Furloughs: We're all in this together

On Sept. 24, professors across the University of California system will walk out of class. The group has three demands, all relating to budget cuts that shouldn’t look unfamiliar to this university community. The first is employees who are paid less than $40,000 be exempt from furloughs and pay cuts. The second is implementation of an alternative plan developed with staff that mandates furloughs be taken on instructional days. The third is a call for full budget disclosure.

That’s California. Probably just a bunch of Berkeley film studies professors having a simultaneous acid flashback to 1968, right? But looking down the list of faculty supporting the walkout, names should jump out at a fair number of university students. If we canceled all classes that included the work of Judith Butler (yes, of University of California, Berkeley), one of the professors on the list, we would have no American studies department, no LGBT studies and half of the sociology and English students would have the day off. We’re talking about serious scholars who are threatening to walk off the job. But why?

University President Dan Mote’s furlough plan is supposed to come out sometime this week, and there’s plenty of speculation and anxiety about what it’s going to say. One of the most contentious issues is furloughs on instructional days. The question is whether professors should be able to take their mandated unpaid vacations on days when they normally teach classes. The reason the University of California system faculty voted that furloughs be taken on teaching days is that it’s not much of a day off if you have to prepare for the same number of classes. The University of California system regents disagreed.

I don’t know what Mote’s furlough plan will say, but if it precludes furloughs on non-instructional days or pressures professors to come in and work on their days off, then we shouldn’t stand for it. Furloughs on non-instructional days are essentially pay cuts, and to ask anyone to pretend they’re not is insulting.

We can’t stand by while our faculty is disrespected and shortchanged and expect it not to affect our education.

Yet some students, like former Student Government Association president and current University Senate Executive Committee member Jonathan Sachs, are only concerned about getting all of our class time. Sachs told The Diamondback that he wants to make sure professors don’t miss class days, so student services aren’t affected by furloughs.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way. The classroom is a continuing project between students and professors, and to affect one is to affect the other. How does Sachs think the faculty is going to feel when we come trolling for support on a continued tuition freeze?

We can’t expect them to stand up for us if we won’t stand up for them. We need to present a unified front to fight for things like budget transparency and shared governance. An insult to professors is an insult to the whole educational community, and that includes us.

If Mote’s furlough plan is abusive and doesn’t reflect the input he received from professors,  I hope our teachers are brave enough to follow their California colleagues’ lead.

And I hope we’re smart enough to have their backs.

Malcolm Harris is a junior English and government and politics major. He can be reached at harris at umdbk dot com.