Beautiful sidewalk chalk leads to UA arrest

NOTE: I only had a few minutes to post this yesterday, but I want those reading to know that I’m trying to reach UAPD to find out what’s up with this, since, obviously, the e-mail below only tells one side if the story. I do, however, stand by the contention that sidewalk chalk does not translate into spray paint, weapons, hate speech, etc.

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This just in, courtesy of a UA faculty member. Sidewalk chalk? Really? Here’s the link for the group spearheading today’s protests, and here’s the press release they sent out re: the sidewalk chalk bandit:

TUCSON – A University of Arizona graduate student was arrested and charged
with “criminal damage” and “disturbing an educational institution” for
using sidewalk chalk today at a pro-education rally on campus.

More than 150 faculty, staff, graduate and undergraduate students gathered for a
noontime rally at the university to protest cuts to public education in the
State of Arizona.  As members of the U of A marching band played “Bear Down
Arizona”, demonstrators  held signs and made chalk outlines of “bodies”
in front of the administration building, with slogans like “Death by a
Million Cuts”, “Edu-cide”, and “Stop Student Sacrifice”.

Jacob Miller, a first-year master’s student, was arrested by police as he was
leaving the rally.  Police told Miller that the order to arrest him came
“from higher up.”

Said Miller “the administration has said that they want people to get involved
and dialogue concerning the budget situation.  But now they are penalizing me
for speaking out.  And all I did was to use sidewalk chalk.”

The rally, organized by Arizona for Education, was part of a university-wide day
of action in support of education that also included teach-ins and other
educational events.  Last year, the university took a $77 Million cut and is
expected to take a cut between $18 and $25 Million this year.  The day of
action was organized in support of the state-wide walkouts organized today
throughout the University of California system, where campuses are also facing
dramatic budget cuts.

Arizona for Education is a coalition of students, faculty and staff as well as
members of the Tucson community concerned about cuts to university education
spending.

As of 2 pm all chalk had been removed from the sidewalks in front of the
university administration building.
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Arizona is in a budget squeeze and it is threatening to crush higher education; Tucson Citizen photo

The chair of University of Arizona faculty is taking personally the a faculty poll re: confidence in UA’s upper management, the president hopes faculty keep in mind that the state is really to blame, the provost’s spokesperson says much of the faculty upset is due to generalized anxiety about the economy, and the president of the Arizona Board of Regents says the complaints he’s heard center more on Provost Meredith Hay’s communication style than President Robert N. Shelton’s leadership. Such are the results of tracking down the other side of the UA no-confidence poll story.

Getting a phone call into the 16-hour-workday Shelton is like getting one into the Pope, but he’s always good with his Blackberry, so when I asked him what he thought of the poll, his response was quick, although short. (And, for the record, journalists don’t delight in someone’s suffering – at least not this journalist – so I hated to ask that question.)

“I’ve not viewed the poll.  I hope it provides context of the fiscal situation in Arizona.”

I can’t blame Shelton for not wanting to see the poll questions (which you can view here), and I wasn’t surprised he hoped people remembered that the state has cut the UA’s budget by $100 million over the past year, and is looking at an addition $50 million cut in January. Problem is, say faculty, it isn’t the cuts that are upsetting them – it is how the cuts are being handled.

Wanda Howell, chair of UA faculty and a university distinguished professor of nutritional sciences, is taking the call

Wanda Howell, chair of UA Faculty

for a faculty poll as vote of confidence on her as well, and she says she can’t argue with faculty being disappointed.

“It is my responsibility to listen to the faculty and the feeling they have is that (they) do not have a voice with administration. I’m willing to accept that they don’t think I can influence the administration, because, frankly, I haven’t been able to. … The problem is a matter of process. For instance, I personally completely agree with the idea of differential cuts and I’m not alone in the faculty on that, but I haven’t felt a real collaborative effort from the administration. They talked to us about the idea of differential cuts, but then, how it was decided that the cuts would range from 2 to 7 percent, that’s where the problem is. We (faculty) weren’t in those conversations.”

Howell’s department is in the College of Agriculture, which got a 5 percent cut, as did the College of Engineering. Regular readers of God Blogging (Hello to my five regular readers!) will recall that Social and Behavioral Sciences, the library, and College of Humanities got 7 percent cuts while UA’s golden children – the College of Science, business school and law school – got 2 percent cuts.

I was talking with the faculty chair from my car in the parking lot of a gas station, taking notes on the back of a print out on 5-HTP, which is a step up from taking notes on Dairy Queen napkins, which I’ve also had to do when a source called when I was away from my computer. She said she got a “heads up” that the administration would be announcing differential cuts “but I wasn’t part of that decision-making process.” (more…)