[CW-Grad] FW: Thanks for speaking on Feb 01

[Bryan G Bradford]

From: Goldberry Long
Sent: Sunday, February 05, 2012 7:43 AM
To: Bryan G Bradford
Subject: FW: Thanks for speaking on Feb 01

Hi Bryan,

Can you forward this to faculty and students in CRWT?

Thanks,
GB

Goldberry Long
Assistant Professor
Department of Creative Writing
________________________________
From: Farah Godrej [farahgodrej at gmail.com]
Sent: Saturday, February 04, 2012 11:08 AM
To: Guanyang Zhang
Cc: Goldberry Long; Patricia Morton; bronwyn.leebaw at gmail.com<mailto:bronwyn.leebaw at gmail.com>; Susan C Straight
Subject: Re: Thanks for speaking on Feb 01
Folks, you will have noticed by now that the Free UCR 'Open' Letter to the Chancellor is now a petition on change.org<http://change.org>:

http://www.change.org/petitions/chancellor-university-of-california-riverside-take-responsibility-for-january-19-and-protect-free-speech-at-ucr

Hopefully, you've all had a chance to see and sign it.  What's interesting is that it's already received 100 signatures in less than 24 hours.  Also, if you read the comments, you will notice that there are MANY of them, some quite lengthy, detailed, and outraged. What's striking is the levels of anger that continues to be expressed directly at the Chancellor in some of  those comments.

I know petitions sometimes don't achieve very much, but please do circulate this as widely as possible, especially your students, both grad and undergrad.  Bronwyn, if you think it is appropriate, please draw it to Mary Gauvain's attention.  I think it will be hard for the Chancellor to pretend to ignore something is signed and commented upon by so many members of our community. And, at the very least, we might be able to take back some of the awful spin narrative.




On Fri, Feb 3, 2012 at 5:09 PM, Guanyang Zhang <gyz151 at gmail.com<mailto:gyz151 at gmail.com>> wrote:
Thanks Goldberry. This is the database where you can find salaries of UC employees:
http://ucpay.globl.org/
It also presents a good analysis of the real problem behind the crisis.

So how do people think about the admin salary flyer idea :)

GY
On Fri, Feb 3, 2012 at 4:25 PM, Goldberry Long <goldberry.long at ucr.edu<mailto:goldberry.long at ucr.edu>> wrote:
I'm lurking here, listening in and keeping my mouth shut.  Just letting you know so I'm not eavesdropping.

Did all of you know that there were private security videotaping the protests?  I only know because I knew one of the guys, a retired detective who owns a private security firm.

The salaries are jaw-dropping.


GB

Goldberry Long
Assistant Professor
Department of Creative Writing
________________________________
From: Guanyang Zhang [gyz151 at gmail.com<mailto:gyz151 at gmail.com>]
Sent: Friday, February 03, 2012 4:22 PM
To: Patricia Morton; bronwyn.leebaw at gmail.com<mailto:bronwyn.leebaw at gmail.com>; Farah Godrej; Goldberry Long

Subject: Re: Thanks for speaking on Feb 01

Thanks Bronwyn and Pat. Just one clarification, some of the admins I listed got promoted since 2004 and that in part explains the extraordinary raises. (e.g. Hayashida nearly 100%)

I want to do a flyer on admin salaries and send it to all faculty on campus. What do the professors here think?

(Somehow we left Susan out of this conversation, I added her back on)

GY
On Fri, Feb 3, 2012 at 3:17 PM, Patricia Morton <pamorton at ix.netcom.com<mailto:pamorton at ix.netcom.com>> wrote:
Wow is right!  I would be very willing to petition for s special meeting, and I'm pretty sure we could find 10 faculty to sign a petition.  The meeting of the so-called task force on the protest rules showed me that these administrators operate with an extraordinary lack of oversight, even by the Chancellor.

On Feb 3, 2012, at 1:48 PM, Bronwyn Leebaw wrote:



Wow again. Not only are the totals incredible, but the amount of these raises. These guys are making 3-4 times as much as an average CHASS professor.

Just spoke to John and wanted to mention he still thinks that we should consider calling for a special senate committee meeting to focus entirely on these issues. According to the senate rules, this can happen if 10 senate members petition the chair, then it is up to the chair to call the meeting. What do you think?

John chaired rules and jurisdiction committee in senate and also teaches first amendment con law here. He's getting a gmail account so he can get back on the list.
On Fri, Feb 3, 2012 at 12:39 PM, Guanyang Zhang <gyz151 at gmail.com<mailto:gyz151 at gmail.com>> wrote:
Thanks Bronwyn. Apparently, the Dean of Students Affairs can do things even without letting the Chancellor know. They released the 'protest guidelines' and Tim White did not know those were released. I guess the admin structure is quite screwed up.

On the Feb 01, I saw at least eight admins: Jim Sandoval, Peter Hayashida, Susan Ortega, Cynthia Giorgio, James Grant,  Alfredo Figueroa, Joe Virata, and one more I couldn't identify. Those include two VC, three AVC. Three or four of them stayed throughout the discussion.

This is what the top admins do. This is what the tuition and indirect costs support. (well, if they were there to support us, fine. I guess that's what they would say)

Some data on admin salaries (2008, 2009 or 2010, highest year taken):
Sandoval: $204,522 (increased from $162,399 in 2004)
Hayashida: $258,016 (increased from $130,423 in 2004)
Ortega: $145,344 (increased from $97,917 in 2004)
Cynthia Giorgio: $178,999 (120,010 in 2004)
Alfredo Figueroa: $89,625





On Fri, Feb 3, 2012 at 12:04 PM, Bronwyn Leebaw <bronwyn.leebaw at gmail.com<mailto:bronwyn.leebaw at gmail.com>> wrote:
What?!! I had no idea about this use of fb pages to track students, not to mention punishing them for a what sounds like a peaceful action. That's outrageous!! Martin and I both pressed Mary Gauvain about chain of command issues regarding the disciplinary response to the protest more generally. She said she had no idea why Susan Allen Ortega had been given so much authority in these matters. Wow. Definitely this must be brought into the conversation.


On Fri, Feb 3, 2012 at 11:39 AM, Guanyang Zhang <gyz151 at gmail.com<mailto:gyz151 at gmail.com>> wrote:
Thanks Farah. Yes, please sustain and strengthen the momentum both institutionally and extra-institutionally. I also think the two can impact one another.

For Sandoval and other admin's harassment on students and others on free speech, I think we can try taking a legal approach. Tow bills have been passed to prohibit disciplinary actions taken against students and others at UC and CSU to engage in free speech. About the Facebook incident: a group called UC artist carried a coffin that says 'death of public education' and walked around campus. Some UCR admin (Susan Ortega?) followed them through and later went to the artists' facebook group to identify the people there. Those people were put onto the Dean's Advisory List (14 people, I think) as a disciplinary sanction. I have talked to one of the students about suing UCR, but I think he and other victims need some legal assistance. I will talk to him again. If anybody has legal contacts who can help, please let me know. This could be a compelling case that a lawyer wants to take on.

The CA Bills:
http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/pub/05-06/bill/asm/ab_2551-2600/ab_2581_bill_20060828_chaptered.html
http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/pub/07-08/bill/sen/sb_1351-1400/sb_1370_bill_20080807_enrolled.html

Excerpt:

The bill also would prohibit an employee from being

dismissed, suspended, disciplined, reassigned, transferred, or

otherwise retaliated against solely for acting to protect a student

engaged in conduct authorized by a specified provision of state law

or refusing to infringe upon conduct that is protected pursuant to

state law or those constitutional provisions.

On Fri, Feb 3, 2012 at 11:23 AM, Farah Godrej <farahgodrej at gmail.com<mailto:farahgodrej at gmail.com>> wrote:
Thank you for the updates about what is going on within institutional channels, Bronwyn.

I'm happy to meet if people want to discuss next steps.  It sounds like there are many different things we need to talk about: both things that faculty can do within institutional channels like the Senate, but also extra-institutional steps to bring pressure on admin to both take responsibility for what happened, as well as pledge to not allow such violence again.  We should also really be working in coalition with the students here, and I hope that more of them feel comfortable reaching out to us, and telling us what they need and how they envision proceeding.

It all seems so uphill right now, given how incredibly systematic the repression of dissent is across the UC system, but I'm trying not to let that overwhelm my sense of outrage, and I hope we can keep some momentum going here.

Bronwyn makes a VERY good point about bringing up the issue of good old Jim Sandoval (who was as usual monitoring us on Wednesday), but it is more than just his presence at these events that is deeply problematic .  Goldberry rightly reminded us the other day that his surveillance works in conjunction with an insidious form of harassment and intimidation by other administrators like Susan Allen Ortega: identifying students through their FB photos, and threatening them with academic retaliation (suspension, expulsion,etc) for their involvement in campus activism.  Is there a way we can link this back to the criminalizing of dissent and emphasize just how much this is all in violation of free speech on our campus?  It makes me apoplectic just now to even think about all this, and Bronwyn's description of some of our colleagues as somewhat disinterested may be linked to most of them being utterly unaware of this stuff.

Anyway, onward and upward....let's do keep working on this together...

in solidarity,
Farah



On Fri, Feb 3, 2012 at 12:01 AM, Guanyang Zhang <gyz151 at gmail.com<mailto:gyz151 at gmail.com>> wrote:
Thanks Bronwyn. Thanks for the updates. Why not we just draft the ideas out (condemnation of police brutality, ungrounded declaration of unlawful assembly; citizen review group; Senate resolution on future use of police force during public assembly and free speech, etc.)? At the next Senate meeting, if you could officially discuss those ideas and present the draft, that would be great. But it sounds like there is some apathy in the group. What you and the few like-minded faculty can do is 'occupy' or take over the Senate meeting by giving out printed copies of the draft right before the meeting starts while people are arriving. People will read the draft and start debating their position in the possible later discussion. That might change the tone of the meeting a bit and win over some undecided faculty.

I'm not informed of the the set-up of the Senate meetings or the member composition. The best I think right now is the few like-minded faculty get together and come up with a plan ASAP. A lot can be done before the next meeting and the early we start, the better. I can help with proposing strategies and I can talk to students to see how we can support (e.g. organize a sit-in or some sort in the meeting to change the balance)

GY
On Thu, Feb 2, 2012 at 11:00 PM, Bronwyn Leebaw <bronwyn.leebaw at gmail.com<mailto:bronwyn.leebaw at gmail.com>> wrote:

It was powerful and moving! I was so impressed with you all and was sorry I couldn't be there for the whole thing.

I think it would be good to raise this at the next general meeting. I tabled some ideas at the exec. council meeting that happened the monday after the protests, which was attended briefly by the Chancellor. I think there are a few different things that came out of that in terms of moving forward--At that meeting I suggested something like a special senate meeting to address the violence at the protest, as well as the declaration of unlawful assembly. Tom Morton, as chair of academic freedom committee, wants to use that committee to investigate what happened, as well as the general issue of assembly rights on campus. Martin Johnson proposed the idea of having a kind of citizen's review committee institutionalized on campus that would be in place to monitor and investigate any future incidents. Apparently, UCB has this kind of committee in place already--something that has representatives from the faculty, student body, and community. But that wouldn't address some of the deeper freedom of assembly issues--I was thinking it would also be useful for senate to not only address what happened on the 19th, but also make a statement about expectations for how future protests should be handled and the need for answers regarding how these decisions are made on our campus.

I also raised the issue of Jim Sandoval's constant presence at the protests

I must admit I was hoping for more of a response--only a few people at exec council showed any interest in these issues, but I am hoping that the academic senate could still be a vehicle for taking a stand.




On Thu, Feb 2, 2012 at 11:20 AM, Patricia Morton <pamorton at ix.netcom.com<mailto:pamorton at ix.netcom.com>> wrote:
Dear Guanyang,

Thank you for organizing the discussion!  I thought it was very powerful and moving, and you shouldn't worry about the PA system.

At the next Senate meeting on Feb. 21, maybe we should propose a resolution condemning the violence against protestors.  Just a first thought.

Best,
Pat

On Feb 1, 2012, at 5:42 PM, Guanyang Zhang wrote:


Dear Goldberry, Pat, Farah, Susan, Luz and Bronwyn,

Thanks so much for speaking at the public discussion. My apologies for the last minute screw-up with the PA. Special thanks to Pat for speaking despite having a soar throat.

After the discussion, Bronwyn and I talked briefly about how the faculty and the Senate can get involved in supporting students. I thought we can all sit down together and have a discussion on that. There are several other like-minded or concerned professors I know who probably can join in for a meeting. I am sure all of you can get a hold of more faculty. Sorry, Bronwyn, if I should not be in the position to make this proposal.

The Senate is institutionally powerful and many issues can be and shall be discussed by the Senate. I'm glad that we have professors like Bronwyn in the Senate, among others whose names I don't know, to talk about and work on those issues. But I think more voluntary actions should be taken by faculty. That voluntary actions can be in the future integrated into the Senate, if possible. This is not to say we wait for faculty to step up and 'volunteer', and instead we must go to them, talk to them, learn their concerns and complaints and eventually get them out. When it comes to defending public good, I believe it is quite different from serving on a committee as university service.

Again, thank you all very much for speaking or supporting!

Guanyang


On Tue, Jan 31, 2012 at 1:41 PM, Guanyang Zhang <gyz151 at gmail.com<mailto:gyz151 at gmail.com>> wrote:
Dear Goldberry,

Is your colloquium in a far place? Would you be able to grab a bite during or before the colloquium? I'm very sorry, but could we stick to the schedule that I proposed? Susan is already the first to speak. Pat and Farah won't make it earlier (and I kinda talked to them before to you, sorry). Luz Elena is best to go the last since she is the only student.

But please let me know if you find it difficult. I will try to rearrange the schedule. Thanks!

There will be also a 5 minute poem recital from 1:10-1:15.

Guanyang

On Mon, Jan 30, 2012 at 1:18 PM, Goldberry Long <goldberry.long at ucr.edu<mailto:goldberry.long at ucr.edu>> wrote:
Dear Guanyang and all,

I am presenting a colloquium until 1pm.  I don't know if people will want to stay later than that.  To be safe, maybe you should schedule me later?

Best,
GB

Goldberry Long
Assistant Professor
Department of Creative Writing
________________________________
From: Guanyang Zhang [gyz151 at gmail.com<mailto:gyz151 at gmail.com>]
Sent: Monday, January 30, 2012 1:15 PM
To: Patricia Morton; Farah Godrej; Susan C Straight; luz_in at yahoo.com<mailto:luz_in at yahoo.com>; Goldberry Long

Subject: Re: Thanks for speaking on Feb 01

Dear all,

Again, thanks for speaking in the public discussion. I have worked out a tentative schedule. We have five people now, and each of you can speak maybe 5-7 min. But you can go shorter or longer if you want. Farah and Pat have meetings before that and I put the later in the schedule.

Susan Straight - 1:15
Goldberry - 1:22
Farah: 1:30
Pat: 1:37
Luz Elena: 1:45

Please let me know if this schedule works. Thanks. I can change it according to your needs and it will probably change a bit during the actual event. Also, I was wondering if we should get students ask question after each speaker or get them wait until all finish speaking.

We don't want to dictate the content of your speech. The crowd will be probably mostly undergraduates. Some might be in the protest, some maybe not. I thought if you could come up with something to better engage students, that would be great. Lecturing is what we all used to do, but students don't necessarily like being lectured. I also think we have to demystify Chancellor White's 'nice face'. Something in the line of the open letter questioning White (by Farah or Pat?).

Thanks again for stepping up. Notice that you are all proud women :)

Guanyang
www.heteroptera.ucr.edu<http://www.heteroptera.ucr.edu/>
On Sun, Jan 29, 2012 at 7:12 PM, Guanyang Zhang <gyz151 at gmail.com<mailto:gyz151 at gmail.com>> wrote:
Dear Pat, Farah, Susan and Luz,

Thank you so much for agreeing to step forward and speak at the Feb 01 public discussion 1.19 UCR protest. Special thanks to Luz Elena, who got arrested while filming the police making arrest and later released.

We are working on the actual schedule and will get back to you ASAP. We were wondering if we can add your names to the Facebook event page so that people know who are the speakers. That may draw more people to come. Thanks.

Again, thanks so much and we look forward to listening to you.

Regards
Guanyang















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