Linda Katehi (UC Davis Chancellor) and Administrative Costs at Public Universities

The police's dosing of pepper spray over peaceful protesting students last week had called attention once again to the chancellor of University of California, Davis (UC Davis), Linda Katehi, with many calls for her resignation from students, faculty and staff and alumni and others.

According to UC Davis's web site, that Chancellor Katehi, was hired in 2009.

As chancellor of UC Davis, Katehi will receive an annual salary of $400,000. This is a 12.4 percent increase above her current salary of $356,000 at the University of Illinois. Vanderhoef currently earns $315,000 as UC Davis chancellor.

UC seeks to be competitive in the employment markets relevant to its faculty and staff hires, and the base salary of $400,000 is still substantially below the 2008 median of $628,000 among chancellors at UC’s comparison group of 14 public and private U.S. campuses with medical schools.

Her $400,000 annual salary, approved by the UC Board of Regents, equated to a 27 percent hike from her predecessor and a 12.4 percent increase from her previous position at the University of Illinois.  That happened during the time when the funding to the University from the state had been cut year after year, after staff and faculty were forced to take unpaid furloughs, and endless tuition hikes threatened the quality of the university system.  It was an obscene amount of money thrown at a civil servant, a public university administrator. 

Considering the protest on UC Davis, inspired by the Occupy Wall Street movement, was a rallying cry against greedy individuals and their enablers, and the institutions behind them, asserting the rights to an affordable good education, and taking back our country, our state and our public university, it is very pertinent that Chancellor Katehi be replaced by a dedicated, highly qualified administrator, who would not demand such an exorbitant salary.  Claiming it is impossible to find such candidate is not good enough.

University of California's present and regents must act.


Police pepper spraying and arresting students at UC Davis

Notre Dame University's Quixotic Fight

San Francisco Chronicle recently reported that Notre Dame alone among schools on China goods ban:

Notre Dame's campus bookstore sells "Fighting Irish" lettermen jackets, "ND" license plate frames and stadium cups picturing the school's leprechaun mascot. Not for sale: anything made in China. 

Ten years after adopting the policy, Notre Dame remains the only major U.S. university that forbids license holders such as Adidas to put the school logo on any product from China, according to groups that track college merchandising.

Notre Dame prohibits the goods because China, the top source of U.S. imports, doesn't permit independent labor unions, according to a college policy document. The ban is attracting fresh attention from Washington lawmakers who say China has begun a renewed crackdown on dissidents.

"What Notre Dame is doing is very, very important," Rep. Frank Wolf, R-Va. and chairman of the Appropriations Committee panel that oversees trade, said in an interview. "China is a particularly bad place to do outsourcing, and the American people are totally opposed to it."

While laudable, Notre Dame's policy may not do much to change a country's practices, according to Susan Aaronson, a professor of international trade at George Washington University in Washington. By staking out its own approach, Notre Dame loses the impact of many universities putting collective pressure on suppliers, she said.

"You have to have enough demanders of good labor protections," Aaronson, who writes about China and labor rights, said in an interview. Notre Dame's ban, she said, "is not a mistake, but it is likely to have little impact on behavior in China."

Sadly, I had agree that Notre Dame's ban itself, might not do much alone.  However, it should be an example for people to follow.  Anyone who uses an iPhone or an iPad ought to know the miserable working conditions the assembling line workers in Foxconn in China.

US and Americans are proud of our idealism and it will be up to every single one of us to demand our profit seeking companies to ensure the humane working conditions in factories working for our benefits.

Eternity - Four Seasons © Matthew Felix Sun