Volume 29 · Number 2 · Winter 2012
Campus protests: a message from the chancellor
Readers of this magazine are devoted Aggies accustomed to leafing through its colorful pages and learning more about our accomplished students, groundbreaking researchers and brilliant faculty who have helped establish UC Davis as one of the top public research universities in the nation.
This edition is no exception, with features that include our historic grand opening of UC Davis West Village, the largest planned zero net energy community in the nation.
Unfortunately, we had an incident on campus this fall that did not serve us well or reflect positively on our university. I am referring to the highly regrettable use of pepper spray on Nov. 18 by UC Davis police attempting to remove an encampment on the Quad.
No one wanted arrests or force used against peacefully demonstrating students. As the chancellor I take full responsibility for what happened. I asked that charges against the arrested students be dropped and said we will pay medical expenses for those injured by the pepper spray. I placed the chief of police and two officers involved in the incident on administrative leave and we initiated a number of investigations that will tell us exactly what happened and why.
I was as shocked by that incident as many of you were and immediately began to take actions to ensure that none of our students are subjected to such treatment ever again. The right to protest peacefully is an American ideal upheld by our laws and constitution. It is also part of the bedrock upon which great universities such as UC Davis are built; students wishing to protest peacefully must be free to do so.
I also began an extended outreach and listening effort to hear from every corner of the UC Davis community. We must come to terms with how to protect the right of peaceful dissent while maintaining the peace and safety that have long characterized our campus.
Our campus has witnessed many protests in the past two and a half years due to our substantive budget cuts and subsequent tuition increases. Since 2009, our funding from the state has been reduced by 40 percent, forcing the university to initiate major layoffs and increase tuition substantially. Our students are troubled by the increase in cost, the increase in loans they will find very hard to repay and by the lingering economic problems that hit them at home as well as on campus. I promised to them to continue my fight against repeated reductions in state funding for higher education and the tuition increases that follow. All of us who care about our students and the future of California and America must raise our voices and advocate more forcefully for reinvestment — not disinvestment — in our colleges and universities.
As we learn the results and findings of the various investigations, I believe we will emerge as a stronger and more empathetic university. This will not happen quickly or easily. But that process is already underway and I believe UC Davis can become a national model on how to protect free speech and keep a bustling university campus safe, especially in turbulent times.
In the meantime, we cannot let this incident define us when we are defined by so many other achievements occurring throughout the year. I am reminded daily of the extraordinary breadth and depth of everything UC Davis contributes to the world around us.
The same month we officially opened West Village, we were awarded one of three $4 million grants by the federal Department of Health and Human Services to establish a National Poverty Research Center. Two weeks later, we signed a historic agreement with China's BGI, the world's largest genomic institute, that will change the landscape of genomic sciences in California and the region and foster breakthroughs in food security and human, animal and environmental health.
We also launched a new interdisciplinary institute for education, research and outreach in innovation and entrepreneurship with the help of a $5 million commitment from alumni Mike and Renée Child. These initiatives will all benefit our students and the public we serve.
Those of you who know UC Davis understand who we are and what we stand for and value. You know
Nov. 18 was an aberration. You know this is still the outstanding university it was before that unfortunate day.
I hope you had a wonderful and healthy holiday season and that the New Year brings everything good to you, your families and to our beloved university.