UCI Professor's Budget-Cut Dispatch Splits Audience

Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom, a history professor at UC Irvine, has written a thoughtful piece for The Chronicle of Higher Education titled, “U. of California Cuts: A Faculty Member's Dispatch From the Front Lines.” In the piece, Wasserstrom bemoans how the state budget crisis could negatively effect the highly regarded University of California education system. The author of the upcoming book China in the 21st Century: What Everyone Needs to Know (Oxford University Press) cites examples of how the UC system may not have been able to recruit or retain top flight faculty members from his own specialty–modern Chinese history–had cuts come earlier.

But if Wasserstrom was expecting widespread support for his position, he's batting about .500 based on comments left to the online version of the story. About half reacted with words such as, “This commentary is right on target” or “Terrific
practical explanation of what is happening in California.”

An equal number labeled the piece “self-serving.”

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“What
national interest is harmed whether the professor is at a UC school or
at Princeton or another school,” wrote one reader. “All the UC poaching of other schools'
people has done is increase costs for many schools to retain the
faculty they helped develop and supported for many years as they built
their name and CV. Time for the worm to turn and maybe some who were
stolen away with the promises of more money and lighter teaching loads
will return to the schools that helped make them. Seems like karma to
me.”

“In these
days of financial distress perhaps we need to look at overlap and how
many students are being served,” writes another. “Does the UC really need that many China
scholars? Perhaps regionalized schools with specialties would serve the
nation better than having each university duplicate what every other
university does.”

Some
readers who otherwise agreed with Wasserstrom maintained that the
financial pain must be spread out evenly among the UC, Cal State and
community college systems.

There was also a share of others who found the
“self-serving” label troubling, saying the author ultimately addressed
what must be at the center of this funding debate: how to best serve
students.