by Peter Hays
As a way of increasing capacity at UC and CSU without having to construct new campuses or new buildings at existing campuses in the near term, a bill ( AB 126) asks CSU and UC to increase summer enrollments and make both institutions year-round schools (YRO). The bill states that no new instructional facilities could be built if any quarter’s enrollment (including summer’s) is less than 90% of peak enrollment and outlines a schedule to achieve summer enrollment at that level by 2007-08. The bill could be replaced by supplemental language to the budget which would require the more reasonable goal of 40%, closer to the nationwide maximum.
The bill states explicitly that faculty would not be required to teach year round; UC and CSU “would provide reasonable accommodation for faculty members to address any additional workload resulting from YRO.” While students would not be required to attend year round, additional incentives could be implemented to encourage students to do so and reduce the time to graduation. The intent is to provide students greater flexibility by offering them a regular schedule of classes in the summer and fees the same as those required the rest of the year. Chancellor Reed of the CSU system has embraced the idea; at CSU, Los Angeles, there will be no fees for summer attendance in 1999 for new freshman.
How students who need to work summers to finance their education will be affected and how many additional faculty (and graduate students) will have to be hired to offer four quarters of balanced study, where they will be housed, and how they will be equipped are as yet unanswered. UC is pressing for maintaining quality by stating that we would need full funding at the marginal cost of instruction for all enrollment. Also not addressed is the impact on current summer programs. Again, UC has publicly stated that space for summer outreach, teacher training, student orientation, and extension should not be displaced by YRO.
At present the bill may be carried over to next year, giving UC more time to plan. UC, meanwhile, has agreed to phase in YRO initially at one or two campuses by next summer; these will probably be Berkeley and/or UCLA, which are already at full capacity and could use the addition of more students to justify hiring more faculty. Office and lab space needs, however, would remain, as would the problem of performing needed maintenance on facilities used constantly.
The FA presented a “white paper” outlining many of these concerns to legislators and will continue meeting with key people on this issue. We will keep you informed.