UCSB Graduate Student Association

Voice of UCSB Graduate Students

Power to the Students

Mar 8

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Sacramento, CA – Today the Assembly Subcommittee on Education Finance rejected the Governor’s 2012-13 budget proposal to significantly reduce the number of an already underserved population of students who qualify for the Cal Grant Program. Representatives from the California State Student Association (CSSA), the University of California Student Association (UCSA) and the Student Senate for California Community Colleges (SSCCC) urged members to reject any reductions to the program during the public comment period. “Changing the Cal Grant promise from a need-based aid program to a merit based scholarship would be an unprecedented and detrimental move in the way California educates its public. The Assembly Budget Subcommittee on Education took heroic action today in standing up for those students who need help most by rejecting Governor Brown’s proposed cuts to the Cal Grant program.” Says Kevin Feliciano, President of the SSCCC

The Governor’s proposal plans to generate general fund savings by raising the Cal Grant grade point average eligibility requirements and eliminating the Loan Assumption programs for teachers and nurses. Taken together the changes would disqualify approximately 72,000 college students and high school seniors from Cal Grants for the 2012-13 academic year. “These reductions will fall hardest on underrepresented students of low socio-economic status and represent a fundamental shift of who California colleges and universities will serve in the near future.” says Greg Washington President of the CSSA.

The CSSA, UCSA and the SSCCC applaud members of the Assembly subcommittee for listening to the pleas of students who marched on March 5th to urge California to reinvest in higher education and protect Cal Grant funding. “Our actions on Monday, that brought 10,000 students to the capitol, changed the debate from greatly reducing higher education affordability to preserving it. Today’s decision was a critical first step securing Cal Grants for current and future students. The Senate must follow suit and reject the cuts to Cal Grants as soon as possible”, says Claudia Magaña, UCSA President.

24X Proposed Route Change

Feb 8

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MTD is proposing to have the 12x and 24x go up Chapala to Anapamu, turn left there, turn left on De La Vina or Castillo then head to the freeway on Cabrillo.

That means you may be walking MUCH further to a bus stop.

MTD is asking for the public to comment on the proposed changes.  Please e-mail servicechange@sbmtd.gov to voice your opinion.

UCSA’s Statement on Brown’s Budget Proposal

Jan 12

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PRESS RELEASE

For Immediate Release:

Date: 1/5/2012

Governor Brown’s 2012/13 Budget a Mixed Bag for California students

 

Sacramento, CA- Governor Jerry Brown released his 2012/13 California budget today, announcing huge cuts to social services and welfare. The budget proposal also includes a revenue proposal for November. K-12 and higher education will receive “trigger cuts” if this proposal is unsuccessful.

 

K-12 schools, community colleges, the UC and CSU will receive modest increases in funding under the Governor’s proposal, with the UC system receiving a 13% increase in general funds from last year’s budget. However if the Governor’s tax plan is not passed by California voters in November, all state funded education will receive an instant trigger cut, including a $200 million cut to the UC system. “We are happy to hear that higher education could receive a small increase under this proposal and that the Governor put forward a plan for new revenue.  Still, it is concerning that even with this increase; the UC would be funded $700 million less than 2007-2008 levels. Public higher education in our state remains grossly underfunded.” said UCSA President Magana.

 

The Governor’s revenue plan is a step in the right direction, but it clearly does not go far enough to raise the revenue necessary to fund the state’s needs. “The state immediately needs more revenue to ensure that we do not balance the budget on students and the poor.  This budget only further reinforces the need for greater taxes on big businesses and the wealthiest Californians to help restore our future,” said Magana.

 

Another alarming piece of the Governor’s proposal is the increase in the academic requirements for students to receive Cal-Grants, which will push approximately 26,000 financially, stressed students off of the very successful college grant program. This only adds to the 15,000 students that were phased out of the program in 2010/11. “Students depend on the Cal-Grant program to assist with rapidly increasing fees. The state should not be reducing accessibility through greater restrictions in the Cal Grant program,”says Magana.

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UCSA Says NO to Crane . . . and Wins!

Jan 10

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State Senate Fails to Confirm Anti-Bargaining UC Regent

By 
Published on January 10, 2012

Former UC Regent David Crane, who served on the Board of Regents since his controversial nomination by former Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in December 2010, lost his seat on the board after being denied the state Senate confirmation required within one year of his appointment.

A former partner at multibillion-dollar investment firm Babcock & Brown and once Schwarzenegger’s top economic adviser, Crane became known for his stance against public employees’ collective bargaining. In addition to a UC Berkeley Faculty Association petition calling on Governor Jerry Brown to rescind Crane’s nomination, UC workers and unions gathered at UC San Francisco in March to protest his appointment.

In an op-ed piece published in the San Francisco Chronicle last February, Crane said state spending on compensation and benefits for public employees consumes much of state revenue, ultimately causing taxes and student tuition to rise.

“Collective bargaining is a good thing when it’s needed to equalize power, but when public employees already have that equality because of civil service protections, collective bargaining in the public sector serves to reduce benefits for citizens and to raise costs for taxpayers,” Crane wrote.

In a statement released last month, state Senator Leland Yee said Crane’s political beliefs stand in opposition to the direction the university system should head.

“Students deserve to have someone who will fight for them and ensure their needs are addressed,” Yee said in the press release. “Considering recent efforts to privatize the University of California, yet another millionaire investor for a Regent is the last thing students need to protect their public university.”

Associated Students External Vice President of Statewide Affairs Ahmed Mostafa said Crane’s failure to be confirmed by the Senate stemmed from Schwarzenegger’s original decision to make the appointment without consent from the academic community.

“When the governor appoints all the Regents … they’re supposed to take into account both the academic Senate and the students’ opinion,” Mostafa said. “I think it’s very important to understand that when Crane was initially appointed, Schwarzenegger did not take into perspective the academic Senate or the students.”

Contrastingly, UC Office of the President Media Relations Director Steve Montiel referred to a Dec. 29 San Francisco Chronicle editorial titled “UC Regent Crane Ousted for Telling Hard Truths,” which concludes that Crane “is the type of advocate and truth teller who belongs on the Board of Regents.”

According to Montiel, the Senate’s inaction guaranteed that Crane would be able to finish out his contentious stint on the board.

“By not acting one way or the other on confirmation of David Crane as a member of the University of California Board of Regents, the state Senate at least ensured he could serve as a regent for the entire year,” Montiel said in an email.

Press Release

Dec 12

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PRESS RELEASE Speaker Perez 12 8 2011

Speaker Perez Listens to UC Students Voice their Concerns at LA Meeting
Los Angeles, CA-

The UC Student Association held a meeting today with Speaker John Perez to discuss
the challenges facing the University of California system, UC police brutality, and the UC Student
Association’s campaign to reform raise government revenues to fully fund higher education.
After the rescheduled UC Regents meeting on November 28th and current inquiries into UC Police
brutality, students from throughout the UC are excited today to have this open forum with the
Speaker.
“The meeting with Speaker Perez was very productive. The Speaker listed carefully to our issues and it
is good to know that UC students have such a strong ally in the legislature”, says Joelle Gamble UCSA
Board Member and UCLA External Vice President. This meeting also focused on the December 14th
Joint Information hearing on UC and CSU campus police policies and procedures.
“We also let the Speaker know that over 13,000 UC students have signed postcards in support of our
campaign for new revenue to fund higher education, He was strongly supportive of our efforts” says
Claudia Magana UCSA President .
Along with coalition partners such as the Courage Campaign, California Federation of Teachers and California Calls, UC students have helped to lead the fight to increase revenue in California. Students

look to the Speaker to stand with them and support the movement to protect the affordability, accessibility and quality of the UC system. In the meeting Speaker Perez iterated, “I will continue to engage in an open dialogue with students from our university systems,” Pérez said. “California’s future depends on having an exceptionally well educated workforce, and our UC, CSU and Community Colleges are dynamic economic engines for the state. We must find solutions that do right by students, parents and the people of California.”

 

 

 

Governor Brown’s Open Letter to Californians

Dec 12

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“When I became Governor again — 28 years after my last term ended in 1983 — California was facing a $26.6 billion budget deficit. It was the result of years of failing to match spending with tax revenues as budget gimmicks instead of honest budgeting became the norm.

In January, I proposed a budget that combined deep cuts with a temporary extension of some existing taxes. It was a balanced approach that would have finally closed our budget gap.

I asked the legislature to enact this plan and to allow you, the people of California, to vote on it.  I believed that you had the right to weigh in on this important choice: should we decently fund our schools or lower our taxes?  I don’t know how you would have voted, but we will never know.  The Republicans refused to provide the four votes needed to put this measure on the ballot.

Forced to act alone, Democrats went ahead and enacted massive cuts and the first honest on-time budget in a decade. But without the tax extensions, it was simply not possible to eliminate the state’s structural deficit.

The good news is that our financial condition is much better than a year ago. We cut the ongoing budget deficit by more than half, reduced the state’s workforce by about 5500 positions and cut unnecessary expenses like cell phones and state cars. We actually cut state expenses by over $10 billion.  Spending is now at levels not seen since the seventies.  Our state’s credit rating has moved from “negative” to “stable,” laying the foundation for job creation and a stronger economic recovery.

Unfortunately, the deep cuts we made came at a huge cost. Schools have been hurt and state funding for our universities has been reduced by 25%.  Support for the elderly and the disabled has fallen to where it was in 1983.  Our courts suffered debilitating reductions.

The stark truth is that without new tax revenues, we will have no other choice but to make deeper and more damaging cuts to schools, universities, public safety and our courts.

That is why I am filing today an initiative with the Attorney General’s office that would generate nearly $7 billion in dedicated funding to protect education and public safety. I am going directly to the voters because I don’t want to get bogged down in partisan gridlock as happened this year. The stakes are too high.

My proposal is straightforward and fair.  It proposes a temporary tax increase on the wealthy, a modest and temporary increase in the sales tax, and guarantees that the new revenues be spent only on education.  Here are the details:

  • Millionaires and high-income earners will pay up to 2% higher income taxes for five years. No family making less than $500,000 a year will see their income taxes rise. In fact, fewer than 2% of California taxpayers will be affected by this increase.
  • There will be a temporary ½ cent increase in the sales tax.  Even with this temporary increase, sales taxes will still be lower than what they were less than six months ago.
  • This initiative dedicates funding only to education and public safety–not on other programs that we simply cannot afford.

This initiative will not solve all of our fiscal problems. But it will stop further cuts to education and public safety.

I ask you to join with me to get our state back on track.

Jerry Brown”
Available here as well.

Chancellor Yang’s Statement

Nov 22

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November 21, 2011

Dear Members of our Campus Community,

Over the weekend I have received many expressions of concern from faculty, staff, and students about the importance of preserving academic freedom. I have very much appreciated these sentiments. I also have met with our colleagues in Student Affairs, the Police Department, and the Academic Senate.

I am writing now to reaffirm, on behalf of UC Santa Barbara, our campus commitment to civil discourse, freedom of expression, and non-violence. These are core values of our academic community, and we share a common responsibility to protect and safeguard them. Our students, faculty, and staff must continue to work together to discuss important issues and concerns in an environment of mutual respect, safety, and tolerance, even in difficult times.

Thank you for helping to ensure the values of our community.

I send my best wishes for the Thanksgiving holiday.

Sincerely,

Statement by President Yudof Regarding Recent Events

Nov 21

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President Mark G. Yudof issued the following statement to UC students today (Wednesday, Nov. 16):

 

I am proud of UC students who are speaking out with passion and conviction in support of public higher education across the state. I was moved last night by the sight of thousands of students who peacefully demonstrated in UC Berkeley’s Sproul Plaza, and by those who traveled to Sacramento to protest state disinvestment in our colleges and universities.

 

Free speech is in the DNA of the University of California, and public protest is an important part of our history. Free speech is often contentious, as is democracy. I want all of our students to know that I fully and unequivocally support their right to protest peacefully.

 

At UC Berkeley, a process is in place to review the violence of last week. Like Chancellor Birgeneau, I was distressed by what I saw, both as a parent and as president of the University of California. Whether there or elsewhere, I have absolute confidence that our chancellors will do what is right and necessary to ensure that the campuses where our students live and learn provide an environment for robust but peaceful discourse. The safety of our students must be protected, always.

 

In difficult times like these, it sometimes can be too easy to lose sight of the larger picture. UC students, faculty, staff and our regents all share a passion for the University and its role in shaping a better society. We also suffer together the strains caused by what has been a long pattern of state disinvestment in the University of California. And, as a result, we should stand together in common cause to do everything in our power to convince the state’s political leadership that higher education represents not a cost, but the most enlightened investment any state can make.

 

I also want to offer the heartfelt sympathy of the entire UC community to the family of Christopher Travis, the student who died of wounds suffered yesterday at the Haas Business School in a shooting incident unrelated to the Sproul Plaza activities. It is an absolutely tragic situation for all involved, for Mr. Travis, the students who were placed in jeopardy and the staff and police who quickly responded and took action.

Governor Vetoes SB 185

Oct 14

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One of UCSA’s undergraduate campaigns, SB 185, was vetoed by Governor Jerry Brown.  This bill would have allowed the UC to take ethnicity and gender into consideration when reviewing applications for admission.  While Brown agreed with the idea behind this legislation, he vetoed it to avoid “costly and confusing lawsuits.”

California DREAM Act (AB 131) Signed into Law

Oct 14

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On Saturday October 8th 2011, Governor Jerry Brown made the dreams of countless students come true when he signed AB 131 into law and completed the California Dream Act!
UC students have worked tirelessly for years to pass this bill into law. This year, UC students testified at every committee hearing in support of this bill and advocated for it in over 100 lobby visits to legislators. In February, UC students collected over 11,000 postcards addressed to Governor Brown in support of the DREAM Act. At the UCSA 2011 Congress at UC Riverside, students made 649 calls in one hour to legislators to show their support.
UC students congratulate Governor Brown and the California Legislature for making the California Dream a reality for thousands of students. This completed version of the Dream Act will go into effect in January 2013, and UCSA will continue our advocacy to ensure that the law is implemented fully.

Online Voter Registration (SB 397) Signed into Law!

Governor Brown also signed into law SB 397, a bill implementing online voter registration. Online voter registration was chosen as a top priority for UC students this year at the UCSA Congress. Earlier this month, UC students made hundreds of calls in support of SB 397 and all of your hard work paid off!
SB 397 will authorize the California DMV to work with the Secretary of State to roll out a secure online voter registration process in 2012. By streamlining the voter registration process, online voter registration will greatly increase youth and student participation in the voting process. UC students will continue our advocacy in the coming months to ensure that this online voter registration system is implemented in time for the 2012 elections.