California Faculty Association

The Faculty Speaks Out
Testimonials from CFA’s Feb. 1 presentation
to the CSU Board of Trustees

Faculty members from the 23 CSU campuses turned out in force at the Feb. 1 CSU Board of Trustees meeting in Long Beach to call on the Trustees to push for more resources for CSU.

The speakers spoke from various perspectives as lecturers, tenured and tenure-track faculty, students, and community supporters.

The 250 faculty members and students who attended the meeting were united in telling the Trustees that they need to understand better the severe needs on the campuses and to push the CSU administration to settle fair contracts with the faculty and staff.

Click here to read news coverage of the Feb. 1 event.

John Halcón
CFA Secretary
San Marcos, Education

“It is our goal that you understand that there are thousands of faculty who agree with the CFA leadership about the depth of the problems in the CSU. We urge you to speak out with a stronger voice for the real needs of the CSU. Don’t leave our students, our faculty, or our respective institutions behind.
Click here for the full text

Terri Nelson
San Bernardino, World Languages & Literature

“We face the inability to live on the salary offered. A faculty salary does not equal a middle class lifestyle. Our salaries lag behind those of comparable institutions. The overall difference is 16.8 percent, according to the CPEC.
Click here for the full tex t

Henry Reichman
History, CSU East Bay

“…You should not ignore the simmering cauldron of discontent among all groups of faculty in the CSU. If the CSU administration persists in this kind of bargaining, this cauldron will boil over, to the detriment of this great institution to which we faculty have dedicated our lives.” Click here for the full text

Christopher Witko
Sacramento, Government

“The salary situation is killing morale among junior faculty and the result is that people are leaving in droves. The Economics Department at Sac State lost four assistant professors last year alone. At a meeting of junior faculty at Sac State at the end of last semester, of approximately 25 people, virtually every person was exploring other employment opportunities.Click here for the full text

Linda Turner-Bynoe
Monterey Bay, Education

“There is this looming CSU threat to take away these appointment rights and to make lecturer contracts discretionary. Such takeaways would be counter-productive to the health of the CSU system and indeed, devastating to the student body, faculty, university and community partners. Click here for the full text

Richard Navarette
Los Angeles, Student

“We are seeing faculty, who we need to prepare us for our future careers, leave for better jobs. For example, at CSULA, in the Modern Languages Department, four faculty members have retired and seven are preparing to leave for better jobs.
Click here for the full text

Andy Doyle
Firefighter
Member of Alliance for a Better California

“The CFA has been instrumental in bringing the higher education component to our Alliance. The CFA continues to push to the forefront the issue of what higher education means to working families. Through their action, most importantly their political actions, we have all been reminded of the importance of the CSU system and higher education. Click here for the full text

FULL TEXT OF COMMENTS
TO THE CSU TRUSTEES
FEB. 1, 2006

John Halcón
CFA Secretary
San Marcos, Education

My name is John Halcon. I’m a tenured full professor of education at CSU San Marcos. I’ve been at CSU San Marcos for 4 years. Previously I was at University of Northern Colorado, Greeley, and CSU Monterey Bay.

I’m the newest statewide officer of CFA, having been elected less than a year ago. I’ve learned a lot about CFA, and the CSU and I’ll be the first to admit that I still have a lot to learn. I will say that I am impressed with the depth of understanding of the issues by the CFA leadership that affects all faculty in the CSU.

I’m impressed that our vision goes far beyond what is in the collective bargaining agreement.

I’m impressed that contrary to what some of you may have been led to believe, the CFA is not against the CSU. We are working for faculty in the CSU to preserve a middle class quality of life, with adequate salary and benefits, and affordable and accessible education for our students. More than ever we, as faculty, are concerned with the ‘affordability’ of living in California. The implications for new faculty are huge. I can assure you, and our constituents, that we will continue to work hard to assure that these issues are adequately addressed.

I’m most impressed by my union and our leadership in that they don’t express our vision of the future by merely debating resolutions – as some academics tend to do. Rather we achieve our goals by working hard, working harder than the opposition and working even harder to get others to work hard with us.

And finally, I’m impressed that it was only after being recruited to run and then get elected that CFA leaders told me the truth about leadership in the CFA. The “golden” rule in CFA is, we not only talk the talk, we must also walk the walk.

In the recent Special Election, for example, where CFA leadership worked so hard, we recruited over 400 faculty volunteers from across the CSU to participate in the campaign to insure that the outcome was beneficial to the CSU and our students. As the newest member of the leadership team of CFA, I have no choice but to follow suit because everyone around me is running – all the time.

My role today is to lead this delegation of CFA members and allies who like me have never spoken to this board but unlike me, hold no elected office in the CFA. These are the heart and soul of our constituency—our faculty.

I might add, these are the faculty who prepare our children –the next generation of California’s citizens, leaders and, I’m sure many of you will be pleased to know, future taxpayers.

We have two goals to achieve today.

First, by asking them to speak, it is our goal that you understand that there are thousands of faculty who agree with the CFA leadership about the depth of the problems in the CSU. We urge you to speak out with a stronger voice for the real needs of the CSU. Don’t leave our students, our faculty, or our respective institutions behind. The speakers today represent the many who hope you hear this message.

Secondly, with these new faces it is our goal that you will take a fresh and objective look at the problems we are going to highlight this morning. There is no contradiction between being proud of what we’re accomplishing, while recognizing that there are deep, serious, and growing problems that collaboratively, we all need to address.

With this in mind, our first presenter is Terri Nelson, Cal State San Bernardino.

Terri Nelson
San Bernardino, World Languages & Literature

I’m Terri Nelson, associate professor at Cal State San Bernardino, a campus which was once touted as a place with affordable living along with academic excellence.

Although the Trustees have been expressing interest in the idea of faculty merit pay, there is a much more important problem facing faculty: the erosion of our salaries.

We face the inability to live on the salary offered. A faculty salary does not equal a middle class lifestyle.

Our salaries lag behind those of comparable institutions. The overall difference is 16.8 percent, according to the CPEC.

Even more startling, the distribution of that gap: 13.4 percent for assistant professors and 25.5 percent for full professors.

Our advancement from Assistant to Associate to Full (salary compression) also lags behind other California Postsecondary Education Commission institutions.

The Academic Senate has stated that, “Once mid range faculty members understand the reality and implications of this salary compression, it increases the likelihood that they will seek jobs elsewhere.”

Therefore, salaries are inadequate to both attract new faculty and retain our current tenure-track faculty, because we are not competitive.

Moreover, faculty members have lost 8.2 percent in purchasing power since 2000. The average CSU salary of $68,373 in 2000 would need to be $75,004 to have the same purchasing power today. The cost of living index shows that, even in Riverside or San Bernardino, costs are more than 10 percent over the national average.

CPEC states that compensation is only one factor in retention of faculty and that pension plans, quality of life and housing also play an important role.

Across California, faculty can barely afford to pay the rent, making home ownership an impossible dream. The median home price in San Bernardino County, which extends to the Nevada and Arizona borders has more than doubled form $145,000 to $358,000 in less than five years.

The only homes we can afford mean commuting hundreds of miles per day. The truth is, our salaries barely reach the median incomes for four person households and, in the case of many faculty, qualify as “low income” per HUD.

Faculty also pay for numerous work-related expenses--beyond professional expenses such as travel and materials--in order to meet the high standards for professional development expected by the CSU.

In addition, a 2002 study shows that nearly 60 percent of Ph.D. students incur student loan debt averaging nearly $50,000. And that debt accounts for 13.5 percent of their monthly income—an enormous burden to bear. This means that faculty actually subsidize the CSU by paying for the resources the University rarely provides but demands for retention, promotion and tenure.

The erosion of faculty salaries and the inability to afford to live in California is a serious issue that must be addressed.

Thank you.

Christopher Witko
Cal State Sacramento

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak today.

The pay situation is bad all around at the CSU, and for those of us who started in the last few years it is even worse.

I started in the Fall of 2003 earning $47,000 dollars a year. That seemed pretty good to a graduate student. But in the meantime, I have bought a house and my wife and I had a child. I have gotten one raise of 3.5% and am now making $48,645. Just to keep pace with inflation I should be earning $49,379. This means that in inflation adjusted dollars I have taken a pay cut over the last three years. And I saw the consequences of this when my wife had to return to work just a few months after giving birth to our daughter just to keep us financially afloat.

In many ways, since my wife also works, I have it better than most people. A colleague in sociology with a 5-month-old baby, after paying for housing and transportation, has $500 to pay for utilities groceries, diapers, etc.

Because of the cost of housing in Sacramento, most single faculty members have given up on the idea of ever owning a home, a hallmark of middle class existence in this country

We didn’t get into this job to get rich, but we sure didn’t get into it to get poor either. This is about preserving a middle class lifestyle.

At the same time that we are struggling, the CSU Presidents’ transportation allowances alone are over $11,000 more than I make in an entire year. The message this sends to junior faculty is that we are not valued.

The salary situation is killing morale among junior faculty and the result is that people are leaving in droves.

The Economics Department at Sac State lost four assistant professors last year alone.

At a meeting of junior faculty at Sac State at the end of last semester, of approximately 25 people, virtually every person was exploring other employment opportunities.

The trustees need to demonstrate their commitment to junior faculty with significant pay increases, or the best and the brightest will continue to leave.

Linda Turner Bynoe
Monterey Bay, Education

My name is Linda Turner Bynoe and I am a long-time lecturer at California State University, Monterey Bay. I have an Ed.D. degree from the University of San Francisco in International Multicultural Education. I teach in several departments: Liberal Studies, Teacher Ed, and Master of Advanced Ed, as well as in Human Communications.

I stand before you representing 11,000 lecturers who embody half of all faculty in the CSU system and more than 60 percent of the teaching that is done on CSU campuses today.

With this amount of teaching being done by lecturers, it is crucial that the CSU have a stable and committed lecturer workforce.

For the past few years I have been the advisor and mentor for African American Women students on campus and I also assist in mentoring women reentering Higher Education. I teach seminar classes which introduce students to their degree program and what it means to become a well-educated person. I also teach capstone, which assists students in developing their research project and completing their degree.

We at CSU Monterey Bay have two elected lecturer-senators at-large on the academic senate, one was elected by a wide margin of all faculty to the position of Academic Senate Vice Chair.

These types of university service are not the exception; larger more mature CSUs are replete with lecturer participation. These contributions are directly related to the last contract, which offered Lecturers a sense of career stability and respect from their colleagues. Our contractual achievements have been recognized around the country as models of sound institutional practice and acts of social responsibility.

The last contract granted lecturers who had served six years in a department and had been found qualified through careful and regular evaluations a three-year appointment. These 3-year appointments offered respect for the work of lecturers and recognition of our significant role in student learning. Even though the 3-year appointments are contingent on budget and enrollment and are no guarantee of teaching assignments, they permit lecturer faculty to make a long-term commitment to the CSU students and community and, for some, to make it their sole place of employment. The benefits of this for the university and for students are obvious. With the more stable appointments we derived new scholarly partnerships with tenured and tenured-track colleagues, student learning and mentoring, university and community service.

Yet there is this looming CSU threat to take away these appointment rights and to make lecturer contracts discretionary. Such takeaways would be counter-productive to the health of the CSU system and indeed, devastating to the student body, faculty, university and community partners.

When you think about and discuss lecturers in the coming week remember: Faculty teaching conditions are student learning conditions.

Thank you.

Richard Navarette
Los Angeles, Student

Good morning everyone, my name is Richard Navarrette and I’m a graphic design major at Cal State LA.

I’m here representing thousands of CSU students who stand in solidarity with faculty and staff because your decisions are affecting all of us.

I want to remind you that the mission of the CSU is to provide students with quality accessible and affordable education, and that the master plan for higher ed, enacted in 1960, pledged as a matter of public policy a tuition-free education to all who qualified. But over the past four decades, California’s commitment to its future has steadily eroded as “student fees” have skyrocketed.

Clearly the Board of Trustees has forgotten about the CSU mission and the master plan by raising student fees while increasing the housing and car allowances and salary of 27 executives during a period when the CSU has a $1.5 billion unmet financial need.

Where are your priorities? You need to get them straight. The money that went to the 27 executives could have opened roughly 262 courses which would have given approximately 10,000 students a course needed to graduate on time.

We want to see the same type of investment in faculty, staff and students as you have shown to the 27 executives.

Especially since we are seeing faculty, who we need to prepare us for our future careers, leave for better jobs. For example, at CSULA, in the Modern Language Department, four faculty members have retired and seven are preparing to leave for better jobs.

We are tired of paying more and getting less and won’t take it anymore. Our education is too valuable for you to ignore and if you don’t want to fight to keep the CSU system accessible and affordable then we are going to fight for it ourselves with the support of faculty, staff and the community.

Oh in case you are wondering: Yes, we are FIRED UP!

Thanks.

Andy Doyle
Firefighter
Member of Alliance for a Better California

Good Morning. After the election on November 8th I was asked by a newspaper reporter if I had one thing to say to the Governor. I told this reporter I would tell him, “Thanks.” With a confused look he asked, “Why?” My answer was simple. Not thanks for wasting all of the people of California’s time, energy and money, but thanks for helping the union movement in California. I told him that firefighters had always worked side by side with teachers, nurses, police officers and every other organized labor group, but the Governor had taught us to work together as one. And I assured him we will be staying together. Because together we can accomplish more.

The Alliance for a Better California is made up of not only firefighters, teachers and police officers; it is also made up of all other types of labor groups. Someone we are proud to have worked with is the CFA. Although they didn’t have the millions to spend like the CTA, they produced something I think is more important… SUPPORTERS. That is what brings me, and all the rest of us here today!

The CFA joined the fight against the Governor, not just because he was directly attacking them, but also he was attacking the education system. They know, just as we all do, the education system in California is not just K-12, but higher education as well. The CFA has been instrumental in bringing the higher education component to our Alliance. The CFA continues to push to the forefront the issue of what higher education means to working families. Through their action, most importantly their political actions, we have all been reminded of the importance of the CSU system and higher education.

Firefighters both locally and throughout the state of California, as well as all of our partners in labor are committed to the CFA, the faculty, their students and the welfare of the CSU.

I urge you on behalf of working families across this great state, you need to recognize the partner you have in CFA and the potential for you to join with all to fight for the CSU.

Thank you.

Henry Reichman
History, CSU East Bay

Good morning!

My name is Henry Reichman, Professor of History at CSU East Bay. Many of you know me as a member of the Executive Committee of the CSU Academic Senate, but this morning I speak as a member of the CFA collective bargaining team.

From 1994-2003 I was chair of the Department of History at CSU, Hayward, now East Bay. During the 1990s the number of full-time tenured and tenure-track faculty in my department declined from 17 to 9, although the number of History majors and our overall enrollment grew. During my tenure as chair, as many as 65% of our class sections were taught by part-time temporary faculty. Consequently, I had to recruit, supervise, and evaluate a small army of part-time contingent lecturers. These talented faculty have worked hard on behalf of our students, but none – including one excellent instructor with about 15 years of experience in the department – had much job security from one year to the next. This affected not only their morale, but their ability to most effectively serve students.

In the last contract, the CSU and CFA reached a pathbreaking agreement that established three-year contracts for long-term lecturers and a system of hiring preference that assures students are taught by experienced and qualified faculty. As with any new initiative, there have been glitches – which we in the CFA bargaining team have been more than willing to work with the administration to correct. But the new provisions were a most welcome reform, not only providing contingent faculty greater employment stability, but also affording our students increased opportunities to learn from a stable and dedicated faculty. The CSU administration and the CFA should BOTH be proud that our system has taken this initiative to address the growing abuse of contingent faculty in higher education.

Unfortunately, in the current bargaining the CSU administration has chosen to seek changes in our contract that would, for all intents and purposes, eliminate these important gains. I want to focus on one of the changes the administration has proposed: The CSU administration now seeks to add to our contract the following principle: “The need to recruit and appoint full-time one-year lecturers shall take precedence over any appointment right and entitlement for part-time temporary bargaining unit employees.”

This provision would seriously undermine the employment security of most temporary faculty. But it would also undermine the security of ALL faculty. Currently, the only sort of appointment that takes precedence over temporary faculty entitlements is that of new tenure-track faculty, of which we are still in desperate need. Were this provision to be adopted, there would be no barrier to replacing separating tenured faculty – as well as part-time lecturers – with new employees hired on year-to-year contingent contracts.

In other words, this proposal is nothing short of a back-door assault on the probation and tenure system, which currently assures the academic freedom of our faculty, provides our students with a stable corps of dedicated, experienced instructors, and has been the basis on which the United States has built the greatest higher education system in the world.

I do not know if the Board has endorsed this proposal, but if you have supported it, then shame on you. If you have not, I urge you to encourage CSU’s negotiators to cease this assault on our tenure system and to preserve and improve, rather than strive to roll back, the gains we have won for our dedicated long-term lecturers.

Finally, let me warn that you should not ignore the simmering cauldron of discontent among all groups of faculty in the CSU. If the CSU administration persists in this kind of bargaining, this cauldron will boil over, to the detriment of this great institution to which we faculty have dedicated our lives. And the responsibility will not rest with the faculty, but with those whose disrespect for our roles and our work leads to these kinds of assaults.

Thank you for your attention.