LBPOST.com: CSULB Faculty Organize Against Cuts To CSU System

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CSULB Faculty Organize Against Cuts To CSU System

by Ryan ZumMallen | Long Beach News | 07.01.09 |

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Article by Steven Piper

By the end of a campus-wide faculty coalition meeting on Tuesday, June 30 in Cal State University Long Beach's Anatol Center, people were rallying around the idea of a student/faculty walkout and blocking all entrances to the parking structure. The meeting was intended to update faculty about the budget crisis and form a plan of action to deal with the cuts.

According to Governor Schwarzenegger�s budget proposal, The Cal State University (CSU) system will face a projected $584 million budget deficit for 2009-2010.

Elizabeth Hoffman, who opened the meeting, is a lecturer for CSULB�s English Department and is also the California Faculty Association (CFA) Associate Vice President of Lecturers. The CFA, which is a faculty union, was recently urged by the CSU system to have its members vote on a proposal to implement two required, unpaid furlough days per month for 2009-2010.

During the meeting, Hoffman eluded to a June 29 CSU press release. According to that press release, the furloughs would save an estimated $275 million. The same release said, �CSU Chancellor Charles B. Reed has indicated that the guiding principles of any action plan would be to �serve as many students as possible without sacrificing quality, and to preserve as many jobs as possible.�� CSU�s website also said 21,000 out of 47,000 employees see the furloughs as a possible solution to the budget deficit.

A June 30 CFA press release had something different to say. �Instead, they have come up with a half-baked plan to cut employee pay that ostensibly would address a little less than half the funding shortfall. And, when asked about the remaining $300 million deficit, our Chancellor said he �has no plan�� said the CFA press release.

Hoffman included in her report a concern that faculty lay-offs will occur regardless of any furloughs being implemented. �There is no doubt that there are going to be big losses in lecturers,� Hoffman said. Lecturers are temporarily appointed faculty and may have full or part-time status. Hoffman said lecturers compose 65% of the total amount of teachers at CSULB. Hoffman also said CSU refused a request to protect tenure track faculty. �That was a very chilling moment,� Hoffman said.

Included in a collective bargaining agreement CSU has with the CFA is article 38.11, which details the order in which employees are to be laid off. Tenured faculty employees are last on the list.

The CSU Board of Trustees will hold a special meeting on July 7 to discuss how the system will operate with the $584 million deficit. There are no action items on the agenda.

After Hoffman�s update on CFA�s interaction with the CSU system, a PowerPoint presentation at the meeting gave specifics of how CSULB would be affected by the $584 million deficit. According to the presentation, CSULB will face an approximately $34 million budget deficit with Governor Schwarzenegger�s proposed budget. The deficit means the university would have to downsize by 2,700 students.

In an effort to strengthen their efforts, faculty members at the meeting also formed numerous breakout groups. Each group had a different topic of discussion. They included:

Editorial writing
Letter writing to legislature
Community outreach
Positive strategic planning
Electronic networking
Faculty involvement across colleges
PowerPoint presentation
Student/faculty/staff coalition
Talking points and framing

By the end of the meeting, each group had a chance to voice their ideas to the whole group. Heading the community outreach group was the Chair of the Liberal Studies Department Dan O�Connor. O�Connor stressed communicating more clearly to community college and high school counselors the possibility that less students are going to be admitted to CSULB. �We accepted half the amount of transfer applicants as we did last year,� O�Connor said.

Other ideas pitched by the faculty included a student/teacher walkout during the first week of class next year and blocking all the entrances to the parking garage by linking hands.

During a short statement, Christopher Chavez, President of Associated Student Incorporated, said, �There is a stereotype that students are disengaged from the political process.�

The next campus-wide faculty coalition meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, July 14 at noon in the Anatol Center.

Steven Piper is a contributing reporter

Related Stories: CSULB, CSU

Comments

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Dennis
This cracks me up, file it under the what goes around comes around category. CalState Faculty which has routinely endorsed, supported, encouraged and taught in classes the benefits of liberalism are now feeling the effects of what they preach. How many fiscal conservatives have CalState faculty supported in the past decade? Their complaints are hollow since they supported the candidates and processes that have led us to where we are.

Steven
http://www.latimes.com/news/la-me-california-budget2-2009jul02,0,5875342.story?track=rss Gov. Schwarzenegger orders a third furlough day for state workers.

teri
Faculty and students are concerned about the demise of the CSU if these cuts continue. Consider that student enrollment was 35,000 in 2006. Next fall it will be 25,000, a precipitous drop of 10,000 in four years. And this is just a CSULB. This is happening at the same time respected think tanks across the state are telling us we ALREADY don't have even educated workers to bring us out the the recession. Don't blame faculty for the stupidity of our legislatures in Sacramento, who, unable to pass a budget, just added another $7 bil onto our debt.

Vincent
The cuts are actually equal to an estimated $42 million not $34 million (that number might creep up given the recent failure to pass a budget by 30 June). CSULB constitutes approximately 7.4% of the total CSU budget, and thus 7.4% of the cuts. The downsizing of the additional students would likely be put in place by the 2010-2011 academic school year. The number 2700, however, is a number equal to Full Time Equivalent Students and would likely affect quite a few more than 2700 students, as many of our students go part time or do not take 15 units (and therefore are not considered full time equivalents). So, the actual number of students who will not be granted access to CSULB will be much higher. How much higher is unclear. That student access to the CSU is being eroded by a governor and legislator that will be known historically as the ones that effectively killed public education in California is becoming abundantly more clear every day.

Nancy
The cuts to the CSU system are going to have devastating effects across California if they are not reversed. It doesn't matter whether you're a Republican or a Democrat: your kid is going to have a much harder time finding a spot in college next year if the CSU indeed takes 40,000 fewer students (this was the most recent estimate from the chancellor's office).

Dave Stewart
The Chancellor says he will lay off up to the 37% of the faculty, lower enrollments by 2700 students at CSULB. Besides what pain the faculty will feel, this means local high school and community college students will not get into college, students will slow down their graduation for lack of classes, and their dreams will be forfeit if not delayed. Should one laugh at that? BTW the LB economy will take a hit because of this too.

Dennis
And if we held elections today the same people would be elected to the same offices in Sacramento--with the exception of the Governor. And the CSU faculty would support the same people and help get them elected, and the same problems would continue. And they will go back to their classrooms and teach another generation of students the same information from the same ideological bias creating more voters that will vote as they did. What do they want to cut instead? Health care? Then those most concerned about health care would b**** about health care cuts. Police/Fire? Then those most concerned about public safety b****. Infrastructure? Oh wait... They want no cuts, from the safety of their tenured positions, guaranteed salaries and benefits they want to raise our taxes to pay for their guaranteed for life jobs and income streams. Sure my children pay for it, and yours, because no one is willing to finally break the system and rebuild it on fiscally responsible principles our grandchildren will be paying as well.

KC
Dennis, that is fascinating information! I did not know that the entire CSULB faculty got together to decide the fate of political elections. I would love to know where you got your information - you speak so confidently that I'm sure you must have statistics to back up your argument. Please, share!

TheMan 562CityLife
Good article Piper. I hope this all works out in the end. That's all I can say.

MIke
Dennis, Yikes dude! Honestly, who's the ideologue here. This disdain for the university and its role in our community/society is quite telling, particularly from someone who seems to project a view of a university like CSULB as nothing more than a liberal manufacturing plant, and not as a place that trains a work force from engineers, nurses, teachers, private and public administrators, etc. (a work force that plays a vital role in shaping SoCal's future). The rhetoric is pretty black and white, and negative. We need a little more middle of the road thinking. How are we to take seriously someone who's viewing everything from an ideological stance and claims to know how we need to break the system and rebuild it through 'fiscally responsible principles'? Strikes me as a bit of logorrhea from someone that is an ideological know-it-all, and lord only knows, we've had enough of that in the last eight years.

Neil
I agree with David Stewart that this whole fiasco will be terrible for Long Beach. Not only will the university be educating fewer students who can take needed jobs in the community, but the decreasing enrollments will mean fewer students visiting Long Beach each week and bringing much needed revenue. This point doesn't even account for the fact that the #1 employer in Long Beach is going to be laying off hordes of people, cutting the pay of others, and damaging the local economy. When the city gets hit with these cuts, hollow stereotypes about liberal professors and ideological bias will be just as useless as they are now.

A CSU Faculty
The State has a major deficit problem and must balance its budget. State employees will work and be paid for fewer days per month. The issue is whether faculty should be furloughed or laid off. CSU tuition only pays for 28% of expenses (89% are wages) and half of students obtain tuition assistance. So if 37% of lecturers are dismissed, then classes may be reduced by 20-25% and that impacts all students. Due to major tuition-subsidy and union policy to dismiss part-time lecturers before FTEs, budget deficits can be cut quickly with little reduction in administrative costs. There are other more effective options that are unacceptable to the union.

William
Ryan ZumMallen has a fine article in this issue about the grant that the Long Beach Water Department has received to convert ocean water into drinking water. This sounds exactly like the kind of project that requires the kinds of engineers routinely turned out by California State University Long Beach -- "routinely," that is, until a few years from now, when the cuts in California's public education system will begin to extract their toll. Ideology never quenched anyone's thirst. Let's restore funding to the CSU, and assure our grandchildren a reliable source of good drinking water.

A CSU Faculty
William, you are right that we need more quality engineers (and science and nursing graduates). However, we have plenty of college graduates and average salaries of such graduates are down over the last decade. Our system is not focusing on teaching the best qualified students science and math; we focus on graduating as many as possible. Bill Gates claims Microsoft can not hire US graduates with the right skills. 25% of CSU students pay no tuition. Tuition is not based on grade point average or degree. We need to give tuition assistance to poor students that major in science, math, nursing or have "A" averages. However, we don't have enough qualified faculty teaching science, math and nursing and with labs those degrees cost more per student, so CSU limits enrollment where the community need is greatest.

BigGuy1
Reposting abbreviated version of comments made to the SacBee. They seem worth repeating here. Point #1: This is about the students! Fifty-thousand eligible students are about to be denied access to CSU - even though this was California's promise. Those who are lucky enough to get in will face fewer classes and delayed graduation. We need these graduates to do the crucial work of our future! Point #2: This is a labor issue. Faculty are being asked to vote without being provided full information. Point #3: The faculty are asking for budget cuts that make sense. Why make the students suffer, especially when the furloughs and cuts don't even come close to closing the budget gap? Point #4: Two previous (union-negotiated) pay raises were already withheld. That means a compounded salary loss of 11.4% and that's BEFORE furloughs! Faculty are prepared to take the weight just like everyone else. But there must be shared responsibility for this budget crisis.

Unpopular
It may be an unpopular postion to take, but it might not be a bad thing to have fewer students enrolled in CSU...am thinking that there are a good number of students who are there because the requirements for acceptance to CSU campuses have been lowered over the past 5-10 years. Perhaps we can raise the expectation level on those students who are left...then the think tanks would not have such "slim pickins" as it were... That said - what a mess in Sacramento. Are we docking their pay for every day without a budget?

graduate of CSULB
Two things: first, Hoffman did not elude to the article - she alluded to it. Gad, were my tuition dollars wasted? Second is that fewer students are going to be admitted, not less. If these kinds of mistakes are being made, then maybe it's not such a bad idea for CSULB to admit FEWER students.

Concerned parent
What is clear is that our kids are going to be squeezed out of a good college education. UC admissions criteria go up, CSU admits fewer students, community colleges are also under the knife so they can offer fewer courses...which means that those 40,000 students shut out of CSUs will not be able to get a 2-year degree in 2 years, and may never walk in the door of a CSU. This is a promise broken.

Betsy
Let's be clear on one thing. Conditions for student learning at CSULB were substandard even before this mess, with overcrowded classrooms, reduced access to required courses, etc. California needs to figure out how to fund what we truly value and what will be absolutely necessary to get us out of this financial mess. Public higher education is certainly a central part of the answer.

CSULB employee
Please take a look at the audit report done by the California Faculty Association on "CSU Policies Favor Executive Perks": http://www.calfac.org/allpdf/researchcntr/2007/auditrpt_final_111207.pdf The salaries of CSU managers and executives for 2006 are posted here: http://www.calfac.org/allpdf/researchcntr/2007/webMPPoct06.pdf (these same individuals received salary increases in 2008). Type in the names of the people in the aforementioned salary list in this site to see what they are making now: http://www.sacbee.com/statepay/ It is truly a sad day when we see State employees making more than the Governor. I do not understand why we need so many Vice-Presidents, Associate and Assistant Vice-Presidents, Special Assistants to Vice Presidents, Executive Directors, and Deans who make over $200,000 per year when in fact, anything of importance in the CSU is really done by the staff, faculty, lecturers, graduate and student assistants. Furloughing a lower-paying staff who earns $35,000 per year would certainly impact their ability to pay their mortgage and raise their kids, while that same furlough for management (making $100,000+) would merely set them back a particular luxury item. The CSU's should do what the UC's are doing: furloughing based on salary, or . . . A better budget reduction plan might simply be to down-size the number of managers and executives or to the least, compensate them for what they are worth (might this be $0?).

Long Beach News

LBPOST.com Managing Editor Ryan ZumMallen keeps up on all the current and breaking Long Beach news.

Ryan ZumMallen is a graduate of the CSULB School of Journalism, writing for the campus' Union Weekly newspaper and serving as Sports Editor for one year. He has written for numerous news and sports websites and magazines, as well as television experience with Fox Sports and ABC Channel 7.