Dear colleagues:

I am happy to be back at CSUMB after three years living and working in Spain. As the new CFA Chapter President for CSUMB, I look forward to working with you in defense of our rights during this critical time for higher education in California and for the CSU in particular. I am committed to fighting for our vision of education. I strongly believe in public and affordable education for all and reject the privatization of our institution. Quality education requires investment in the CSU faculty. This includes working conditions that are conducive to student learning. We cannot achieve this goal if we do not have a stable faculty workforce that is supported and respected by the administration.
Our main objective this semester will be to sign a fair contract. In order to achieve this, our chapter will need the active support of each and every member. You can help us all by signing our petition on executive pay and quality education.

We have a superb statewide executive board and a team of activists and organizers on our side but it is our responsibility to make it happen. I encourage you to follow the contract negotiations by reading the regular updates posted on our CFA Headlines website.

Please also take time to read the report below from the CFA Chapter President at Chico regarding the potential elimination of campus presidential candidate visits.

I invite you to work with us to get an equitable contract for all and to improve the quality of education for our students.

In union,

Rafael Gómez Ph.D.
CFA CSUMB Chapter President
Professor of Spanish
School of World Languages and Cultures
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California Faculty Association
Monterey Bay Chapter
Bldg 45A, room 141
phone: (831) 582-3028
fax: (831) 582-3539
e-mail: cfa_mb@calfac.org
website: http://www.calfac.org/csumb

----- Forwarded Message -----
From: Susan Green
To: CFA Announce
Subject: Elimination of Presidential Candidate Campus Visit by CSU Board - Action Needed

Dear Colleagues,

Yesterday I attended the CSU Board of Trustees meeting of the Special Committee on Presidential Selection and Compensation. The new policy passed by the committee to recommend for adoption at the September (now perhaps November) Board of Trustees meeting included EXTREMELY important changes that impact every faculty, staff, and student. In particular I spoke against the Presidential Selection Policy the Committee adopted. If you visit the link below and compare the Current and Proposed policies, you will notice a striking difference (and perhaps others of concern). The new policy eliminates the phrase in the Trustee section that states they will "accompany semi-finalist candidates to campus visits," and eliminates the section "Campus Visits" entirely. The Chancellor remarked that the new policy was to eliminate "the expectation of a mandatory campus visit."

In short, presidential candidates will not visit campus, will not meet with faculty/staff/students in various venues nor provide several public meeting times/presentations which can be used as the basis for feedback to our campus selection committee. The first time faculty/students/staff will lay eyes on a new campus president is AFTER they are hired. This is an outrageous proposition. The Chancellor, and committee, felt many good presidential candidates were eliminated from consideration due to a lack of confidentiality caused by campus visits. Thus, the new policy protects the confidentiality of presidential applicants while completely eliminating even the appearance of shared governance for faculty/staff/students on who the head of their campus will be.

Yesterday the Committee noted there had been no feedback from the public on the policy (although posted only a day before the meeting, when some campuses are not even in session yet) and I told them I would certainly rectify that problem for them on our campus. The Trustees said they welcomed input before their next Committee meeting and the next BOT meeting in September.

WHAT CAN YOU DO? PLEASE do any or ALL of the following.

1. Visit http://www.calfac.org/qualityedpetition and sign the Executive Compensation Petition on the webpage.
2. Email/mail your comments to the below committee members. We also have two additional Trustees on the Board in Chico, Glen Toney and Student Trustee Jillian Ruddell. They should also hear your local feedback about this change.
3. Inform your students. Students are an important part of the Current Presidential search process and have a stake in any new campus president. They are likely to be unaware of this change. Let them know that part of being an engaged citizen of the campus, is to participate in political processes where they have a say. Encourage them to do #1 and #2 above.

Thank you for your attention to this unusually lengthy email, but I wanted to make sure everyone had an opportunity to know about these important changes.

In Solidarity,
Susan Marie Green, President
CFA Chico

http://www.calstate.edu/bot/agendas/index.shtml

Correspondence sent via postal mail should be addressed to:
Lou Monville, Chair
Special Committee on Presidential Selection and Compensation
CSU Board of Trustees
401 Golden Shore
Long Beach, CA 90802-4210
Fax: (562) 951-4949

If email communication is preferred, it should go in care of: publicaffairs@calstate.edu

The other members of the Special Committee on Presidential Selection and Compensation members are as follows:
Roberta Achtenberg
Steven Glazer
Melinda Guzman
William Hauck
Bob Linscheid
Peter Mehas