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Polarizing educator talks education
NOTICE
By Thaddeus Miller The Collegian
TERMINATION OF EMPLOYMENT
Layoffs of 46 employees By Thaddeus Miller The Collegian In preparation of next year’s state budget, Fresno State’s president said the university will lay off 46 state, staff and management employees beginning July 1. President John Welty said the tentative plan would not include state employee furloughs, as he addressed the crowd in the Satellite Student Union. “I know that this is a dark day for our university community,” Welty said.
Fifty-five permanent and five temporary employees will receive layoff notices. It is anticipated, Welty said, that 14 of these employees will be given the opportunity to retreat to another position, and a small number could take time reduction rather than be laid off. Welty said the university needed to take action now, although the state legislature had not acted on a 2010-11 budget. “If we don’t act now and our pre-
dictions hold true, we would be required to lay-off a much larger number of employees at a later date,” Welty said. “I believe that is an irresponsible gamble to take.” Welty said the mandatory 9.5 percent enrollment reduction handed down earlier this year from the California State University’s (CSU) board of trustees and the state’s budget reductions made the layoffs See LAYOFFS, Page 8
California higher education: A half-century of the Master Plan The threat of that altered reality has not been lost on the thousands of students who attend one of the 10 University of California campuses, 23 California State Universities or one of the 112 California Community College campuses.
By Brian Maxey The Collegian Fifty years ago, a pledge was made to all Californians, one that promised universal access to a college education. Built upon a commitment to access, quality and affordability, California’s Master Plan was to be the ladder through which the population could move into higher education and serve as the engine behind the state’s work
force. The formula raised academic standards while at the same time allowed more Californians to go to college. However, adherence to that vision over the past five decades has been uneven. Overburdened by mismanagement of large-scale growth in enrollment demand and a weakened state economy, the Master Plan has inched further from the reality laid out by the plan’s framers.
See AYERS, Page 8
Dorms will host tolerance tunnel By Sarah Kain The Collegian
Born out of the needs of the Post War Era, California in 1960 adopted a lofty blueprint for higher education that would merge the state’s colleges and universities into a coordinated system that sought to produce a well-educated work force during a period of rapid population growth. “The Master Plan was a product of stark necessity, of political calculations, and of pragmatic transactions,” remarked Clark Kerr, the 12th president of the University of California and key figure in the plan’s development, in his personal memoir. The plan established different functions, admission guidelines and priorities for each of the three systems, each with its own designated enrollment pools. The University of California would pull from only the top 12.5 percent of high school graduates; state colleges would draw from the upper 33 percent; community colleges, would
The University Courtyard’s Diversity Committee will offer Fresno State students a glimpse into the world of oppressed groups Monday when the Tunnel of Oppression is opened. The free event is meant to show people how oppression affects society today. The tunnel is a one-day event. It will be in the Atrium of the University Courtyard from 8-11 p.m. The tunnel consists of different rooms that display various oppressed groups in society, such as homeless people, the gay and lesbian community and people with eating disorders. Devin Puente, the assistant resident director and committee chair of the diversity committee, put the event together and hopes that it will have an impact on the participants that walk through it. “We hope that after people cross through the tunnel, they will have a changed perspective,” Puente said. “We want to get the subject directly into people’s faces, because some people are oblivious to the groups that are featured in the tunnel.” The tunnel will contain active and passive rooms for the participants. “In the passive rooms, we have different pictures and posters of the
See PLAN, Page 9
See TUNNEL, Page 8
Constructing a plan for higher education
Matt Weir / The Collegian file photo
An elementary education theorist from the University of Illinois at Chicago, Bill Ayers, visited Fresno State Friday as a guest of one of the school’s clubs. The controversial figure spoke to an audience in the Satellite Student Union (SSU), where the event was moved to accommodate a larger crowd. Ayers challenged the educators and education students in attendance to meet their students’ individual needs, and not just see them as their grade level. Outside of the SSU, about 12 protestors stood holding signs that said things like, “Support our constitution, not communism.” Ayers was a member of an anti-war group called Weather Underground in the e a rly 1 9 7 0 s, wh i ch McClatchy Tribune took responsibility for bombings around Bill Ayers the country during the Vietnam War. After his speech and booksigning, Ayers presented a film called “Central Station” to the Cineculture class and club, which sponsored his visit. It was reported that his visit to Fresno’s Tower District on Thursday was also met with some protest.