Story of Two Emails
September 6th, 2009
I’m just going to post two (somewhat old) emails I have in my inbox. I think I’ve made it fairly clear how I feel about these issues, so I don’t think I need to add my own commentaries. I think the emails themselves and who sent them speak clearly enough.
First, the email from the chair of physics department:
From: Frances Hellman <phys...@berkeley.edu> To: ALL Faculty <facu...@physics.berkeley.edu>, Staff All <sta...@physics.berkeley.edu>, Grads all <gra...@physics.berkeley.edu>, Undergrad majors <maj...@physics.berkeley.edu> Subject: [Grads] Department budget cut information Date: Tue, 25 Aug 2009 16:34:26 -0700 [-- Attachment #1 --] [-- Type: multipart/alternative, Encoding: 7bit, Size: 16K --] Dear Physics faculty, staff, grads, majors, post-docs, visitors, I attach (and insert below for convenience) a summary of how the department is handling its budget cut. To date, most of you have been focused on the furlough program, which affects our salaries and our ability to do our jobs, but which is temporary. In addition to this, the Physics Department is taking what is being called a permanent budget cut of approximately $400,000 (~20% of our permanent state budget, similar to other departments). I have worked hard with staff and faculty to arrive at what we think is the best way to handle this cut, and outline the details below. A cut of this magnitude will have impact. There is without doubt things here that will make you angry and frustrated - I share that frustration, and am doing what I can to mitigate it. This mainly consists of trying to choose as wisely as possible how and where to make the cuts, keeping eyes open for places to recover money, and fund raising to offset cuts where possible. Your input is and will be appreciated. We looked hard at all parts of the department to find the best ways to make this cut. We anticipate being able to do this without layoffs, which I note many departments are facing, but by necessity there are going to be some difficult choices and some services provided in the past will have to be eliminated or reduced. I wrote you previously concerning one significant part of the budget plan, which involved an increase and restructuring of shop recharge rates. I am now writing to you with the other parts of the reduction plan for this upcoming year. I apologize for the fact that some of these changes are being implemented with virtually no notice (e.g. lecture demos; end of semester teaching schedule announced by the university). This is not how any of us like to operate, but the process is cumbersome and not easy to anticipate what and when we will get information from which we must make decisions. I reiterate that none of this is being done lightly -- it is not possible to take a budget reduction from the state of this magnitude without incurring some pain. It is also not possible to say much about what is likely next year -- the university is looking at a variety of ways to help reduce our reliance on state funding, while still supporting excellent research and teaching and remaining committed to being an open public university. I do want here to inject one personal comment -- I still believe that Berkeley and particularly our Physics Department is and will be a great institution. I am committed to finding ways to make that continue to be true, and will work with you as best as I can do to achieve this. The changes for our department described below have been arrived at in consultation with faculty and staff of the department. We are working hard to find ways to increase income, and have targeted several opportune fund raising efforts which have already begun-- ranging from support for the Advanced Lab (Physics 111), to SPS, to graduate student fellowships (two endowments), to (hopefully) a new endowed chair. Our successes in the past have in fact been most helpful in mitigating the impact of the state budget disaster on our department. Our block grant (grad student support) and our TAS (GSI and lecturer) budgets have not been cut, so negative impacts on some of our core functions are somewhat less severe than might have been. One important point to note --the below are associated with cuts in our permanent budget. There is in addition the furlough program, which will impact all staff and faculty (graduate students, post-docs and anyone 100% on non-state funding are exempt). Furlough days will inevitably have an impact on how department services can be handled. The staff in our department work very hard to meet departmental needs, but furloughs will impact their ability to do this, and faculty and students need to understand and work with staff to avoid missed deadlines and other problems. It is therefore extremely important to anticipate your needs such as purchasing or grant handling or lecture demos; get requests in early and recognize that staff may not be able to provide all the services you have previously received (although I note that the search for another accounting analyst is still underway and will help relieve pressure when it is successful). Specific cuts (approximate savings in parentheses): 1. The shop recharge rates have been modified as previously discussed. The Electronics Shop manager position (budgeted at 100%) is reduced by 50%, allowing us to continue to employ our present (temporary) 1/2 time E-shop manager Jerry Przybylski. In addition, the shop tool allowance has been temporarily suspended. Recharge income and shop usage will be carefully monitored during the year. 2. Instructional support services will be reduced by ½ person. This takes advantage of Cindy Holmes' retirement -- she was full time FTE but will be replaced by a ½ FTE. Instructional support (lecture demos, lower division labs, advanced lab) will re-organize to minimize impact on teaching, but you should expect to see reductions in availability of demos for classes. Guidelines on how this will be handled will be sent to instructors and GSI's for affected classes. 3. Our main administrative office is discontinuing its student helper, and Nathan Proctor will be covering assignments in other parts of the department, in addition to his primary duties as web master, colloquium and special events organizer. He will also be helping to cover for Madeleine Gordon, who will be retiring this fall. A number of other staff have opted for a temporary time reduction (in addition to the mandatory furloughs) which help offset costs in other areas. 4. Colloquium travel budget and special events budget (Segre and Oppenheimer, annual staff, student, faculty holiday parties) have been maintained, but with reduced budgets where possible; support for colloquia entertainment expenses is reduced to a maximum of $175 per dinner. 5. Faculty recruiting allowance has been eliminated for now (~$12,500); funding for bringing in diversity speakers to the department has been reduced to $2000/year, with a max of $400 per speaker, first come first serve; funding for AMO seminar has been reduced to $1500 per year. 6. Support for SWPS, SPS, COMPASS, CalDay, graduation, and 111 lab have been maintained, as has grad student recruiting budget. 7. Cookie/tea will only be provided on Mondays (colloquium day). On other days, the department will provide tea only. (~$3000 per year) 8. The faculty lunches will no longer be held in the faculty club -- attendance was too light to justify the cost. (~$2500 per year). For this upcoming year, we will try holding this informally in room 324 LeConte on Thursdays and see if attendance improves. 9. Telephone lines-- we have already identified 16 phone lines that have been eliminated (saving ~$6000 per year) and estimate that there are an additional ~16 lines that can be eliminated. 10. PANIC room charges are currently being assessed to see if there is room for savings. Other small cuts have been made in all areas of the department. 11. There have been shifts of personnel from state funds to more discretionary funds -- this may impact the availability of matching and recruiting funds and other discretionary costs. The impact of this will be seen in time, particularly as we see if/how increased recharge rates decrease shop usage. Sincerely, Frances Hellman, Physics Department Chair [-- Attachment #2: Physics dept budget reductions.pdf --] [-- Type: application/pdf, Encoding: base64, Size: 48K --] [-- application/pdf is unsupported (use 'v' to view this part) --] [-- Attachment #3 --] [-- Type: text/plain, Encoding: 7bit, Size: 0.1K --] _______________________________________________ Grads mailing list Gra...@physics.berkeley.edu http://physics.berkeley.edu/mailman/listinfo/grads
And the second email is from my GSI union “executive board”, or, as I like to call them, union pigs:
From: UAW 2865 Berkeley <berk...@uaw2865.org> Subject: UC employees hold no-confidence vote on President Mark Yudof Date: Wed, 26 Aug 2009 22:24:15 +0000 (UTC) August 26, 2009 Dear UAW 2865 member, Employees throughout the University of California system will be participating in a no-confidence vote on UC President Mark Yudof. The vote will take place from today through Wednesday, September 2 on all UC campuses, and results will be announced on September 3rd. The vote has been organized by a coalition of unions protesting Yudof’s budgetary policies and rejecting the notion that UC has a fiscal emergency. The university union coalition is encouraging all employees to register their rejection of Yudof’s policies by participating in the no-confidence vote. The remaining vote times/locations for your campus are: Thu, 8/27 Bancroft/Telegraph, 11:30 a.m. - 6:00 p.m. University Village, 12:00 p.m. - 1:00 p.m. Dwinelle Hall, 8:30 p.m. - 9:30 p.m. Thu, 8/27 thru Wed, 9/2 Moffitt Library/Free Speech Movement Café, 12:00 p.m. - 1:00 p.m. Northgate (Hearst/Euclid), 12:00 p.m. - 1:00 p.m. Westgate (Center/Oxford), 7:30 a.m. - 9:00 a.m. Fri, 8/28 thru Wed, 9/2 Bancroft & Telegraph, 12:00 p.m. - 1:00 p.m. Tue, 9/1 thru Wed, 9/2 Yali's/Stanley Hall, 12:00 p.m. - 1:00 p.m. Lawrence Hall of Science, 12:00 p.m. - 1:00 p.m. 1111 Franklin (UCOP), 12:00 p.m. - 1:00 p.m. Richmond Field Station, 12:00 p.m. - 1:00 p.m. Wed, 9/2 College/Bancroft, 12:00 p.m. - 1:00 p.m. In solidarity, UAW Local 2865 Executive Board -------------------------------------------------------------------------- UAW 2865 Berkeley 2855 Telegraph Ave, Suite 305 Berkeley, CA 94705 phone: (510) 549-3863 / fax: (510) 549-2514 berk...@uaw2865.org / www.uaw2865.org mail-list.com 1302 Waugh Dr. #438 Houston, Texas 77019 USA
As a commentary not on the emails but on my own sentiments, this is all I have to say: my jobs at UC Berkeley were my first ever. As a first employer, I could not have asked for a better one—and as a continuing, 6th-year employee, I could not ask for a better workplace.
As for “my” union, for the life of me, I cannot figure out what they do with my $9 that they take out of my paycheck every month. Aside from giving salaries to the union pigs, I mean.