UCLA English Letter of Solidarity to Berkeley English

November 18, 2011

To Our Berkeley Friends:

As the activism of Berkeley students, Graduate Student Instructors, and faculty makes statewide and national news, we feel it is our responsibility and our ethical obligation as students, instructors, and faculty at UCLA’s English Department to recognize the events that transpired last Wednesday and express our continuing support of the members who have given their time to take a stance for higher education.

In specific, we express our solidarity with the faculty, GSIs, and students who are together actively vocalizing their concerns to the public, to the Regents, and to State legislators. We also endorse and express solidarity with the commitment to nonviolence of these protests, a nonviolence particularly stark in light of the arrests of students and faculty and the brutality perpetrated by police forces at the November 9^th demonstration.

As the entire UC system faces uncertainty over the future of state support, and as the burden of financing our studies is increasingly passed on to undergraduates even as university services are reduced, it is all the more imperative to acknowledge the ways in which the actions at Berkeley speak for the interests of all of us at UCLA and in our sister departments statewide.

While we are aware that the decision to participate in recent protests is an individual choice for any student, GSI, or faculty member, and that our department as a whole cannot endorse the particularities of these actions, nonetheless we celebrate that the actions of our colleagues reinforce a commitment to our students and to the project of maintaining education as a public good.

Therefore, we reiterate our ongoing appreciation, support, and commitment to our friends and colleagues at Berkeley and to our collective future.

In solidarity,

The undersigned.

 

Faculty

Boris Dralyuk, Lecturer in Slavic Languages and Literatures

Chris Chism, Associate Professor of English

Christopher Looby, Professor of English

Christopher Mott, Lecturer in English

Elizabeth DeLoughrey, Associate Professor of English

Helen Deutsch, Professor of English

Jenny Sharpe, Professor of English

Jinqi Ling, Associate Professor of English

Kathleen A. McHugh, Professor of English

King-Kok Cheung, Professor of English and Asian American Studies

Matthew Fisher, Assistant Professor of English

Michael Meranze, Professor of History

Rachel C. Lee, Associate Professor of English

Rafael Perez-Torres, Professor of English

Reed Wilson, Adjunct Professor of English

Richard Yarborough, Associate Professor of English

Yogita Goyal, Associate Professor of English

 

Graduate Students in English, Comparative Literature, and Women’s Studies

Alethia Shih

Alex E. Hernandez

Alex Zobel

Alexei Nowak

Allen Zhang

Amanda Hollander

Amy Wong

Boram Kim

Brendan O’Kelly

Christina Nagao

Christine Gottlieb

Connor O’Sullivan

Daniel Couch

Deborah Donig

Dustin Friedman

Eric Newman

Erin Conley

Ethan Pack

Gabriel Mehlman

Gillian Adler

Glen Brewer

Grant Rosson

Ian Newman

Jack Caughey

Jacob Lang

Jacquelyn Ardam

James Reeves

Jay Jin

Jeremy Schmidt

Jessica Horvath

Joyce Pualani Warren

Julia Callander

Kat Webster

Kathleen Bergren

Kim Hedlin

Lauren Dembowitz

Lindsey Wilhelm

Margarita Howell

Mark Gallagher

Martin Zirulnik

Maureen Shay

Medaya Ocher

Michael Nicholson

P.J. Emory

Renee Hudson

Robert Kyriakos Smith

Ronjaunee Chatterjee

Sam Smith

Samantha Sommers

Sarah Nance

Sharon Chon

Shirly Tung

Stacy June

Sydney Miller

Taly Ravid

Vanessa Febo

Vivian Davis

Will Clark

Yuting Huang