CSU Struggles under budget cuts

When Jonathan Leckey went online to register for fall classes at CSU-Sacramento, the computer indicated that there was a problem with his account. Dialing the help line produced a busy signal several times in a row.

Leckey then found another telephone and pressed "redial" on two phones for two hours nonstop before he got through, only to be put on hold for another half hour. Finally someone answered and told Leckey he was lucky, because others had waited more than three hours to get through.

The person staffing the help line confided that, due to budget cuts on campus, she was the only person assigned to handle the huge volume of phone calls.

"She fixed the problem instantly; it was just a computer error," recalls Leckey, who recently transferred to CSU from a community college. "But by then, all the classes I wanted were full." He ended up signing up for classes that he didn't really need.

The phone nightmare was a prelude to what awaited Leckey once school started. The classes he got were so overcrowded, students spilled out into the hallway where they could hardly hear the professor. "My business classes were so big that if you didn't get there early, there was no place to sit."

In his music class, students begged the instructor to let them "add in," insisting that they didn't mind sitting on the floor. "You could feel the tension in the room because we were so closely compacted."

It was also tense for the teacher. Even though Jim Chopyak, who serves as president of the California Faculty Association (CFA) chapter there, told the students "it would be like buying a lottery ticket and they would have little chance of winning [a place in class], they came anyway — every day — and sat on the floor and asked me to add them in. I had to say no to most of them, because in good conscience, it is unprofessional to add so many students. They were upset, and it made me feel horrible."

Leckey's introduction to the CSU system is not an isolated incident. Elsewhere throughout his school and the other 22 CSU campuses, the impact of budget cuts is being felt sharply by both students and faculty. CSU campuses have steadily lost revenue for two decades — including a half billion dollars over the past two years alone — and suffered teacher layoffs, decreased course offerings and increased class size as a result. Several professors say the only thing that has helped keep their class size from getting even bigger is that the fire department has threatened to take action over safety violations.

Cecil Canton, a criminal justice professor at CSU-Sacramento, says his classes used to be capped at 45 students, but this past fall the cap was increased to 60. Up until the fourth week, students were still desperately trying to get in.

"It's always very difficult for professors to turn away students," says Canton, who is vice president of the Sacramento CFA chapter. "You know they have very compelling reasons for wanting to be in your class. Some need your class to graduate. Others are trying to maintain a full-time load to keep their financial aid or to stay on their parents' health insurance."

With 60 students instead of 40 per class, his workload has increased about 25 percent, he estimates. But he is more worried about meeting the needs of his students and the education they are receiving than his own working conditions.

"When you have 60 students instead of 40, it is very difficult to have classroom interaction or an interpersonal relationship with students," adds Canton. "I know how important it is to have that kind of contact with students. But these days it's very difficult."

The quality of teaching is suffering, too, he says. "Teachers have had to relax some of their standards to accommodate increased class size. I went from requiring three papers to two papers."

Several other professors said they've gone from essay tests and writing assignments to tests that can be scanned by computers or true/false quizzes that can be graded more easily considering the increased student load.

Class size has increased because the number of course offerings has been reduced, say CFA members. Classes that were taught several times a year may now be taught only once a semester - or every other semester — and are difficult to get into.

Lindsay Jarvis, a junior at CSU-Sacramento, found that she had to take classes in the evening to get what she needs to graduate. "Normally I would go to class in the day and work in the afternoon. But now I work all day and go to class at night," she says. "It's hard to find time to do homework and also have time for extracurricular activities."

At CSU-Sonoma, faculty members are being pressured to teach independent study classes to help students meet graduation requirements in a timely fashion, says Andy Merrifield, president of the Sonoma chapter of CFA. Such "contract" courses tremendously increase faculty workloads and also rob students of interactive class experiences, he asserts.

"It's really a form of distance learning. It's cold and detached. The purpose of independent study is for a rare case when a student wants to do something that is not part of the regular curriculum. But in this case, it's to help the students graduate so that it appears that the cuts haven't had a drastic, negative effect on students and faculty when in reality they have. It's also a way for the campus to meet its enrollment targets."

Not all campuses met their targets this fall. CSU-Dominguez Hills, for example, has the highest percentage of Latino and African American students, but was underenrolled, says David Bradfield, president of the CFA chapter there. The reason, he believes, is student fee increases combined with cuts. Schools that don't make enrollment targets could face further harm because they might have to return money to the CSU system.

Regular classes, says Bradfield, have been made into "megasections" and in some cases have doubled, tripled or quadrupled in enrollment. A remedial algebra class intended for 25 students was increased to 60, making it difficult for students to get the extra help they need.

"When students have to wait longer to take a class, they have to wait longer to graduate from the university," says G. Nanjundappa, president of the CFA chapter at CSU-Fullerton. "It's a basic problem that I hear about from students every day."

He's also disturbed by another trend he's seen at CSU: Tenured positions are no longer attractive to qualified applicants, who are appalled by both the huge class sizes and heavy workload. "People don't see a bright future here," he says. "Not only is the workload higher than other places, but they are not getting sufficient funds to do the minimum things they have to do, such as publish a paper or go to a conference. They need some support from the university and are unable to find even a minimum amount of money to continue scholarly and professional research."

Staffing shortages also mean students' needs are not being met, says Marlene Zepeda, chair of the Department of Child and Family Studies at CSU-Los Angeles. In addition to the increased workload that comes with overcrowded classes, faculty members are advising students in an effort to take up the slack for the student services coordinator, whose job was cut. The administration has said it intends to start an advisement center for the department's students, but until that happens, students are not getting the counseling they desperately need.

"When you have a ratio of 250 to 300 students per faculty member, adequate advisement is not humanly possible," says Zepeda. Students are waiting up to two months for an appointment.

"Also, there seems to be a notion that students go to see you one time and everything is taken care of, but that's not the case. Students are very concerned about whether or not they are progressing and ask for 'graduation checks.' Sometimes they need to have contact with you multiple times."

With many of her students planning to become elementary school teachers, counseling is crucial in order to help them navigate the confusing pathways of credential courses, testing deadlines and "highly qualified teacher" requirements under No Child Left Behind. But having access to faculty also gives students a "sense of belonging" and increases the chances that they will stay in school, says Zepeda.

"Student services are the pipeline to maintaining students on campus," Zepeda says. "And for our students, that piece is critical." Eighty-three percent of lower-division students are first-generation college students. Without parents who who have gone to college, "they need role models to navigate the bureaucracy. They need a little extra assistance."

Extra assistance has been cut way back for remedial students, who make up 85 percent of all freshmen at CSU-Los Angeles, compared to 58 percent statewide. They must complete remedial classes within a year or face dismissal. However, remedial classes have become increasingly crowded and are being taught by graduate students without teacher training so the university can save money, says Steve Teixiera, director of the Student Support Program.

"The budget cuts have not affected everyone equally," he says. The neediest kids, those from the lowest income communities, are getting hit twice.

"Kids who have already been cheated in K-12 are being cheated again."

They have gone from attending overcrowded elementary, middle school and high school classes to attending overcrowded remedial college classes. "In effect, they have gone from a 'ghetto high school' to a 'ghetto college' experience."

Math and English faculty from the Los Angeles campus used to work with local high school teachers to better prepare students for college work under the Collaborative Academic Preparation Initiative (CAPI), but the program has been eliminated, as has the Precollegiate Academic Development (PAD) outreach program for high school students. Both programs could have reduced the need for remediation, says Teixiera.

At the campus library, there's a shortage of both books and librarians, says CFA library rep Carolyn McIntosh. In the university's heyday, there were about 40 librarians on staff, she recalls. Now there are 16, despite increased numbers of students using the library.

"The book budget has also shrunk over the years," says Ying Xu, a librarian and CFA member. "There has been a substantial decrease in the hard copies of journals, too. The impact on students is that when they need something, we have to rely on interlibrary transfers. It can take weeks for students to get the books that they need right away for their classes."

While students are getting shortchanged in the classroom and in the services they need, they are paying more to receive less. For financially challenged students, tuition hikes have had a devastating impact — even with Cal Grants and student loans.

"I had to take on a second job after the last increase because I couldn't afford to pay my bills," says Wariesi Flores, a student in her fourth year at CSU-Los Angeles. "I'm not eating well anymore. I can't afford to buy groceries. I've really had to prioritize."

Flores works as a resident assistant in the dorms. Her second job is as an intern in the CFA office on campus, where she serves as a liaison between students and professors and helps organize a unified stance between the two groups on issues that impact the school, such as tuition hikes. Recently she was one of the organizers of the Take the Pledge Rally urging legislators to restore full funding for CSU so that it could admit all qualified applicants, end overcrowding in courses, and recruit and retain high-quality faculty.

What's happening to her campus and to higher education in general is making the political science major somewhat cynical about the world. "It's getting harder for me to go to school and harder for me to survive," Flores says. "I'm starting to look at the world as being a little colder."