<b>SUBMITTED BY Karl F. Lisovsky</b>
Most people think I’m a professor when I tell them that I teach at UCLA; even my students call me “professor.”
But I’m not a professor; I’m a lecturer, one of a cadre of university instructors who nowadays do what only professors used to do: I teach undergraduate courses, read my students’ papers and give them academic, career and even life advice.
However, lecturers have no tenure or security of employment, no status in the University Senate, make a lot less money, and can be laid off for cause.
On July 29, UCLA found a cause: the budget crisis. As one way of addressing this admittedly complex situation, UCLA has sent layoff notices to several dozen lecturers, many of whom teach required courses.
“How can this be?” you ask. Easy: “suspend (undergraduate) requirements either in part or in whole,” reads my layoff notice. While some students may at first welcome not having to take freshman English or a tough math series, they will quickly realize that watering down their education amounts to cheating them.
This action seems to be part of a system of choices by UCLA in which the institution sacrifices undergraduate education for the sake of the budget. Other moves include abolishing the GE seminar, “streamlining” majors, increasing class sizes, canceling courses ““ and of course, raising student fees.
But don’t kid yourselves: The University of California has lots of money and pays some of its top administrators handsomely. Faculty too: In fact, 75 percent of UC tenured faculty have negotiated contracts off the pay scale. The fiscal emergency related to the state funding shortfall only affects $3 billion of the UC’s $19 billion yearly budget.
The University also has another $50 billion in assets and investments. In fact ““ and I’m not making this up ““ the UC has agreed to lend the state of California $200 million, which the state will turn around and allocate back to the UC for some capital-improvement projects.
So why is the University of California at this same time pretending to be poor?
One reason: so that it can keep getting money from the state. If everyone knew how rich the UC is, they wouldn’t want to fund it. Another reason: crying poor makes raising student fees seem legitimate, even necessary.
Beyond the fee hikes’ effect on students, the current plan of layoffs, pay cuts and furloughs to “solve” the budget crisis has the University’s poorest employees subsidizing the wealthiest. On average, top-tier employees make 14 times as much as the lowest-tier employees, but under the plan proportionately have their wages cut only 2.4 times as much.
Look at it this way: If you make more than a million bucks a year, losing 50 grand is no big deal. But if you make 50 grand a year, losing just a couple thousand really hurts.
You may be interested to know that UCLA has four of the top seven highest-paid UC employees: Ben Howland and Rick Neuheisel (coaches) and Ron Busuttil and Richard Shemin (professors in the UCLA Medical Center), all making more than a quarter of a million in base pay and between $1.25 and 2 million gross pay, including extras and perks.
Don’t get me wrong: I’m perfectly happy making my modest $55,000 per year. But I cannot stand silently by and watch UCLA suspend undergraduate requirements yet continue with these high salaries, as well as such clearly elective projects as the $180 million remodel of Pauley Pavilion.
Why should this matter to you? Because it all shows that the University of California’s superstructure does not hold undergraduate education as a priority. What matters to them is the institution’s name and prestige.
High-profile, “star” research professors who write books and get grants are important to top administrators. Teaching undergraduate courses to 18- to 22-year-olds is not.
Why else would the university not look for ways to retain teaching faculty? Why else would the university not use funds that it clearly has to get it through tough times? Why else would the university use $25 million in student fees to help remodel Pauley Pavilion at a time like this?
Sad irony: The UC could get the job done just fine by employing more, not fewer, lecturers like me to teach undergraduates (you can hire a lot of $50,000 instructors for the price of one from the million-dollar club.) So what’s it all about, anyway, President Yudof: chasing prestige or educating students?
<i>Lisovsky is a lecturer in the writing programs at UCLA.</i>
Lisovsky is a lecturer in the writing programs at UCLA.