Editor’s Note: for more updates check dailycal.org

11:25 a.m.

Most of the classes that evacuated Moffitt Library were cancelled or have been moved off campus.

11:18 a.m.

The fire alarms at several campus buildings-Dwinelle Hall, Barrows Hall, Martin Luther King Jr. Student Union, Moffitt Library and Valley Life Sciences-went off within the last hour, causing hundreds of students to evacuate the building.

Staff at Moffitt Library said people cannot reenter the building until the Berkeley Fire Department arrives and assesses the situation.

10:30 a.m.

The fire alarm in Dwinelle Hall went off, forcing hundreds of students, staff and faculty to evacuate the building. Many protesters walked over from the demonstration and attempted to convince evacuating students to join the protest.

10:17 a.m.

Chancellor Robert Birgeneau sent out a campuswide e-mail alerting staff, faculty and students about the occupation of the second floor room of Wheeler Hall and the subsequent closure of the building until further notice.

“The campus police are working to resolve a protest action that is occurring in

Wheeler Hall,” he said in the e-mail. “Employees who can contact their supervisors should talk to them if possible to determine whether telecommuting or relocation to another work area is an option. Those in the building right now are advised to leave until the situation has been resolved.”

9:48 a.m.

At least 8 Berkeley police cruisers are at the scene with officers from the department handling the protest.

9:35 a.m.

Protesters are still holding on to their position in the second story room, with intermittent appearances at the window by a masked man who is shouting anti-police messages to the sit-down picket line below.

Some students are still trying to cross the picket line

“I’m pretty confused,” said Dan Brown, a UC Berkeley freshman. “I understand where the protesters are coming from, but if I don’t have a class, free day off.”

9:25 a.m.

“There about 60 of us grads and undergrads, cops are breaking down doors, locked down since 5am,” said one protestor via text message.

8:59 a.m.

Police are using a crowbar to open the door, according to protesters inside.

8:50 a.m.

Protesters have taken over at least one room on the West side of Wheeler Hall. UCPD officers have surrounded the building, and some are inside.

Protesters were yelling out the window of the building with a banner hanging from it.

At least 30 protesters are sitting behind a banner that says “Solidarity” and “shut down UCPD” blocking the path between Durant Hall and Wheeler Hall. Because of construction, the block is forcing pedestrians to walk around Dwinelle Hall or Wheeler Hall in order to pass across to the north or south sides of campus.

The walkways around Wheeler are almost completely blocked off by UCPD and caution tape.

According to witnesses, at least one person has been arrested in connection with the protest.

“I think it’s great … there’s not a lot of people fighting the power,” said onlooker and Berkeley resident Lou Brown.

– Zach EJ Williams, Stephanie Baer, Cristian Macavei, Chris Carrassi, George Ashworth

Protesers try to enter California Hall. Tim Maloney/Staff

Student actions during the first day of the strike at UC Berkeley to protest proposed fee hikes took a more aggressive tone than the other actions taken since the Sept. 24 walkout.

The day’s events were highlighted by 37 protesters, 18 of which were UC students, temporarily occupying a building on campus. Earlier in the day protesters also formed a human chain around California Hall that came close to turning violent.
Previous actions on campus have remain relatively less confrontational.

After leaving Sproul Plaza and marching to Downtown Berkeley protesters marched to California Hall and linked arms around the building to prevent workers from leaving the administrative buidling, though most in the march did not advocate some of the actions.

As the protesters where locking arms about 10 people left the building, none were willing to comment. At around 3 p.m. as two people stepped out of the building, the protesters had formed a solid band and rushed in towards them, preventing them from leaving as the protesters chanted “You work from us.”

Organizers eventually told the protesters to break the line and let the people go. (Click here to read more…)

When The UC Board of Regents meet over the next three days at UCLA, all eyes will be on the proposed 32 percent student fee increase and the student action being taken to protest it.

While the fate of that decision will be on the minds of millions around the state and the, it composes only one of a multitude of issues going before the Regents between Nov. 17 and Nov. 19.

Issues range from approval of new student housing at UC Berkeley to upgrading the interim director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory to full director. They will also decide if Berkeley gets accepted into a pilot program that would give campus more autonomy in approving building site. The three-day event will end with a presentation on the level of private support coming to the UCs —it’s down all over if you hadn’t guessed, though Berkeley is doing better than most. (Click here to read more…)

At the ASUC Senate’s twelfth meeting, senators allowed the contingency fund balance to become negative after approving about $2,050 from the fund even though it only has $1,070 left. Finance Officer Alan Ni said this would be okay as long as the fund had a positive balance by the end of the semester.

A bill to replenish the contingency with funds from the carry-forward reserve was introduced and passed to the finance committee for consideration. Ni said the bill was intended to transfer $8,000, even though the text of the bill says, “THEREFORE IT BE RESOLVED, that the ASUC Senate allocate $8,000 (five thousand dollars) from the Carry Forward Fund to the Senate Contingency Fund.” If it passes committee, the bill will be voted on by the full senate next week.

(Click here to read more…)

Funeral services for Alameda County Superior Court Judge Barbara Miller, who presided over the decision to construct an athletic training center near Memorial Stadium, will be held Thursday at 10 a.m. at the Chapel of Chimes on 4499 Piedmont Avenue in Oakland, according to the Oakland Tribune.

Miller, 58, was found dead in her Oakland home last Friday. A preliminary autopsy revealed she died of natural causes.

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.

(Click here to read more…)

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.