Last December the UC and the Coalition of University Employees came to an agreement concerning the effects of temporary layoffs.

Under the terms of the agreement, CUE workers will take a 4 to 6 percent pay reduction in relation to their salary. They will also be laid off for a corresponding amount of days. These layoff days will coincide with campus closure days to minimize disruptions to operations.

The agreement will affect paychecks up to February 2011 and will be subject to renegotiation.

For the university, the arrangement represents one answer to its budgetary problems. Last year the UC faced an $813 million deficit and implemented a system-wide furlough that reduced employee salaries to cut cost.

According to Peter Chester, a senior university negotiator assigned to the clerical unit, the university will save $13 million from the temporary layoffs of CUE’s 14,000 workers. Chester said the policy of layoffs resulted from the union’s resistance to the furlough program.

“The union was unwilling to agree to the furlough plan,” Chester said. “So the university announced its intention to implement temporary layoffs to achieve the same kinds of savings targeted by the furlough program.”

However CUE feels the agreement was the best option available to it, but far from an ideal plan for its members.

“We didn’t like the deal to begin with,” said Dan Lewis, the Davis bargaining representative for CUE. “We’re trying to bargain a raise for employees and the university is coming to us to lay us off and take back this money. So to some extent it makes it a bitter pill to swallow.”

Although the deal has set the terms of temporary layoffs, the overall contract between the university and the union is still being negotiated.

Also at issue is the unfair labor practice charge the union has claimed against the UC. CUE argues that the university lacks the authority to use temporary layoffs.

Chester said the university maintains the authority to use the layoffs and its implementation will reduce the impact to the affected employees.

“Because the way we’re implementing the temporary layoff, we have reduced their salaries but we haven’t reduced their paid days,” Chester said. “In order to spread the pain out over the course of an entire year as opposed to making employees go 11 straight days without pay.”

Legal experts said the temporary layoffs resemble the furloughs in their effects. They see a link to this legal challenge and how unions have contested furloughs at the state level.

“This whole situation is not what I regard as a layoff,” said Martha West, UC Davis professor of law emeritus. “The problem is there were no provisions for furloughs in anybody’s collective bargaining agreement which is why there’s so much litigation at the state level as well.”

Some university staff have said the agreement will at least allow them to plan accordingly and budget their paychecks, said Cruz Reynoso, UC Davis professor of law emeritus in an e-mail interview.

Lewis said the unfair labor practice charge will not likely make it through court to win back the salary reductions from the UC. He said the reductions will still be detrimental to workers.

“A lot of our people are living – a vast majority I suspect – are living paycheck to paycheck,” Lewis said. “If you take 4 to 6 percent out of someone’s paycheck, I guarantee they’re going to feel that.”

LESLIE TSAN can be reached at campus@theaggie.org.

Students dread hearing they have been referred to the Student Judicial Board, but few actually understand the process that follows.

The accused are afforded due process, said SJA Director Jeanne Wilson. The student is sent a notice of the information SJA has received, and is then allowed to respond to the allegations in order to ensure a fair resolution.

“Students are terrified of formal hearings, but they don’t understand that they’re [necessary] to protect their rights,” Wilson said.

With 26 years at SJA under her belt, Wilson admits that she did not originally see herself in this field. After acquiring her law degree at USC and practicing law in Southern California, Wilson saw an ad for the position and thought it could fulfill her interest in higher education.

Campus Judicial Board advisor Sheila Harrington shares a similar story.

Previously the dean of students at a private boarding school, Harrington came to work at the CJB somewhat unexpectedly in Spring of 2002.

“I kind of fell into the work I do [now] later in life,” Harrington said. “It’s not like I grew up thinking I wanted to be a disciplinarian.”

As advisor of the CJB, which consists of both students and faculty, Harrington oversees many cases herself.

One common infraction she mentioned is a rising trend in plagiarism.

Academic infractions comprise roughly 600 of the total SJA referrals, one-third of which are plagiarisms, Wilson said. Another 8 percent are for cheating on exams, while approximately 20 percent are for academic collaboration.

When asked about her most memorable case of academic misconduct, Wilson cited a case of plagiarism.

“Years ago, this guy submitted a paper [that was] 10 pages verbatim from a published article. When he got caught, he explained that it was ‘just a draft.’ And what’s worse is he wanted to get into the grad program to work with the faculty member that he plagiarized from,” she said.

Also on the rise is the number of Digital Millennium Copyright Act violations Harrington observes. DMCA violations occur when students download media illegally or access P2P file-sharing software while utilizing campus Internet services.

“If you download for private use illegally, then it’s a crime,” Harrington said. “But if you’re using a [file-sharing] program, like Limewire, then you become a distributor and [that’s] a big deal.”

Also frequent are social infractions, Wilson said. These include everything from public drunkenness and underage drinking to grand theft and assault.

Among social misconduct referrals, 159 involved theft, 96 involved alcohol-use, and 61 involved drug-use (primarily marijuana), said SJA Associate Director Donald Dudley. However, according to Dudley, the alcohol- and drug-related offenses are likely underreported as Student Housing has their own process for dealing with such violations.

Like the SJA staff, student members of the CJB seek to decrease these numbers by bringing a peer perspective to students who break the rules.

By organizing outreach and prevention activities for freshmen and transfer students, the CJB hopes to raise awareness and educate students about integrity and the value of discipline.

“People think we’re the bad guys, but we’re here to help the students develop into better citizens,” said Jade Corpus, junior managerial economics major and CJB member.

When asked about the most unique infraction she has seen, Corpus gave two examples.

“One where this person got referred for taking more than one piece of fruit out of the DC. [And the other], I think someone stole a table from the DC, or something like that,” she said.

Harrington said fostering a student’s ability to change is her favorite part of the job.

“Whenever somebody gets into trouble, [there is] an opportunity to grow ethically and to develop maturity,” she said. “It’s very rewarding to facilitate that.”

Wilson agreed that the prospect for transformation is rewarding.

“I really like working with students,” Wilson said. “I like being a part of getting people back on track and giving them [another] chance to be proud of what they accomplish here at Davis.”

The SJA reported 1,178 total referrals last academic year. However, Harrington estimated that nearly 95 percent of cases were resolved informally.

In addition, Dudley approximated that at least 80 percent of cases resulted in an admission of guilt and/or a sanction, while the rest were dismissed due to a lack of evidence or the alleged violator’s innocence.

There have been 436 violations reported thus far in the 2009-2010 academic year.

KYLE SPORLEDER can be reached at campus@theaggie.org.

Plagiarism

A first-year student was referred to Student Judicial Affairs for plagiarism after he failed to properly cite sources from a website. Three sentences were copied without the use of quotation marks and were incorrectly cited. The student admitted that this was due to carelessness and bad methodology when writing his paper. He wrongly assumed his notes from the website were from lecture. Because this is this student’s first year and first referral, he agreed to the disciplinary sanction of a censure, knowing that continued or repeated violations of university policy and regulations would be cause for further disciplinary action.

Again

An upperclassman was referred to SJA for submitting a paper for credit that was almost completely plagiarized. When he met with a judicial officer, he admitted right away that there was no excuse for what he had done but explained that he has been under a lot of stress due to personal reasons. This was the student’s first referral. He agreed to disciplinary probation through graduation and 10 hours of community service.

And again

A senior was referred to SJA for submitting an essay and a final exam that were both plagiarized. The student’s essay contained material that was not properly paraphrased, and in addition he failed to cite the source of the material. In his final exam, the student cut and pasted material from a website and claimed that due to lack of time, he failed to delete the paragraph that was from the website. Having been referred twice, for his essay and then again for his final exam, the student agreed to the disciplinary sanction of deferred separation, in addition to 20 hours of community service.

The Campus Judicial Report is compiled by student members of the Campus Judicial Board. Additional information about SJA and the Campus Judicial Board may be found at sja.ucdavis.edu.

Shades of gray will be celebrated this week as the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Resource Center hosts a variety of events aimed at spreading the message that sexuality and gender is not always black and white.

“Beyond the Binary” is the LGBTRC’s annual awareness week dedicated to educating the campus community about non-monosexual, and other intersecting identities, said event coordinator Laura Mitchell.

“The purpose of the week is to celebrate fluid identities and to create awareness around the issues faced by people who identify with those communities,” Mitchell said. “There are many people for whom current labels are not adequate and who are sometimes less visible than those who fit into traditional categories like gay or straight.”

Beyond the Binary was first started three years ago by a UC Davis student and has become one of the LGBTRC’s four annual awareness weeks on campus.

A Beyond the Binary art exhibit in the Memorial Union’s King Lounge kicked off this week’s activities and featured work by seven artists from the UC Davis community.

One of the evening’s artists, Laura Megumi Thatcher, said she wanted to express a deconstruction of gender and sexuality barriers in her work.

“I want people to take away their own message from the pieces, whatever that message may be,” she said. “For me, it was just really about bending expectations. I am really interested in gender roles and the way that gender and sexuality are socially constructed.”

Thatcher said that the LGBTRC holds this yearly event in order to bring down some of the misconceptions the public holds about the LGBT community.

“It is important for people to realize that being a part of the queer community doesn’t just mean you are gay,” she said. “There is a lot more subtlety and ambiguity. There is not just gay and straight, man and woman – there is everything in between as well.”

UC Davis alumna Nikki Sheldon also contributed some of her art to the night’s display and said the goal of the exhibit was simply to spread awareness.

“Ignorance breeds hate and inhibits the true appreciation for people, as they are,” she said. “By featuring the visual and performing arts of queer people, it enables those who are ‘unaware’ to embrace something completely foreign, and open their eyes to the stem of life itself, simply love.”

Various events are being held throughout today, including a workshop at 4 p.m. in the MU’s Garrison Room. The workshop will introduce students to various, non-traditional forms of sexual expression, including bondage, discipline and sadomasochism.

Yesterday, the LGBTRC and the Gender and Sexuality Commission held a town hall meeting discussing The California Aggie column “The Rise of the Girly Men.”

Students interested in artistic expression can also drop by King Lounge on Thursday night at 7 p.m. where the LGBTRC will host a student performance night. The event will showcase several student performances of music, spoken word and video “celebrating bi identity.” It will also include a performance by Trikone, a Bay Area-based organization of the South Asian LGBT community.

For more information about the week’s events, students can check out the LGBTRC’s website at lgbtrc.ucdavis.edu.

ERICA LEE can be reached at campus@theaggie.org.