Legislature, UC need to step up collaboration

UNIVERSITY ISSUES: Wildly different proposals typify lack of communication

By Senior Editorial Board

From the announcement of capped enrollment at UC Berkeley and UCLA to the proposal for an 11th UC campus, it’s been an eventful couple of weeks for California public higher education.

The maelstrom of divergent ideas coming from the Legislature and University of California would be a welcome opportunity for dialogue and determining the future of the university if it were not for the dismal lack of communication between certain legislators and UC administrators.

Last week, Assemblymember Mike Gatto, D-Glendale, introduced a bill to create a UC campus devoted to STEAM — science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics — with $50 million appropriated from the state general fund. Gatto wants the campus to be the public equivalent of Caltech, possibly located near Silicon Valley or Los Angeles and filled with seats for students who are denied spots at top-ranked UC campuses.

Meanwhile, UC Merced turns 10 this year and still struggles to find funding for the construction of new buildings. Before the state expands an imperfect system, it must work with university officials to fix what it currently has. If Gatto and other lawmakers want to see more tech taught on UC campuses, they should earmark funds for such programs.

We are also wary of Gatto’s proposed location for the next campus. Compared to Merced — whose campus was intentionally placed to serve an underserved community — Silicon Valley is teeming with the educated elite, and LA already has its own UC campus.

The reddest flag in this mess of a proposal, though, is the utter lack of collaboration with UC administrators. It appears that university officials were not consulted with or briefed on the legislation prior to its introduction. Legislators, student leaders and administrators need to work together to remedy our current budget woes before lawmakers study the feasibility of an 11th campus — which, given the present state of negotiations, would be a vexatious distraction.

UC President Janet Napolitano, too, needs to improve how she announces and relays serious information on changes coming to the UC system. On Tuesday, she told an Assembly budget committee that the university would freeze enrollment of California students and cap out-of-state student enrollment at UC Berkeley and UCLA unless the state meets her demand of increasing university funding by $218 million. Just as when she announced the delayed tuition hike at a private university’s lecture, Napolitano again should have better communicated to students — prospective and current — where the University of California is headed.

It would be a shame for the university to close its doors to more Californians who deserve a spot at one of our campuses — 10 campuses, that is. Napolitano’s move appears to be grounded in political maneuvering, once again leveraging students in the bargaining process.

Our state and university leaders need to vet each other’s ideas in open forums instead of working behind closed doors and then declaring dramatic changes to the university when it is politically convenient for them.

Editorials represent the collective opinion of the Senior Editorial Board as written by the opinion editor.

[Source]: Daily Californian