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JOHN TRAVIS
CFA PRESIDENT
PRESENTATION TO CSU BOARD OF TRUSTEES
July 16, 2003
It will come as no surprise that the CFA is opposed to the fee increase. Although there are many reasons for this position, the most important is that we find we have no choice.
Our position has been and continues to be not that we oppose fee increases in every circumstance. Rather out position is and continues to be — and will be as long as I’m president of CFA — that fee increases, as the Academic Senate has noted, will only be the last resort.
And we do not believe that time has come.
CFA members have been concerned about fee increases since those drastic raises in the early ‘90s with which we had to deal in our classrooms, in our libraries, in our counseling centers, and on our athletic fields. The faculty who are members of the CFA remember the agony caused by the last increases.
The CFA is composed of 22,000 academics, people who chose their occupations to live the life of the mind and of reason. We are not ideological zealots. We can be convinced with good arguments which is what we have asked for before and are asking you now.
The CFA and the CSSA provided you with a number of alternative revenue sources at your last Board of Trustees meeting. We requested that you explore those sources to ensure that fee increases would be absolutely necessary.
My colleague, Trustee Goldwhite, has asserted that those revenue areas will provide no relief. You cannot assert that which you need to prove. Further Trustee Goldwhite suggested that some of those resources were statutorily protected. Saying that doesn’t make it so.
The members of the CFA are committed to collaboration and cooperation among all the consistencies of the CSU. Students. Staff. Faculty. And administration.
I know in the powerpoint presentation presented to you earlier, there was a list of times in which consultation has allegedly taken place. That was not consultation. Announcing that the Board of Trustees is going to make the decision and allowing various contsituntencies to attend the meeting to hear that decision made does not constitute consultation.
The CFA is committed to a strong and vigorous institution. After all, we believe that the faculty and the students are the CSU.
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LILLIAN TAIZ
CFA VICE PRESIDENT
PRESENTATION TO CSU BOARD OF TRUSTEES
July 16, 2003
It is profoundly demoralizing to have to come before you yet again today on behalf of the over 400, 000 students who attend the California State University.
It’s demoralizing to see that while the Republicans refuse to raise taxes to protect public services, you are prepared to single out CSU students and impose a special tax on them even though having an educated workforce benefits the entire state.
Beyond unfairness of this action, consider the consequences. Studies have found that enrollment in the community colleges and CSU declined by nearly 200,000 students between 1991 and 1994, a time of similarly high fee increases. Moreover, student enrollment tends to decline between one half and 1.0 percent for each tuition increase of $100 — you are considering nearly $500 in increases.
I find it chilling when administrators say that although many students will be forced to leave the CSU, with the baby boom echo seeking a college education, there are plenty more students where they came from. Can we afford to be so sanguine when so many students will be denied access to the education that will shape their future and their role in our democracy?
I have also heard it said, frequently, that one third of the fee increase will be returned to the neediest students through institutional aid. That is by no means a forgone conclusion; there is a genuine risk that the Republicans may be successful in getting $51 million cut even from that program. What then? How will all students, including the neediest, absorb your 30% increase in fees?
When I hear these things I think to myself, what if that had been me? What if back in the late 1970s when I was a re-entry student and single mother of two going to San Francisco State University, MY fees had gone up by nearly $500 a year? What would have happened to my dreams, my second chance, and my opportunity to lift my family out of poverty? Would I have been able to pull myself out of the dead-end factory and office jobs where I had worked for a decade, to earn a BA, MA and Phd?
Our students need you to closely scrutinize the priorities of this administration before you take this drastic step. I have been horrified by public statements, which suggest that CSU students waste state resources and who equate the fee increase variously to the students’ annual cell phone, CD, or beer budget. It is hard to imagine anyone having this much contempt for the young men and women I teach.
My students are struggling to survive in the state with the nation’s highest cost of living. My students may pay less in fees than students in Rhode Island or West Virginia but they work 30 and 40 hours a week to pay for the most basic food, shelter, and transportation in California.
They work 30 and 40 hours a week to purchase textbooks whose prices have been skyrocketing for years. They spend hours in computer labs because they can’t afford their own desktop at home. My students are not frivolous, party animals; they are hardworking men and women trying desperately to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. Raising fees by a staggering 30% is tantamount to taking away their boots!
The fee increases of this magnitude slam the door in the faces of to far too many working Californians and their families. We can do better for them, we must.
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KIM GERON
CFA TREASURER
PRESNETATION TO CSU BOARD OF TRUSTEES
July 16, 2003
My name is Kim Geron and I am the Treasurer for the CFA and an Assist. Prof. at CSU Hayward. The double impact of budget cuts and fee hikes has already sent a chill on my campus. Students are angry that they are being forced to pay more for a product and receive less.
Classrooms are already small and overcrowded on our campus. The first weeks of each quarter, I consistently must find another room to hold the number of students who enroll in my classes. Lecturers play a pivotal role in my dept. and university, and the potential layoffs of lecturers will exacerbate an already critical situation with more students scrambling for fewer sections.
What is the impact of a huge fee hike? In 1991, when the CSU raised the fees last time, there was an immediate double-digit decline in enrollment. Even, with the availability of financial aid and loans, many students will drop out who cannot afford the new fees.
On my campus, students were asked in the student dorms what they think about fee hikes and they responded that they would have to take out more student loans. With the 10% hike in January, and federal financial aid cuts already hitting students hard, and many students this summer could not buy books on my campus.
Who will fee hikes affect the most? The CSU is the university of the working and middle classes in our state. Many racial minority students are the first in their families to attend a university are on financial aid, and are working long hours to pay for their education.
This fee hike will be devastating to those historically underrepresented and underserved by higher education. This fee hike will directly limit the educational opportunities of thousands in high schools and community colleges who will abandon their dreams of attending a university.
It will also increase the drop out rate among students. We already have high drop out rates of Latino and African American students. A massive fee hike will add another nail in the coffin to the next generation of potential leaders in this state.
I strongly recommend that the Board, look to cut as far away from the classroom as possible, and not put the burden of the current economic crisis on the those least able to financially absorb this hit: part-time lecturers, and poor and underrepresented students who are the majority on my campus and many other campuses in the system.
I also that I ask that you consider postponing this decision until other alternatives are considered.
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LINDA CURRENT
CFA LECTURERS REPRESENTATIVE
PRESENTATION TO THE CSU BOARD OF TRUSTEES
July 16, 2003
My name is Linda Current, and I'm a full-time lecturer in Teacher Education at CSU Sacramento.
This is my 23rd year at CSUS. Although in a contingent lecturer position, I hold a doctorate from UC Berkeley, and for the past 14 years I have been the director of a credential program on my campus.
I am proud to help prepare new elementary public school teachers for California.
I am here today representing almost 12,000 lecturers, the faculty most at risk as you face critical decisions about budget priorities.
I want to share with you my perspective on commitment and dedication. My perspective comes from working with my fellow Lecturers who are committed enough to give their all in a system that does not always commit back.
My perspective comes from working with my students who have chosen to become public school teachers, and in so doing they have demonstrated their dedication to the future of California.
I am humbled by the dedication and commitment of people who serve the public good because IT IS THE RIGHT THING TO DO, in a world that often seems marked by greed, selfishness and a lack of ethics.
Members of the Board of Trustees: It is now time for YOU to DO THE RIGHT THING. Protect the precious resources of our university and the mission of the CSU.
As you deliberate upon the difficult choices that you face, please consider alternate funding options and do everything possible to make instruction the priority and fee increases a last resort.
We must keep classes open and our students in those classes. Thank you.
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