By Frank Wells
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| Among those calling for fair treatment at the Long Beach meeting of the CSU trustees are (from left) Michael Day and Tony Diaz from the Teachers Association of Long Beach, CTA Secretary-Treasurer Dean E. Vogel, Tim O’Keefe from CSU-San Luis Obispo and NEA Board member VirginiaAnn Shadwick. |
The California Faculty Association staged a major protest outside a meeting of the California State University Board of Trustees Nov. 15 over stalled contract talks and rising student fees at state universities.
While a crowd of some 1,500 faculty members, students and community supporters assembled outside the chancellor’s office in Long Beach, 22 CFA members inside the building disrupted and eventually shut down the board meeting in an act of civil disobedience. Arms locked, the instructors refused to leave unless the trustees signed a Pledge for the Future of CSU that demanded an end to executive perks, a rollback of student fees, and the negotiation of a fair contract with CFA and other CSU employees. After a tense standoff, the trustees rapidly adopted an agenda and left.
One major sore spot for the crowd was CSU’s “executive transition program” under which departing university presidents and high level executives continue to receive large salaries in the year following their departure. A recent San Francisco Chronicle series revealed that over the past decade as much as $4 million has been paid out in this fashion without public disclosure.
“These fee increases and executive perks are paid for on the backs of our students,” said VirginiaAnn Shadwick, a San Francisco State University faculty member who represents higher education on the NEA Board of Directors and acts as a CTA liaison to its sister union, CFA. “CSU is a university system for the working class of this state, and it’s being priced out of reach.”
“California needs to do the right thing here,” said Dián Dolores Hasson, a Butte College faculty member who represents higher education on the CTA Board of Directors. “Our K-12 and community college students become CSU students, and those CSU students are our future teachers, our future nurses, and our future law enforcement officers. If the CSU system fails, California fails.”
“California cannot provide quality education without retaining quality faculty,” CTA Secretary Treasurer Dean Vogel told the crowd at the rally, pledging CTA’s support for CFA’s effort. “And it cannot retain a quality faculty if the money that should be going to faculty salaries is being handed out to CSU campus presidents and top executives as they leave their posts.”
Describing a 76 percent increase in student fees since 2002 as “intolerable,” Vogel spotlighted the inadequacy of 17 percent salary increases for faculty over the past nine years as opposed to nearly 50 percent salary increases for college presidents.
Gabriella Zuniga, a student at CSU-Dominguez Hills, hoped the protest would have some impact on her own student fees. “It’s getting to the point that I’m afraid I can’t afford to graduate,” she said. “My mother helped me out my first year, but I’ve taken over since then, and now there are fee increases for everything. There’s no way to predict or plan for it.”