Administrators’ response to protest neutral

An anonymous group of students posted hundreds of signed slips Tuesday night that requested the administration not cut the University Studies Graduate Mentor program.

University administrators are working to prevent the University Studies Graduate Mentor program from being cut, but the administrators say that it is not a reaction to the Tuesday night student-led protest.

Provost of Academic Affairs Roy Koch said administrators never made a definite decision to cut the graduate mentor program and have been developing options since November to keep the program.

Portland State President Daniel Bernstine and Koch both said that they appreciate the students’ right to protest, but Koch said that he thinks there may be “misconceptions” among the students about the administration’s plan for the graduate mentor program.

A fee that would be charged to students who enroll in classes that have graduate mentors is the most likely, if not the only, option, Koch said. He said that because of required budget reductions across the university, the administration must either cut the program or implement a fee.

“We all need to be responsible and evaluate these things as they go forward,” he said.

Graduate mentors are used in University Studies Sophomore Inquiry classes as a type of teaching assistant to the instructor of the classes. The instructor currently teaches two two-hour classes and the graduate mentor teaches a one-hour “mentor session” per week.

The Tuesday night protest was held by a group of students who plastered hundreds of signed slips, a poster and a drawing on the door and hallways extending from Bernstine’s office to Koch’s office on the third floor of Cramer Hall. The group refused attribution for fear of retribution, but named their group Student Leaders Against Poor Decisions.

Administrators proposed a decision to cut the graduate mentor program from the University Studies budget because of a nearly $1 million deficit in the department’s budget. If the program is cut, University Studies will save the $224,000 used to pay the 37 graduate mentors’ stipends each year and the $230,000 used for the graduate mentors’ tuition remissions would be put toward other parts of University Studies.

Interim Director of University Studies Sukhwant Jhaj assembled a committee on the University Studies program earlier this year to assess and evaluate the program for the first time in its 12-year existence. The committee and PSU administrators will make a decision on whether there will be a fee to keep the graduate mentor program by March 1.

“We understand that everyone wants their favorite program to be preserved,” Koch said.

The fee would resemble a lab fee for a science class, used to pay for the services the graduate mentors provide for the students. Although the cost of the fee is still uncertain, Koch said the fee would only be large enough to cover the $224,000 cost of the graduate mentors’ stipends. The administration would continue to use the $230,000 for the tuition remissions.

Koch said that the only other option would be to restore the graduate mentor program without charging a fee. He said that this option is unlikely because the university is continuously being forced to make millions of dollars in reductions.

“It becomes more and more difficult to find that much money,” Koch said. “I can’t imagine any other kind of fee proposal that would work.”

The drawing that the group of anonymous students posted outside of Bernstine’s office depicted administrators as three monkeys sitting next to a tree that represented the Portland community and the University Studies program. One monkey in the picture held an axe, which the students said was meant to show the administration cutting Portland State’s relationship with the community by cutting part of the University Studies program.

The taped-up slips, close to 1,000, each bore the name of a local community or business and the words “I support University Studies at PSU…Do you?” The group of students said they believe that if University Studies is dismantled, the relationship PSU has with the local community will suffer.

Student Leaders Against Poor Decisions took credit for a similar protest, where hundreds of signed slips were posted alongside a different picture of administrators depicted as monkeys outside of the auxiliary services office. The protest, which took place last May, was in response to a proposal that would have cut over 30 percent of the Residence Life program’s budget.

The Student Leaders Against Poor Decisions launched a website aimed at students and administrators Monday (www.unsttruth.org). The website outlines the goal of the group, which is to promote University Studies in order to get attention from the university.