UCLA Students Occupy Campus Building in Protest

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The UC President has a UCB Chancellor that should do the high paid job he is paid for instead of hiring an East Coast consulting firm to fulfill his responsibilities. ‘World class’ smart executives like Chancellor Birgeneau need to do the analysis, hard work and make the difficult decisions of their executive job!

Where do consulting firms like Bain ($3,000,000 consultants) get their recommendations?

From interviewing the senior management that hired them and will be approving their monthly consultant fees and expense reports. Remember the nationally known auditing firm who said the right things and submitted recommendations that senior management wanted to hear and fooled government oversight agencies and the public?

Mr. Birgeneau's executive officer performance management responsibilities include "inspiring innovation and leading change." This involves "defining outcomes, energizing others at all levels and ensuring continuing commitment." Instead of demonstrating his capacity to fulfill his executive accountabilities, Mr. Birgeneau outsourced them. Doesn't he engage University of California and University of California Berkeley (UCB) people at all levels to help examine the budget and recommend the necessary trims? Hasn't he talked to Cornell and the University of North Carolina - which also hired Bain -- about best practices and recommendations that might apply to UCB cuts?

No wonder the faculty and staff are angry and suspicious. Three million dollars is a high price for Californians to pay when a knowledgeable ‘world-class’ Chancellor is not doing his job.

Please help save $3,000,000 for teaching our students and request that the UC President require the UCB Chancellor to fulfill his executive job accountabilities!

Milan Moravec of CA 3:16PM November 21, 2009

Don wrote: "I will always trust Big Government over big business any day because you cannot trust greed."

I'm having difficulty digesting your comment. You see, the greed you accuse big business of is profit taking and businesses are in the business of taking profits. That's what they do. Profits allow businesses to pay employees, purchase plant, property, equipment, pay debts, expand, lower prices, etc.

This is not behavior I would expect from "higher education." They've blurred the line. Sure, like a business, they provide a service. Great. Then act like a business. That means little, if any, subsidies. Schools should build their business the same way businesses build their businesses . . . out of profits. If their service "education" is so substantial and so much better than everyone else, there should be no problem. But when massive portions of the University are funded by the state, well that's when they stop being like a business.

I've got to wonder what world you live in if you think "BIG" government is all that and a bag of chips. I mean really, "BIG" government represents greed, corruption, abuse, neglect on a massive scale. Ever hear of thousand dollar hammers, redundant programs each endeavoring to do the same thing, each draining the bank, and none providing the service their designed for? Did you hear about the massive $780 billion dollars that was spent to create millions of jobs and now you have the white house lying to the very tax payers that funded the bailout telling us thousands of jobs have been created or saved. Bulls---!!! How about the tax cheats Geithner, Rangle, Dodd, et al? What about the billions of cost overruns in government current health care system called Medicare and Medicaid? Suddenly government is going to turn a new leave and be stringent stewards of the public trust. Hell, this same "BIG" government has been stealing from Social Security for YEARS. How about sweatheart contracts to friends and acquaintences, big money donors? How about 25 cushy ambassadorships that OBAMA gave away to folks who lack the qualification to run a kool-aid stand? How about millions of dollars spent to build turtle tunnels? Did you ever hear about the big dig, a two mile stretch of hwy/tunnel in Boston that was 5 years late and billions of dollars over budget? I could write forever about how the government cannot be trusted, but I'm running out of characters.

Trust "BIG" government? What have they done to earn my trust? Nothing. If anything, they've earned my scorn and rebuke. Good luck with your trust, though, Don. You'll soon find yourself part of a kolkhozes and be calling everyone comrade.

david of ID 10:48AM November 21, 2009

Greed is soon going to destroy America and no one is looking for a good solution because in a monetary greed system we have (which is dangerously close to start treks ferengi that it is scary) there is no good solution because nobody knows what greed means any more.

Greed is apart of our lives, people who help the poor makes more than the president of the united states and paid killers like pharmaceutical companies, insurance companies lawyers, doctors and in some cases nurses get by with what they do because the victim did not have enough money or had a pre existing condition.

Supply and demand no longer applies because it is manipulated. Big business would rather throw away surplus than lower prices. farmers are paid not to grow anything, Oil wells with plenty of oil is shut off and technology that can save this planet or just save the people lots of money was put on the back shelf or destroyed to protect big business profits.

We have the strongest richest nation but the worst education and health care of any nation. I understand some undeveloped countries even have better health care than we do thats because we do not have health care we have a health industry, strongly reliant on immune system killing drugs giving the health industry even more power over us.

The true big brother has always been big business but big business hid that fact by fighting against big Government and they did not want the interference of the people anyway.

I will always trust Big Government over big business any day because you cannot trust greed.

Don D. Brock

Don D. Brock of AZ 10:03PM November 20, 2009

when school's raise their tuition, they are able to accept more students of low-income backgrounds. This of course does not solve the problem of under representation of students of low socioeconomic backgrounds because of course access to better quality education needs to start early, not at 18, but high tuition costs have allowed top schools to accept students who would otherwise not be able to go by giving them free rides or at least more need-based scholarships. I am not suggesting that was UCLA's sole objective and I am sure the Chancellor is paid way too much, but don't assume that raising tuition costs means less access to higher education, it generally correlates with more access.

K of CT 5:38PM November 20, 2009

Here's a thought...

The crazier the students get, the more that the state is going to have to charge in order to make up the difference to pay the police force on the campus. In Happy Valley, we face the same problem. We may be the best party school in the nation, but the $$$$ to clean up after us has to come from somewhere. We can not have our cake and eat it too...

Penn State student of PA 5:35PM November 20, 2009

They could use his expertise on bombing domestic targets.

manny of NE 2:04PM November 20, 2009

Here's an idea for the Chancellor...Why don't you agree to a 32% pay decrease? I'd like to see the Chancellor's reaction to that proposal!!

Andrew Smith of WI 1:08PM November 20, 2009

To be honest, I'm not a student of UCLA or an Alumni. In fact, I have little love or concern for anything Californian. The entire state can fall into the ocean, as far as I'm concerned.

However, I must say, the hypocricy of "higher education" stinks to high heaven.

In the article, UCLA Chancellor Gene Block is quoted as saying, "As you likely know, the UC Regents are meeting on campus in Covel Commons . . . There were a number of protest demonstrations yesterday, and they are continuing today. It's important for us to honor the right to protest, but we also must maintain an environment of civility, respect, and safety on our campus. . . ."

Why should Chancellor Gene Block demand civility, respect, and safety from the students? Where was the "civility, respect and safety concerns" by the UC Regents? The regents didn't respect the students. If they had the Regemts wouldn't foist a sudden 32% increase on their tuition rates. Additionally, the action by the Regents jeopardized the financial safety and security of the students. Furthermore, I doubt the result was done with civility where the opinion of student advocates carried the same weight as the opinion of the Regents.

So who are the Regents protecting? Certainly not the students. I propose that the sudden increase is due to the failure of California's state government to subsidize it's institutions and the greed of tenured liberal professors.

If my two salient points are the true reason behind the increase, then there are two lessons that are abundantly clear.

The first is this: Government cannot and never will be capable of providing continual support whether in education, or health care. Consequently, "We the People" and Institutions need to wean ourselves from the cold, hard nipple of government funding.

The second point follows: Liberal, tenured profs, despite their exterior utopian views of an elysian society are, at their core, greedy and corrupt. They are the leeches that suck the financial blood of naïveté students.

I hope the students, who decided to take a stand, don't suddenly discover they have weak knees.

david of ID 12:47PM November 20, 2009

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