UC administration responds to SAGE’s struggle
By Kathleen Komar
I would like to respond to statements in Mike Miller’s Feb. 28
Viewpoint article, "SAGE continues struggle for recognition."
Specifically, he notes that, "Bureaucrats at the University of
California Office of the President in Oakland … propose
eliminating the partial fee remission program that now pays up to
$2,155 of the annual fees of many academic student employees."
The proposal to which Miller refers was presented by Office of
the President staff to the Council of Graduate Deans at their Oct.
19 meeting on the Santa Cruz campus. The proposal was not to
eliminate the Partial Fee Remission Program, but to handle the
funding of these remissions differently, by folding the Office of
the President’s contribution into the Graduate Block Grant Program
administered by the campuses. The Graduate Deans, however, strongly
recommended preservation of the current funding arrangement and
additionally proposed alternatives for strengthening the
program.
By way of background, the Partial Fee Offset Program was
established in 1991-92 to mitigate the effect of the university’s
20 percent fee increase of $650 for teaching and research
assistants. It provided partial fee remissions equal to the fee
increase for all teaching and research assistants who held
appointments of 25 percent or more time. Funding for the fee
remission has been shared by the campuses and the Office of the
President.
The partial fee remission and medical insurance waiver programs
were developed by the Council of Graduate Deans at a meeting in
February 1990. The program was proposed to the University of
California systemwide office by the Council of Graduate Deans, who
supported it unanimously. AGSE, the graduate union at Berkeley, was
informed of the new proposals after they were developed and
approved by the Council of Graduate Deans, and AGSE’s comments were
routinely solicited because they were in discussion with the
university.
In sum, the administrators at UCLA and other UC campuses are
actively engaged in trying to improve the benefits available to
academic apprentice personnel, not to eliminate them.
Komar is the associate dean of the graduate division.