Public Comments to the University of California Commission on the Future
meeting in Oakland, CA, November 12, 2009
by Charles Schwartz
Having sat through two of your public Commission meetings, the most interesting thing I have heard was the presentation at the beginning [today] by Mr. Baldassare [Mark Baldassare, President of the Public Policy Institute of California], who connects to the world of the people of California. And his most interesting comment was his response to a question from Mr. Pulaski. I hope I am quoting him correctly. Baldassare described the people as having mixed views about higher education and the University. He said: what the people want from higher education is efficiency, responsiveness and accountability.
Now I know the President’s Office uses those words a lot. They have a program for accountability. I have looked at a lot of the stuff that they have put out there. And I judge it to be primarily a public relations job; and I think most people see it as that. And therefore it fails to provide the people with what they say they want.
Let me give you a few examples. A familiar cliché: student fees go up; and the educational services that we provide to the students go down. Standard excuse: It’s Sacramento’s fault. No, that doesn’t wash. We take in a billion and a half dollars this year and two billion dollars next year of Educational Fees. How are you spending those monies? Nobody can find out.
There is a lively controversy between Professor Meister and Vice President Taylor. There is no transparency there. It is a PR game. You can’t win friends that way!
Another example, from my own research: The fantastic growth rate of administrative bureaucracy throughout this university. It’s been ignored, ignored, ignored for a long time. Well, maybe there will be some progress made on that now.
I think it would have been a wonderful thing if there were a Working Group appointed whose job was to bring forward specific critiques aimed at the top administrative structure, and that would include the Board of Regents, the President and the Chancellors and that whole non-academic activity; how is it funded; where is the money going; what’s going on?
Now, of course, since you are the people who created this structure, it wasn’t likely that you would appoint such a working group. But there is an idea.
Thank you.