Budget Advocacy: Making the Case
A sampling of activities in support of the University of California budget
Updated December 2009
Throughout the 2009-10 State budget process, members of the University of California community have been working to convey to the legislature, the governor and the public the budget needs and public contributions of the University of California. Below is a sampling of some of these activities; campuses have been engaged in more activities than are listed here.
E-advocacy
- In November, UC launched a letter-writing campaign to the governor with our e-advocates, encouraging him to support the Regents' budget requests for 2010-11. Our e-advocates sent more than 3,400 e-mails to the governor. A follow-up appeal currently is in the works to encourage even more advocates to take action, who have not yet done so.
- Also in November, launched the "All Together Now" campaign and ran ads in the campus student newspapers and on Facebook encouraging more students, alumni, faculty and staff to join the UC advocacy effort. In just a few short weeks, more than 3,000 people signed up as new e-advocates and the Facebook ads were seen 30 million times by people identified in their Facebook profiles as either UC students or UC alumni.
- We are updating and reinvigorating our advocacy Web site, www.ucforcalifornia.org, to make it more compelling, to offer more resources and to expand our e-advocacy database.
- UC has been providing informational updates to a network of e-advocates -- alumni and friends of UC -- who sign up as part of the UC for California Network to stay informed about UC policy priorities and then have the opportunity to email elected representatives in Sacramento about those issues.
Master Plan Hearing in Sacramento
- President Yudof testified at the Dec. 7 master plan hearing in Sacramento to remind the legislature that the current excellence of California higher education is due in large part to the Master Plan for Higher Education -- both its vision for access and excellence and the detailed blueprint it provided for growth and development of the higher education system we now have today in California. Video of President Yudof's testimony is available on the UCOP Web site.
Legislative visits
- President Yudof has met with the governor and the legislative leadership on the budget and testified before the legislative budget committees in Sacramento.
- Several chancellors and Regents likewise have traveled to Sacramento to meet with legislators on the funding challenges facing the UC system.
- The Academic Senate leaders for UC, CSU, and the community colleges met with legislators and staff to advocate for funding of public higher education.
- UC produced and delivered Cal Grant fliers to the office of each legislator in Sacramento showing the number of students in their district, in all of higher education, who would be impacted by the governor's proposed cut to Cal Grants.
- President Yudof has been working to begin a discussion at the national level about the appropriate federal role in funding higher education.
Media outreach
- President Yudof has held editorial board meetings and provided press briefings on the budget situation to the higher education press corps.
- A number of newspaper op-eds, including by Regents Blum and Gould and President Yudof, have appeared on issues related to UC funding.
- President Yudof has developed a social media presence on Facebook and Twitter to extend the UC message to more constituencies.
Lobby days
A wide variety of UC supporters have made trips to Sacramento or held lobby days of their own to make the UC funding case. These include:
- UC President's Board on Science and Innovation
- Los Angeles corporate leaders
- The chair and vice chair of the Academic Senate
- Staff Advisers to the Board of Regents
- Student Regent Jesse Bernal
- UC Student Association
- High school/community college students supporting academic prep programs
UC community outreach
- The campuses have sponsored alumni, faculty, student and staff advocacy events locally to build support for UC and make higher education a priority.
- Regents Blum, Gould, and Lansing, along with President Yudof, sent an e-mail letter to 1 million UC alumni encouraging them to become more active in building legislative and financial support for UC.
- Academic Senate faculty received a letter from President Yudof outlining the urgency of the state budget situation and providing information by which to contact their elected representatives about it.
- President Yudof has issued a series of videos and written communications to employees to keep them apprised of budget developments.
- Chancellors have held campus town halls and developed a variety of other mechanisms for keeping campus constituencies informed.
- Students have been kept informed about decisions around student fees and the underlying fiscal challenges necessitating them.
- The Office of the President re-engineered its budget news Web site to provide timely information to employees, friends, and advocates -- and all campuses have developed similar sites rich with local, campus-specific content.
Extended community outreach
- President Yudof has worked with a variety of trade groups and associations statewide to build understanding in the business and health care communities about UC's impacts on California's economy and quality of life.
- President Yudof also has joined leaders of the CSU and community college systems at public policy forums linking economic competitiveness to the contributions of higher education, including recent summits sponsored by the Public Policy Institute of California and the Lumina Foundation.