Fully Fund Public Higher Education in California—Do Not Impose Costs on Departments and Faculty
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This open letter is sponsored by the UCLA Faculty Association and endorsed by the UC-AFT, representing Non-Senate Faculty and Librarians of the University of California.
Faculty in Urban Planning at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs have been told by their department chair that “there will be no assistance in paying these costs from levels of the university above the departmental level. Centers/PIs are responsible for covering the increased costs of GSRs. Departments are responsible for covering the increased costs of TAs for their own courses. Centers and departments may also face taxes or decreases in assistance from the Luskin level so that Luskin can cover the cost of TAs in the undergrad program, which is by far the largest chunk of TAs. All of this is on top of funding cuts, starting at 1% of Luskin’s total baseline budget next year, and ending up at a cut of 4% from the baseline budget four years hence.”
Faculty across the Luskin School have been told by their dean that “this increase, of almost 80% for [academic student employees] by the 23/24 AY, should be accounted for in planning decisions for admissions/recruitment, teaching assistantships, and GSR employment. At this time, the Luskin School anticipates no additional TA resources, which will require rethinking our approach to undergraduate teaching. However, we will be able to cover incremental expenses for the Spring quarter, so the remainder of this year is only marginally impacted in the classroom. PIs and Research Centers/Institutes are responsible for 100% of the GSR increases.”
Faculty in the School of Education and Information Studies have been told to expect fewer hours of instructional support and that there is no money to cover increased costs to grants for GSRs. In both cases faculty will cover the costs of the new contracts either with more work or less research support.
Dean of the Social Sciences Abel Valenzuela stated in a meeting that departments would be asked to bear the costs of TA and GSR increases. The expected cost to the Social Science Division would be roughly $10 million over three years and the figure was about twice that in the sciences.
Sections in the Herb Alpert School of Music have seen enrollment caps increase from 25 students to 30 students in the wake of the strike, even though pay raises have not yet gone through.
Faculty in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology have been told that they too may have to put more students in discussion sections/labs.
Departments will be able to hire fewer teaching assistants, thus raising class size for undergraduate sections. Because both the state budget and UC’s credit rating mandate enrollment growth, this will be disastrous for undergraduate education. We look forward to collaborating with our undergraduates to push back on this in concert.
For departments bearing the cost of students on fellowship who would rightfully demand parity with TA/GSR salaries, the same amount of Graduate Division block-grant funding given to departments would mean departments would have to accept fewer grad students. This would in turn mean that the following year, Graduate Division would likely allocate less funding, meaning that there would be even fewer teaching assistants to teach the rising number of undergraduates.
Funding for GSRs often comes from faculty-generated external grants. In those cases, the faculty will be expected to rebalance their budgets. If there is no additional money from campuses or divisions to cover increased GSR salaries in the short term, then faculty probably will cut down on the number of GSRs they employ. This would also have a negative impact on junior faculty or faculty at the Associate level preparing to go up for Full, and faculty who might be judged less productive (fewer GSRs, less productivity in the lab) by their departments for promotion purposes.