Chancellor Linda Katehi will meet with the campus today to hear and respond to the concerns of students faced with fee increases.
The Fall Dialogue with the Chancellor will be held from 5 to 7 p.m. in the Activities and Recreation Ballroom. Katehi and Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor Enrique Lavernia will address the UC Davis budget and the effects it will have on campus.
The Student Assistants to the Chancellor planned the event, which includes time for students to give testimonies on how the budget has impacted them and ask questions about the current budget.
“This can be a good place for learning and understanding to take place in terms of how students feel about everything going on,” said Nina Massoumi, a student assistant to the chancellor.
Given the recent fee increases, many students have expressed distrust in the UC administration and in particular, administrators at UC Davis. Some have planned to protest outside the meeting, and some plan to express their concerns during the dialogue.
“I’m planning on going because I want to make my views known to [Katehi],” said student Dennis Nguyen at last Tuesday’s Mrak protest. “As chancellor, she has a lot of power. She could give her bonus back to the students, and promise to do whatever she can to stop cutting resources for students.”
Those present at Mrak sit-ins said they hope to bring the same energy of the protests to the dialogue. However, in response, several students recommended a less confrontational attitude.
“There’s a time and place for direct action and for other stereotypical protest kind of things,” said Greg Robinson, a senior physics major who plans on attending the dialogue. “For this event, I don’t think that’s appropriate. It’s something scheduled to talk directly to the chancellor and it would be very rude to hijack that from the people who want to use this as an opportunity to have constructive dialogue.”
Robinson said he plans to present some of his ideas to the chancellor, such as the university’s financial handling of the Davis Student Cooperative, which will close one of the cooperative housing units.
A working group of the UC Commission for the Future will also be on campus today to receive input on the budget. Regents designed the commission to strategize how to best maintain the quality and affordability of the campuses given the state’s decreasing support of public universities.
The commission’s working group representatives will meet today from 1 to 4 p.m. in the Buehler Alumni and Visitors Center. The last hour of the meeting is set aside for public comment. No regents will be present at the meeting.
LAUREN STEUSSY can be reached at campus@theaggie.org.
View AGTV coverage of Katehi’s address to students and more at facebook.com/aggietvfan.
