As the price of higher education rises, Chancellor Linda Katehi on Jan. 6 talked about brighter days ahead for graduate students and explained how they can help themselves and strengthen the institution.

“It is in difficult times that decisions truly have impact,” she told almost 90 students at the UC Davis Graduate Student Association’s monthly meeting in the Silo. “We want to create an environment where graduate students can take good ideas into the marketplace.”

Katehi acknowledged the financial stress on students, who shared their concerns about the budget crisis and the future of public education. One student said it is hard to focus on studying when she cannot afford to heat her apartment.

“I can sympathize with how difficult it is to live as a graduate student,” said Katehi, who left her native Greece to attend graduate school at UCLA with “very little money” or support of any kind. “It was not an easy life.”

Grad student funding, research

Katehi believes that boosting graduate education and research is critical if UC Davis is to move into the ranks of the top five U.S. public research universities (it is now No. 11).

“It will take many years of working consistently toward this,” said the chancellor, adding that the “voices” of graduate students and their financial funding issues are vitally important to campus leadership and faculty.

To better listen to graduate students, Katehi said she has set up a graduate student advisory council to “take issues directly” to her office. She also noted that the campus will soon make a major announcement regarding a new initiative for graduate student support.

“We will do as much as we can,” she said, “as fast as we can.”

Katehi vowed to bring about a “more diverse, more internationalized” version of graduate education. UC Davis should become the university of choice for international students, postdoctoral scholars, international and governmental exchange programs and global enterprises.

She said students should graduate having benefited from a significant “international experience” and knowing deeply about topics like global poverty and its ripple-effect consequences.

With a tough budget season looming, Katehi asked the students for their help in advocating on behalf of UC education in the legislative and public arenas. Already students across the UC have protested in recent weeks against upcoming 32 percent fee hikes.

“We’re going to work real hard to support those who support higher education,” she said.

She noted Gov. Schwarzenegger’s proposal this week to amend the state constitution to shift money from prisons to higher education, and his pledge to spare public schools, colleges and universities from the budget ax this year.

“It is critical to do this for the future of the state,” Katehi said.

As for UC, she said the system is working to help beleaguered students. Under UC’s Blue and Gold Opportunity Plan, needy California undergraduate students with family incomes of $70,000 and below will have all their systemwide fees paid.

The outstanding research and teaching efforts of graduate students are points of pride for the institution, the chancellor said. As the conversation about UC Davis’ future dawns, graduate students will have the opportunity to participate in the unfolding vision.

Budget cuts: ‘Most difficult’

Katehi, who took the university’s helm in August 2009, spoke about her own challenges charting the course of UC Davis. The 30 percent cut in state funding has led to the “horrible prospects” of laying off thousands of people or raising student fees. There is no easy solution.

“That has been the most difficult thing,” she said solemnly.

And while it may seem equally difficult to contemplate improving the quality of UC Davis at a financially strapped time like this, Katehi acknowledged, the focus must be on progress and the road ahead.

“History has examples of many (fiscal) challenges faced by higher education,” stretching back to the Great Depression, where some institutions eventually thrived by laying the proper groundwork and making smart decisions, she said.

She took aim at the notion that “excellence” should be defined by financial largess in any walk of life.

“Quality is not necessarily more money. Bigger is better, and more is better — this is not true,” she said.

One student asked her what she meant by “excellence.”

Katehi: “Excellence is about achieving the best you can, each and every day. And you don’t always need money to make this happen.”

On the cost-saving front, she said that the campus is undertaking a structural review to eliminate redundancies, and hopes to have some findings in a few months. Meanwhile, the campus is drafting a vision document to help guide it through the years of challenges and obstacles ahead.

‘Future professors’

Malaika Singleton, chair of the Graduate Student Association, later on said Katehi has an “ambitious vision” for UC Davis’ future.

“She understands that excellence in graduate education, training and research is critical in achieving that goal,” said Singleton, adding that she still wants “specific information” about how the university would go about making improvements in those areas.

Singleton said she had already heard about the chancellor’s interest in graduate student issues. “I am very pleased that she came to address some of those concerns last night.”

Marrah Lachowicz-Scroggins, external chair of the Graduate Student Association, said in a Jan. 7 e-mail that students want to know how budget decisions are being made and why.

“As we work and study here,” Lachowicz-Scroggins said, “we have huge ties to what happens around campus as it affects our daily lives.”

She said she was “not quite sure” that the chancellor is “fully aware” of the concerns facing graduate students at Davis.

“As she is new to our campus, she has spent the majority of her early time here familiarizing herself with our campus in general. However, I do feel she is taking a step in the right direction by forming the Chancellor’s Advisory Committee,” she said.

Lachowicz-Scroggins wrote that UC Davis needs a greater focus on career preparation for graduate and professional students. While she agrees with Katehi that excellence in research should be a major mission for the campus, she would like to see more improved training for graduate students intent on entering academia.

“This is particularly relevant to graduate students who are the future professors,” she said.

The Graduate Student Association represents academic graduate students and management students on campus. More information: http://gsa.ucdavis.edu/