Thursday’s town hall meeting with Chancellor Robert Birgeneau and other administrators brought numerous issues facing the campus—and the UC system as a whole—to light. While most of the forum focused on the effects of budget cuts, a wide variety of topics were discussed, ranging from the redevelopment of Lower Sproul Plaza to the democratization of the UC Board Regents.

The chancellor first mentioned raising close to $60 million for the campus by replacing 2,500 in-state students with out of state students, who currently pay more than three times as much in undergraduate fees. The campus is over-enrolled by 2,500 students, meaning that it does not receive state funding for these students.

“Rather than leave those seats empty our goal is to replace them with out of state students,” Birgeneau said.
Birgeneau then spoke about a “surprisingly well received out of the box solution.”

The solution would involve creating a hybrid model of public funding for universities throughout the nation.

“We’ve called on the Obama administration … we’ve appealed to them to save public education,” Birgeneau said. “If the the federal government were to invest in public education half of what they spent on AIG, then that would be enough to permanently solve the problem for about the top 20 public research universities.”

The chancellor said he had received the support of the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities.

At the forum, Dean of Students Jonathan Poullard touched on another issue: the effects of the cuts on low and middle income families. He said that in a seemingly counter-intuitive way, the increased fees could help lower income students financial aid because a third of student fees goes to aid, Poullard said.

“While lower income students will be covered the bad news is that middle class students are not,” he said.

Members of the Third World Liberation Front asked the panel about their support for a Multicultural Center as part of a new Lower Sproul Plaza.

While the chancellor said he needed to see a detailed financial plan before making a commitment, he said the campus will match student funds as each of the phases of the redevelopment come along phased way.

Poullard addressed the growing level of unrest in the audience.

“There is a certain level of ribbing and cynicism that I would expect from this event,” he said. “I ask for grace and patience as I hear things and I will extend grace and patience back to you.”

Many questions addressed different paths of activism students should take to protest the cuts. The scheduled UC systrem wide strike, which has 960 signatories  as of Friday at noon, came up many times during the forum.

Birgeneau told the forum he personally did not support a strike and later said in an interview he thought it would be an ineffective measure to combat the cuts. He mentioned that legislators in Sacramento had viewed the September 24 walkout with “disdain”.

“They said ‘Oh, its only Berkeley’,” he said.

Earlier that evening, Birgeneau and Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost George Breslauer advocated for a march on the state capitol and for students to lobby their local legislators.

“I hope that literally … there will be hundrends of thousands of supporters demanding that the legislature reverse its polcies and support higher eduation,” Birgeneau said.

Towards the end of the forum student organizer Blanca Misse rallied the crowd, telling the panelists that they are going to need to stand with students as they protest the budget cuts in Novemeber.

“I don’t know how big the strike in November is going to be, but the one in March is going to be hella big,” Misse said. “Be ready to be with us in the picket lines, to tell the regents and to tell the president that we are not going to take it.”

At the ASUC Senate’s eleventh meeting, senators discussed their diminishing contingency fund, which has about $1,000 left. Senators are waiting to hear from the Auxiliary how much money they have in their reserve carry-forward fund before they use it to replenish the contingency and continue spending.

Computer science professor Brian Barsky addressed the senate to discuss loans the intercollegiate athletic program has taken from the UC Berkeley administration in the past. He said he is submitting a resolution to the Academic Senate calling for the cessation of administrative funding to athletics, and that he wants ASUC Senate to approve a bill supporting the cause. The senate approved such a bill later in the meeting.

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A KTVU reporter received exclusive information about the possible location of a change of venue for the former BART police officer charged with the murder of Oscar Grant III.

KTVU reporter Rita Williams allegedly received information from three unnamed sources stating that only two counties are being considered for the change—Los Angeles County and San Diego County.

Judge Morris Jacobson decided to change the venue for Johannes Mehserle after deciding that Alameda County residents possibly harbor too much bias in the landmark case.

The trial was originally slated to begin on Nov. 2, but the case has been delayed until Nov. 9, when the counties up for consideration will be discussed.

The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights has started a formal investigation to see to what extent liberal arts colleges discriminate against female applicants in an attempt to balance genders in the student body.

On Oct. 30, the commission decided on a set of colleges to investigate, but declined to release the full list.

In recent years, many liberal arts colleges have worried about their gender ratios that show the colleges’ difficulty in attracting both male and female applicants.Private undergraduate colleges are exempt from the admissions provisions of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, so they have the right to consider gender in the admissions process.

According to the Chronicle of Higher Education’s annual executive compensation survey, 23 private college presidents made over $1 million in total compensation, and 110 made more than $500,000 for the 2007-8 fiscal year.

These large pay packages are still relatively new in higher education. In 2002, there were no presidents making over $1 million: only four earned more than $800,000 and 27 earned more than $500,000.

Over all, the study found the median pay for presidents of the 419 private colleges and universities surveyed was $358,746, a 6.5 percent increase from the previous year. The median presidential pay, adjusted for inflation, grew by 14 percent over the last five years, according to the Chronicle.

“It’s a market and it’s increasingly hard to find these people,” said Jeffrey Selingo, editor of The Chronicle of Higher Education, which has published its annual compensation survey since 1993. “That said, almost every year, presidential salaries have gone up faster than inflation, and faster than tuition, which rankles some people on campus.”

The Chronicle’s information is from federal tax documents for the 2007-08 fiscal year, a period before the current economic downturn. More recently, most colleges have calmed salary increases for university presidents, Selingo said.

“Next year, it’s likely that we won’t see many presidents getting big raises,” he said.

A Field Poll, created by political scientists from California State University Sacramento, Stanford University and UC Berkeley, asked Californians questions about proposed reforms to state government and constitutional convention scenarios.

The poll found majorities think important changes need to be made to the state constitution and citizens prefer implementing these changes in a package of reforms.

State legislation, in the last few decades, has followed a pattern which reflects that Californians are for radical change. For example, citizens voted to dramatically change taxes in Proposition 13 and recall Gov. Gray Davis with a movie star, according to an article about the report.

Changes such as these, however, have not necessarily improved the state’s legislation.

For instance, approval rates of the legislature have been low following the passing of measures majorities voted for. The poll found that only 13 percent approve of the job the legislature is doing.

Voters ask for a large number of services and expect the Legislature to provide all of them at once. When the Legislature is unable to comply with their wishes, citizens blame legislators for the state’s crises, yet they may not be justified in doing so as experts say the crises are results of former constitutional reforms, like Proposition 13.

Still, the Bay Area Council and a coalition called California Forward are both pursuing a new conventions for the 2010 ballot.

The cockroaches coming out of UC Berkeley aren’t from the entomology department but the university’s Biomimetic Millisystems Lab.

Ronald Fearing, UC Berkeley associate professor of electrical engineering and computer science, and researcher Paul Birkmeyer built a robot dubbed DASH—Dynamic Autonomous Sprawled Hexapod, according to Wired Magazine. The bot weighs only 16 grams, can reach speeds of about five feet per second and can be dropped from about 92 feet without breaking.  Aside from such feats, its most intriguing feature is six legs and a body that acutely resembles a cockroach.

The researchers modeled their creation after what the pair’s YouTube video calls one of “nature’s greatest runners,” Periplaneta americana, or the cockroach.

DASH was designed to demonstrate the benefits of smart composite microstructures, which in laymen’s terms is a quicker, more cost-effective process of producing “microrobots.”

But the cockroach-bot is only one of many the lab is working on. Other 2009 research projects include, the Ornithopter Project—a bioinspired flying machines; the Micromechanical Flying Insect, which is self-explanatory; and the Millirobot Rapid Prototyping—a kit allowing users to build their own robots.

In a letter responding to a Visalia Times-Delta editorial piece, Chancellor Robert Birgeneau said the university’s strategy to increase funding for the school will not reduce enrollment opportunities for students from the Central Valley.

The editorial accused UC Berkeley of refusing admission to California students who would require financial aid and giving their slots to full-paying students from out of the state or the country.

Birgeneau addressed the Central Valley, assuring families that they should not be concerned that their children might not be able to afford Berkeley.

“If they earn a place at Berkeley, they will not be turned back, and we will ensure that they have the means to earn a UC Berkeley degree,” he wrote.

But Birgeneau also wrote that UC Berkeley will have to increase the amount of out-of-state and international students. The campus is overenrolled by 2,500 students, which means the state will not supply funds for that number. Instead of cutting the seats altogether, Birgeneau says they will be filled with those who can pay the full cost of their education—out-of-state and international students.

“We are frankly shocked that Berkeley would so blatantly betray its own values,” the Visalia Times-Delta wrote in response to the campus decision.

The debate about the initiative is ongoing, both sides arguing to uphold the accessibility and prestige of one of the nation’s most reputable public universities.

At this week’s ASUC Senate meeting, senators heard a warning from Finance Officer Alan Ni regarding their financial situation. He said there is less than 9 percent of funds left in the senate’s contingency fund, which is allocated in the spring for the senate to distribute throughout the semester.

Last week, Ni reported that 63 percent of the contingency fund remained. The senate spent about $9,000 at its meeting last week, which was almost 40 percent of the fund, according to Ni. Last week’s meeting was the first full meeting at which the senate could conduct official business since Sept. 23 due to a delay in confirming Ni to the finance officer position.

Ni said he would be writing a bill in the next few days to replenish the contingency fund with money from the carryforward fund, which serves as the senate’s reserve. He added that he thinks the senate needs better guidelines for approving bills.

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As part of its new training program, the Lawrence Berkley National Laboratory will accept four apprentice electricians on Nov. 2.

The training program was set up by the lab and Alameda County, and apprentices in the county can fulfill some of their required 8,000 hours of training at the lab.

Lawrence Berkeley Lab’s chief operating officer Jim Krupnick and business manager of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers’ Local 595 union Victor Uno came up with the idea, and  The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers and the Northern chapter of the National Electrical Contractors Association sponsored the apprentice training program.