CFA Members and Union Siblings Fired Up at September CSU Board of Trustees

Last Tuesday, a strong turnout of CSU faculty, students, and staff held an impactful rally outside the Chancellor’s Office. But it was CFA President and Sacramento State professor Margarita Berta-Ávila’s public comment during the CSU Board of Trustees meeting that set the tone for how we intend to move forward in the coming months.

Berta-Ávila addressed Chancellor García directly, calling out what she sees as deeply contradictory behavior. “You stated to union leaders that legislators need to understand that the CSU is an investment and not an expense…Your actions this far have demonstrated the complete opposite…Your refusal to be forthright on whether you’re willing to take the 0% interest loan, taking on a $17 million AI initiative without any consultation with unions, the lack of courage regarding protecting our campus community from ICE, and your capitulation to a national fascist agenda regarding academic freedom and freedom of speech.”

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Without pause, she turned to the trustees. “You are complicit as well. Like Congress, you’re sanctioning the actions of the chancellor and letting it go unchecked. Why? Because the majority of you have little experience in higher ed or ties to the CSU.” Referencing our recent series exposing the trustees’ incompetence, she shared they can no longer hide. “Be ready to be held accountable to your actions. We will be relentless as union leaders.”

Together with unions siblings from Teamsters Local 2010, CSU Employees Union, Academic Professionals of California, and United Auto Workers Local 4123, our solidarity was in full force—demonstrating that we’re moving forward with intention and in unison.

Several elected officials also joined our labor coalition’s fight for justice in the CSU.

CFA member and former Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon, who is running for California’s superintendent of public instruction, spoke candidly about how CSU management has been misusing our funds. Rendon previously negotiated seven state budgets for the CSU system.

“I know what we intended the money to be spent on. We didn’t intend for it to be spent on AI. We didn’t mean for it to be spent on administrators. We meant it to be spent on that sacred bond of teaching our students and taking care of our employees. That’s what the money is intended for,” emphasized Rendon.

Nichelle Henderson, a CFA member also running for California’s superintendent of public instruction, called out management’s failure to keep their contractual promises. Henderson is also a board member of the Los Angeles Community College District.

“It’s because this board is filled people who have not attended or worked in the CSU and have never had to look a struggling student in the eye…. people who are not accountable to stakeholders, people who do not understand why we fight, people that don’t have a plan to protect our undocumented students and employees, but they do have a plan to silence protests and suppress free speech,” Henderson said.

Inside the Chancellor’s Office, Heather Oram, a Students for Quality Education intern at Stanislaus State, expressed concerns about layoffs.

“With the reduction in faculty and staff, and the subsequent decrease in classes offered, class sizes have increased. This increase in faculty’s workload directly affects the individual attention that we students receive,” Oram said.

She noted that these issues are due to the lack of prioritization of funds that go to upholding the CSU’s mission of helping students pursue a valued education.

Several speakers also addressed growing attacks on immigrants. Michelle Ramos Pellicia, CFA Vice President and CSU San Marcos professor, stated, “If Chancellor García and the trustees would have a spine and demonstrate how to be a leader in turbulent times of racist attacks on our immigrant communities, more leaders will be brave as well and create a wall against this autocratic presidential regime.”

Despite consistent calls for transparency and shared governance, management unveiled a vague new strategic plan without consulting stakeholders.

Alongside it came the surprise announcement of the rollout of Futurenav Compass, an AI-driven career exploration and placement platform developed by Educational Testing Service (ETS)—a private educational testing and assessment organization that has been long criticized as a multinational monopoly and for its excessive profits and overindulgent corporate structure.

What should raise even further concerns are Chancellor García’s close professional ties to ETS, where she serves as the vice chair of its board of trustees, and which compensated her $107,000 in 2023. Trustee Diego Arambula is also linked to ETS and this specific platform through his work as vice president of Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, which—just two years ago—announced its partnership with ETS to create Skills for the Future, an initiative that, like FutureNav, aims to digitally outsource a lot of student advising and counseling work to an algorithm.

Futurenav will be piloted at seven Southern California campuses, and will target roughly 1,000 students across these campuses.

Amit Sevak, who makes close to $700,000 as CEO of ETS, gave a presentation during the trustees meeting to highlight the partnership between the CSU and ETS as a way to “advance the CSU promise” of providing every student the opportunity for a first-career job or a clearer path for further study.

These private partnerships raise serious questions about the priorities of CSU leadership and to whom the Chancellor’s Office and the Board of Trustees are truly accountable. The private partnerships allow unaccountable corporate executives profit from a system that continually undermines the CSU workers who teach our students, maintain our grounds, and support the resources and programs that students need to thrive.

During the Committee of Finance meeting, Trustee Jack McGrory tried to shift the blame onto legislators for funding cuts and the crisis at Sonoma State, claiming that what happened there should not have surprised them. Instead, he sidestepped accountability, suggested further cuts, and praised CSU leadership for doing “one heck of a job to keep up with this structural deficit.”

His comments are deeply out of touch with reality, but reflect the sentiments of many trustees responsible for approving cuts, raising tuition, and shaping policy without real insight into what’s at stake.

The state has provided ongoing funding to the CSU—with legislators working tirelessly to secure it and by preventing the governor from committing ongoing cuts—but management consistently diverts those resources to themselves and their pet projects rather than the people and programs that need them.

Also during the Committee of Finance meeting, management dismissed our repeated calls to approve the state’s 0% interest loan, hiding behind technicalities and semantics. Yet management was quick to approve issuing $1.73 billion in system-wide revenue bonds for new construction projects that do nothing to support teaching or learning.

Our members will continue to hold CSU management accountable, and we will remain vigilant as the next CSU Board of Trustees meeting approaches in November.