There is both good news and bad news for UC and its faculty members in the form of a public opinion poll of Californians taken by the California Higher Education Policy Center and reported in the Winter, 1997 issue of its publication "Crosstalk." For example, Californians "still firmly believe that higher education is essential for job success and that the state should offer a college education to all qualified students at a price they can afford."
Fifty-four percent of those polled said "California should maintain its commitment to affordable high-quality education....even if it costs a lot more in tax money. Only 18% said the state should cut back on this commitment even if it means turning away qualified students."
While Californians favor easy access to college, 75% of those polled expressed a belief that "motivation is the most important reason for student success. Only 13 % believe that success depends on the quality of the college." (ED: The latter finding suggests that our PR types need to craft a much more effective message regarding the tangible value of a UC education.)
In line with the recommendation of the Leg Analyst to divert money from UC to Cal Grants discussed elsewhere in this Newsletter, 52% of those polled "liked the idea of awarding state scholarships that could be used at either public or private institutions." I.e., they favor giving the money to students, not institutions.
There is a strong preference for increasing the utilization of existing campuses, but there is also some support for creating new ones. In the former context, 95% "said public campuses should offer more classes in the evenings, on weekends and in the summer in order to accommodate more students."
DFA Editorial Comments: This campus, as is generally true of UC, offers very few mainstream courses outside "normal" business hours. The community colleges and most if not all of the urban CSU campuses make much better use of their physical plants, and as Tidal Wave II approaches it would not be particularly surprising if the Legislature were to pick up on the public mood and invite UC to expand its off-hours offerings. We can only hope that they would also agree to fund the additional faculty, staff and infrastructure costs that doing so would require.
That hope could well be a faint one, for some of us still remember the
middle 1960's when the Legislature mandated year-round utilization of campus
facilities, and in response all of UC changed from the semester to the
quarter system. After that major curricular overhaul, the Legislature
discovered that a 4-quarter academic year would require either 1/3 more
faculty members or significant salary increases for most of the existing
ones, and welshed on the deal. Shortly after that the Legislature
also changed their agreement that UC would design new facilities for 100%
occupancy within 5 years. On this campus new construction ceased
virtually overnight and it took many years to get it resumed with Meyer
Hall.