The Budget Crisis and the Future of California: Timeline and Important Documents

The Department of English provides these documents for the information of its faculty, students, and friends and not as an expression of endorsement of any point of view or opinion.

1. BACKGROUND (April – June 18, 2009)

April - May, 2009: UC President Mark Yudof submits drafts of two documents for discussion to the UC Board of Regents, the Systemwide Academic Senate, and the Divisional Chairs of the ten Campus Senates. The first is a Proposed Amendment to the Standing Orders of the Regents, which would grant to the President “emergency powers”-- in the event of a natural disaster or “extreme financial circumstance”-- to “implement furloughs and/or pay reductions on terms the President deems necessary” and “to suspend the operation of any existing Regental or University policies otherwise applicable to furloughs and/or salary reductions that are contrary to the terms he or she deems necessary to the proposed implementation." The second is a draft of the Furlough/Salary Reduction Guidelines.

• For full documents, click here.



• For further context, see “Notes from the Senate Chair,” by Systemwide Academic Chair Mary Croughan.

June 18, 2009: President Yudof announces a funding shortfall of nearly 800 million dollars, as a result of “a combination of actual and proposed cuts by the State to UC’s budget in the current and upcoming fiscal years.” At the same time, the President proposes, and invites responses to, three system-wide furlough/salary reduction options,

• For full letter, click here.

• For other Budget News from the UC Office of the President, see http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/budget/

2. SELECTED FACULTY RESPONSES ( late June – early July, 2009)

We have only chosen collective documents, and therefore these are a small sampling of the numerous letters available elsewhere. Readers interested in a fuller account of the developing situation should also see the documents posted on a number of other sides, including the following:

The UCLA Faculty Association site
The UCSC Senate website
The UCSF Faculty Senate

• Letter to Governor Schwarzenegger from professors from all UC Campuses, Members of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine (June 30, 2009).

• “Save the University of California,” a Collective Letter to Chancellors Birgeneau, Block, Blumenthal, Desmond-Hellman, Drake, Fox, Kang, Vanderhoef, White, and Yang (July 3, 2009).

• Letter to Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost George Breslauer, from about 150 Berkeley faculty (June 29, 2009)

• UC Berkeley Academic Senate Response (July 6, 2009)

• Formal Response on Emergency Powers to President Yudof from the Systemwide Academic Senate, the Divisional Chairs of the ten UC Campuses, and eight standing faculty committees (July 7, 2009).

• The UC Systemwide Response to President Yudof's 3 Options for Furlough and/or Pay Reduction. Also includes the responses submitted by each ofthe Academic Senates of the 10 UC Campuses, as well as the StandingFaculty Committees of the System (released July 8, 2009)

• UC President Yudolf's revised recommendations to the UC Regents to amend the duties of the President granting "emergency powers" and to declare a state of financial emergency along with the approval of budget reduction actions. (July 10, 2009)