A day or so after UC Davis students made national news protesting fee hikes last year, I was my usual media omnivore self, watching “The O’Reilly Factor” on Fox. You may wonder why I still remember, but I could not believe I heard Charles Krauthammer lumping students fee hike protesters in with “entitlement” types that he claims are the nation’s problem. Seriously?

There was a flash of anger then, but I reclined to give perspective to what I had just heard. Is education to be looked at as an investment or an entitlement spending? It is clear that America is not going to trump China in its postindustrial era. The Chinese simply are unencumbered by our elaborate system of legislative or bureaucratic hurdles. They don’t have the demagoguery or marathon national debates that create fanfare for posturing and mob baiting by ideologues. They just get stuff (spending on their education, infrastructure, etc.) done!

Education is the only way left for America to stay on top or be competitive. We can’t rely on being numero uno by shipping off our troops to fight Napoleonic wars halfway across the world. It is creating exceptional institutions that will provide education and research to bridge us into the technological future. We must be able to provide our kids with a well-rounded education with ample consideration for the arts that fuel our crucial creative exports – from movies to video games. In this global economic age, we have to lead the ideas market. That is why education can’t be a flex pole for punditry gymnastics. Left or right, conservative or progressive; we can’t afford the one-uppers, zero-sum, you lose, I win games when it comes to education.

Recently, there has been a lot of debating what is or isn’t working with our educational system. On the left there has been the much-hackneyed “Waiting For Superman” movie while the right has been posturing behind the charter school superwoman Michelle Reed of Washington D.C. and the New Jersey wonder guy Gov. Christie for taking on ineffective teachers or the powerful teacher unions respectively. NBC had a commendable weeklong debate, Education Nation, which brought stakeholders to provide ideas on what could be done to deal with the conundrum. Predictably, during all the talk shopping, the blame game has taken the foreground even as we are reminded of our responsibilities to our kids and the future of this country.

New statistics are tossed at us daily indicating we are lagging behind when compared to other industrialized nations. We are 18th out of 36 industrialized nations in graduating college students. Seventy percent of our school kids can’t read at grade level in the eighth grade. We rank 20-something in reading and math skills … I can’t keep up with the stats. B-R-O-K-E-N. I think that’s about a fair description of our school system. So now we know how bad the problem is; what about some concrete and workable solutions devoid of political or ideological proclivities for once?

First, I believe cuts to education funding should not be the first line item for state governors. The relatively unfair job security enjoyed by teachers and school administrators is not as much the issue as whether they are performing and therefore deserve those benefits. I’ve seen many an ineffective teacher protected by tenure and therefore have no reason or motivation to better their skills. Trust that there are opponents of the undeniably flawed status quo who are jostling for the “who is wackier?” spot. They criticize the establishment left in the universities for indoctrinating college students. There are people like Glenn Beck who lampoon government takeover of the student loan industry. They want the private banks to use government funds and jack up our loan rates whimsically.

Per capita, the U.S. spends more on education than the countries that continue to trounce us in terms of results. That does not excuse the cuts to education or fee hikes as middle-class incomes continue to flat line. No, it does not excuse that on average states expend northward of $280,000 incarcerating one American compared to $140,000 for educating them.

Bumper sticker policies like “No Child Left Behind” and “Race to the Top” are not, per se, the solution. We can go right ahead and direct all the blame at schools and teachers and absolve ourselves of personal responsibility. If there is any smidgen of hope to fix our school system, it will come when parents and students become vested in their education. Education Secretary Arne Duncan says we have to educate our way to prosperity; families should see education as the ticket to a better life.

FAYIA SELLU can be reached at fmsellu@ucdavis.edu.

As we begin another academic year of promise and challenges, our campus community unfortunately experienced another incident of hate, this time directed at our Arab/Muslim community. The Third World Mural at the Memorial Union was defaced sometime on Sept. 29. This mural is made up of many images depicting the voices of many people of color on our campus. The Palestinian flag, rendered in the shape of a dove in the mural, was painted over with a Star of David.

The UC Davis community prides itself in living our Principles of Community, where freedom of expression is both valued and respected. We will not allow these assaults against our community to go unchallenged. As a part of the UC Office of the President’s new Hate and Bias Reporting System, each campus has designated two officials to serve as point of contact, and to take the lead in follow-up actions regarding these types of incidents. At UC Davis, Associate Executive Vice Chancellor for Campus Community Relations Rahim Reed and Assistant Vice Chancellor for Student Life Griselda Castro serve in this capacity. Additionally, the Campus Council on Community and Diversity (CCC&D) has developed an action plan for the campus to coordinate our response to incidents of hate and bias. One of the steps in our action plan is to take swift action to remove any symbols of hate or defacement on our campus.

We will meet with representatives of the student community soon to discuss the follow-up action steps to this specific incident. We will also present the CCC&D’s Campus Action Plan, which includes our Hate-Free Campus Initiative, to the UC Davis campus community during the Student Activities Faire scheduled for Oct. 13 on the Quad. We ask that you join us in confronting acts of hate and bias on our campus by assuming some level of responsibility in promoting, supporting, advocating, engaging and respecting our Principles of Community.

RAHIM REED

Associate Executive Vice Chancellor

GRISELDA CASTRO

Assistant Vice Chancellor

The administration of UC Davis has decided to partner with US Bank, which now has a branch open in the student union building on campus. All UC Davis students now potentially carry a US Bank ATM card as their student ID card.

But US Bank didn’t come to campus for student checking accounts.

How will US Bank make money at UC Davis?

As this public university becomes more and more expensive, students will need to take out more and more in student loans. Federal student loans do not cover all of the expenses for many students, and their only recourse is to privatize student loans, most often borrowed from the bank where the student has his or her personal bank account.

US Bank allows students to take out up to $50,000 in private student loans. A 2003 report from the Inspector General found that between 19 and 31 percent of first-year and sophomore students would default on their loans at some point over the life of the loan. A follow-up investigation by the Chronicle for Higher Education found that fully 20 percent of people who had left school in 1994 had defaulted on their student loans as of 2010. Keep in mind that the people who left school in 1994 went into a much better job market than the one you are facing right now. Good luck.

US Bank makes money on every student who defaults

Defaulting on a student loan does not mean the loan goes away; it’s not like bankruptcy. It means the bank – in this case US Bank – can sue you for the full amount of the loan, plus associated penalty costs, plus collection costs, plus legal costs. It means the bank can garnish your wages until the increased amount is completely paid off.

For federally-subsidized student loans, the recovery rate (or amount the student-without-money is forced to pay) is 123 percent of their actual student loan debt, according to studentloanjustice.org. For comparison purposes, the recovery rate on defaulted credit card debt is roughly 25 percent. I have not been able to find data on private student loans, such as those US Bank gives out. I was similarly not able to find information on US Bank’s policy on defaulted student loans on their website. My guess is they don’t want you to know.

As a note, while researching this article I found a lot of stories along the lines of $5,000 in student loans turning into $15,000 in repayment. If you have a similar story, please share it (even just briefly) with the Aggie. E-mail campus@theaggie.org.

How much they make

What does seem clear is that the major players in the student loan industry make a lot of money. Sallie Mae is currently the largest student lender, but there is plenty of room for US Bank to make a lot of money in this hundreds-of-billion dollar industry, especially as tuition increases drastically. Americans currently hold some $830,000,000,000 ($830 billion) in student loans, and that number is getting a whole lot bigger. This industry is so profitable that Sallie Mae was able to pay its CEO an estimated $225 million between 1999 and 2007, or roughly $77,000 a day for eight years, according to Fortune.

Make no mistake, the banks want you to borrow. They want you to borrow more. They want your tuition to go up again. And when you default on their loans, they make even more money.

Why is an institution whose purpose is to serve people and to serve California allowing access to a corporation whose sole purpose is to take money from those same people? Why is the campus not even educating the students on the dangers of taking on a private student loan? (As part of the contract the bank is supposed to provide money management classes for first-year students. And I’m sure next year the admin will contract with Marlboro to do a skit about respiratory health.) Why are we allowing US Bank to put their logo on our football scoreboard?

Conflicts of interest

It would seem there is a possible conflict of interest between people who run banks/their shareholders (who presumably would like to make money) and students. Why, then, are roughly half the people who control the University of California (the UC Regents) bankers and investors? Eight out of 17 of our current regents work in the field of finance, either holding positions with banks or with investing firms.

Even if these people can show that they are not benefiting personally, it would seem that the industries they represent benefit hugely from their actions on the Board of Regents.

As a final thought to Davis students – take care out there. The UC Administration is feeding its students to the wolves for the sake of the institution.

A recent study revealed that public universities across the country have hired more and more administrators over the years, with UC Davis having the third largest administration bloat.

The numbers are shocking.

The Goldwater Institute found that between 1993 and 2007 UC Davis experienced a growth from 3.2 full-time administrators per 100 students to 13.5 – a 318.8 percent increase. Meanwhile, full-time employees in instruction, research and service dropped 4.5 percent from 9.6 to 9.1 per 100 students.

UC Davis quadrupled its administrators while at the same time cutting staff dedicated to teaching and research. The imbalance is unnecessary, and with rising student fees partially going toward administration costs, it’s disturbing.

However, UC Davis is taking steps to remedy the situation. The university already cut 342 of 4,251 positions in administrative units. Out of academic units, the university cut 402 of 5,796 positions.

In an effort to streamline and consolidate administrative functions, Chancellor Linda Katehi introduced the Organizational Excellence Initiative in August.

Services such as employee hiring and termination, time reporting and salary transactions can all occur in one shared service center.

If the consolidation is successful, the university can save $9 to 16 million in administrative costs over the next two to four years.

In her announcement, Katehi said cost savings would be redirected to academic programs, student programs and high priority administrative initiatives.

The intention is appreciated, but the administration will need to be more transparent about where money is allocated. While the initiative may address the administration bloat, it does not address the implications of it – that the university values its administrators more than its students’ educations.

The growth of administration is certainly unnerving, but if well executed, the Organizational Excellence Initiative can make the administration more efficient and help our valued academic and student programs.

UC Davis got a rude awakening this summer when The American Council of Trustees and Alumni bestowed an “F” ranking on the campus’ undergraduate general education program.

The council based its ranking on the fact that it is possible to get a UC Davis diploma without ever taking a course in composition, math, literature survey, science, economics, U.S. government or history. The foreign language requirement was the only one of seven GE requirements that met the council’s standards.

UC Davis was not alone in its poor rating. UC campuses at Santa Barbara, Santa Cruz, Irvine and Berkeley each received “F” ratings, while UCLA, Merced, Riverside and San Diego each received a “C.” Other highly regarded colleges received “F” ratings, including Yale, Cornell and Johns Hopkins, while Harvard received a “D” and Princeton received a “C.” Only one California college, Thomas Aquinas College, received an “A.”

The Western Association of Schools and Colleges, the body that provides accreditation for all institutions of higher education, has also expressed concern over how few units students can take to fulfill the GE requirements.

Coincidentally, UC Davis is now in the process of scrapping its current general education program and starting over with something completely different.

Beginning with next fall’s incoming classes, undergrads will now have to take 12 to 20 units in each of three topical breadth areas: arts and humanities, science and engineering, and social sciences, regardless of their major. They will also have to complete 35 units within four core literacies: literacy with words and images, civic and cultural literacy, quantitative literacy and scientific literacy. Whereas “double-” or “triple-dipping” is allowed under the current system, it will not be allowed under the new requirements.

It is encouraging to see UC Davis taking stock of its goals for student education and revamping a flawed general education framework. The campus will have to do a lot of work to help new students understand the new requirements, as they constitute a far more complex framework than the current standards.

More importantly, however, it is crucial that faculty consider the burden this new system places on students. While some students may not see much of a difference in terms of how many classes they need to take to graduate, the requirements could delay graduation for students majoring in departments that require a large number of units within the major. At a time when the cost of taking classes at UC is rising rapidly, asking students to take more classes may have a real negative financial impact, possibly even causing some students to drop out of school or take classes at a community college.

Perhaps this can be addressed by allowing some double-dipping or by reducing the number of units needed to fulfill the requirements under the new system. Whatever the solution is, faculty members must consider all the potential consequences of this new system before formally implementing it next fall.

Yes folks, Mr. Hierarchical, His Top-Down-Dude-ness, the Incredible Man on His Flying Budget Trapeze, the Pontifex Maximus Capitalismi, seer, sage, soothsayer, Lord of the Regents, the man whose housing rental costs exceed the combined tuition of more than a dozen students, the President of the University of California … (drum roll) … Mark Yudof … (thump) … was here on campus last Thursday.

(Announcer’s voice:) We interrupt the satirical introduction to this column to bring you the actual introduction …

O.K., start over.

UC President Mark Yudof, who functions as a kind of “chancellor of chancellors,” was here on the UC Davis campus last week. He invited a group of us student leaders to meet with him to, as it turned out, “have a conversation.”

The atmosphere at the meeting was a bit icy, in view of the events of last year.

First, in the spring of 2009, he seemed to have been following the principles of shared faculty governance when making contingency plans for the possibility of upcoming furloughs of faculty members. But then he committed a serious breach of shared-governance standards by ignoring the faculty senates of the 10 UC campuses when they all voted that furlough days should include instructional days.

Later, when large student protests ensued, partly because of his treatment of faculty members, Yudof allowed us protesters to feel that sit-ins were being temporarily tolerated, but then gave the go-ahead for what turned out to be a violent police crackdown on protesters who staged a peaceful sit-in inside Wheeler Hall at UC Berkeley.

It will be up to historians to decide whether he was perpetrating deliberate acts of deception or had simply committed a series of managerial blunders, unless the state legislature or some other investigative body with subpoena powers looks into the issue sooner. Regardless, Yudof’s double political ambush created a university governance debacle that threatened the existence of the UC system as a public institution.

Unfortunately, there’s not much to report about the content of Thursday’s meeting. It wasn’t really designed to accomplish any degree of substantive give and take. It’s difficult to feel at ease and be able to have a candid dialogue with the president when he comes accompanied by three burly plainclothes police body guards. He apologized for the very short notice given for the meeting, saying he normally gives more advanced notice, but that “sometimes there are riots and insurrections” when he gives “too much” notice.

He told us that the percentage of undergraduate students receiving federal Pell Grants has increased to 39 percent systemwide, Cal Grants are protected and that students whose parents earn a combined income of less than $70,000 are able to attend without paying a dime in tuition fees. He said that the upcoming fee hike is likely to be less than what many might fear it will be, but that the reality is that the state is allocating 54 percent less money per student today than in 1990.

Also, efforts are being made at the system level to address the issue of the hate incidents that occurred on different campuses, and efforts are also being made to increase the enrollment and retention levels of under-represented groups.

At one point during the meeting Yudof started off answering a question by saying: “If you look at the economics of it…” then looked at me and added: “You’ll probably get on me for saying that.” It was almost as if he was admitting that he shouldn’t be attempting to run the University as if it were a regular corporation. But it seems to be too late to be waving a white flag of truce after all that has happened, while occasionally throwing in the phrase: “We’ll still be a public university.”

Actions speak louder than words, and we’re all still waiting to see concrete actions being made to restore the integrity and effectiveness of the UC’s shared-governance system. If the faculty is not allowed to collectively govern the academic aspects of their work, then we run the risk of devolving into a glorified University of Phoenix, something that none of us should wish to happen.

BRIAN RILEY wants to know, should we give Yudof a second chance? Let him know what you think at bkriley@ucdavis.edu.

Ahh, I love the smell of controversy in the morning.

It’s that distinct smell, you know? Real distinct. There are certain undeniable, incredibly unique smells that exist on this earth: the gasoline smell of napalm, the enchanting whiff of a first rain or summer roses in bloom. The all-encompassing toxic odor of cow dung in Davis.

And then there’s marijuana. Similar to the spray of a skunk but with a floating fragility to it – baby, this will take you higher. It is strong but peaceful, fragrant and sentimental. In a single whiff, a flood of pleasant memories flow to my brain, like when you smell Play-Doh in the present age and are reminded of childhood.

That is how I respond to “the whiff”: to treat it like a fine wine. Wafted even.

Different people react in different ways to the whiff. For example, there was this one time my girls and I hotboxed a car in a parking structure in San Jose. The way we smelled when we exited the car was probably equatable to the three of us escaping a burning marijuana warehouse. (Have you seen Pineapple Express? Better yet, have you tried Pineapple Express?) We reeked, and I didn’t know this until, while waiting to cross the street, a large black man that surely could have been a bouncer at any club, turned his head, looked at me in the eyes, and hissed, “I smell trees.” Gulp.  So I slowly averted myself from his stare and proceeded with the deer in the headlights look (this is a look that works for me more often than not). Did he approve or disapprove?

And what about you, fair reader? Do you approve or disapprove?  What does it mean to you? Is it a sin, a blessing, a miracle plant, a joke? Am I completely mad for noting the herb’s recreational possibilities? Shall I ignore the fact that attitudes of Californians toward marijuana have increasingly become favorable, with last week’s Public Policy Institute of California poll of likely voters showing 52 percent of voters supporting Proposition 19? Or that this past Friday, Arnold signed Sen. Mark Leno’s Senate Bill 1449, reducing the punishment of possession up to an ounce from a misdemeanor to an infraction? That to discuss the social, political, and economical reasons for legalizing marijuana results in endless debate, so much so that there is a proposition for it, and even if it doesn’t pass, the issue will never go away, and my sentences will never end because there will always be something to say about this because people will never shut the fuck up about this, and I sure as hell won’t shut the fuck up about this … ?

Marijuana and controversy: They go hand in hand. Like alcohol, like tobacco, like freedom of speech or what to do with Lindsay Lohan: These are all issues that can be debated. Any proposition that struggles to be passed, is packed with controversy, and this is no exception.

I admit – to tell freshmen to consider trying weed without also telling them to research potential health issues was questionable of me, but it’s not like I’ve been standing outside the Dining Commons handing out little sample baggies to society’s youth. (Don’t you wish I were though?) This isn’t a scene from How High. This is a college campus. And what can be more relevant to talk about than marijuana? We talk about budget cuts, campus programs and YouTube stars that attend this school (what the fuck?), but we shouldn’t discuss something that at least one in five college students have tried, according to a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services national survey, released last month?

What I aim for is open dialogue: to debate and to educate. There is more to this column than awesome-and-probably-mostly-true-but-partial-to-your-own-experience stoner advice, I swear. Over the next few weeks, I hope to provide you all with interesting facts and opinions about marijuana. You might have made your decision about whether you’re for it or against it, but you can’t ignore the facts.

Controversy. It’s what’s in the air, mixed in with the smell of my herb. And as this column comes along, I also smell trouble. But that’s okay, as long as you’ll be here to read, and have your own opinion as well. We’re all entitled to one. This is an opinion column, after all.

MAY YANG wants to hear your opinion. Drop her a line at mayyang@ucdavis.edu.