Education

While the graduate student workers that went on strike from the UC system for six weeks won concessions like increased pay, a substantial portion of the workers are still dissatisfied and the contracts are relatively short, so tough negotiations may resume again in 2024.

Transit expenses are one part of the high cost of college that is pushing many low-income students out of the state’s higher education systems. Some campuses have partnered with local transit agencies to reduce or waive all fares for students, but recent efforts to create more partnerships with state funding have failed.

New Title IX rules barring gender discrimination could put more responsibility on colleges to protect transgender and nonbinary students. But those students say creating welcoming campuses will require more than just policy.

Some California colleges are responding to campus sexual assault and harassment with restorative justice: a process that brings together the student who was harmed, the person who harmed them and the community to seek solutions.

Teachers across the state are trying to help students who fell behind in their reading skills during remote learning. At the same time, they must meet state grade-level standards for instruction, leaving many wondering if some students will ever recover from learning loss.

After tens of thousands of UC academic workers walked off the job last month – in what may be the largest strike in higher education history – professors and teaching assistants took class to the picket line. Students have made films about the strike, attended teach-ins about disability rights, and gotten crash courses in labor history. And some say it gave them a new perspective on how their university works.

Charles Drew University, the only historically Black university in California, will launch a new MD program next year. The goal is to train more doctors of color to help underserved communities in a state where only 3% of physicians are Black.

Teams of striking UC graduate student workers are willingly getting arrested in acts of civil disobedience. They view the strategy as a way to escalate their work stoppage, now in its fifth week.

For years, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo has enrolled the smallest percentage of Black students among all campuses in the California State University and University of California systems. Although it’s difficult to pinpoint the reason, the campus attracts few freshman applicants and transfer students, and students describe a racist environment.

Cal Poly San Luis Obispo is facing backlash over the hiring of former Cal State Chancellor Joseph Castro for a faculty role. Castro resigned the chancellorship in February in the wake of a scandal over how he handled sexual harassment allegations against a top administrator.