Christopher Kutz

Christopher Edley and Chris Kutz Debate Pros and Cons of Online Education

KQED Forum, May 20, 2010 Host Michael Krasny
http://www.kqed.org/epArchive/R201005200900

Edley: It’s an idea, it’s a vision, it’s something that I think we should definitely move toward but carefully because we obviously don’t want to sacrifice quality in any way. My principal motivation is access; it’s the social justice component of it…. And I think we really need to explore online technology as a way to do it not just for UC eligible students within California, whom we might not otherwise be able to serve, but ultimately for similarly qualified, similarly prepared students in Kentucky, in Kuala Lumpur.

Kutz: I’m sure Chris Edley would agree with this. It’s not simply about certifying competence. It’s about leading somebody into the kind of education process that really takes place in two dimensions: one is the dimension between the student and the instructor, and involves quite a lot of back and forth between student and instructor; and the second, and I think equally important, is the interaction among the students…. The online courses … do miss that component to a certain degree.

Chris Kutz Urges UC to Stop Subsidizing Athletics

San Francisco Chronicle, April 1, 2010 by Nanette Asimov
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/04/01/MNDU1CNUEF.DTL&type=printable

“This is meant to be a come-to-Jesus moment for athletics, in which (the department) realizes that it needs to make difficult choices to stay within a sustainable level of resources,” said law professor and panelist Christopher Kutz, chairman of UC Berkeley’s Academic Senate of tenured instructors.

Chris Kutz and Christopher Edley Fault UC Inaction on Budget Crisis

The Chronicle of Higher Education, March 23, 2010 by Josh Keller
http://bit.ly/9CGGb9 (requires registration; go to G:\Law School in the News\News Clips for article)

“There’s a political problem,” said Christopher L. Kutz, chair of the Berkeley campus’s Academic Senate. “In order to have credibility with the voters, we need to show that we’re thinking seriously, that we know it’s a problem.”

“We need some serious dental implants for this if we’re going to make any progress,” Mr. Edley said. “I don’t know any significant organization that defines or achieves budgetary priorities from the bottom up, so that poses a challenge for a university that very much believes that academics have to be focused on and delivered from the bottom up. We’re not there yet.”

Chris Kutz and Stephen Rosenbaum Expect University Policies to Comply with Law

Campus Progress, March 3, 2010 by Rebecca Green
http://www.campusprogress.org/fieldreport/5135/above-the-law

“There’s a specialized set of case law regulating what a university can do,” explains Christopher Kutz, chair of the UC–Berkeley academic senate. “It’s not a criminal process.… It’s a different kind of entity.” Kutz says the academic senate has been following the student conduct cases and will be sitting down with the Center for Student Conduct to ensure that university policies comply with both the law and fairness.

Rosenbaum, who is taking on Bowin and other students’ cases pro bono, helped revise the code of student conduct 30 years ago when he was attending Berkeley’s law school…. “These students were guinea pigs,” Rosenbaum says. “It’s going to make them think twice before participating in any kind of lawful protest, and I think that’s part of the message the university was trying to send.”

Christopher Edley, Chris Kutz, Jesse Choper Discuss Academic Freedom and Prof Yoo

PBS, The NewsHour With Jim Lehrer, October 20, 2009 by Spencer Michels
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/education/july-dec09/tenure_10-20.html

Christopher Edley, dean, U.C. Berkeley Boalt Hall School of Law: While many students and faculty are critical of the Bush administration policies and even of some of John’s actions, they think that academic freedom means that his right to be here and to teach has to be protected, until or unless there’s some sort of a conviction.

Christopher Kutz, president, U.C. Berkeley Academic Senate: You need something more than simply incompetence to revoke a professor’s tenure, especially somebody who’s been hired, promoted, published in the top journals. John is one of the most prolific scholars on the Boalt faculty.

Jesse Choper, law professor: He gave them an approach that was wholly consistent with virtually everything he did as a scholar beforehand.

Chris Kutz Supports UC Decision to Hire Bain & Co. to Analyze Budget

-Contra Costa Times, October 1, 2009 by Matt Krupnick
http://www.contracostatimes.com/news/ci_13464661

For the most part, instructors seem to be accepting that, said law professor Christopher Kutz, chairman of the campus Academic Senate. “We were really impressed by Bain,” said Kutz, who was involved in choosing the company. “They said the right things, and they understand their limits.”

-San Francisco Chronicle, October 5, 2009 by Nanette Asimov
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/10/05/BAJ41A0EVD.DTL

Law Professor Chris Kutz, who chairs the Faculty Senate, likened the situation to a homeowner who wants to save money on the heating bill and invests in a new furnace. “We think there’s a good chance of achieving savings that dwarf this investment,” Kutz said.

Stephen Rosenbaum, Chris Kutz, Susan Gluss Respond to Questions about Professor Yoo

The Daily Californian, May 8, 2009 by Katie Meyer (Corrected May 11)
http://www.dailycal.org/article/105632/professor_john_yoo_could_face_disbarment

“One can argue about the appropriateness of someone teaching in a law school who has expressed those interpretations of the law,” Rosenbaum said.

“The dean is always mindful of the interplay between academic freedom, which is the right to express an opinion no matter how vile or odious, and the need for law professors to abide by the highest ethical and professional standards,” Gluss said.

“I do not believe that the memos are professionally adequate statements about the law, nor did the Justice Department—they repudiated all the memos written by John Yoo,” [Kutz] said.