Yesterday, the president of California State University, Fresno took questions before a panel of students in the Peace Garden.

The setup was nice, complete with a long barricade and police scattered through the scene. Microphones were placed at the bench with a moderator in between Welty and the student speakers, and they even had Pepsi-brand bottles of water on the table for product placement.

The actual event was much less civilized.

The first set of questions leveled at Dr. John Welty were from a widely-distributed list of demands drafted by the student groups Students for Quality Education and the Walkout Coalition. Among the demands was a call for student fees to be returned to their year 2000 levels and for the money raised from the latest round of fees to be refunded.

Yes, refunded.

In response, Welty calmly explained that the lost funds would result in hundreds of additional lost class sections, which obviously would not please the students.

A more interesting exchange took place when Welty’s salary and even his house came into question. The student groups expressed a desire to have his salary – around $290,000 – voluntarily cut by $52,000 and to have him pay rent on his house to reimburse student fees.

The president initially danced around the questions before flatly saying “no” to the proposals. His remarks were met by a chorus of boos from the one-sided crowd.

Once the official questions were over, the real lions came out of the den. Welty was asked by a crying female if he could help her because her parents didn’t work and she could not afford health care. He asked if they could meet later.

A student asked why so much security was present. Welty responded, “I’m not scared of you.”

Pardon my French, but it was pretty gangsta.

Dr. Elizabeth Swearingen, of the Women’s Studies Program, announced that she only makes $1,750 a month and wanted to know what Welty could do about it. A student named Ali Espinoza announced that there would be a “study in” at Welty’s house on Saturday, that she hoped 25,000 students would show up and that if they didn’t all fit in his house the demonstration would spill out into the street. She sarcastically added, “They’d love to have us there, I’m sure.”

Trumping all of these was a student who eventually yelled into the microphone, “If we have to burn down Fresno State and build a new one then that’s what we’ll do!”

Now, I’m all for public forums with public figures. I’m all for keeping the higher-ups in check and speaking for the poor. And I love it when Joe Schmoe gets to finally lay it on Mr. Big Shot.

But, as I overheard a spectator say, the biggest story from Tuesday’s forum was that Welty didn’t haul off and slap somebody.

The abuse he was put through by the hecklers made me honestly wonder if it would be worth taking his job, even with the free house and the nearly 300 grand a year.

The man can’t buy you health insurance, he can’t get you a student loan, he can’t get your job back and he certainly can’t invent money to put into the CSU system.

And if he did volunteer a $52,000 pay cut, each student would receive a little over two dollars each. Then we could achieve the ultimate dream: moving Saturday’s “study in” to McDonald’s.