California College: Up in Smoke?

Faculty across the California State University system recently received two edicts for closing the massive state budget deficit. The word from Chancellor Charles Reed's office is to either accept furloughs or face layoffs. The first option is bad; the second choice is worse. What's more, these options pit members of the CSU workforce against each other since furloughs impact tenure and tenure-track faculty while layoffs affect part-time workers. The old divide-and-conquer routine.

Here's a quick summary of the situation: Part-time lecturers (a euphemism for highly trained professionals who often teach a full-time load) make up the vast foundation for outsourced labor. The university system relies on adjuncts who are underpaid and, some would argue, overworked.

But the same can be said about tenured and tenure-track faculty. That is, massively underpaid and seriously overworked. Despite a unionized workforce, the CSU faculty bent over last year when negotiated salary increases fell by the wayside. It's likely that the next contractually expected salary increase will be withheld this summer. Without getting bogged down by detail, this compounded salary loss comes to 11.4%.

And while it might seem kind of bratty to complain about salary shortfalls in this time of economic crisis when so many are flat out of jobs and have given up looking, the fact is that our state and national future relies on a well-educated, conscientiously trained populace. Without it, we'll have a few at the top with continued access to the goods and resources of society. The rest will be left scrambling.

The Chancellor's furlough plan amounts to a 10% pay cut for professors, now bringing the compounded effect to a 21.4% decrease in expected salary. What's more, the Chancellor wants faculty to furlough on Fridays. But with so few classes taught on Fridays, this amounts to a pay cut with no real workload reduction, involuntary or otherwise. Adding to the absurdity, furloughs would only decrease the $583 million deficit by about 50%. So what, exactly, happens to the other half of the budget shortfall?

Suggestions by CSU faculty include creative problem solving alternatives like removing office telephones (what's a landline, anyway?), shifting from paper to online correspondence, and turning off lights that are not in use. More draconian options proposed by the administration include rescinding acceptance offers to incoming freshman, tossing out students after one semester on academic probation, cutting class offerings (making graduation more difficult), and packing more students into each classroom (decreasing the quality of the university experience). The approximate 440,000 students of the California State University system should not have to bear the brunt of inadequate decision-making by the state legislature.

But students are also free to vote on these issues, and they haven't. Neither have their parents. Political Science Professor Charles Noble explains, "If students felt that their education were at risk, and if their parents felt the same way, that political force alone would shake up this budget debate. But they don't; so it doesn't."

But someone else is missing, too. Where is big business in this state budget crisis? Will they volunteer to help the cause by forgoing profit or voluntarily raise their taxes? Is leadership offering to stay home one day a week and give up the corresponding salary?

We will see real change when serious demands and proverbial you-know-what hits the fan. The faculty and staff at the 23 CSU campuses across the state are not going to take these absurd suggestions quietly.

Expect to hear from us.

As for non-unionized colleagues at the University of California system, we can only hope that they will speak out loudly to get the point across that the future of higher education in the state of California and the burden of political missteps will not be carried by faculty. "Our students are adults. Many can vote; all pay taxes," Professor Noble comments. "Unless you have a seriously paternalistic view of the world and the faculty's role in it, there is nothing wrong with the expectation that students take some responsibility for what their state government does."

Troy Johnson, Professor of History and American Indian Studies, emphatically adds that nobody wants to see the students, lecturers, or non-tenured faculty members suffer as the result of poor financial management. The time has come to stand united against those in positions of executive and political leadership who care nothing for us, Johnson says.

This is not only a labor issue for CSU faculty. This is an issue about future opportunities and the health of the nation. It's time that students, parents, graduates speak up. It's time that legislators and leadership hear from the people. It's our state, our nation, our voice. Let's use it.

Comments

[Roll]

Whether knowingly, intentionally, or otherwise, the power elite — that dynamic government-business duo — are using this economy to further segregate the socio-economic strata — the Haves from the Have Nots. To de-fund education, health services, and social services is to set up a structure that keeps those who are down, down. When you're down, where do you go but out? Out of society — as a soldier or behind bars.

Access to quality education is essential to a functioning democracy. What reason is there to de-fund it except to keep power for a privileged class?

[TAWprof]

Tarrant is right on. The further decimation of the Cal State University system will be a tragedy for the state. Furloughs will not prevent widespread firings, and neither furloughs nor firings will prevent the CSU system from having to slash enormous numbers of classes offered to its students.

The result will be enormous damage to the largest university system in the country and the largest employer in the state. For every $1 put into the CSU, $4 comes back to the California economy. To further reduce the already insufficient funding of the CSU is both harmful to young people and suicidal for California's economy.

[NancyHall]

Dr. Tarrant raises excellent points. The budget cuts to the CSU system are short-sighted. Cutting education seems like a quick fix, but it creates problems that will haunt the economy for years to come.

[YoungerVoice]

In a profoundly business-unfriendly context, the so called Golden State has too little tax revenue to support education. Soon students who can will flee to out-of-state institutions that have maintained quality standards. This will weaken the system for those who can't flee. But on the other hand, the tuition revenue will be an asset in the states that profit.

[FirstBiteBooks]

Congratulations for bringing up such an important issue! However, the blog is missing a gender and political analysis.

The major cry in Tarrant’s blog is that CSU faculty are underpaid or unemployed, while the focus should be on the fact that not all in the CSU system are equally impacted by the economic crisis. For example, social science programs and administrative services which employ large numbers of minorities and women are the ones that are mainly endagered.

Second, it’s not clear how students, “future opportunities, “ and “the health of the nation” are related besides that CSU wouldn’t be able to provide a truly democratic education. It seems students are used by faculty as tools in their labor dispute and not as a constituency whose interests and needs are an urgent priority.

Third, it’s counterproductive when academics are segregated from larger social activist forces and progressive movements. This was different in 1968 when student revolutions were able to bring together groups of workers, peace activists, feminists, civil rights groups, etc., and not just students and faculty.

“It’s time” to learn from the history of American higher education system how change could be made and to contextualize it in regards to current situations; to take students seriously and to put them in the center of faculty carreers; and to learn from the activism of non-academic groups as well as to reach out to them to form alliances. Enough with “using voices.” Start learning and doing!

[S1m0n]

We've heard in recent days about closing elementary and secondary schools in CA for budget reasons, and here we're seeing proposals to slash funding to universities. Conspicuous by its absence in this debate is the thought of cutting back on the absurd number of prisons. If a judicious pruning of California's prison portfolio got the number down to, say, merely double the per capita capacity of all the other developed nations, the funding shortfall goes away.

[Egghead]

Eliminating the "three strikes" law for nonviolent offenders would go a long way.

[minimalist syntax]

And instead of a "war on drugs," let's emphasize rehab.

[Aghast in California]

The divide-and-conquer effect has begun. Once the finger-pointing begins, I hope that people will make the distinction between administrators and administrative SUPPORT STAFF. Keep in mind that the "paper-pushers" are not getting paid anything close to what the "signature­-authority­" is.

For those recommending a "work to learn" program, keep in mind that many campus locations are contracting out the work or hiring temporaries rather than hiring permanent workers. Temporary staff do not have basic needs like healthcare and paid time off so the CSU is saving considerable money on this. Exploitation of workers will only continue and worsen should we go down on this continued path.

Consider the human factor, we all have lives and/or families to support (be it child- or elder-care). So I find it hard to believe anyone would think depriving workers of basic human rights and services is a good idea.

[CM2]

It is important to recognize that despite the political rhetoric being bandied about, this is not a choice between raising taxes or not. It is, as it always is, about who gets taxed. Cutting contractual pay to faculty, to DMV staff, and to other state employees is functionally an income tax limited to those who have chosen to work in public service. A tax from which those in other lines of work are exempted.

We all need to be sure that our bank tellers are educated enough to handle transactions reliably, that an ambulance will be available when we need one, that there is a reliable and safe supply of drinking water. These things are not a given. As the debate is framed at the moment, faculty, and many other state employees take the hit. But in the end, we all end up paying. The sooner we ante up, the lower the cost to everyone.

[colibri429]

The California educational system has been struggling for years, resting a heavy load on faculty (part-time and tenured), as Tarrant rightly points out. This is an significant moment, and people need to stand up and make their voices heard. Students, vote! Parents, speak up! We cannot leave faculty to defend our educational system on their own. Thank you, Shira Tarrant, for such a thorough, provocative post... Rebekah Spicuglia

[daylatedollarshort]

One thing that never gets much notice about the CSU system is the fact that the staff aka clerical staff have not received regular step increases for over 10 years. Maybe closer to 15 years now. The CSU is run by primarily women and the CSU does not want to give their staff raises. They have a program wherein we ask for an increase and then they always get shut down due to lack of funding. The increase program was put in the contract in very bad faith. The CSU is no better than a Walmart. Probably worse than Walmart because I haven't heard any cases lately wherein Walmart hasn't wanted to pay their female employees. Go review the facts at the CSU chancellor's office statistic page. Someone needs to figure it out. Faculty get increases year after year after year and so does management. The staff sits there stagnant and the Chancellor wants to come and ask me to give up 10%. SHAME ON YOU CHARLIE. Start paying your staff and women employees what they are worth. Any interested Attorney should really look into to the inequities of the CSU.

[redsongia]

The largest cost of running large, multi campus universities is the admin costs. Deans and associates deans make up to 350,000k and often hire or promote friends to overstaffed offices, which are "reorganized" from efficient to inefficient whenever these promotions take place.

Here are some great suggestions for cutting administration costs from Peter Faccione's article in the March issue of Chronical of Higher Education:

Create a "Work to Learn" program that fills office, buildings-­and-ground­s, and custodial positions with student workers who will earn tuition credits. Students can be employed to perform a surprisingly wide variety of jobs.

Require every administrator with a master's or doctoral degree to teach a course.

Reduce office-staff expenses by pooling support-staff members in clusters of four and five departments. That will actually permit better services across the spectrum of needs.

Instead of inputs, focus on the quality of results. For example, create a one-stop service center with stand-up counters, like those at airports and hotels. Train the people who staff it to respond correctly and quickly to at least 80 percent of the questions that students ask, regardless of the topic. Just ending the time-wasting, buck-passing practice of referring students across campus to someone else's office will aid retention and improve student satisfaction.

Halve the size of all committees and reduce the number of times any committee is allowed to meet by the same amount. .

[Stirner]

"Require every administrator with a master's or doctoral degree to teach a course". It is my experience that most administrators are failures in their academic areas. Easy solution to budget problems: Just sweep out about 66% of all the "administrators" and their paper-shuffling staffs. Of course, get rid of all the silly jock supporters (we even had an "Assistant S.I.D who came with office and staff). What is an "S.I.D."? Why nothing other than an "Sports Information Director". Parents being driven to the wall by the costs of higher education should simply look over the academic catalog and compare the number of staff to faculty (always more "staff") and then proceed to ask if students are being taught by the faculty listed in the catalog rather than by part-timers. I often wondered why some Lawyer didn't sue our university for false advertising. Ah well...

[PeggyOh]

Redsongia: Do you have any idea how much it takes to operate a high-quality internship or "work to learn" program? Have you ever evaluated participant outcomes for such a program? And you would replace advisors with students in these proposed one-stop shops?

[Aghast in California]

REALLY? "Create a "Work to Learn" program that fills office, buildings-­and-ground­s, and custodial positions with student workers who will earn tuition credits. Students can be employed to perform a surprisingly wide variety of jobs."

In other words, do as the privatized corporations do and degrade workers' rights even more by employing what is essentially temporary staff so that basic needs of the workers aren't met such as healthcare and paid time off. Workers have lives and families to take care of just like faculty do. Are going to start going down the lesser-than path?

And as I read all these comments, we're proving the writer's point of divide-and-conquer. Let the finger-pointing begin.

[Aghast in California]

This I do agree with. Far too often, administrative support staff are told year after year that there is no money for even the most minimal of salary increases and then turn around and create two or more temporary positions for friends. They create the illusion that this position is "necessary" and then turn it permanent all the while saying, "There is no money for raises."

[Aghast in California]

"the questions that students ask, regardless of the topic" are answered on most of the CSU campus websites. Yet, it is a resource that most students and faculty and even some staff, refuse to access on a regular basis. Instead, they want a "live person" to walk them through any given process on campus.

[GeeBee]

At the University of California, there have been no cost of living increases for two cycles now, and now we are being asked to "comment" on various proposals for an across-the-board cut of 8% from August 1st. Actually not quite across-the board; those earning less than $46,000 a year will be cut 4%.

[Archontruth]

American college students are for the most part politically apathetic. A number got caught up in Barack Obama's cult of personality last year, but apparently that hasn't translated into asking why their state government is so dysfunctional. American college students could learn a lot from their Iranian counterparts.

[KantheDem]

I think it is ridiculous that they're cutting the Professors salaries but we still have money for us to build a useless $61 million Student Recreational Center so that we can have a rock wall at CSULB. And from my experience I've gotten more from my part time professors than from the tenure professors who have been giving the same test for 30 years and no longer care to put any new effort into their lectures. Why don't we make cuts from the top down approach like the University Presidents that make six figure salaries and who have no relationship or effect on the students academic life. The only time I ever saw my school's President was on the day of graduation. On the other hand my Professors who answer my questions on the weekend, write letters of recommendation letters, and other things that were above and beyond what they had to do, I owe my whole world view to my Professors. The problem of our society is that people aren't educated enough and teachers aren't revered enough.

[redsongia]

You are so right. We need wide scale education reform on the administra­tive/finan­cial aide level so that faculty get the money they deserve and can effectively do the jobs they're paid for. Deans and other horse traders make the bulk of the money in the UC and California State systems, while many of the "students" just want a chair in class to collect financial aide checks they have no intention of ever paying back. (Think Nadya Suleman, proud grad of C. State Fullerton after attending ---for 8 years)!!!

There's a ton of money floating around the University business, and most of it is diverted from the business of education.

[LongBeach5564]

That you use N. Suleman as an example of what is wrong with the CSU system is laughable. It also makes void the rest of your post. Although N.S.'s behavior is repugnant, it has nothing to do with her experience at CSU-Fullerton. There is no connection.

Also, the students to whom you refer are the exception, by far. While some students do not have a clear plan of what they want to achieve with their degree, you can be certain that defaulting on a student loan is NOT part of what is planned.

Lastly, I took an extremely scenic route to my graduation. Two states, six colleges/u­niversity, and TEN years later, I found myself a CSU-Long Beach graduate. There is certainly no shame in taking this type of route (or an 8-year trek!!). All that matters is that the person finish.

To quote KantheDem, "The problem of our society is that people aren't educated enough and teachers aren't revered enough." That's topic to be addressed, hopefully in a more constructive way.

[BurtonOerney]

Microsoft's solution was to cut contract worker pay by 10% for the remainder of those contracts and lower the pay range for new contracts by an additional 5%. That way they could soften the potential impact of employee layoffs. Needless to say, Microsoft is not thinking of ameliorating the cuts with a cost of living increase. So see, universities aren't the only institutions trying to keep the little guys from being left scrambling, large corporations are doing their bit as well. I'm sure 'big business' in california will do everything it can to help csu instructors. Just make sure to really stand united against it.