Among those who attempted to address the CSU Board of Trustees at their one-day summer meeting on July 13, CFA leader Teri Yamada, a professor of Asian and Asian American studies at CSU Long Beach, spoke of serious concerns about the reengineering of student remedial programs in the CSU.

Yamada told the Trustees that “Mandatory Early Start,” their new required summer program for students needing help with math and English, is pedagogically unsound and will undermine access to college education.

She questioned the rush to replace programs that work with a new 'short-term experiment’ against the advice of faculty and staff with expertise in developmental programs.

Advocating mutual respect, she ended her comments with a plea not to implement a new program that could have the "unintended consequence of decreasing access and equity in the CSU and increasing inequality in California."

Spencer Carranza, an academic counselor with Academic Professionals of California, pointed out to Trustees that although academic counselors do a great deal of work helping students succeed, none are included in the system-wide implementation team for Mandatory Early Start.

Read more, including a resolution on Mandatory Early Start by the CSU English Council and the text of Teri Yamada’s comments, at http://www.calfac.org/deliverology.html#EarlyStart