I'm a student at a very small MFA program at one of the UC campuses. This is my first year in the program, and already I’ve learned a lot: not just about craft, or about teaching undergrads, but about what happens at the See, for the last forty years, since the beginning of my program, MFA students have been able to work as instructors in order to waive fees and receive enough money to get by without having to find an outside job. This was especially helpful during the third year of the program, in which MFAs only teach and prepare their thesis - a godsend to those who need a little extra time, free from taking courses, to make their theses world-class.  It worked well as a system: the MFA program has achieved national standing, in part, because of this extra year.

But the problem was, in the forty-something years since the program's inception, that third year was never officially institutionalized.  Never written down. Nothin.

So flash back to fall quarter, when suddenly a mandate gets passed down from Berkeley: no money.  More specifically, university-wide funds would no longer be going toward student fees, only department money could cover fees.  And the department, it turns out, was already overtaxed.  A few weeks before the end of fall quarter, the third year students were informed that their teaching appointments for winter quarter had been pulled.  No teaching gigs, which meant no fee waivers, no health care, no standing for on-campus housing, and no real remaining tie to the university.  It was unprecedented.  The third years were given their walking orders: get an outside job, finish your thesis by the end of next quarter, and get out.

We MFA’s were upset, so we met as a group several times to decide on which action to take, and we worked with faculty to amass signatures from our undergrad pupils, letters from now-famous alumni, and testaments from professors in other departments that told the story of why the third year was so crucial to making our program competitive and a source for some of the best emerging artists in the country.  Combined with the outstanding work of our faculty, our efforts elicited a departmental decision by the end of Winter Quarter:  the MFA third year would be institutionalized, even prioritized, in the allotment of teaching gigs.

Sweet success! There being so few of us, and such a strong sense of common purpose, we had been able to make decisions efficiently and amass the voices we needed to convince the University of our program’s merit in the funding hierarchy, without ever having to stir up negative publicity or use helpful, larger tools like citizenspeak.

But the problem is, the department is still overtaxed.  So not long after we finished rejoicing, a decision was circulated by the Chair, citing the prioritization of our third year funding, that effectively pulled funding from another branch of PhD’s in the department.  The vitriol between professors, and even between students, began to build and fly and everyone was now being challenged to defend their value to the department.

This is what happens when a state budget crunch puts its educational institutions on notice: the stress manifests down to the smallest departments, the most local synapses, and the human face of it ain’t pretty. 

I’m wondering if other students have been advocating for increased funding for the UC’s and what resources they’ve been using.  I’ve been told to contact our representatives on the California Senate Budget Committee, but beyond that, how do we make sure funding for the UC’s isn’t the first thing to die as the Governor scrambles to come up with $20 BILLION dollars to fix our deficit?