21 CSU Long Beach Lecturers Become Tenure-Line Faculty After 10-Year Fight

A Big Win for Lecturers

In March 2026, the CSU Long Beach (CSULB) Office of the Provost announced that 21 CSULB lecturers would be reclassified to tenure-track faculty after their applications were accepted in the CSULB Lecturer to Tenure-Track (TT) Reclassification Pilot project.

This significant win follows more than a decade of lecturer advocacy by Deborah Hamm, former CFA Long Beach co-president and faculty rights chair and CSU Long Beach (CSULB) lecturer.

Laying the Groundwork for the Project

While the pilot project was painstakingly developed over an 18-month period by an ad hoc committee of seven members—including faculty, CFA staff, and administrators—its foundation had been years in the making.

Hamm, who has taught at CSULB for more than 30 years, played an integral role not only in the project, but in ensuring lecturer success more generally.

During her time as a lecturer, Hamm noticed a troubling decline in tenure density as well as a shift in lecturer responsibilities. While initially barred from participating in high-level committees in their colleges and departments, lecturers began finding themselves taking on more and more service work, including sitting on their academic senate, participating in workgroups, and contributing in other ways across campus. Yet, very few received any formal acknowledgment or compensation.

Hamm recognized that solving this issue simply required a difference of perspective, an idea she illustrates with a kaleidoscope she brings to every one of her classes. For nearly eight years, she worked alongside CFA field representative Beka Langen to assemble faculty, department chairs, deans, provosts, and other administrators to collaborate on creative solutions to increase tenure density. Ultimately, they realized that improving tenure density required recruiting lecturers from within their campus rather than hiring external applicants.

“Lecturers support our university in such drastic ways,” Hamm said. “If you’ve got a great lecturer and you already respect and value them within your department, and they want to do research but haven’t had the chance yet—but you believe with some support they could do that research and qualify for a tenure-track position—then we should give them the opportunity to do so.”

“We’re not going to external hire our way to a better tenure density,” said Langen. “We need creative pathways. This pilot program is simple and logical. It makes sense because it is so expensive to live in coastal California. When the CSU hires people who haven’t accepted that they’re going to have to pay so much of their salary in rent, they leave after finding out how much it costs. Lecturer faculty who have been around have already found a way to make it work.”

The Reclassification Project’s 2025 Launch

After years of efforts by CFA members to establish an internal process, a successful collaboration emerged when Karyn Scissum Gunn, CSULB Provost, and Patricia Pérez, CSULB Associate Vice President of Faculty Affairs, worked alongside faculty to create an ad hoc committee made up of both faculty and administrators to develop a pilot project aimed at improving tenure density.

The project was launched in Fall 2025 with guidelines determining lecturer eligibility and the selection process.

That fall, Langen sent a campus-wide e-mail to all lecturers announcing the program. CFA Long Beach member leaders were also instrumental in getting the word out. More than 100 people attended CFA’s informational meeting and workshops, which were designed to help lecturers through the process.

Lecturers who received the reclassification came from a range of different colleges, including the College of the Arts, Health and Human Services, Education, and Liberal Arts, demonstrating the project’s reach and impact across campus.

“A good department chair greases the wheels, and we definitely had good ones who showed up and did their part in encouraging lecturer faculty to apply,” said Langen.

Elaine Bernal, CFA Associate Vice President, Lecturers, South and CSULB lecturer on the ad hoc committee, was surprised at the speed of the application process.

“Deborah and Beka have been working on this for ten or so years, but once the program got rolling, it moved so fast,” Bernal recalled.

Bernal noted that, because lecturer faculty are often overwhelmed with teaching, the ad hoc committee wanted to ensure that the application process was shaped around what it would look like for lecturers to go through the process.

“One of the big things we really fought for in the eligibility language was a lecturer’s potential for research,” Bernal said. “For tenure-track faculty, a proven track record of research is required. But for reclassification, we wanted to focus on potential. It really was just fighting for that one little word… ‘potential.’”

Bernal emphasized that application reviewers could not hold lecturers to expectations they could not meet. “Barely any lecturer is going to come in with a research background. We needed to make it clear what kind of experiences lecturers are going to come in with for reclassification. Even so, the actual review process is shaped like a traditional tenure-track application process that includes departmental committee work and job talks.”

“People are definitely interested,” Bernal said. “It’s a very promising program we want to continue, and hopefully on multiple campuses!”

Reclassified Lecturers Feel Tremendous Support

“When I first heard about the reclassification program at a CFA meeting, I was sure I got it wrong because I’ve never heard of something like this in my entire life,” said Nimisha Barton, CFA member and CSULB lecturer. “I never would have gone back into academia in this way if it hadn’t been for my colleagues and CFA. It still blows my mind.”

Barton had been a DEI consultant before it came under threat by the Trump administration and transitioned to a lecturer position at CSULB in 2023. Upset at the state of things in the US, she published a book in 2024 titled, “A Just Future: Getting from Diversity and Inclusion to Equity and Justice in Higher Education.”

Despite her initial reluctance to apply to the program, her colleagues in the History Department recognized her potential and nudged her to apply. Barton had already given up on the idea of a tenure-track position and was also worried it may create competition with colleagues she felt were more deserving of the reclassification.

“But they just kept convincing me to do it,” Barton said. “I would get long texts after a department meeting telling me I really needed to apply. Kate Flach, Carie Rael, Rajbir Judge, and several others… if it hadn’t been for them, I wouldn’t have done it.”

She explained the importance of reclassification criteria. Echoing her colleague Andrew Fogelman’s Inside Higher Ed op-ed on rethinking academic publication for lecturers, Barton noted that the heavy teaching loads that lecturers bear often make publication impossible.

“As long as publication records are the primary criteria for reclassification, gatekeeping remains an issue,” Barton said. “So how do we create more opportunities for them so they can get more job security and a tenure-line position where their duties might be a little different?”

Barton expressed gratitude for CFA and its role in pioneering the project. “The whole process has been an education, and through it I’ve learned what CFA members—my colleagues—can do to safeguard our professional and personal well-being, and to also safeguard our community well-being. I’ve since been a lot more plugged in and very supportive of CFA and the work that our members do.”

Maryanne Diaz, CFA member and CSULB lecturer in School of Criminology, Criminal Justice and Emergency Management, began teaching in Fall 2019. As an alum of CSULB, she felt she had a unique advantage when applying to the reclassification program, since she was returning to a campus where she had long known her colleagues, many of whom were once her professors.

“We have a very supportive department,” Diaz said. “They’ve always made efforts not to make it seem like we were just adjuncts.”

Having completed her PhD in May of last year, Diaz was worried she may have to seek a tenure-track position elsewhere. However, she loved teaching at CSULB and didn’t want to leave Long Beach. She was willing to stay as a lecturer because she enjoyed her colleagues so much.

But Diaz’ department chair, Christine Scott-Hayward, informed Diaz about the pilot project and convinced her not to go back out on the market. Diaz trusted that her department would support her in the process.

After she completed her application on September 19, 2025, Diaz’ colleagues would continue to stop by her office asking if she had heard back about her application status. “They were so fired up about me getting approved and that would get me fired up!” Diaz said. “For them to be such cheerleaders of me as I go through the process was fantastic.”

Then on March 10, she got the notice that she was reclassified.

“I’m so appreciative of CFA members and their role in this process even happening,” said Diaz. “Lecturers are the workforce of the university, and I’m grateful they’re not being left behind because of what our members are doing. We’re the ones doing, by and large, most of the teaching and many of us are central to research and service… we’re just doing it in a different kind of way.”

For lecturers who applied but weren’t successful this round, Diaz encourages them to keep trying. “There are a lot of lecturers doing outstanding research and service and are very deserving of the tenure-track position. I hope that those who didn’t get it are persistent,” she said. “Make sure you’re workshopping your materials and your packet, and that you’re getting feedback on your application from your colleagues and your department chair.”

“The reclassification process has been life changing,” said Clariza Ruiz De Castilla, CFA member and CSULB lecturer. “Even though I found out a month ago, I cannot stop smiling.”

Ruiz De Castilla, who has taught in the Communications Department for 11 years and the Chicano and Latino Studies Department for four years, will now transition to a tenure-track position in the latter department.

She credits much of her success to the work of our members. “I feel like I’ve had much success at the university because of our union, not just because of this pilot reclassification process, but even in obtaining my three-year appointment as a lecturer.”

Ruiz De Castilla also shared the role that her department played in helping with her reclassification. “I would like to give immense thanks to the Chicano and Latino chair, Dr. Loretta Ramirez,” she said. “It’s because of her confidence in me to become tenure-track that I even went for it. And of course, I deeply appreciate the search committee—Dr. Chris Rosales, Dr. Dario Valles, Dr. Jacqueline Lyon, and Dean Dan O’Connor.”

She described the whole application process as being thrilling, and felt empowered doing her research presentation, teaching demonstration, and having interviews with the search committee, dean, and department chair.

“We lecturers definitely have what it takes to be tenure-track,” Ruiz De Castilla said. “For whatever reason, we didn’t get those positions initially; however, we miss every opportunity we don’t go for. So, to my colleagues thinking about this—go for it!”

Ruiz De Castilla closed by expressing how CFA transformed her personal and professional life. “CFA members have exponentially made my life better, and I can’t thank them enough. Pay raises, the initiatives for social and racial justice, and their help in obtaining long-term contracts have been incredible. My career, my life, and even my friendships have all improved because of our members, and I wouldn’t have all this success without CFA.”

Reshaping What’s Possible

Hamm believes that the right approach to lecturer success is to find common ground among faculty, administrators, and students so that we can all achieve the same goal. For Hamm, we are all concerned about the decline of tenure density and how this would affect both research and students’ education.

“Nothing happens without having relationships and without being trusted and trusting,” said Hamm. “This collaboration between faculty and administration to ensure the success of faculty is what we’ve always needed. It’s an assurance that our students get the best education they deserve.”

“We’re really hoping that other campuses emulate what we’ve developed here at CSU Long Beach,” said Langen. “Lecturers are the cornerstone of the CSU, but they also deserve opportunities that—far too often—are not afforded to them.”