CFA Members Remain Diligent Throughout the Summer

From kickoffs to mobilizing at a CSU Board of Trustees meeting to speaking up a legislative forum, CFA members showed up for each other this summer. Here’s our summer recap.   

Fall 2025 Kickoff  

Roughly 110 California Faculty Association members gathered in Millbrae for our Fall 2025 Kickoff on August 9. The event was an opportunity for us to connect and solidify our goals for the academic year and beyond. The theme was “Meeting the Moment: Solidarity is Our Strength.”  

Margarita Berta-Ávila, CFA President and CSU Sacramento professor, said in her opening speech that we are facing heightened fascist rhetoric and actions at the federal level. At the same time, CSU administrators are eliminating course sections and infringing on our academic freedom. Our new CFA president reminded us that our strength lies in our membership, current and future.  

“It’s essential to seize the opportunity and to organize for what we envision,” Berta-Ávila said.   

Students for Quality Education (SQE) interns also met this past weekend during their Fall kickoff to discuss different approaches for implementing CFA’s ongoing Liberate the CSU campaign. 

In total, five workshops were developed to help train SQE interns on how they can build power and counter-organize against oppressive tactics that stem from white supremacy, transphobia, and sexism. 

Interns will also continue their ongoing “Where’s Our Money?” campaign, which draws attention to how the Chancellor’s Office and CSU management are spending tuition dollars and student fees on pet projects rather than prioritizing instruction and student learning. 

“The SQE Kickoff is always a unique experience,” said Kenia Jaurez, an SQE intern at CSU East Bay. “Being around people who share the same drive and goals is incredibly refreshing, especially when organizing becomes overwhelming at times. Being back in Sacramento for the kickoff and surrounded by the energy, love, and community we’ve built together is an indescribable feeling. I’m excited to take everything back to CSU East Bay and keep pushing for our education!”  

Sonoma State Legislative Forum  

Sonoma State University hosted a legislative forum on August 11 to discuss the implementation of the $45 million state investment designed to grow and stabilize the campus’s key programs. Legislators unveiled the initiative in June, following the sweeping cuts campus administration claimed it needed to do in January in response to a $24 million budget deficit.  

Ajay Gehlawat, CFA Sonoma College of Education, Counseling, and Ethnic Studies representative and Sonoma State professor, spoke on the panel. He called for restoring jobs and athletics as well as shifting six discontinued programs to a suspension status. Gehlawat said doing the latter for art history, economics, geology, theater arts, philosophy, and women and gender studies would open the door to bring the programs back to campus as soon as possible.  

“The administration needs to take speedy, specific action to show good faith,” Gehlawat said. “They need to show recognition that the budget has actually increased thanks to the hard, tireless work of our state legislators. Rather than doubling down on their flawed bridge to nowhere, the administration needs us, the faculty, to help them to figure out how to start undoing the damage they’ve done.” 

A nearly 10-minute exchange between Sonoma State Interim President Emily Cutrer and Assemblymember Chris Rogers was telling. Rogers repeatedly asked Cutrer to provide a timeline for restoring programs, and her eventual response was deeply disappointing.  

“We’ll talk with [the University Budget Advisory Committee] and we will look at what can be done to make something sustainable in the long run,” Cutrer said. “That could take a while.” 

Curter also declined to commit to restoring Division II athletics, saying the next campus president will make that decision. But Assemblymember Damon Connolly said the plain budget language for the Sonoma State Commitment says the intent of the funding is to reinstate athletics in the next three years.  

State Budget Update  

In coalition with members from our sibling unions, CFA members fought incredibly hard during a six-month campaign to protect ongoing state funding for the CSU in the 2025-26 state budget. 

Because of our tireless advocacy work with the Legislature, they took a strong stance in defending public higher education by rejecting Governor Newsom’s proposed ongoing cuts of 3%, or $143.8 million, to the CSU’s base funding. Under this final state budget, the CSU will no longer face a 3% ongoing cut. 

Instead, the state is now committed to eliminating a 3% reduction from 2026-27 onward by offering a 0% interest short-term loan to help cover the costs for the 2025-26 year.  

Having been presented this lifeline, we are demanding that CSU management not only take on the 0% interest loan from the state, but that they use the funds to support the CSU workforce and restore jobs from their premature austerity measures. 

Under the leadership of Chancellor García and the CSU Board of Trustees, we have seen tuition dollars and student fees being siphoned away from students. The same administrators that claim the CSU has absolutely no money just issued $1.74 billion in bonds with a 5.5% interest rate—compared to the 0% interest offered by the state—for the purpose of building brand new construction projects that do nothing for instruction or student learning. 

It’s imperative to understand that management’s claims of austerity are disingenuous.  

They tell students, faculty, and staff that wage stagnation, cuts and layoffs, and program eliminations are tragic but necessary, while they tell private investors that they are financially healthier than ever and can afford to take on massive billion-dollar real estate projects. Even worse, they put the burden on students by using increased tuition and student fees as collateral to continue their debt payments. 

This level of mismanagement cannot be allowed to continue. CFA members demand they take on the 0% interest loan and use it solely for the purpose of instruction and bettering our students. 

July CSU Board of Trustees Meeting 

CFA members mobilized at the CSU Board of Trustees meeting on July 22 along with our union siblings. We held a press conference before the meeting with members from the CSU Employees Union (CSUEU), Teamsters Local 2010, United Auto Workers Local 4123, and state Assemblymembers Al Muratsuchi and Mike Gipson.  

Together, we urged CSU management to keep its promises to give pay raises and salary steps to CSUEU and Teamsters members. We reminded administrators how we fought hard to ensure the governor and legislature committed to discontinue the ongoing cuts to the CSU’s state budget funding. We further called on management to bargain with all of us in good faith. 

About 20 CFA members addressed the board with public comments on topics including protecting vulnerable immigrant communities, rejecting the interim Time, Place, and Manner (TPM) policy, and holding administrators accountable for financial mismanagement. 

Shelly-Ann Collins Rawle, CFA Long Beach co-president and CSU Long Beach counselor, spoke on the need for shared governance.  

“When decisions are made without faculty input, the consequences fall hardest on our most vulnerable—our students,” Collins Rawle said. “And nowhere is that more evident than in how we address mental health. We cannot meet rising student needs if those of us providing direct care are left out of strategic planning, decisions about roles and responsibilities, or campus resource allocation. If this Board is serious about restoring shared governance, it must take meaningful steps—not symbolic gestures.” 

Collins urged administrators to have meaningful engagement with faculty bodies, transparent communication, and accountability for inclusive decision-making.