UCLA Graduate Program Cuts

Re “Plan to Dismantle 4 UCLA Schools Protested,” Oct. 15:

Despite the ongoing budget crisis, UCLA Chancellor Charles E. Young’s intention to shut down the master’s and doctoral programs in library and information sciences is shortsighted and dangerous. Now, more than ever, as business, governments and individuals need access to relevant, timely, global information, it seems ironic that Young is considering shutting down these programs.

California needs a professional work force to manage its information resources, now and in the future. If the Graduate School of Library and Information Sciences closes, San Jose State University would be the only active program in California, and as a state university, it is not allowed to have a doctoral program.

California’s investment in information resources is enormous. In 1991-1992, California spent $929 million for its public, academic and county law libraries. The University of California alone reported total expenditures of $150.6 million. Librarians are the only professionals whose principal concern is information: how to get it, how to use it, how to preserve it for the future, and how to provide access to it. Information professionals are needed to manage that investment. Libraries without librarians are like hospitals without doctors.

DEL WILLIAMS

Torrance

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* The article regarding Chancellor Young’s meeting with UCLA faculty neglected to mention the size of the budget cuts assigned to the schools that train human service providers. The budgets of the schools of Nursing, Social Welfare, Architecture and Urban Planning, and Public Health will be reduced by 43%, 31%, 27% and 25%, respectively.

These reductions will make it impossible for these schools to meet their teaching, research and service obligations to the community. In spite of repeated requests, the administration has not provided an academic rationale for the de facto closure of these schools. At the same time that these drastic reductions are being imposed on the public service teaching units, 27% of the $365 million provided UCLA by the state is being spent on central administration.

Faced with a reduced budget, the UCLA administration has chosen a policy of redirecting state revenues away from the schools that train public service professionals to the schools that train elite and highly paid professionals for the private sector. The only exception to this policy is the School of Education. One reason for this policy is that the public service schools are unable to match the private donations raised by the Schools of Management, Law, Medicine, etc.

A question that needs to be answered, therefore, is whether the limited dollars allocated by the state to the University of California should be directed away from units that train public service professionals and toward units that can generate large private donations. Given the rampant social problems faced by California, perhaps the time has come for the taxpayers, through their elected representatives, to provide the university some guidance in this matter.

EMIL BERKANOVIC

Professor and Chair

Dept. of Community Health Sciences

School of Public Health, UCLA

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* Just when public policy experts are saying we need more nurses and nurse practitioners to make health reform happen, UCLA’s Chancellor Young decides to slash the nursing school and grow a school of public policy.

What’s wrong with this picture?

BARBARA BRONSON GRAY RN

Agoura