Lecturers at the University of California, Davis began a two-day strike yesterday in response to impending terminations of several lecturers by the university. The university, however, argues that its policies regarding lecturers are in students’ best interest.
According to Steve Hopcraft, media representative for the protesters, the central issue being contested is the administration’s plan to terminate lecturers after six-year teaching terms.
Five lecturers will lose their jobs in June because they have taught for six years. One of these lecturers received the University of California’s 2001 Excellence in Teaching Award.
Hopcraft called the terminations “”arbitrary and ill-conceived.””
Additionally, the lecturers are protesting policies prohibiting lecturers from teaching most upper division courses.
Dean Elizabeth Langland told the The Davis Enterprise that the university has a need for ladder-rank faculty.
“”We’ve been told by the legislature, by the citizens, by the parents to put tenure-track faculty in front of the students,”” Langland said last week.
Research faculty and post-doctorate and graduate students would replace the dismissed lecturers.
Peter Rock, dean of mathematical and physical sciences, along with Steven Shefferin, dean of social sciences, stand with Langland on the issue of lecturers.
The three deans were unavailable for comment to the Guardian by press time.
On May 29, protesters picketed and staged a rally outside Davis’ Wellman Hall.
Merlene Williams, associate director of undergraduate education at Davis’ College of Letters and Sciences, said at least 200 students, faculty and staff members picketed on Wednesday at several locations around campus, hoping to disrupt deliveries and other university business.
The Sacramento Bee estimates the number of protesters at 80.
Participating students and faculty carried tombstones and a coffin, symbolizing the proposed termination of the lecturers.
Police presence at the pickets and rally was overwhelming, Williams said. The picketing and strike caused about 100 classes to be canceled, the Bee reported.
In response to similar concerns, UCSD lecturers will rally May 30 at noon in Price Center. After an initial speech, they will march to the chancellor’s office complex.
The Lecturers’ Job Action Task Force cites two years of “”bad faith bargaining”” between lecturers and the University of California, as well as an unsatisfactory pending proposal, as reasons behind the growing protest.
