FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

DATE: November 2, 2009

PLACE: University of California, Berkeley, CA

CONTACTS:

Shannon Steen, Associate Professor of Theater, Dance, and Performance

Studies, shannon.steen@gmail.com, 510.407.2252

Nelson Maldonado-Torres, Associate Professor of Ethnic Studies and

Director, Center for Latino Policy Research, nmt@berkeley.edu, 510.219-
3685

THE DEATH AND REBIRTH OF THE PUBLIC UNIVERSITY

UC Berkeley Students, Faculty, Staff Mourn Budget Cuts,

Protest President Yudof
on Día de los Muertos

Conversational Arabic classes. Student racial diversity. An award-winning

Master’s program that trains high school math and science teachers. Mini-
grants for undergraduate and graduate students and staff position
reductions in the Center for Latino Policy Research for the Latino Studies
Center. Financial Aid officers and Writing Center tutors. These are a
fraction of the classes, staff, and programs that have already been cut at
UC Berkeley because of the death of state support for public higher
education.

Rather than silently watching as their university dies, Berkeley students,

faculty, and staff are joining the Latina/o community in using Día de los
Muertos, the Mexican Day of the Dead, to mourn these losses and to
reimagine a transformed university that could emerge from the current
crisis.

“Massive defunding of higher education from the state will destroy the
public nature of our university,” says Nelson Maldonado-Torres, director of
the Center for Latino Policy Research, and Professor of Ethnic Studies.
“But we do not want just to save the university, we want to transform it into
one that truly serves the California public. Part of serving the state is
raising the number of students of color on campus, some of whom are
vastly underrepresented. Berkeley will likely lose more of them and those
from working class families who are barely making it to the middle class
with the planned 32% fee hikes.”

Currently, nearly 37% of Californians are Latino, 12.5% are Asian

American, 7% are African American, and 1% are Native American. The
Berkeley student body, by contrast, is only 4% African American, 9%
Latino, .5% Native American, and 34% Asian American.

On Sunday November 1 and Monday November 2, members across the

UC Berkeley community will gather for a series of events. On Sunday,
Casa Magdalena Mora and students from a Chicano Studies class taught
by visual artist Celia Herrera will host an event with altares, the traditional
Mexican altars to the dead, at Multicultural Community Center in Martin
Luther King, Jr Student Center from 4pm-12.30am.

On Monday, there will be a major campus-wide event, as altares are set up

on Sproul Plaza that will commemorate the cuts. From noon to 1pm, the
campus will join together for a New Orleans-style “Jazz Funeral for Higher
Education.” The funeral procession will move across campus, ending with
a “die-in” in front of California Hall, the campus Administration building.
The dead will represent laid-off workers, cut classes, and students who will
not be able to finish their college degrees because of the cuts.

In keeping with Dia de los Muertos tradition, participants will dress like
skeletons as they carry tombstones bearing inscriptions of cut programs,
classes, and staff. Monday evening, from 5:30 to 10:00 pm, there will a
gathering that focuses not on death, but on regeneration. Students will
come together to share insights about activism in a teach-in and
discussion entitled, “Activism from Below: People of Color Organizing to
Transform Public Education.” This will also take place at the Multicultural
Community Center on campus.

These events are, in part, a response to UC President Mark Yudof's now-

infamous comment in The New York Times. On September 24, 2009, he
quipped, “being president of the University of California is like being
manager of a cemetery: there are many people under you, but no one is
listening.” Faculty, staff, and students have not taken kindly to the
comparison, and wonder why president Yudof has not been listening to
those below him. They want to know why he hasn't been out in front
fighting for higher education in California, in order to avoid such drastic
fees and cutbacks.
Other UC campuses will be staging funerary-themed events on November
2, as well. UC Santa Barbara students and faculty will gather for a noon
rally at the Arbor to protest their cuts. On the same day, members of the
Regents' “Committee on the Future of the UC” will be presented with a
coffin on the stage of their meeting, from which a student will jump out and
read a list of local cuts. UC Santa Cruz, UC Davis, and UC Berkeley are
planning events that include face painting and people coming dressed with
skull designs.

As is traditional, Day of the Dead events will be festive, but with a serious
undertone. Higher Education in California is in mortal danger.

This press release has been issued by SAVE the University, an

organization of UC Berkeley faculty dedicated to preserving access to
education, excellence in teaching, and transparency of administrative
decisions in the wake of the unprecedented budget crisis facing the
University of California. For more information, go to: http://saveuc.org/