Our faculty, students and staff have a right to be upset — all Californians should be upset — because what we are seeing today is the byproduct of decades of disinvestment by the state in the University of California. While we understand there's some anger and angst spread across our campuses, our hope is that it will be directed more precisely toward Sacramento, where the heart of the problem lies in shifting political priorities and a dysfunctional system of governance. It is a sad state of affairs indeed when a state spends more on prisons than it does on higher education.

There is a reason California has long been known as a land of opportunity and innovation, and much of that reputation can be traced directly to the University of California. This is one of the reasons why UC is often looked upon by other states — and nations — as the model public university system.

But with the state's contribution to each student's education cut by half since 1990, and confronted with $1 billion in cuts in less than two years, we've had to make very hard choices. The pain that comes from such a downsizing is inevitable, but what we've tried to do is spread it across the UC community — faculty, students, administrators and staff alike — and at the same time make sure we are doing all that we can to preserve our core research, teaching and public service mission and maintain our excellence. It would be much easier to allow the university to slide into mediocrity. But that would be devastating to the state of California, and we can't let it happen.

So, in this current crisis, we've raised fees and frozen administrative, faculty and staff salaries and downsized wherever we can. We're furloughing employees systemwide in an effort to cut costs while preserving jobs. But in the long term, we need the state to be a more reliable partner and honor its obligation to the people of California by adequately supporting public higher education.

Regarding the demonstrations taking place today (Sept. 24), there are actually three parts:

• Student fees: Students are protesting proposed fee increases. We understand, and share, their frustration. No one wants increased student fees, but we simply are not getting adequate funds from the state to avoid them.
• Faculty walkout: Faculty are protesting because they believe that, by taking furlough days on teaching days, they will make the education problems caused by budget cuts more obvious to the legislature. After a long consultative process in which faculty views were carefully considered, our view is that this would have been one burden too many to place on students.
• Union participation in the employee furlough program: Our non-unionized staff — roughly 100,000 employees — are participating in systemwide furloughs as a way to help UC cut costs. The furlough program is as fair as possible and reflected much input from staff. Unions were also asked for their input, and they were also invited to submit alternative plans that achieved equivalent savings. Some unions have agreed to participate, but others continue to assert they shouldn't be subject to the same reductions their non-unionized colleagues — not to mention students — are experiencing. We don't think that's fair.