While many of us are worrying about getting classes and graduating on time, Cal Poly seems to believe that diversity-based education is a much greater priority.

This is not a new issue, but it has been surfacing more and more on our campus. Cal Poly has been sucked into the growing movement formally known as ‘inclusive excellence.’

The meaning of ‘inclusive excellence’ seems to change with every description. This term, popularized by the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U), is defined as an effort to “fully integrate the diversity and educational quality efforts and embed them into the core of academic mission and institutional functioning.” What frightens me about ‘inclusive excellence’ is its vagueness and potential for extreme interpretation.

According to Cal Poly’s Statement on Diversity, “The ultimate product of universities is education in the broadest sense, including preparation for life in the working world. In this regard, it is in the compelling interest of Cal Poly, the state and the nation to provide our students with an education that is rich with a diversity of ideas, perspectives, and experiences.” The phrase “compelling interest” plainly suggests that professors may soon be mandated to teach according to these objectives, regardless of relevance.

AAC&U cites “decades of educational research” in their argument that “diverse environments are better learning environments.” Furthermore, they claim that our “collective failure to educate students of color and those from lower socioeconomic groups” have led to a “decline in higher education rates” among Americans. In their eyes, “inclusive excellence” will solve all of these issues. However, now is not the time to be focusing on achieving diverse environments. The way the budget is going, we are lucky to even have a learning environment. Cal Poly’s Inclusive Excellence Council has taken on this AAC&U model out of blind ignorance to reality.

Nevertheless, national advocates for ‘inclusive excellence’ have deluded themselves into thinking that this is not the case. They claim “whereas excellence in the past has been equated with selectivity,” excellence today “will be determined by high expectations,” “high support,” and “other general factors.” This statement looks past the basic premise that selectivity highlights the students who have demonstrated their ability to achieve excellence. High expectations and high support provide absolutely no guarantee of a student’s success. And what other “general factors” could possibly be more important than one’s intelligence?

Through a recent inclusive excellence initiative, the City University of New York (CUNY) appointed Dr. Henry Vance Davis as the university dean for recruitment and diversity. The fact that this official handles both recruitment and diversity clearly insinuates the direction of this movement. What kind of example would Cal Poly be setting if it were to start placing diversity at the same level as merit. Davis is ignorant to the fact that some qualified students will get rejected because they are not a minority. As Davis implies, students simply need to take one for the team, as “it takes everyone to make it work.”

“Inclusive excellence” not only affects college students, but also faculty and staff. Provost Gregg Kvistad of the University of Denver (DU) has been looking into ways to “attract more faculty of color.” DU Human Resources director Dick Gartrell even encourages “behavioral interviewing — things like, ‘Tell me about a time when you worked in a diverse group.’” Which is more important to teaching: having experience in a diverse group or having competence and experience in a field of study? The push to “enrich” campuses with diversity has stepped its bounds. Professors should not be discriminated on the basis of their social history, and should never be forced to teach to social objectives. They are here to offer unique insight on a specific topic — not to make us join hands and sing “We Are the World.”

“Inclusive excellence” has good intentions but is unfair at the most elemental level. Cal Poly needs to recognize the flaws of this initiative and encourage other methods of promoting diversity on campus.

Now don’t get me wrong. I believe that embracing diversity is necessary in just about any job today. But ‘inclusive excellence’ is not the answer. Students should not be forced to accept diversity. They should embrace it on their own. Diverse minorities need to achieve recognition and attention on campus through their own merit — not through ‘institutional functioning.’ This movement toward affirmative action echoes the reverse discrimination of the ’70s. Although administrators may deny it, we all know where this is really going.

Last Tuesday night, Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento) held a live Web cast with student representatives from the University of California, California State University and California Community College systems.

There was a pre-recorded “day in the life” segment of students within the public higher education system and the impact of the fee increases. Steinberg discussed the state of the education system in California before opening the discussion up to comments submitted online by viewers.

Steinberg; Reid Milburn, president of the Student Senate for California Community Colleges; Roberto C. Torres, president of Associated Students, Inc. at CSU Sacramento and Victor Sanchez, external vice chair for Student Union Assembly for the University of California system, all answered the students sent in by viewers.

The event, titled “A Statewide Conversation: Student Fees in Higher Education,” aimed to involve anyone interested in the topic and to spark discussion about the fees in California’s education system.

One question asked if students are paying more for the system and if they should they have more representation in the system. Sanchez compared it to taxation and said, “You can’t have taxation without representation.”

Torres said students have the ability to influence change on their campuses if they unite.

Steinberg said students need to do three things to make change in the education system in California: educate themselves about the choices, be consistent about advocating and show up everywhere.

“The students of California have incredible power,” Steinberg said.

Any questions sent in and not answered on the Web cast will be answered by e-mail as part of the guarantee to answer all questions.

Dr. Paz Maya Olivérez is the founder and director of the Futuros Educational Services, a group that provides scholarships to low-income and undocumented students

Undocumented immigrant activist Dr. Paz Maya Olivérez will speak at Vista Grande Café Thursday at 7:30 a.m. as part of Cal Poly’s Provocative Perspectives series. Olivérez is the executive director and founder of Futuros Educational Services, a non-profit organization that provides mentoring and scholarships to low-income and immigrant students.

One-fourth of the nation’s undocumented immigrants reside in California, constituting 8 percent of the population, Olivérez said.

Yet, undocumented students who have excelled academically in high school, but who are not legal residents, are ineligible for financial aid. The financial restriction is a barrier for students, through no fault of their own. They have no path to citizenship or success, Olivérez said.

“A lot of times the assumption is that these kids are unready to go to college,” Olivérez said. “Now folks are realizing some of these kids are high school valedictorians.”

Olivérez lecture is a part of the Provocative Perspectives series. The series has been at Cal Poly for seven years and brings a broad cross section of experts to speak about their thoughts and ideas on current and controversial issues that can effect Cal Poly students, faculty and staff, said Cornell Morton, Cal Poly vice president for academic affairs.

“The primary purpose of the series is to support and encourage campus-wide dialogue on issues related to student success, intellectual freedom and diversity,” Morton said.

Olivérez’ presentation will focus on student success with immigration reform. She first got involved in education as a K-12 teacher. As an undergraduate at the University of California, Santa Cruz in the late ‘90s, she found that even as a teacher she could have an impact. While teaching, she saw a lot of systemic issues that motivated her to pursue educational policy, she said.

“The school I worked in at the time was extremely dysfunctional and the students in the community were not receiving the quality of education they should,” Olivérez said.

In 2008, Olivérez founded Futuros Educational Services. She said she was motivated to start her non-profit because she thought there wasn’t any organization that focused on the needs of undocumented students.

“Our goal is to focus on that specific population because we know they have a very specific set of needs,” she said.

As a new company they continue to fundraise because undocumented students aren’t eligible for financial aid. With funds, Futuros is able to offer scholarships, application assistance fundraising for college, and group workshops related to preparing for college and applying to college.

Besides establishing Futuros, Olivérez has also been instrumental in developing AB 540, The College and Financial Aid Guide for Undocumented Immigrant Students. AB 540 qualifies undocumented students to be exempt from paying significantly high out-of-state tuition at public colleges and universities in California. Where the law was a big step in terms of accessibility, in-state college tuition is still thousands of dollars.

“Although students have greater access than they did, it is still really tough,” Olivérez said.

To address the plight of undocumented students where AB 540 lacks, Congress must ensure the DREAM (Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors) Act goes forward, she said. The act provides access to financial aid and a thoughtfully mapped-out path to citizenship for qualified students.

One such student affected by these laws is Nancy Guarneros. Guarneros didn’t find out until her senior year of high school when she went to apply for her driver’s license that she was an undocumented immigrant. Her mom was reluctant to tell her that she brought her over from Mexico when she was 8 months old. She hasn’t been to Mexico since.

Guarneros first met Olivérez at an AB 540 conference in 2005. At the end of her presentation, Olivérez gave out her contact information.

“I did eventually call her, she was so nice,” Olivérez said. “We met up at a coffee shop, she helped me apply for scholarships and to transfer schools.”

Guarneros has now graduated with honors from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Because she is in the country illegally she couldn’t legally work while attending UCLA. She paid her tuition through tutoring and babysitting. Guarneros is currently in her masters program at UCLA.

“I feel like I wouldn’t have gotten as far as I have without (Olivérez’) support and help,” she said.

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College students who purchase books at campus bookstores could save a substantial amount of money. The California Assembly Committee on Revenue and Taxation has passed AB 1178, a bill by Assemblyman Marty Block (78th Assembly District, San Diego) to support California’s college students. The bill will reduce the sales tax on textbooks and school supplies at college bookstores across the state by $120 million annually.

Students can expect a partial exemption from July 2011 through June 2012, and then a full exemption of the state’s portion of the sales tax from June 2012 through December 2014.

Only bookstores affiliated with California Community Colleges, CSU and UC campuses will be able to offer exemptions.

Assemblyman Block said Friday that AB 1178 will not disrupt booksellers at all.  “It will make the final cost at the cash register go down for students purchasing textbooks, not the actual product price,” he said.

The difference could seem slight per item, but the National Association of College Stores’ (NACS) 2008 “Student Watch” publication estimated a state-wide average expenditure of $702 on textbooks per student in the last year. Eight percent sales tax added means California students are paying an extra $55 or more on their textbooks each year.

And don’t forget supplies. The same publication estimated $582 annually per college student. While factors like work load and subject matter make large differences, 26 percent of students said they usually cover course material costs with scholarships and grants, and on average, 45 percent of the costs were covered for those students, according to NACS.

University of California, San Diego sophomore Kaitlin Marie spends more than 45 percent of her quarterly loan on textbooks and supplies.

“It’s stupid that every quarter we buy books that are extremely expensive for only 10 weeks, then try to sell them back. Most of the time I can’t sell mine back because the author has another edition out. It makes it hard for professors, but even harder for the students…I just want to get out of here and finish school. It’s too expensive,” she said.

According to Block, The Public Policy Institute of California estimates one million bachelor’s degree holders are needed by 2025 to remain economically competitive. Studies also show that education levels are tied to a person’s salary.

“The more education, the higher the salary; the higher the salary, the more revenue coming into the state.  Associate level and other education programs at community colleges and bachelor’s degrees at the CSU and UC are an essential element of our workforce.  Anything that I can do to help make college more affordable and help students graduate is something from which both they and California will benefit,” Block said.

Cal Poly senior, John-Paul Charlebois, said he would be glad to keep the money he would otherwise spend on tax.

“I dont think that the small percentage that taxes make up in our education expences would make much of a difference, but I’m all for saving money…if taxes are about 10 percent and 10 percent of $3,000 is $300 , I can do a lot with an extra $300,” he said.

As students pay taxes, almost all corporations in California pay their fair share of the state’s 8.84 percent corporate tax rate on profits as well.  Some booksellers have hired smart accountants to help them figure out ways to effectively lower what they owe in taxes. Misusing a provision in the tax calculation code (the “waters edge” calculation) enables them to shelter profit in fictional subsidiaries overseas.

“It is technically permissible, but morally wrong,” Block said. “It should be illegal because the ‘waters edge’ calculation was set up to exclude income from bona fide corporations doing business in another country, not by sham affiliates designed to park income from business performed in California. My bill will close this loophole.”

California college students won’t see any reductions or exemptions for more than a year. Until then, buying online could the best option for the best price. Perhaps in June 2010 students will return to the campus bookstores and foot a more reasonable bill.

Graphic by Kevin Black- Mustang Daily

A furlough progress report at Cal Poly shows furloughs are hampering education. Many faculty are concerned because furloughs have resulted in a pay reduction while their workload has increased due to larger class sizes and fewer available lecturers.

At Cal Poly alone, there were 41 fewer lecturers this fall quarter from the previous year when there were 427 total lecturers. Across the entire CSU system there were 2,000 fewer lecturers from about 12,000 total lecturers. According to Cal Poly provost Richard Koob, there were 92 fewer courses offered this fall. The result of the reduction means that many introductory courses enrolled larger sections than in previous years.

While lecturers and courses are in shorter supply, faculty and students continue to adjust to the changes brought along by furloughs and cuts.

After one quarter of furloughs, some faculty are altering their approach to the implementation of furloughs. Some faculty are now placing furlough days on instruction days, while others are deciding to place them on days when they do not teach. However, days without instruction are often research days for most faculty.

Here at Cal Poly, President Baker decided against campus closures which were implemented at other campuses in the CSU system. Instead, faculty at Cal Poly propose their furlough days per quarter and these proposals have to be approved by the department chair and dean.

Jane Lehr, an assistant professor in both Women’s & Gender and Ethnic Studies, has decided to change her furlough days around. She said during fall quarter two of her furlough days fell on instruction days but she had assignments for students who were responsible for knowing the material on those days. However, she decided to change her approach on furloughs this quarter.

“I was disappointed … since students weren’t seeing the furloughs as a detriment to education,” Lehr said.

This quarter Lehr will hold her furlough days on Fridays, which are her non-instruction days, since students were not accountable for their work. She said that her change in approach to furloughs is cutting into her research and often wonders if she can remain at Cal Poly due to the pay decrease.

“It is difficult to imagine staying here because of the economic pinch,” she said. “I enjoy teaching here and Cal Poly students but don’t know if I can afford it.”

Many non-tenured faculty are feeling the economic bind along with Lehr as their pay has decreased by up to 25 percent of what they expected to make.

In response, the California Faculty Association (CFA), the union representing Cal Poly faculty, is advocating that Cal Poly faculty members partake in a faculty walk-out on March 2 in which faculty would not report to work on that given day.

Richard Saenz, CFA president professor for the San Luis Obispo chapter, said that the walk-out day is designed to demonstrate the impact that furloughs can have on education if all faculty did not show up to teach. He said that it’s difficult for faculty members who are getting paid less and often end up doing more.

The future of furloughs for the 2010-2011 school year is still up in the air. Saenz said that he believes no decision will be made regarding furloughs until the new budget is decided upon the summer of 2010 to see how much money the CSU system will be receiving.

“Furloughs are preferable to massive lay-offs and pay cuts, while another potential option could be to increase class sizes,” Saenz said.

Whatever decision comes down next year, faculty and administration encourage students to become more involved in the decision making process with regards to their education.

“ASI student government and all students should demand more accountability from the administration and understand more about how the university works,” Koob said.

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This year, the University of California, Berkeley library will be closed Saturdays and won’t be open 24 hours during finals week as it has previously. University of California, Los Angeles will offer approximately 165 fewer classes across the university. While the higher public education system continues to deal with cuts, the state hasn’t stopped pouring funding into prisons. Over the past two decades, California has built 20 prisons and currently houses more inmates than France, Great Britain, Germany, Japan, Singapore and the Netherlands combined. The connection between these two facts is in the financing of these separate, but heavily linked, institutional systems.

California can expect a $20.7 billion deficit for the 2009-10 fiscal year, according to the Legislative Analyst’s Office. The budget plan legislature passed calls for $12.4 billion in additional funding for the prison expansion program, AB900, but slashes $9.5 billion from an already struggling K-12 public education system and $2 billion from the higher-education system. This $12.4 billion is set to finance 53,000 more prison and jail cells, while temporarily ignoring the need for the annual $1.5 billion the already-broke state will need to operate them.

With such a large shortage, the state has strongly turned to the public education system, as well as health care, public works projects and social services, to fund the growing prison business. As the proposed budget intends to add 1,200 prison staff this year, school districts are obligated to lay off teachers. The University of California, one of the nation’s leading public university systems, is being forced to reduce its budget by $812 million. UCs have seen a 600 percent fee increase between 1980 and 2004, with the California State University system seeing a staggering 1,188 percent increase. In dollar amounts, the CSU fees have gone from approximately $231 to $2,976. While unpaid furloughs lessen the blow in the short term, they will only cover about a quarter of the shortfall.

On a larger scale than just this current budget, the trend has been headed this way for a while. The National Association of State Budget Officers shows that between 1987 and 2007, the corrections expenditures per state more than doubled, while spending on higher education hasn’t risen by a quarter. While graduation rates between 1984 and 2004 fell by 2.7 percent, the prison population increased by 400 percent. In the 1990s, more prisons were built in California than between the opening of the first prison in 1852 through 1980.

The Prison Industrial Complex is a set of bureaucratic, political and economic interests that have fueled this development in pursuit of profit. It is to the point of having expanded the prison population by about 50 percent while, in the same 18 years, seeing a decrease of violent crime by about 20 percent. The prison budget now comprises over 10 percent of the overall budget, having grown by 52 percent in the last five years, making it the fastest growing state expense. Angela Davis, a highly respected professor, activist and author, expresses that mass imprisonment generates profit as it devours social wealth, including, probably most importantly, education. These interest groups corrupt the criminal justice system in pursuit of capital, while, as the Sacramento Bee put it, “sucking the life out of higher education” in California.

Critical funding cuts to the UC, CSU and California Community College systems are presumed to hit the citizens of California where it hurts more than ever — their wallets — thereby affecting their access to education and the door out of the vicious cycle of poverty. With data to support the correlation between low educational attainment and ending up in prison, it is not only a short sighted decision, but it is a crime against the underprivileged to continue wasting money enforcing draconian laws and overcrowding corporately-backed prisons rather than providing all Americans, and Californians, the chance to obtain a decent and affordable education.