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Crash policy ________________
budget crisis

From the Chair:
How the Budget Crisis Affects Us

These are hard times for the University of California, especially hard because several years of budget cuts and belt-tightening are now compounded by the state budget crisis. To use a familiar metaphor, we find ourselves between the Charybdis of an economic downturn and the Scylla of politicians unwilling to support education. We are all suffering as a result, and I hope that we can all pull through together.

Students are affected most obviously and most severely, with fewer and larger classes making it harder to complete their degrees on time, while massive fee increases impose a challenging financial burden.

Graduate students also face substantial fee increases while competing for fewer Teaching Assistantships in more and more crowded classes.

Staff must now handle a larger workload and deal with a more anxious clientele, while themselves having to take furlough amounting on average to an eight percent pay cut.

Lecturers in the past year were in some cases laid off, in many cases reduced from full to part time.

Faculty are required to teach larger classes with less graduate student support, while also taking a furlough amounting on average to an eight percent pay cut.

The Classics Department is taking a number of steps to cope with the present crisis.

Class overcrowding: to handle impacted courses in a fair and orderly way, we have adopted a clear and consistent policy on crashing courses.

Staff furloughs: the department office will close for a week over Winter break, and on the last Friday of each quarter; there will also be days when it is understaffed or closed for part of the day.

Faculty furloughs: faculty will take no more than two instructional furlough days per quarter, generally in week five; they will note these days on their syllabi, and may assign take-home work.

Please be patient and understanding. We will all strive to minimize the harmful effects of state budget cuts upon the quality of instruction in the Department and the University.

There are links to information and opinion on the budget crisis at the History web site.

Francis Dunn
Chair, Classics Department