UC Berkeley\u2019s Student Learning Center, which provides peer tutoring for undergraduate students, announced Thursday that campus administration proposed a 20% cut to its tutor and student staff budget.<\/p>\n
More than 2,100 campus community members have since signed the SLC\u2019s petition, which calls on campus leadership to \u201creconsider this reduction and protect SLC\u2019s peer learning model.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cA cut of this magnitude takes something away from students twice: it reduces the learning opportunities available to students seeking support, while simultaneously reducing the developmental, leadership, and employment opportunities available to the students providing that support,\u201d the petition reads.<\/p>\n
Campus spokesperson Dee Mostofi said in an email that the SLC has been asked to reduce 5% of its overall proposed budget in the current fiscal year.<\/p>\n
According to Mostofi, \u201cNo final decisions have been made on how to achieve that reduction.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cLike other universities, UC Berkeley is navigating financial pressures, and campus units that face financial challenges are working toward a multi-year plan for long-term financial sustainability,\u201d Mostofi said in the email.<\/p>\n
According to the SLC\u2019s petition, a 20% cut in the tutor budget could mean a loss of about 70 peer tutor, ambassador and coordinator positions and a reduction of nearly 11,000 working hours for peer tutor staff.<\/p>\n
Vittal Vasudevan, a peer tutor for economics, said the SLC offers individual attention and investment for students who might not have been able to afford one-on-one tutoring otherwise.<\/p>\n
Vasudevan said many of the SLC student staffers depend on their positions to help cover tuition.<\/p>\n
Katelyn Van Andel, a peer tutor for economics, said she hopes the petition demonstrates the scale and scope of the SLC\u2019s support.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a message that has consequences, when you are basically telling your undergraduate population that the first organization that\u2019s on the chopping block for budget cuts is one of the biggest and oldest support systems for undergraduate education,\u201d Van Andel said.<\/p>\n
Both Vasudevan and Van Andel said they signed the SLC\u2019s petition.<\/p>\n
In addition to urging UC Berkeley to reconsider cuts to the SLC, the petition asks for transparency and a public statement of \u201cthe rationale for targeting tutor and student assistant hiring budgets to alleviate a disproportionate share of the financial pressures of the Division of Undergraduate Education.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"UC Berkeley\u2019s Student Learning Center, which provides peer tutoring for undergraduate students, announced Thursday that campus administration proposed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":487607,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[190461,190460,143,145,144,30104,149,190459],"class_list":["post-487606","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-dee-mostofi","tag-katelyn-van-andel","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news","tag-student-learning-center","tag-uc-berkeley","tag-vittal-vasudevan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/487606","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=487606"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/487606\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/487607"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=487606"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=487606"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=487606"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}