IRVINE : UC Students Demand Fee Hike Input

Shouting, chanting and stamping their feet, about 100 students crowded into UC Irvine acting Chancellor L. Dennis Smith’s office Tuesday to demand a voice in determining annual student fees, which could be increased by $1,045 next fall.

Supporting the students in Smith’s office, another 100 students filled the hall outside, yelling, “We want Smith” and “No more fee hikes.” For half an hour, students jockeyed for a bullhorn and vented their anger, as five police officers and a handful of administration staffers stood and listened. No arrests were made.

In the list of demands, the students asked Smith to help them set an open forum with the UC regents, to be held in Irvine, to discuss university spending priorities and the budget crisis.

They also requested that Smith suspend all classes and close non-essential campus offices on the day of the forum to allow all students and professors to participate.

Smith was not in his office, but spokeswoman Karen Newell Young said he received the students’ requests and will ask the other eight UC chancellors at a meeting today to join him in requesting an open forum with the regents, who govern the UC system. Young said the classes would not be suspended.

“We demand accountability, affordability and accessibility from our regents,” said Michael Solorza, 21, a student leader, through the bullhorn.

A fee increase may be considered March 18 and 19 by the UC regents, in which California residents would have to pay about $4,120 yearly to attend UC Irvine--a rise of more than 150% over the last four years.

“We felt the Associated Students wasn’t doing enough,” Solorza said, referring to the student organization each UC campus has to lobby the Legislature.

UC Irvine Associated Students President Rigoberto Rodriguez said he strongly supported the rally.

“Often, the legislators and administrators don’t believe the validity of what we’re saying,” Rodriguez said. “I think this is the popular manifestation of the fact that we can’t afford these fees.”

Members of student governments from UCI, other UC and Cal State schools will travel to Sacramento on Monday to lobby legislators against fee increases.

Some thought the rally’s wrath was misdirected.

“There’s nothing that can be done at the campus level or even at the regents’ level,” Associate Executive Vice Chancellor Bill Parker, who watched the rally from the hallway, said after the students left. Parker said the sluggish California economy is responsible for the fee hikes.

“You raise fees and lower services. If the economy isn’t healthy, that’s what happens,” Parker said. Under the latest plan, faculty and staff would face 5% pay cuts, the first since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

Parker said the rally was effective if it helped people to learn about the budget crisis.

And though many rallying students said they are shut out by the administration, Mike Alva, a spokesman for the UC president’s office, said students do have a voice.

“There always is input on the budget process from students, staff and faculty,” Alva said. He said students may speak at regents’ meetings and meet with administrators.