Honoree discusses student issues

  NICOLE MILLER/Daily Bruin George Leddy,
who received the UCLA distinguished teacher award, gave a lecture
critiquing the priorities of the UC on Monday.

By Teri H.P. Nguyen
Daily Bruin Contributor

The University of California must make undergraduate classroom
education a higher priority, last year’s UCLA Distinguished
Faculty award honoree George Leddy said at a lecture Monday.

Issues exist that should be, but aren’t, readily known by
UC students regarding the regents’ administrative activity,
said Leddy, a geography lecturer.

UC budget cuts are made not in the interest of education, but in
a business-like manner, said Leddy, who will be teaching what may
be his last geography class at UCLA this spring.

After teaching at the university since 1996, this spring marks
his 18th quarter as a lecturer at the school. Eighteen quarters is
the maximum amount of time UC lecturers are contracted for.

Leddy said he had not been asked to stay as lecturer by the
department.

Budget cuts are likely to force the university system to limit
faculty salary increases. Unlike world-renowned tenure professors
who ask for large salaries, lecturers are being shorted, Leddy
said. The university realizes it can pay them lower salaries since
there’s such a large competition among lecturers to find
employment, he added.

Cutting back on the budget compromises undergraduate education,
he said.

Most students learn quickly that classes are rarely taught by
the award-winning professors UCLA advertises, but by lecturers and
teaching assistants ““ and sometimes for the better, he
said.

“The UCs are creating this two-tier system of professors
and lecturers that may result in undergraduate destruction,”
Leddy said, adding that some full-time professors do not make
undergraduate education a priority.

“We need undergraduate professors,” he
continued.

The process of finding professors no longer depends on their
ability, but on who will work for less money, Leddy said.

Eric Blocher, educational programs director of the UC Regents
Scholars Society ““ the organization arranging the lecture
““ agrees with the perceived roles of the regents.

“It boils down to this: the role of administrators
isn’t about finding best educators, but those who will work
for less,” said Blocher, a second-year international
development studies student and former student of Leddy.

Blocher describes Leddy’s course as an inspiration
regarding activism and social responsibility.

“It’s important that students are aware of the
institution that gives them knowledge,” Blocher said.
“These issues here should be understood at the very least by
students.”

The underlying sentiment of the night was that lecturers are
seen as expendable.

Departments must recognize the value of lecturers and offer them
more stable contracts, said Kwazi Nkrumah, field representative for
the UC Council of American Federation of Teachers, a labor union
representing the rights of lecturers and librarians.

“The union is engaged in a multi-leveled process
challenging the liquidation of lecturers once they have (completed)
18 quarters,” Nkrumah said.

According to Nkrumah, there are approximately 425 lecturers at
UCLA ““ nearly equal in number to the 450-plus tenure faculty
members.

Nkrumah and Leddy both hope to see the UCs offer and stabilize
contracts for lecturers ““ something that is not available at
this point.

Many UC lecturers are leaving the public sector for private
institutions because there is no standard salary scale, Nkrumah
said during the event’s discussion session.

“Lecturers are hard to retain,” Nkrumah said.
“Some get less than $35,000. That is almost the same as K-12
teachers.”

Blocher and Nkrumah both said they are surprised the university
will not retain effective lecturers, referring to Leddy’s
distinguished faulty award and his student evaluations.

Communications student Jirina Kyas was surprised when she
learned of the difficulties lecturers face.

“The event was an eye-opener,” she said.

An eye-opener was what Leddy hoped it would be.

“There needs to be institutional reform,” Leddy said
about the UC system’s values of higher education. “I
think UCLA students will take on the battle.”