UC campuses leaving students behind

Like most financial terms, “budget” has become an explosive word lately. We usually hear the word in the context of “budget cuts,” a phrase UC students have become all too familiar with. While we grumble and mutter about budget cuts, we ignore them when they hit close to home ““ discussion sections, class sizes and enrollment.

University of California budget cuts mean lean times for UC campuses, and UCLA faculty and administration are scrambling to adjust. This year’s incoming freshmen and transfers felt the pressure at orientation, when students at the last few sessions found few General-Education classes available.

One method is to cut class requirements, like the recent revision and suspension of the GE Writing II seminar requirement. Another is to cut the number of discussion sections or lectures available for certain classes. This can be in response to a lack of funds to pay teaching assistants or, in the case of political science Professor Mike Lofchie, to prepare for coming budget cuts.

Lofchie’s Introduction to Comparative Politics class has no TAs at all. The political science department’s allowance for TAs has not been cut from its current quota of “around 35,” Professor Lofchie said, but they “are anticipating that this may well happen … and the question that arises is that, “˜Are there some lower-division courses that could do without TAs more easily than others?'”

This was a break from previous policies mandating TAs for every lower-division political science class. The department’s Undergraduate Studies Committee decided that classes heavy in math and statistics would have the highest priority in getting TAs, followed by writing-intensive classes.

While Lofchie is bracing for more belt-tightening ahead, other professors have already learned to live without discussion sections. S. Scott Bartchy, director of UCLA’s Study of Religion program, lost his upper-division discussion sections four years ago. He was left with 10 TAs for History 4, an introductory world religions course and a popular GE with around 400 students every winter quarter, as well as regular honors seminars he oversees.

Bartchy is very concerned about students in his upper-division courses. He said his other classes, which are mostly focused on Christian history, demand “a strong emotional as well as an intellectual stretch.” He said he thinks that the lack of regular guided discussion damages student comprehension, a phenomenon reflected in worsening performance on research papers and exams.

Lofchie expressed concern over student performance without TAs. When asked about further contingency measures, he said, “I think we need … a debate, a discussion within the university.”

Lofchie also said the university needs to re-evaluate the quality of education it offers.

“I think we need a serious dialogue … as to how much further we’re prepared to degrade the quality of education in the University of California and still call ourselves the University of California,” Lofchie said. “I think it was one of the Regents that said, “˜We’re still the University of California. When people come here there’s a certain expectation about the quality of education they’re going to get,’ and I think we need to take a look at that because it’s in jeopardy.”

As troubled as professors are, class cuts have hit students just as hard. Tanner Heaphy, a first-year pre-business economics student, tried to get into English Composition 3 to satisfy his Writing I requirement. Most of the sections were full or nearly full by the time his priority enrollment appointment came up.

By now, even the wait lists are packed, and there are nine canceled lectures listed on the registrar’s schedule of classes for winter quarter 2009. While he hopes to squeeze into a class when people drop, or that more classes will open up in January, his frustration is apparent. Tanner said despite all of his preparation “you feel like you’re getting left behind.”

Left behind? UCLA students jumped through all sorts of hoops to become Bruins, regardless of where they came from. The university is already enormous and enormously demanding. Despite this, students still deserve the quality education they came here for and that the UC has come to represent. We can’t leave people behind.

Lofchie said that UCLA’s departments need to face up to the fact that we’re “living in a new world,” and that this budget crisis is “far more severe than anything in recent memory.”

I agree, and when we emerge from this economic downturn, we’ll need educated leadership at all levels, and UCLA students will be at the forefront. Sure, we don’t have the manpower or the money to make every class available to every student, especially right now. But when it comes down to requirements or to demanding classes, we ought to take Heaphy’s recommendation and “do something for students to get a chance.”

That chance is in danger of bleeding to death from a thousand cuts, hemorrhaging red ink on the floor of Murphy Hall.

To the legislature, the UC Board of Regents, the governor, the chancellors, deans and provosts of the UC campuses, listen to Heaphy’s advice and give students a chance to enjoy the UC promise of the best education the Golden State can offer.

If you can’t get into English Comp. 3 either, e-mail Sukaton at [email protected]. Send general comments to [email protected].