UC Pres. Mark Yudof Is A Jackass: The Cemetery Comment to the New York Times

The University of California system is on the brink of failing. This once shining beacon for the State of California is now a flickering, incandescent light bulb. It will take a great leader and sacrifices on everyone's part to turn this ship around. Mark Yudof is definitely not the person for the job.

He did not make any friends with his answers in today's New York Times Sunday magazine. Here is my take on his interview.

New York Times: As president of the University of California, the most prestigious of the state-university systems, you have proposed that in-state tuition be jacked up to more than $10,000, from $7,788. Are you pricing education beyond the reach of most students?

Mark Yudof: In 2009, U.C. adopted the Blue and Gold Program, guaranteeing that no student with a family income below $60,000 would pay any fees, and this guarantee will continue in 2010. That’s the short answer.

Me: The whole point of a public institution, and especially the U.C., is that it is affordable and accessible to everyone. In 2000, in-state undergrad tuition was $3,429. And it wasn't more than a couple grand in the early to mid-1990s. As for families who earn $60,001, I feel for them. I really hope the amount of tuition due is on a graduated scale or else it will be really hard on families making $60,000 to $85,000.

NYT: U.C. is facing a budget shortfall of at least $753 million, largely because of cuts in state financing. Do you blame Governor Schwarzenegger for your troubles?
MY: I do not. This is a long-term secular trend across the entire country. Higher education is being squeezed out. It’s systemic. We have an aging population nationally. We have a lot of concern, as we should, with health care.

Me: This is the only sensible answer in the entire interview.

NYT: And education?
MY: The shine is off of it. It’s really a question of being crowded out by other priorities.

Me: This is where the interview starts going downhill. And it's only the third question. Realism is good, but you're also supposed to be a cheerleader, Yudof.

NYT: Already professors on all 10 U.C. campuses are taking required “furloughs,” to use a buzzword.
MY: Let me tell you why we used it. The faculty said “furlough” sounds more temporary than “salary cut,” and being president of the University of California is like being manager of a cemetery: there are many people under you, but no one is listening. I listen to them.

Me: Insensitive jackass comment number one. You're comparing the U.C. to a cemetery? You're comparing its talented and hard-working faculty, staff, and students to corpses?! As a lawyer by training, Yudof is supposed to choose his words carefully. This shows extremely poor judgment.

Zombies protesting on Sproul

NYT: The word “furlough,” I recently read, comes from the Dutch word “verlof,” which means permission, as in soldiers’ getting permission to take a few days off. How has it come to be a euphemism for salary cuts?

MY: Look, I’m from West Philadelphia. My dad was an electrician. We didn’t look up stuff like this. It wasn’t part of what we did. When I was growing up we didn’t debate the finer points of what the word “furlough” meant.

Me: It is impossible to recover from that "cemetery" comment with a story about how you came from a modest working class background. In fact, Yudof's treatment of his employees and his restrictive policies which hurt kids from working class backgrounds are antithetical to his own background.

NYT: How did you get into education?
MY: I don’t know. It’s all an accident. I thought I’d go work for a law firm.

Me: You could have at least fibbed a story about how you felt education was important and blah, blah, blah. Your response offends both people in education and people who work at law firms.

NYT: Some people feel you could close the U.C. budget gap by cutting administrative salaries, including your own.
MY: The stories of my compensation are greatly exaggerated.

Me: I'm sort of sympathetic to this issue. During hard economic times, CEOs and heads of large institutions have to defend their salaries/packages. There's no getting around it.

NYT: When you began your job last year, your annual compensation was reportedly $828,000.
MY: It actually was $600,000 until I cut my pay by $60,000. So my salary is $540,000, but it gets amplified because people say, “You have a pension plan.”

Me: This is not going to make anyone feel better.

NYT: What about your housing allowance? How much is the rent on your home in Oakland?
MY: It’s about $10,000 a month.

Me: I'm sure 90% of the readers out there are thinking: There are $10,000 a month homes for rent in Oakland?

NYT: Does U.C. pay for that on top of your salary?
MY: Yes, and the reason they do that is because they have a president’s house, it needed $8 million of repairs and I decided that was not the way to go. Why the heck would I ever authorize $8 million for a house I didn’t want to live in anyhow?

Me: I spent a long day at Blake House in Kensington once. It's a large and moderately beautiful house. But $8 to $10 million in renovations? That is absurd.

...

NYT: What do you think of the idea that no administrator at a state university needs to earn more than the president of the United States, $400,000?
MY: Will you throw in Air Force One and the White House?

Me: Congratulations, you've made yourself look greedy, out-of-touch, and incompetent. Plus, you're not funny.

My final thought: Look for Yudof to resign within the next month. Alumni and corporate donations, already low because of the economy (and because alums just don't donate to U.C. for a myriad of reasons), will decrease even more.