Officials shouldn’t blame students for unit change

Anderson is an associate professor of political science.

By Richard D. Anderson Jr.

UCLA loses about $36 million every year in missing state funds,
and guess who’s at fault? If you’re a Letters &
Science undergraduate, it’s you ““ at least in the
opinion of senior UCLA administrators and a pair of
unrepresentative faculty committees. They say you aren’t
taking enough courses, work harder! You lazybones are costing us
money!

What’s behind this? In March, proposed regulations were
approved by two L&S faculty committees ““ the Faculty
Executive Committee and the Undergraduate Council.

One proposed regulation will require all undergraduates
(starting with freshmen in 2002) to enroll in at least 13 units per
quarter. The other requires them to complete at least 42 units as
freshmen, 44 units as sophomores, 46 units as juniors and 48 units
as seniors.

The administration and these two faculty committees have
approved the proposed regulations mostly because the money’s
missing. It’s missing because the state pays UCLA per
student, but by a “student” the state doesn’t
mean a person (you know, two arms, two legs, a smile, a mind
““ one of those). The state means an abstract entity enrolled
in courses totaling 15 credit units.

UCLA undergraduate humans enroll in an average of 13.5 units per
quarter, which is to say by the state’s definition, the
average UCLA undergraduate is only about 9/10 of a student (now you
know why your smile has been missing). Consequently UCLA only gets
90 percent of the state money per student, and one top
administrator guesses (nobody knows) that UCLA loses about $36
million a year.

Another reason for the proposed changes is Tidal Wave II ““
the predicted increase of 60,000 students at the University of
California within the next 10 years. This would require L&S to
add about 1,900 of those abstract entities. If students took more
courses, we wouldn’t have to take any additional human
beings. (You think it’s crowded now!)

To retrieve the missing $36 million and to avoid overcrowding,
the administrators and the faculty committees don’t look at
their own mistakes. Instead they blame students for failing to take
enough courses. They blame something that I have literally heard
them call “the UCLA undergraduate culture.” Blaming
students, they decide to correct the students’ cultural
shortcomings with a new bureaucratic rule.

Never mind that the rule is not what it says it is. Most
undergraduate courses at UCLA remain four units (all of them in my
department, for example). A senior who must complete 48 units
(proposed regulation number two) must take 16 units a quarter
““ four courses. In my department this spring, there were no
““ count ’em, zilch ““ empty seats in any
course.

So with two-thirds of our students taking 12 units, my
department would have needed to add another 22 percent to the total
course offerings. Of course our students could enroll in French, or
something else undersubscribed (sincerely, a really good idea, by
the way), but then how do they satisfy my department’s
demanding major requirements?

For another thing, how does a student take 13 units when it is
only possible to enroll in either 12 or 16? Now UCLA does have a
few 5 unit courses, and the departments are supposed to engage in
an exercise called either “re-uniting” or
“re-unitting” depending on your spelling
preference.

But the Undergraduate Council must approve each
department’s re-unit(t)ing proposal. So far we’ve
approved a total of two departments’ proposals: English and
French. English upgraded most of its courses, but French decided to
keep most of its courses at 4 units. Nobody else has even submitted
a proposal.

So at the moment 13 units means 16 units. If courses are ever
upgraded to 5 units each, the requirement for juniors to take 46
units will mean two quarters of three courses and one of four
““ and for seniors too.

Now the administrators at fault for this say the problem’s
temporary. Soon reunit(t)ing will ensure that UCLA offers courses
with every possible number of units from one to six or even eight.
So you’ll be able take, say, one five, one four, two threes
and a one. Pick your courses not by whether the content matters for
your education or the instructor is interesting or effective
““ pick ’em by the numbers. That makes sense,
doesn’t it? Doesn’t it?

Your teachers are not to blame for this bureaucratic nightmare.
While the few professors on those two committees did roll over and
play dead when the administrators pushed this nonsense, in your
departments there’s opposition. Those of us who teach
students know that three four-unit courses are too undemanding for
some of our students (the ones without a lot of outside
responsibilities), but that four four-unit courses are too
demanding for the vast majority. Even three pose a strain on a
student who is also holding down a job, an unpaid internship,
taking care of a kid or commuting from a long distance.

What to do? There’s something the administration and the
faculty should do, and there’s something students can do
too.

The administrators and the faculty jointly decide how many
credit units students receive and therefore how much money the
state pays us. They can stop foisting blame on students and take
responsibility for fixing the problem.

The first thing to do is make all courses five units. Then
students who must enroll in at least 12 units under current rules
will enroll in 15 units, and the state will pay us the $36 million
every year.

Some professors object that this will cheapen a UCLA degree by
allowing students to graduate (at 180 units, a national rule) with
36 instead of 45 courses. That would be true if a course were a
fixed amount of learning. It isn’t. Professors can enrich
their courses.

Each student will complete 15 units per quarter, 45 units a
year, graduate in four years ““ and if the student wants to
take extra in the summer, or stay a little longer, fine. I did when
I was in college.

Here’s what students can do: These regulations
aren’t final yet. Your professors must vote on them in May.
(Only the ones with the title “Assistant Professor,”
“Associate Professor” or “Professor” get to
vote). Ask them to vote no. Tell them the proposal is unfair to
students who work their way through college. A lot of us did, and
most of the ones like me who didn’t would like to be fair
anyway.

Explain to them that it is unfair, not to mention offensive, to
blame students for a problem resulting from wrong decisions by the
administration and by faculty committees.