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Of the students who walked onto the UC Los Angeles campus Wednesday and Thursday, many marched straight past the classrooms and libraries. They carried signs rather than books and chanted instead of passively scribbling lecture notes. In place of desks, they chose to occupy the areas around Covel Commons, the scene of the Nov. 17 to 19 Regents meeting. This time around, they hoped, the Regents would be the ones taking notes.
Many of these students traveled to UCLA from their home campuses, including UC Riverside, to protest the Regents meeting. This display of opposition was one in a string of many protests part of a fierce, ongoing debate between the University of California administration and the many students, staff and faculty from all 10 UC campuses.
Despite such criticism, the Regents approved a 32 percent fee increase. The hike was passed by the Committee of Finance on Wednesday and forwarded to the Board. The only dissenting vote came from student regent Jesse Bernal, a current graduate student in education at UC Santa Barbara. The increase was given final approval by the Board on Thursday.
The fee increase will be implemented in two stages. First, starting January 2010, there will be a 15 percent hike for undergraduate students and a 2.6 percent hike for graduate academic degree students. The summer of 2010 will bring 15 percent increase in fees for all students.
This decision will bring fees above $10,000 for the first time in the history of the UC. This has prompted some to accuse the Regents of trying to make the UC, widely recognized as one of the best public university systems in the world, a private institution. The rising cost of attending a UC, paired with fewer classes and reduced services, also has many questioning if the quality of the UC system can be maintained.
In a less controversial decision, the Board also approved the reopening of the Martin Luther King Hospital in South Los Angeles. The hospital was shut down in 2007 after numerous citations regarding improper patient care. The UC will work on this project with Los Angeles County.
Protesters at UCLA versus the numbers
Architects love numbers. The façade of UCLA’s beautiful Royce Hall includes two towers, two arcades, three doors, six major arches used to support the ceiling. There are 18 windows, large and small, 52 intentional errors for every Sunday in the year and 108 ornamental arches bordering the key lines of the architecture.
The protesters below on its steps do not seem to display such an enthusiasm for numbers. Five hundred eighty-five. That is the number of additional dollars which students around the state will need to spend in order to receive an education from the University of California this coming winter quarter. One thousand three hundred forty-four. That’s another number known by many, loved by few. It’s the number of the additional dollars which will be added on top of 585, the number of additional dollars which students will be paying come next fall.
That comes to a total of $10,302 annually. As the many protesters below Royce Hall continue to restate, it comes out to a 32 percent increase in student fees or tuition. The two words are used interchangeably, though the UC is not allowed to levy the latter on students.
Only fees are allowed, and the fees, so the protesters say, are unacceptably large. The fees will now act as a barrier to lower incomes students, thus keeping the UC from fulfilling the promise made in the Master Plan in the 1960s, they say. “Democratize the UC,” say others. They say that the increase was formulated, and will be implemented, without enough input from the students or faculty.
Then the shout. “They’re voting on the increase right now,” yells an anonymous protester. It is a call to action, a command to move to the Covel Commons where the Regents are holding their meeting.
The group of protesters makes its way to the Covel Commons, meeting up with an already present group in the narrow plaza. A moderate estimate by this reporter places approximately 1,000 students, faculty, staff, and alumni squeezed into the narrow plaza before the Covel Commons.
The Regents are inside, Yudof is inside, and the crowd knows it. “Shame on you,” they yell in unison, hoping that their collective voice is heard through panels of glass windows and stucco walls. The shouts are passionate, the voices loud, all chanting “Shame on you.”
Speaking up outside the Regents meeting
Outside the Regents meeting, the demonstration turns away from Covel Hall, focusing its attention to an elevated patio lining the opposite side of the plaza. From the patio, looking out into the protest it is clear that here too numbers are known, but unloved. Multiple signs held by protesters display these numbers.
There is the sign held by a member of the University, Professional and Technical Employees Union, displaying the number “33.” A “33 [percent] researcher turnover” is what the sign protests (nearly one-third of researchers at the UC leave for higher paying jobs annually). More UPTE signs criticize the UC for not keeping pace with the external labor market. The number here is 25 percent, or $11,818, the amount of pay that separates the UC job from higher paying, comparable positions outside the UC system.
Elevated above the crowd, above the signs and on the patio, multiple speakers have been set up and a series of demonstrators take to the microphone to address the crowd and, on occasion, to address the Regents and other administration.
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