UC Riverside Faculty Association

October 26, 2020
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Campus after Cops: Building Abolitionist Communities – Thursday October 29, 2020 – 1pm PST
Campus after Cops: Building Abolitionist Communities

Thursday October 29 | 1-2:30pm PST | 3-4:30pm CST | 4-5:30pm EST

Beth Richie (University of Illinois)
Eric Stanley (UC Berkeley)

Paula Rojas (Communities of Color United: Coalition for Racial Justice, Austin, Texas).

Azadeh Zohrabi (Director of Underground Scholars, UC Berkeley)

Moderators: Erica Meiners & Setsu Shigematsu

Register here: https://bit.ly/3ol5CW6

This virtual teach-in addresses calls for campuses to cut ties with local and state police, defund and abolish campus police. What must be done to create a campus that is safe for all people — especially for Black, Indigenous, undocumented and gender non-conforming people — those targeted by police harassment and terror. How can we create campuses that are free from policing, including local, state, federal, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). How do the multiple levels of administrators (from student conduct officers to Provosts and Chancellors) act as police to target, punish and harm students and faculty? How do we build with communities beyond the campus to defund and dismantle policing and build abolitionist communities?

This panel will offer examples of organizing – at the campus, local, city and state level – to remove police from campuses. Panelists will share tactics, resources and strategies developed by their networks and organizations and also offer pathways to engage restorative justice and transformative justice (TJ) practices. This panel features organizers and scholar-activists who have been building abolitionist alternatives. 

About the Abolition and the University Teach-in Series

The unprecedented protests and grassroots organizing against antiblack police and white vigilante violence has generated demands to end systemic racism endemic across US political, economic, legal, cultural and educational institutions. This webinar series aims to expand an understanding of abolition and its ongoing practices and potential to radically transform college campuses and universities as sites of struggle.

The first teach-in addressed how the university has historically functioned to reproduce and sanction antiblackness and policing. This panel of scholar-activists spoke to how antiblackness has been foundational to the structure, organization and policies of the university and has operated to police bodies, disciplines, knowledges, movements and activism, often under the cover of rhetorics that promote liberal ‘multicultural inclusion and diversity.’ (Available to watch at Critical Resistance Facebook page)

The second teach-in addresses what we mean by genuine campus safety for all and why we demand the abolition of policing. Our speakers will elaborate how we can learn from abolitionist organizing beyond the campus to build models of security and care that meet the basic needs of our communities and educate to prevent harm. This webinar will introduce transformative justice (TJ) practices and how we can invest the resources of the university to begin to repair past harms and build learning communities that hold people accountable rather than punish, penalize and disavow the root problems inherent to the hierarchical and colonial culture of the university.

The third panel elaborates our collective vision of an abolitionist university. In a settler-colonial society, how can we establish an abolitionist university and how would its purpose be radically different from how the neoliberal university functions to reproduce a carceral society, racial capitalism and US imperial hegemony? How can we take collective action to transform the university into a gathering place for decolonization and collective liberation?

This three-part teach-in series aims to support, deepen and proliferate abolitionist organizing on post-secondary educational campuses. This series of webinars will elevate on the ground strategies and tactics, lift up collectives and networks that are raising critical questions to ignite dialogue, and encourage action and strengthen organizing. While we don’t have all the answers, we call on students, faculty, staff and organizers who are engaging abolition at the site of the university and beyond to join us in this discussion.

Co-sponsored by Critical Resistance, Scholars for Social Justice, Riverside Faculty Association, UCFTP, UCRFTP

September 24, 2020
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Action and Teach-in against Antiblack Violence

October 1, 2020 ~ Day of Action/Strike/Teach-in for Police Abolition
Faculty, instructors, students and staff, please consider striking and joining these teach-ins in solidarity with the larger statewide call to take action to protest antiblack police violence.

ABOLITION & THE UNIVERSITY: TEACH-IN SERIES
~ organized by the Abolitionist Educators Network of Critical Resistance

Antiblackness, the University and Policing — October 1, 2020
1-2:30pm (PST) | 3-4:30pm (CST) | 4-6:00pm (EST)

Moderator: Dylan Rodriguez (UC Riverside)
Lester Spence (Johns Hopkins University)
Cathy Cohen (University of Chicago)
João Costa Vargas (UC Riverside)
Savannah Shange (UC Santa Cruz)

This first teach-in addresses how the university has historically functioned to reproduce and sanction antiblackness and policing. This panel of scholar-activists discusses how antiblackness has been foundational to the structure, organization and policies of the university and has operated to police bodies, disciplines, knowledges, movements and activism, often under the cover of rhetorics that promote liberal multicultural inclusion and diversity.

Eventbrite: ucrcopsoffcampus.eventbrite.com

About the Abolition & the University Teach-in Series
The unprecedented protests and grassroots organizing against antiblack police and white vigilante violence has generated demands to end systemic racism endemic across US political, economic, legal, cultural and educational institutions. This series aims to expand an understanding of abolition and its ongoing practices and potential to radically transform college campuses and universities as sites of struggle. This three-part teach-in series aims to support, deepen and proliferate abolitionist organizing on post-secondary educational campuses. While we don’t have all the answers, we call on students, faculty, staff and organizers who are engaging abolition at the site of the university and beyond to join us in this discussion.

Campus after Cops: Building Abolitionist Communities–October 15: 1-2:30pm (PST) | 3-4:30pm (CST) | 4-6:00pm (EST)
The second teach-in addresses what we mean by genuine campus safety for all and why we demand cops off campus. Participants will elaborate how we can implement and build models of security and care that meet the basic needs of our communities and educate and organize to prevent harm and violence before it happens. This webinar will introduce transformative justice (TJ) practices and how we can invest the resources of the university to begin to repair past harms and build learning communities that hold people accountable rather than punish, penalize and disavow the root problems inherent to the hierarchical and colonial culture of the university.

Abolitionist University: Education for Liberation?–November 12: 1-2:30pm (PST) | 3-4:30pm (CST) | 4-6:00pm (EST)
The third teach-in elaborates our collective vision of an abolitionist university. In a settler-colonial society, how can we establish an abolitionist university and how would its purpose be radically different from how the neoliberal university functions to reproduce a carceral society, racial capitalism and US imperial hegemony? How can we take collective action to transform the university into a gathering place for decolonization and collective liberation?

Co-sponsored by Scholars for Social Justice, American Studies Association, Riverside Faculty Association and the UCFTP collective

We will have simultaneous ASL/captioning and the sessions will be recorded and captions fixed and uploaded to the ASA Freedom Course YouTube Channel.

 

September 24, 2020
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CUCFA’s Letter to UC about the Potential for Censorship of Faculty by Private Technology Providers

September 24, 2020

President Michael V. Drake
Office of the President
University of California
1111 Franklin St., 12th Floor
Oakland, CA 94607

Delivered via Email to: president@ucop.edu

Dear President Drake,

As members of the Board of the Council of UC Faculty Associations, we write with the utmost urgency regarding the cancellation of an approved remote/streaming panel at San Francisco State University yesterday, September 23, by Zoom, and the subsequent cancellation of the same event by Facebook Live and cut-off in mid-stream by YouTube. The event, titled “Whose Narratives: Gender, Justice and Resistance,” was sponsored by SFSU’s Arab and Muslim Ethnicities and Diasporas Studies Program and the Women and Gender Studies Department, and was to feature Palestinian feminist and militant Leila Khaled, as well as several South African and American activists.

After protests by several pro-Israel groups, Zoom announced that it was prohibiting the webinar – which was thoroughly vetted and approved by the University – from taking place less than two hours before its commencement. The event was subsequently restricted by Facebook and then, after beginning to be streamed on YouTube, was cut off by the company.

Zoom and the others claimed that Khaled’s membership in the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (she is also a member of the Palestine National Council) made her appearance a potential violation of US law. SFSU clearly understood this not to be the case. The relevant Supreme Court decision on this issue, Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project, which deals with the intersection of the First Amendment and “material support for terrorism” laws, clearly notes that there is no prohibition of being associated with or even a member of an organization, only for providing it with material support of some kind. Moreover, we need not remind you that the First Amendment extends the right not only to speak but also to hear and receive information even when presented by people opposed to the US or its policies.

As SFSU president Lynn Mahoney explained in defending her support of the event, it is imperative that faculty and the university be free from censorship, even from voices that most would find objectionable and even abhorrent: “The university will not enforce silence – even when speech is abhorrent.”

By preemptively canceling this talk, Zoom, Facebook and YouTube – which together represent three of the most important remote platforms used by universities during the Covid-19 pandemic – are engaging in a dangerous precedent of censorship, which will no doubt lead other governments and political groups to demand they cancel other events, classes or content that they oppose. As our colleague Saree Makdisi, professor of English and Comparative Literature at UCLA, argues, it is a frightening example of “what happens when we subcontract our universities to Zoom.” Simply put, we universities cannot allow Zoom to have a veto power over the content of our lectures and classes.

We thus call upon you to publicly demand that Zoom, Facebook, YouTube (Google/Alphabet) and other increasingly important social media-related educational platforms immediately agree never to cancel or otherwise censor university-related teaching, lectures or other events and, if they refuse, to move immediately towards finding alternative platforms for teaching and lectures that agree to respect our core First Amendment and Academic Freedom rights.

Sincerely,
The Executive Board of the Council of UC Faculty Associations

cc: Chancellor Carol T. Christ
Chancellor Gary Stephen May
Chancellor Howard Gillman
Chancellor Gene D. Block
Chancellor Juan Sánchez Muñoz
Chancellor Kim A Wilcox
Chancellor Pradeep K. Khosla
Chancellor Sam Hawgood, MBBS
Chancellor Henry Yang
Chancellor Cynthia Larive

September 22, 2020
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RFA Opposes Austerity and Budget Cuts – Letter to Chancellor Wilcox 9/22/20

Dear Chancellor Wilcox,
 
We respectfully disagree with your August 28, 2020 statement and the preliminary recommendations of the campus’ Budget Advisory Committee that budget cuts at UCR are necessary. We believe UCR, and UC as a whole, can manage current revenue shortfalls by using reserves and borrowing power, rather than resort to austerity in the form of layoffs and program cuts. Already this summer UCR administrators laid off workers, and additional layoffs are planned along with other budget cuts that further reduce campus employment and create hardships for workers, including student workers, and their families.
 
These budget cuts and layoffs are unnecessary. By using reserve funds, and reallocating funding for UCPD, UCR can serve the needs of students and pay the staff that are essential to our campus.
 
Research by the UC Coalition of Unions (UCCU) shows that there are sufficient “rainy day” funds for UC to avoid staff layoffs and other cutbacks. According to a May 19, 2020 research presentation by the UCCU: “Based on its cash reserves, working capital and endowment pools, strong credit, and through potential administrative savings, UC does not need to be bound to a strategy of austerity” (https://cucfa.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/2020.5.19-UC-can-avoid-austerity.pdf).
 
According to Claudia Preparata, Research Director for AFSCME 3299, “UC is remarkably well-positioned to not only withstand the near term fiscal disruption associated with COVID-19 and lead California’s recovery, but to avoid austerity measures that would devastate low-income students and tens of thousands of essential frontline workers.” (https://cucfa.org/2020/05/uc-has-billions-for-post-covid-recovery/).
 
Along with the Council of UC Faculty Associations and other higher education unions and organizations, we believe that “College and University Executives should use all rainy day funds, reserves, investments, endowments and other resources at their disposal to center the care of workers and students first, including continuation or extension of pay for undergraduate and graduate workers, and ensure we keep colleges and universities whole. Why do we have “rainy day funds” if not for use during a once-in-a-generation global disaster? …This is why we saved billions in rainy day funds! All regents, board members, and trustees should move immediately to use any and all funds needed.” (https://cucfa.org/2020/05/not-just-reopen-transform-higher-ed/).
 
We call upon you and other UC leaders to refuse austerity and advocate that UCOP and the Regents use reserve funds to reinstate laid off workers, avoid further staff layoffs, and prevent other budget cutbacks that take away employment opportunities for students, staff, and faculty and compromise the quality of public higher education. In keeping with the UC-wide call to disinvest from campus police, we call on you to defund UCPD and reallocate the funding to crucial staff positions and services for students.
 
We need to protect our capacity for teaching, research, and service excellence, especially at this time, when we are facing unprecedented challenges.
 
Sincerely,
 
The Board of the Riverside Faculty Association:
Chris Chase-Dunn, Sociology (Vice Chair and Treasurer)
Farah Godrej, Political Science
Patricia Morton, Media and Cultural Studies (Chair)
Ellen Reese, Sociology (Secretary)
Setsu Shigamatsu, Media and Cultural Studies
Samantha Ying, Environmental Sciences
https://ucrfa.org/
cc:
UCR Interim Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor, Thomas M. Smith 
UCR Vice Chancellor for Business and Administrative Services, Gerard Bomotti
UCR Chair of the Riverside Division of the Academic Senate, Jason Stajich
UCR Vice-Chair of the Riverside Division of the Academic Senate, Christiane Weirauch

July 11, 2020
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Statement on Police by the Riverside Faculty Association Board

In the wake of the national and international protests against police violence, the Board of the Riverside Faculty Association calls on the UCR Administration to take action to address the antiblack history and practices of policing in the United States at the level of local, state, federal and campus police.

Although university administrators have released outraged statements regarding the police murder of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, and Breonna Taylor, the UCR administration bears responsibility for their complicity in police violence on and off-campus, and in their continued ties with state police and funding of university police.

We are at a crossroads that demands not only a reckoning with the anti-black history of policing, but decisive action that recognizes the failure of police reform. Ample evidence has demonstrated that police reform is not adequate. Police reform will not work to end police violence. We recognize that violence is not an aberration of policing; rather, it is at the heart of police power, and its trajectory has been racialized from the beginning. The violence of policing was never inevitable but built over centuries of legal, imaginative, and material practices as a mode of everyday governance to further anti-black racism, colonialism, indigenous dispossession, and racial capitalism.

This historic uprising calls for action to dismantle the various forms of institutionalized white supremacy and antiblackness, and police abolition is the first step in this endeavor to decolonize the university.

We endorse the position taken by Scholars for Social Justice and support the demands of the Blackness Unbound Faculty Collective Statement. Following and amplifying the June 20, 2020 recommendations by the UC Academic Senate, we publicly call on the UCR administration to take the following four actions.

  1. End ties with local and state police forces. Do not bring police to campus to attack, beat, pepper-spray and shoot our students. Prohibit ICE agents from entering campus and protect our undocumented and international students. End all ties and investments in corporations that support the prison-industrial complex.
  1. Defund and disarm the UC police. Currently, UC policy sanctions police deployment of batons, chemical agents and lethal force (UC Gold Book 303.5., 303.6, 830.2, 833.1). This sanctioned police violence must end. We call on UCR  to invest in and develop alternative models of safety and security for members of the campus and surrounding communities, following existing, well-documented programs that prevent what is called crime, reduce harm and respond to crises (medical, mental health, domestic disputes, and sexual and gender-based violence). We call on the administration to develop programs such as Dream Defenders and Ujimaa Medics, and consult abolitionist experts and organizers on alternative forms of community security and harm reduction.
  1. Invest in education and training. We call on UCR to redirect police funding toward material support for Black students, Black faculty, and Black staff on campus. Invest financial resources in Black Studies programming and the foundation and sustainability of an autonomous Black Studies Department. Train administrators, faculty, staff, students and community members in practices of harm reduction, transformative justice, crisis response, mental health. This includes increasing support for especially vulnerable students, particularly the Underground Scholars, our students directly impacted by the prison industrial complex.
  1. Radical budgetary transparency throughout the entire University and in consultation with faculty from the RFA Board and Blackness Unbound Faculty Collective who have forwarded public demands.

These demands are informed by Black-led and multiracial social justice movements across the United States to defund and dismantle the police, alongside a UC-wide call to defund the police.

We request that the UCR Administration provide a response to this public letter by July 30th, 2020.

 

 

May 12, 2020
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Covid-19 Campus Response

RE: Impact on compensation due to COVID-19 response

Dear Chancellor Wilcox (and all),

We write to express our concern with the lack of clear, transparent communication from our campus leadership regarding the coming budgetary impacts of the COVID-19 crisis.

Faculty, students and staff are understandably anxious about how UCR intends to respond to the coming budgetary challenges, and how these developments will affect them. We write to call for a coherent and thoughtful response by campus leadership to the coming crisis, with particular attention to the following:

  1. Transparency and shared governance:  All deliberations on cutbacks that affect compensation must be conducted with the utmost transparency. The Academic Senate and the UC-AFT must be consulted before any decisions are made, rather than presenting them as a fait accompli. Faculty cannot be kept in the dark about the administration’s plans for cutbacks—this only foments a general climate of anxiety and mistrust. Non-Senate faculty and librarians who may be affected should also be included in decision-making processes.
  1. A graduated approach: Any cutbacks must begin with the most privileged members of our community, while protecting the most vulnerable ones. Therefore, we urge that such cutbacks be instituted in a graduated manner, starting with the salaries of the highest-paid administrators. RFA is deeply concerned about graduate students, staff, lecturers and Assistant Professors whose livelihoods may be at stake.  Research has repeatedly shown that COVID-19 has disproportionately impacted already-marginalized communities, exacerbating socio-economic and health disparities.  UCR must do its best not to contribute to these ever-widening gaps.
  1. Furloughs rather than salary cuts: RFA will oppose any faculty salary cuts beyond the reversal of the promised 3% increase.  Should any further measures be necessary, RFA will consider supporting the possibility of furloughs, provided any decision to change compensation is made after extensive consultation with the Academic Senate.
  1. A clear, transparent and safe plan for re-opening the campus: Most health experts agree that the COVID-19 virus will not disappear anytime soon, and a vaccine could take years to be mass-produced and widely-available. In the interim, many faculty, students and staff with underlying health conditions (and those who live with immuno-compromised family members) are deeply concerned about the campus re-opening, without fully addressing the health and safety risks presented by the ongoing presence of the virus. UCR’s campus leadership must employ all of its medical and health expertise to come up with a safe, effective and scientifically-sound strategy for re-opening the campus while minimizing health risks.

RFA can offer assistance in implementing a plan for re-opening that entails safe ways to hold classes, while monitoring the health and safeguarding the privacy of all those who work, live and study at UCR. We look forward to a productive conversation with you at our upcoming Zoom meeting, and an ongoing collaboration to meet this challenging moment.

Sincerely,

The Board of the RFA

April 29, 2020
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UCR COVID-19 Labor Alliance Webinar on May 1

You are invited to attend a webinar at 2:00-3:30pm this Friday (May Day) organized by the newly formed UCR COVID-19 Labor Alliance. The webinar will focus on current labor issues in the UC/UCR. For more information, and to RSVP, please see the flyer copied below. Please share with your students and encourage them to attend the webinar.

RSVP HERE: https://actionnetwork.org/events/our-living-conditions-are-your-learning-conditions

April 27, 2020
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Well-Being in Learning Environment Faculty Guide

At the request of our UCR colleague, Tanya Nieri (Sociology), we are forwarding the Well-Being in Learning Environment Guide to you. The guide suggests healthy pedagogy strategies to incorporate into classrooms, student activities, and student interactions. The strategies fall into the following categories:

 
 
·        Be Mindful about Deadlines & Workload
·        Be Flexible and Offer Options
·        Encourage Breaks, Standing, Stretching, & Reflection
·        Share Resources & Wellness Info with Students
·        Help Students Connect with You
·        Be Welcoming, Enthusiastic & Caring
·        Help Students Connect with the Community
·        Provide Timely Feedback & Helpful Advice
·        Provide Opportunities that Promote Professional and Personal Skills
·        Help Students Connect with Each Other
 
Positive well-being is a key predictor for student success. Faculty, TAs, and instructors play a role in fostering positive learning environments. Integrating wellbeing concepts into learning environments results in a healthy culture, achievement of learning outcomes, and student retention. In this time of global pandemic and remote learning, it’s especially critical for us to support our students with well-being practices, even if they might look different than our normal.
 
This information was brought to you by UCR Healthy Campus, https://healthycampus.ucr.edu/.

January 17, 2020
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No Expansion of UCR without Funding! Please sign our petition.

Dear UCR Faculty Members,

Please find below a link to a petition being circulated by the Riverside Faculty Association, opposing any further expansion of UCR without proportionate funding. The petition will be delivered to UC President Janet Napolitano, as well as John Perez, the Chair of the UC Regents.

RFA is particularly concerned about plans to expand UCR’s enrollment to 35,000 students by 2035, an expansion we oppose unless UCR receives funding proportionate to other UC campuses, and to the cost of educating our students. UCR receives less state funding per student than any other UC campus, which has resulted in deteriorating conditions for our teaching and research.

This petition is an opportunity for us to draw attention the poor conditions at UCR, and to demand that the UC system reverse the structural inequalities that undermine our ability to serve California’s students.

For your convenience, the text of the petition is posted below. Please feel free to sign and circulate widely among all UCR faculty:

https://forms.gle/hBuCRDWbDcYYS8md8

 

Best regards,

The Board of the UC Riverside Faculty Association
Chris Chase-Dunn, Sociology (Vice Chair and Treasurer)
Farah Godrej, Political Science
Michel Lapidus, Mathematics
Patricia Morton, Media and Cultural Studies (Chair)
Ellen Reese, Sociology (Secretary)
Setsu Shigamatsu, Media and Cultural Studies
Samantha Ying, Environmental Sciences
https://ucrfa.org/http://ucrfa.org

—————————————

No Expansion Without Proportionate Funding

To: Janet Napolitano, President, University of California
John Perez, Chair, Regents of the University of California

From: University of California Riverside Faculty

Dear President Napolitano and Regent Perez,

We, the undersigned, demand that no further expansion be imposed on our campus without any proportional increase in allocation of resources and funding from the Office of the President.

Under the Long Range Development Plan process currently under way, UCR is projected to expand to 35,000 students by 2035 (the “35/35” plan). No other UC campus is expected to take as many additional students.

Our campus is currently at breaking-point: deeply under-resourced, understaffed and over-burdened. This crisis is exacting costs on the collective well-being of all:

* Students do not have sufficient, functional classrooms in which to learn;
* Students do not have sufficient access to classes required for timely degree completion;
* Both faculty and students are increasingly required to attend late-night or early-morning classes that exact a toll on work-life balance;
* Many faculty do not have sufficient financial or administrative resources to run their research labs or even take on the grant funding critical to further research;
* Both faculty and staff are increasingly pressured to take on additional work as overall staff support diminishes, with no corresponding increase in resources.

This crisis situation imperils both the quality of the education we can provide and our status as a research university, threatening to reduce our campus to a “diploma mill.”

While we are eager to serve more of California’s students, we simply cannot do so at the current rate. As a woefully underfunded campus, University of California-Riverside (UCR) has far fewer resources for our current students than other UC campuses. According to figures provided by Chancellor Wilcox’s office, UCLA is allocated $11,545 in state funding per student whereas UCR receives $8,647 per student. UCR educates a higher percentage of Underrepresented Minority Students (42%) than 8 of the 9 UC campuses, and the discrepancy in funding exacerbates racial inequities. We will use estimates of the levels of financial support that UCR has had over the past years in order to establish baseline targets for monitoring the maintenance of adequate support in the future.

We demand that the State Legislature and the UC Office of the President commit to providing such support. In the absence of these commitments, we will mobilize the students, staff and faculty of UCR to resist the planned expansion until the needed resource commitment has been obtained.

January 11, 2020
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Town Halls on the UC Presidential Search

The UCR Academic Senate and the Riverside Faculty Association (RFA) will co-sponsor a town hall on the search for a new UC President on January 16. Our town hall will take place from 11:30 am to 1:00 pm in HUB 302. Immediately after, the UC Board of Regents will hold a public town hall from 1:00 to 3:00 pm in HUB 302.

We write to encourage you to attend and speak at one or both of these events. These town halls will allow UCR faculty to express their concerns and questions about the search and other issues of vital importance to UCR’s future. If you like to speak at the Regents’ town hall, please call (510) 987-9220 and inform them of your intent to speak. The town hall will also be livestreamed on the Presidential search website.

RFA is particularly concerned about plans to expand UCR’s enrollment to 35,000 students by 2035, an expansion we oppose unless UCR receives funding proportionate to other UC campuses and to the cost of educating our students. UCR receives less state funding per student than any other UC campus, which  has resulted in deteriorating conditions for our teaching and research.
 
This is an opportunity for us to speak about the poor conditions at UCR and demand that the next UC President reverse the structural inequalities that undermine our ability to serve our students and California.