepreneurs. They lead to dead ends.


So, would faculty members cutting classes help the cause? Is it something we could justify to the students themselves? The answer is “No.”


Jonathan Eisen is a professor of evolution and ecology, and medical microbiology and immunology, at UC Davis.


Winder McConnell is a professor of German at UC Davis and director of its Teaching Resources Center.