CFA San Francisco

April 15

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October 1

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August 17, Retreat

College of Liberal and Creative Arts College Representatives:
Ricardo Gomes and Erica Ramsey Pulley

Anthropology
Tenure Track Rep: Martha Lincoln and Lecturer Rep: Sheila Tully

Art
Tenure Track Rep: Santhi Kavuri-Bauer and Lecturer Rep: Lisa Solomon

BECA
Lecturer Rep: Erica Ramsey Pulley

Cinema
Tenure Track Rep: Martha Gorzycki and Lecturer Rep: Katharine Mahalic

Communication Studies
Tenure Track Rep: Constance Gordon and Lecturer Rep: Deborah Farris

Comparative World Literature
Tenure Track Rep: Dane Johnson

Creative Writing
Tenure Track Rep: Andrew Joron and Lecturer Reps: Matthew Davison and Junse Kim

English
Tenure Track Reps: Larry Hanley and Teresa Pratt and Lecturer Rep: Lee Chen-Weinstein

History
Tenure Track Rep: Sarah Crabtree and Lecturer Rep: Sue Englander

Humanities & Liberal Studies
Tenure Track Rep: Tanya Augsburg and Lecturer Rep: Brad Erickson

International Relations
Tenure Track Rep: Anthony Pahnke

Jewish Studies Program
Tenure Track Rep: Marc Dollinger

Journalism
Tenure Track Rep: Ana Lourdes Cardenas

Modern Languages & Literature
Tenure Track Rep: Blanca Misse and Lecturer Rep: Natasha Tkachov

Music
Tenure Track Rep: Wendell Hanna and Lecturer Rep: Allen Donald Biggs

Philosophy
Tenure Track Rep: David Landy and Lecturer Rep: Alan Moore

Political Science
Tenure Track Rep: Ron Hayduk and Lecturer Rep: Al Schendan

School of Design
Tenure Track Rep: Ricardo Gomes and Lecturer Rep: Nasser Jalali

Theatre & Dance
Tenure Track Rep: Michael Schweikardt

Women & Gender Studies
Tenure Track Rep: Christoph Hanssmann and Lecturer Rep: Sarolta Cump

College of Science and Engineering College Representative: Melissa Hagan

Biology
Tenure Track Rep: Robyn Crook

Chemistry Biochemistry
Tenure Track Rep: Nancy Gerber and Lecturer Rep: Rose Lacy

Engineering
Lecturer Rep: Mutlu Ozer

Geography & Environment
Tenure Track Rep: Jen Blecha

Math
Tenure Track Rep: Dusty Ross and Lecturer Rep: Dominic Gulli

Psychology
Tenure Track Rep: Melissa Hagan

Physics & Astronomy
Tenure Track Rep: Charli Sakari and Lecturer Rep: Chris McCarthy

Clinical Lab Sciences:
Lecturer Rep: Matthew Silverman

Counseling
Tenure Track Rep: Sandra Fitzgerald

Kinesiology
Tenure Track Rep: Maria Veri and Lecturer Rep: Ana Maria Barrera

Nursing
Tenure Track Rep: Rebecca Carabez

PACE
Tenure Track Rep: Raquel Pinderhughes and Lecturer Rep: Carol Silverman 

Public Health
Lecturer Rep: Bob Allen 

Recreation, Parks, and Tourism
Lecturer Rep: Ben Kumli

Social Work
Tenure Track Rep: Yeon-Shim Lee

Sociology & Sexuality Studies
Tenure Track Rep: Alexis Martinez and Lecturer Rep: Ryan Moore

College of Ethnic Studies College Representative:
Jaimy Mann

Africana Studies
Tenure Track Rep: Mark Allan Davis

Asian American Studies
Tenure Track Rep: Valerie Soe and Lecturer Rep: Francis Wong

Latina/o Studies
Lecturer Rep: Nestor Castillo 

Race and Resistance Studies
Lecturer Rep: Jaimy Mann

College Of Education College Representative: Irina Okhremtchouk

Elementary Education
Tenure Track Rep: Stephanie Sisk-Hilton

ELSIT
Tenure Track Rep: Irina Okhremtchouk

Accounting
Tenure Track Rep: Joanne Sopt

Decision Sciences
Tenure Track Rep: Leyla Ozsen

Economics
Lecturer Rep: Norman Lo

Information Systems
Tenure Track Rep: Lutfus Sayeed and Lecturer Rep: Daniel Ciomek

Management
Lecturer Rep: Cynthia King

Lecturer Rep: Laurene Dominguez

Librarian Representative:
Mira Foster

Lecturer Rep: Shawn Heiser

Coach Rep: Tony Schifano

Please click here for more information.

• Please click here for more information and access to the current contract.
• For access to the direct PDF & to print a copy. Click here.

Click here to view Grievance Form.

Preference for Work Order & Entitlement for AY 21-22
1) Contact your field rep for the excel Faculty List

2) Search within document for your name. The number in column K corresponding to your name indicates the time base to which you are entitled within a given department over the course of a given academic year. If you have positions in multiple departments, search for your name as many times as necessary. If you believe that there is an error in the recording of your time base, please contact your CFA rep right away.

3) The color-coded categories provide important information about preference for work order. Here’s what they mean:

a. First preference for work order among lecturers (that is, after tenured and tenure-track faculty have received their appointments) goes to lecturers with Full-time 3-Year Appointments. (The red lines on the chart.)

b. Second preference for work order among lecturers goes to lecturers with 3-Year Appointments with Part-Time Entitlements. (The yellow lines on the chart.)

c. Third preference for work order among lecturers goes to lecturers who are given Careful Consideration and who have an entitlement. (The green lines on the chart.)

d. Fourth preference for work order among lecturers goes to lecturers who are given Careful Consideration and who do not have an entitlement. (The white lines on the chart.)

Read them here.

See the collected reported as done by Dr. Veronica Sovero and Elizabeth Kirschner.

Please view CFA SF’s October 2022 Range Elevation Workshop: HERE.

Please click here.

Posted March 6, 2023

The Executive Board of the California Faculty Association seeks to weigh in on the recent SFSU decision to embrace an earlier study of the “climate” on our campus for Jewish students. That report stated that for many Jewish people on our campus, any criticism of Zionism was perceived as a form of anti-Semitism with the implication that it was not appropriate to critique either Zionism or the state of Israel and its policies insofar as such statements contribute to a climate of hostility to Jewish people more generally. The CFA-SFSU executive board takes exception to this report for several reasons.  

First, we believe that this report implicitly seeks to limit academic freedom for our faculty. We do not believe that critiquing Zionism is inherently anti-Semitic and indeed many Jewish people on our campus, as is true of the US Jewish population more generally, are themselves non or anti-Zionist. Critiques of Israel and its policy towards Palestinians is a legitimate and important part of academic discourse. To attempt to chill any speech of that nature by equating it to anti-Semitism amounts to using a claim of anti-Semitism to legitimize the occupation of Palestine, the unchecked settler’s movement on in Palestinian lands allocated to Palestinians and other infringements of Palestinian rights.  

Second, we believe that to make this claim also implicitly fosters Islamophobia and anti-Palestinian racism in the guise of fighting anti-Semitism. The requirement to suppress statements against Zionism does not fall equally on our campus. Those faculty who are themselves Palestinian, Arab, or Muslim are much more often the targets of these kinds of demands and the charge of anti-Semitism is often used to silence these faculty more generally. We support the right of the Arab and Muslim Ethnicities and Diasporas (AMED) Studies, to exist freely and independently at SFSU and to hire faculty as its right as per the Faculty Hearing Panel’s unanimous decision of February 18, 2021. Higher education groups should collaborate as fully as possible with each other to advance the interests of the entire academic community in addressing academic freedom issues. 

Finally, we are concerned with the implication that somehow if a Jewish faculty member is not a Zionist they are labeled as not being a really a Jewish person (or at least “self hating”). That is another  implication of this study insofar as if every instance of anti-Zionism is always an instance of anti-Semitism, then Jewish people who do not themselves support Zionism are either self-hating or deluded or not really Jewish at all.

For all of these reasons we call for an alternative, transparent and inclusive assessment of campus climate, one where both anti-Semitism, anti-Palestinian racism and Islamophobia are denounced in equal measure and also one in which ideological geopolitical questions like Zionism are separated from fundamental questions of identity and belonging.

Speech that questions Zionism is another matter and this, we believe, is a legitimate area of academic expression, even if it remains controversial in some quarters. As a union and representatives of SFSU faculty, we believe in peace, freedom, and coexistence and the indivisibility of justice. We believe in an SFSU climate that welcomes academic freedom, as unanimously affirmed by two faculty hearing panels on October 14, 2021 and April 26, 2022 and the principles of free expression and communication on which we collectively depend.  We support AMED, calling for its full function as an academic discipline and department, and its equal treatment as such before the SFSU community. Our fundamental commitment to academic freedom drives this statement as well as our larger support for open expression on this campus. 

In solidarity,

The CFA-SFSU executive board

Posted on November 18, 2022

Dear President Mahoney,

It is generally agreed that the COVID-19 pandemic and its side effects have affected higher education enrollments nationwide.  While we share your concern about these enrollment shifts, we are skeptical of the efforts to address them that you gesture to in your “November 2022 Budge Update” communication.  

Your approach bears a striking resemblance to the Provost’s January 28, 2021, “Directive Memo on Academic Affairs Budget Realignment.”  Increased faculty workload, major cuts in instructional costs, reducing funding for and control over departments, elimination of long standing research programs — the proposals from both communications appear the same even as the crisis has been renamed. We fought—successfully—against the Provost’s Directive Memo.  We will continue to fight against this vision of the university.

We strenuously disagree with your characterization of the “core” of our university as administrative (i.e., “scheduling of classes and enrollment management”) rather than educational. The first puts management at the center of things; the latter puts students, faculty and staff at the center of things. We also reject your admonition that faculty are somehow doing something wrong and need to “think” or “behave” differently.  While this view may justify administrative oversight, it excludes faculty from critical decision-making.  The core activities of our university are teaching and learning. Faculty, staff, and students are the experts in these areas; this knowledge and experience should play the major role in planning and allocating resources.  Hard times don’t diminish the  importance of shared governance; in fact, times of “crisis” demand more and better shared governance.

You write that: “ . . . I think we can do this and continue to support our faculty’s research and creative activities with a 3:3 teaching load.”  We see this qualified commitment to the 3:3 teaching load for tenure track faculty as a thinly veiled threat.  We would remind you that the 3:3 load was established through a process of shared governance, a process and collaborative decision – – faculty and administration – –  that we will defend.  We also reject the usual administrative technique to meet budget shortfalls – – the treatment of lecturer faculty as a reserve army of disposable labor.  Budgets cannot be balanced on the backs of our colleagues.  

While metaphors like “silos,” turf,” etc. add an ominous tone to your communication, this kind of language is unfortunate and unhelpful.  The best path to understand our current situation, to communicate it, and to begin addressing it lies in more and better transparency, not greater obscurity.

The financial challenges facing our campus largely originate beyond this university’s control, but the way to address those changes is through collective conversation and collaboration. The CFA has joined with CSU administration to fight for the resources we need to fulfill the university’s mission. 

In the meantime, if the university is truly drifting toward the kind of crisis you intimate, we can only start to meet this challenge when all parties are willing to think about the difference between the necessary and the dispensable.  For us, the latter should for instance include administrative bloat and duplication, exorbitant campus police budgets, and any costs not directly related to teaching, learning, and research.

So long as we agree on one goal – – to maintain and even improve the academic experience for our students – – financial uncertainties do not have to reduce and impoverish a university.  

Yours, 

CFA-SFSU Chapter Executive Board

Posted on November 16, 2022

The CFA-SFSU Chapter stands in full solidarity with the ongoing strike of the academic student employees (teaching assistants, postdocs, graduate and undergraduate researchers and readers) in the University of California system. Since Monday Nov 14^th, 48,000 UC academic workers are on strike for wage increases above inflation. It is probably the largest strike in higher education so far. They are asking for a raise that would bring them out of rent burden, for childcare subsidies, for job security, for full funding for international students, for smaller class sizes, as well as better protections from workplace harassment, and climate friendly policies like University investment in free public transportation.

We have approved a $500 donation to the strike and hardship fund, and we are organizing presence from union members at the daily pickets. We understand that their open-ended strike for fair bargaining to get a COLA (Cost of Living Adjustment Increase), where the union is asking for 10% increase for this year, and a minimum of 7% each year for the next coming years, is key. So far the UC is only offering 7% this year and 3% for the consecutive years. 

We too are dealing with the hardships of high inflation and low pay of our labor, as well as an increasing workload and larger class sizes. This is why we fully support UC workers, we think their struggle is our struggle and their win will also be ours as it will strengthen the bargaining power of other unions including ours. 

CFA-SFSU Executive Board

Posted on September 23, 2022

Resolution in Support of Proposed JEDI TEA Model 

WHEREAS the Executive Board of the California Faculty Association-SFSU recognizes and appreciates the work of the Academic Senate Teaching Effectiveness Assessment Task Force to develop the Proposed Justice, Equity, Diversity & Inclusion Teaching Effectiveness Assessment (JEDI TEA) Model; and 

WHEREAS the Proposed JEDI TEA Model is compliant with the Collective Bargaining Agreement and consistent with the principles of the CFA and the mission and strategic priorities of San Francisco State University; and

WHEREAS the proposed transformation of TEA processes to align them to the findings of TEA research and the social justice mission of the university will better serve faculty, and students; therefore be it

RESOLVED that the CFA-SFSU supports the Proposed JEDI TEA Model and looks forward to a pilot study to evaluate its efficacy.

—Endorsed by the Executive Board of the California Faculty Association-SFSU on September 23, 2022

Posted July 11, 2022

Friends and colleagues,

You may have read the recent missive from Interim CSU Chancellor Jolene Koester regarding CSU’s efforts to re-examine its Title IX procedures and practices – – the very same procedures and practices that led to the recent fiascos surrounding former CSU Chancellor Castro and former Sonoma State President Sakaki.

To get a sense of where the CSU’s “audit” of its Title IX programs may lead, it should be noted that the university is spending state and student monies to hire the law firm of Cozen O’Connor to conduct its review. Cozen O’Connor is a law firm that specializes in defending corporate and business clients, especially in labor and employee relations.

Cozen O’Connor is an anti-union and anti-worker firm of 800+ lawyers which advertises its stellar abilities to – – as its website boasts: Defend clients in unfair labor practice proceedings and handle grievance arbitrations; Prepare for and respond to picketing, strikes, lockouts and other economic tactics; Work with employers to avoid unionization through positive employee relations or to regain nonunion status when employees no longer wish to be union-represented; Defend employers against charges of unfair labor practices, including those alleging unlawful termination, failure to bargain in good faith, and interference with employee rights; Advise in-house counsel, human resources professionals, and executives in the development of sound personnel policies that limit liability and enhance productivity.

Here are some of the cases and actions that Cozen O’Connor boasts of on its web pages:

As we’ve seen from the Castro and Sakaki resignations, the current Title IX crisis at CSU flows directly from university management’s failure to uphold its responsibilities. Since 2011, Title IX has been expanded to protect employees from sexual harassment and misconduct, not to protect management from sexual harassment and misconduct claims. Putting an anti-union, anti-worker firm like Cozen O’Connor in charge of a Title IX “audit” is a bit like hiring Rudy Giuliani to supervise an investigation into the 2020 election.

It is critical to the health and welfare of the university that the CSU reviews and improves its Title IX procedures and practices. This effort should be led by faculty, staff, and students rather than union-busting lawyers. Consequently, we ask that university management end its relationship with Cozen O’Connor and instead collaborate with faculty, staff, and student organizations to create a review of Title IX programs that is fair, transparent, and inclusive.

Yours,

California Faculty Association – San Francisco State University Executive Board

Posted on March 18, 2022

Resolution for Equity and Efficacy in Teaching Effectiveness Assessment (TEA)

WHEREAS teaching effectiveness assessment practices have remained virtually unchanged for decades despite massive changes in both how and what we teach and significant scholarship documenting biases in both the collection and use of teaching effectiveness assessments; and 

WHEREAS research on quantitative comparative ranking in TEA affirms that this data compounds, conceals and amplifies gender, racial and other bias, which impacts employment decisions;[1] and 

WHEREAS research on quantitative comparative ranking in TEA finds zero correlation between such data and student learning outcomes;[2] and 

WHEREAS statistical research on quantitative comparative ranking in TEA exposes the statistical meaninglessness of such data;[3] and 

WHEREAS research on quantitative comparative ranking in TEA finds that such data are produced by multiple unknown variables such that they provide little to no actionable data to improve teaching outcomes;[4] and 

WHEREAS many faculty experience current TEA processes as discriminatory and punitive and therefore unsupportive of their growth as educators; and 

WHEREAS the SF State mission is social justice through education,[5] but our current teaching effectiveness assessment practices do not assess the achievement of that goal; and 

WHEREAS no single source of evidence can reasonably evaluate the complex and multifaceted teaching and learning process; and 

WHEREAS new methods for assessing teaching effectiveness are required to achieve better outcomes for all stakeholders: instructors, students, and administrators. 

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that rather than replace the current SETE (Student Evaluation of Teaching Effectiveness) with a revised instrument as an independent policy, expand TEA to include multiple instruments encompassing student, peer and self assessment, formative and summative responses; and 

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that in order to engender trust in the TEA process, separate TEA for employment from TEA for development; and 

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that new TEA policy includes the prohibition of the use of comparative quantitative ranking in employment decisions; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that new TEA procedure includes a mandatory formative student survey seen only by the instructor to facilitate adaptive teaching development; and 

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that new TEA procedure assess for alignment with the social justice mission of SF State; and 

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that new TEA policy provides students a timely response and a restorative approach to concerns about their safety, inclusion and wellbeing in their courses; and 

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that new TEA policy ensures transparent alignment between student learning outcomes, lessons, and assessments; and 

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that new TEA policy invites students to nominate exceptional instructors for campus awards and recognition; and 

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the CFA-SFSU chapter will oppose piecemeal policies that omit any of the above elements from new TEA policies or procedures. 

Approved by the Executive Board of the CFA-SFSU Chapter on March, 18, 2022 

[1] Lazos, S. (2012). Are Student Teaching Evaluations Holding Back Women and Minorities?: The Perils of “Doing” Gender and Race in the Classroom. In Gutiérrez y Muhs, G., Niemann, Y., Gonzalez, G, Harris, A., (Eds.) Presumed incompetent: The intersections of race and class for women in academia, (pp. 164-185). University Press of Colorado, Utah State University Press. https://doi-org.jpllnet.sfsu.edu/10.2307/j.ctt4cgr3k.19 

Linse, A. (2017). Interpreting and using student ratings data: Guidance for faculty serving as administrators and on evaluation committees Studies in Educational Evaluation 54: 94—106. Macnell, L., Driscoll. A., & Hunt, A. (2015). What’s in a Name: Exposing Gender Bias in Student Ratings of Teaching. Innovative Higher Education 40(4): 291-303. 

DOI:10.1007/s10755-014-9313-4. 

[2] Flaherty, C. (2016). Zero correlation between evaluations and learning. Inside Higher Ed. https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2016/09/21/new-study-could-be-another-nail-coffin-validit y-student-evaluationsteaching. 

Lawrence, J. (2018, May). Student evaluations of teaching are not valid. American Association of University Professors. https://www.aaup.org/article/student-evaluations-teaching-are-not-valid. Uttl, B. White, C., & Gonzalez, D.W. (2017). Meta-analysis of faculty’s teaching effectiveness: Student evaluation of teaching ratings and student learning are not related. Studies in Educational Evaluation, 54: 22—42. ISSN 0191-491X, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.stueduc.2016.08.007. [3] Stark, P. B. & Freishtat, R. (2014) An evaluation of course evaluations. ScienceOpen Research. doi.10.14293/S2199-1006.1.SOR-EDU.AOFRQA.v1 

[4] Linse, A. (2017). Interpreting and using student ratings data: Guidance for faculty serving as administrators and on evaluation committees Studies in Educational Evaluation 54: 94—106.

[5] “With the unwavering commitment to social justice that is central to the work of the University, SF State prepares its students to become productive, ethical, active citizens with a global perspective” (https://sfsu.edu/mission/mission.html).

Posted March 9, 2022

The CFA-SFSU union chapter of faculty, counselors, coaches, and librarians at SFSU stands in complete solidarity with the people in Ukraine and supports its resistance against the Russian invasion. All Russian troops must go now! We know some of our co-workers are Ukrainian, Russian, and/or come from Ex-Soviet Republics, and are suffering through very difficult moments. Please know that your union is with you; we are committed to building working-class solidarity, internationally, from below, together. We are prepared to participate in solidarity efforts with the Ukrainian people here in the US and abroad. We also take this opportunity to express our solidarity for other peoples who today are also suffering from wars and occupations in Ethiopia, Palestine, Sudan, and Yemen.

Furthermore, we want to extend our solidarity to immigrants and foreign students trapped in Ukraine, especially our non-white brothers and sisters, and Ukrainians of African descent who are facing racist discrimination at the border and confronting obstacles to fleeing the country. We must combat all forms of racism and discrimination, especially in times of humanitarian crisis, and those actions must stop. 

We also want to express our full support and solidarity with all the antiwar activists in Russia. More than 8,000 protesters were arrested in the first 10 days of the war by the Putin regime, and 4,000 more were arrested yesterday. Daily protests, spreading in dozens of cities, have been brutally repressed by the police, and protestors face jail sentences of 15 years for publicly opposing the war operations of their own government. We in the United States can relate to their bravery; many of us publicly opposed the many wars carried by the US government, be it in Vietnam, Afghanistan or Iraq, among others. We demand the immediate liberation of all antiwar activists who have been detained. We also demand full academic freedom and protection for the thousands of faculty in Russia who have publicly stated their opposition to the war and are worried about their job security as a result.

We demand that the Biden administration immediately provide refugee rights and real material support to ALL refugees. More than 1.7 million Ukrainian refugees have fled to Europe and many refugees from Afghanistan, Syria and Central America (among others) are trying to reach the US or are already in the US with very poor legal protections. The Temporary Protection Directives (TDP) in place for existing political refugees, many of them fleeing wars and dictatorships resulting from direct US involvement, are not a substitute for meaningful immigration policy that upholds working class solidarity and human rights. We demand that all these populations be awarded official refugee status or asylum and that housing and jobs be made available for them.

We oppose any attempt by the US government to use this war in Ukraine to advance its own imperialist interests in the region, such as the control of access routes to oil and gas and its control of more strategic markets and resources. Furthermore, we assert that sanctions targeting US economic competitors hurt the Russian people, and are not at all useful for ending a war. Rather, they fuel nationalist rhetoric in Russia and add to the credibility of Putin’s narrative that this invasion is a war of “civlizations” against the “West”.

We oppose all oligarchs — Russian or American — as much as we oppose nationalism and imperialism which lead to crimes against humanity. Putin claims that Ukraine is part of Russia’s “own history, culture and spiritual space“, thereby mobilizing Russian nationalism and the desire to return to the “Great” Russian Empire. We reject this narrative as much as we denounce the use of racist and Eurocentric narratives that frame this conflict as one between the U.S. and European “Civilized” peoples against the Russian, Asian and Eastern “Barbaric” or “Uncivilized” ones. These narratives, relayed consciously and unconsciously by the media and politicians, are false. They are rooted in racist, colonial notions of ‘civility’, and they are extremely dangerous. Much if not all of the colonial expansion, domination, exploitation, and oppression of peoples all over the world, including the attempted genocide of many of the native Indian nations in the Americas, as well as the continuation of new-colonial forms of domination today, were and are conducted with the aid of those very narratives. Further, the US and European countries have a long record of having carried out “barbaric” acts of war, as seen in their own territories or via their support for dictatorships and fascists regimes as vicious and cruel as Putin’s. As university educators we must debunk them and provide a better explanation of the root causes of world conflicts.

Finally, we demand the end to NATO’s expansion, as well as a drastic decrease in military spending in the US. Nothing justifies Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, an independent sovereign nation. Yet NATO is a US led military alliance which has intervened in many conflicts, wars and occupations to the detriment of the well-being of peoples and of the sovereignty of other nations. It is a fact that NATO has expanded to 14 new countries since the collapse of the Soviet Union, which has contributed to the escalation of tensions. NATO’s budget has increased every year for the past decade, including an almost 9% increase just this year, amidst a global pandemic and its subsequent social crisis. The Biden administration proposed a $768 billion war-spending “defense” bill in December 2021, one of the largest military budgets for the Pentagon in recent U.S. history. He has however failed to pass any major social reform to guarantee basic union rights for workers, voting rights, or to provide for better jobs, real healthcare, housing, education, or social services, not to mention climate action. We demand jobs, education, housing and climate justice for all people, not war and a new arms race.

Yours,

California Faculty Association – San Francisco State University Executive Board

Posted January 24, 2022

Whereas, the San Francisco Labor Council has previously stood in support of Professor Rabab Abdulhadi and the Arab and Muslim Ethniciticies and Diaspora (AMED) Studies program at San Francisco State University (SFSU) against litigious attack from Zionist supporters of Israel and, 

Whereas, SFSU President Lynn Mahoney and her administration have joined with pro-Zionist organizations who are complicit and supportive of the censorship and destruction of the AMED program and,

Whereas, there is an organized attack on Ethnic Studies programs in CSU and California and the right of the Arab, Muslim, and Palestinian communities in the diaspora to have their histories and stories available for the students of SFSU and,

Whereas, the SFSU Administration has continued to violate its contractual agreement to fully staff and fund the AMED department and support it and,

Whereas, a panel of an  AMED Open Classroom was censored by Zoom, YouTube and Facebook and,

Whereas, this political censorship of a SFSU classroom session by these private tech corporations is a threat to academic freedom and the right of SFSU faculty to carry out their work and,

Whereas, SFSU has a contract with Zoom for the use of their services and whereas the company was coerced by those who want to destroy the AMED program and,

Whereas,  SFSU President Lynn Mahoney refused to challenge this censorship by Zoom and vetoed a faculty panel’s decision opposing censorship of AMED.

Whereas, the CFA-SFSU and the CFA have steadfastly stood in defense of this program and  its classes and,

Whereas, AMED and Ethnic Studies programs are aligned with the goals of the 68 strikers at SFSU and are committed to offering community-based and community accountable innovative pedagogy such as AMED open classrooms,

Therefore be it resolved, the San Francisco Labor Council condemns the actions of tech companies to censor the classes of the SFSU AMED studies program as an attack on academic freedom and democracy;

And therefore be it further resolved, the San Francisco Labor Council supports the grievances of faculty members Dr. Rabab Abdulhadi and Dr. Tomomi Kinukawa against the administration, 

And therefore be it further resolved, the San Francisco Labor Council 

(i) calls on the SFSU President to carry out the promises made to Professor Abdulhadi to fully fund the AMED program; 

(ii) calls on the CSU State Board of Trustees and our California legislators and Governor Newsom to oppose the censorship of the AMED classes by tech companies;  

(iii) and finally will organize an education session on the right of SFSU CFA faculty to full democratic rights without censorship by these companies and will include the history of the fight for AMED and critical ethnic studies in California

Yours,

California Faculty Association – San Francisco State University Executive Board

Posted May 6, 2021

Dear Division of Equity & Community Inclusion, Frederick Smith and Interim Vice President Hellwig and the Office of Student Affairs & Enrollment Management.
see pdf here.

We, the members of the CFA-SFSU Executive Board, write in response to the Campus Climate Action Items email sent May 6, 2021. In this statement, you claimed that the division of Equity & Community Inclusion at San Francisco State University has made influential strides “to address anti-Blackness, Islamophobia, antisemitism, AAPI hate, microaggressions, racism, and sexism, as well as gender and sexual identity and other areas.” (It is unclear to us why gender and sexual identity are listed in parallel to the previous items, which are all forms of discrimination.) This rosy assessment serves to invalidate the experience of members of the campus community still suffering from these forms of harm. And without verifiable evidence of this purported progress, we cannot have confidence in the Campus Climate Action items described in your message to the campus. 

Performative statements, such as your email, can be dangerous and harmful. Although SF State has been recognized for its demographic diversity, and racial/ethnic diversity, this is not the same as having or striving for an anti-racist climate. The statements included in your email co-opt the language of antiracism to reinforce the fiction of racial harmony, all the while distorting the material realities of White Supremacy and anti-Blackness for Black and Brown students, faculty, and staff. Your email evokes the recent collection of essays found in Anti-Racism, Inc., in which colorblind, multicultural, and diversity discourses reveal the appropriation of antiracist rhetoric as a strategy for advancing neoliberal agendas. We recognize your words as a representation of this unique phenomenon that requires careful interrogation and analysis. Moreover, we note that the stated action plan rests on an evaluation modality conducted internally, and by self-describing the successes, the university reinforces apathy and complacency rather than an authentic, transparent reckoning and acknowledgment of culpability regarding ongoing inequalities on our campus. 

What, we ask, do the terms diversity and inclusion actually mean to you? How can a university that is subsidized by corporate interests, student debt, and exploited labor, embody or support diversity and inclusion? How are Black and Brown students, staff, and faculty safe in proximity to a campus police armed with military-grade weapons?

The illusion the May 6th email portrays is a type of racial harmony that assumes we have arrived at racial progress, that diversity and inclusion are mere boxes one can check, and that the work of inclusion is one of image management on behalf of the institution, its alumni, trustees, and corporate funders. We view your statement as a hollow proxy for meaningful action. Diversity is not auditable. You are the evaluators of your own Climate Action agenda. By self-describing only the successes of your current Climate Action Items, you implicitly endorse complacency, rather than a truthful/authentic reckoning with ongoing inequalities on our campus. 

To this end, we implore your office, and that of the President, to apply for participation in the University of Southern California’s Race & Equity Center’s National Assessment of Collegiate Campus Climates (NACCC), which is a quantitative survey administered annually at colleges and universities across the United States. Instead of the conflict of interest inherent to self-evaluation, an independent assessment would provide impartial data, helping all members of the campus community to gain confidence in our campus’s efforts to advance equity.  

In addition, we are asking the university to take advantage of the  Equity Institute Program, provided nationally by USC’s Race & Equity Center:

Each Institute is designed for teams of 20 administrators and faculty members on a single college or university campus, intended to increase individual competencies and organizational effectiveness to enhance equity, diversity, and inclusion. Each Institute has 8 modules collaboratively developed by expert scholars and practitioners across the country.  These virtual modules are taught synchronously, with an Institute Faculty member and 20 participants simultaneously engaged on the same computer screen for 90 minutes at the same time, one day each week for 8 consecutive weeks. ~https://www.uscequityinstitutes.org/

We envision a transformative approach, rooted in authenticity and accountability, to achieve the structural changes demanded by marginalized students, staff, and faculty. Given the windfall of federal and state funding that we have recently received, we offer here numerous ways that DECI can push for material changes to make good on the goal of being an ‘anti-racist university’. In short, if we know ‘how to be an anti-racist university’, let’s spend the money to make it a ‘university of Co-Liberation’ instead. We hope that this letter initiates such an accountability process, and we ask DECI for meaningful collaboration with the CFA and Black faculty on campus. Below we repeat many of the same demands we offered last summer. 

We had asked for engagement within a forum as a ‘real time’ town hall where your office and the President will openly acknowledge the CFA Statement of Anti-Racism and Social Justice Demands and offer a safe platform for discussion. While the January Faculty Retreat ‘How to Be an Anti-Racist University’ was ostensibly successful, there was not one Black Faculty from Africana Studies assigned a spot to present a plenary. Not one. The CFA’s Council on Racial & Social Justice was also ignored and left without a single opportunity to engage. When you say that you have worked with all communities on our campus you erase the work and silence the voices of those most impacted by racial harm. Was this cold shoulder retaliation for the CFA Executive Board calling out the President’s all-white cabinet as #SFSUsoWhite? 

We’d like to direct our next points to Dr. Hellweg specifically. At a recent ZOOM gathering produced and presented by the Soul of San Francisco State, the director of the Black Unity Center, which was under Dr. Hellweg’s two years of interim leadership, submitted a video to the group of faculty, alumni, and student educators, and staff brought together from the Graduate Education program. In this video they speak inaccurately to the origins of the Black Unity Center, stating that “six students’ began the Black Unity Center. This is false. The Black Unity Center, prior to the Upper Administration’s usurpation in 2019, was created by former Africana Studies Chair and faculty member Dr. Serie McDougal at the behest of his students. His commitment to them was paramount to the center’s success. He was commended by the SFSU Academic Senate for this achievement. It was created by Dr. McDougal because nothing had existed prior to his action. This false narrative showcases your office’s negative impact on the work of Black Faculty. The erasure of heritages of Black faculty and students and the university’s corporatization of Black achievements for pockets and not progress (see Bold Thinking Campaign) contradict the claims of your email. We requested, last year, that the Black Unity Center’s governance be returned to Africana Studies, from whence it originated. That demand has been ignored.

On July 17, 2020, President Mahoney presented a list of bullet points regarding BLM at SFSU. The most confusing was this:

The following is directed at the Office of the Division of Equity Community Inclusion. 

At a recent ZOOM gathering (April 2021) produced and presented by the Soul of San Francisco State, the director of the Black Unity Center, submitted a video to the group of faculty, alumni, student educators, and staff brought together from the Graduate Education program. In this video they speak inaccurately about the origins of the Black Unity Center, stating that “six students’ began the Black Unity Center. This is false. The Black Unity Center, prior to the Upper Administration’s usurpation of it in 2019, was created by former Africana Studies Chair and faculty member Dr. Serie McDougal at the behest of his students, peers, and communi. His commitment to them was paramount to the center’s success. He was commended by the SFSU Academic Senate for this achievement. It was created by Dr. McDougal because nothing had existed prior to his action. This false narrative showcases your office’s negative impact on the work of Black Faculty. The erasure of heritages of Black faculty and students and the university’s corporatization of Black achievements for pockets and not progress (see Bold Thinking Campaign) contradict the claims of your email. We requested, last year, that the Black Unity Center’s governance be returned to Africana Studies, from whence it originated. That demand has been ignored. In Dr. McDougal’s, the founder and inaugural director of the Black Unity Center, “A Sense of Community” 2017/2018 Academic Year Report, he wrote concisely: 

It must be made plain that the Black Unity Center is an extension of Africana Studies, the Black Student Union, and the College of Ethnic Studies. The Black Unity Center on SF State’s campus came into existence through the movement to equitably fund the College of Ethnic Studies. Ultimately, the Black Unity Center was formed through the collaborative efforts of the Black Student Union, Department of Africana Studies, College of Ethnic Studies, the Black Student body, and the support of Student Affairs and Associated Students. (McDougal, 7)  

In contrast, on July 17, 2020, President Mahoney presented a list of bullet points regarding BLM at SFSU. The most confusing was this:

Advancing curricula that support Black student success by increasing the number of faculty whose work lies in the Pan-African diaspora or who have a demonstrated record of success in research, teaching and/or service with Black populations. We will also offer pedagogical workshops for faculty, solidify pathways for double majors or minors in identity-based degrees and increase community service learning opportunities with our Black community partners.

We’d like to know what this connotes. If this was to be a statement pertaining to Africana Studies faculty why was this not simply stated? Your office and all of your self-assessment and programs would fall under this but it is us, the faculty, that create the curriculum. Is this bullet point showcasing the President and the Office of Student Affairs & Enrollment Management office as being supportive of curricula for Black Studies? New courses are being approved and created by faculty that center on Africana Studies with absolutely no support or acknowledgment from the Administration. Where is your office’s support of AB 1460 the Ethnic Studies Bill? Perhaps a forum with the entirety of Black Faculty could be conducted. Please, for the sake of our members, and even those who aren’t, clarify the paradoxes that you present, which are deleterious and traumatic for Black faculty & students.

We would also like to address the DEI’s celebration of the inclusion of SF State in the WSJ list of diverse institutions. You write, “SF State is a unique and remarkable place. You may remember that last year we were recognized on the Wall Street Journal’s Best Colleges list – ranking in the top five in the “Environment” category. This recognition was for the diversity of the University, based on race, ethnicity, income and national origin of our students and employees.”

It is unclear what is being celebrated here. The term “diversity” comes across as a politics of feeling good, and implies that we’ve solved issues of inequality and thus encourages complacency. As Sara Ahmed reminds us, this presents diversity “as a quality the university already has, by virtue of the kinds of staff and students that already exist within the organization… diversity and equality work hence becomes about changing perceptions of whiteness rather than changing the whiteness of organizations.”  

And as Jeffrey Chang clarifies, “…Corporations and colleges would appoint chief diversity officers and increase their holding of assets directed at ‘diverse demographics,’ while pushing ads — sometimes also doctored — that featured happy, diverse consumers,”

Further, this WSJ report reflects the student body, not our administrative staff, which is overwhelmingly White. The faculty are disproportionately White as well. This stands in stark contrast to the racial diversity of our staff and student body. The narrow and skewed view of “diversity” fails to acknowledge the unfair power dynamics maintained by a majority White administration with a majority of non-White student body. 

Just this year, fellow public institution, Ohio State University, pledged to hire 100 faculty members from underrepresented backgrounds, and 50 scholars whose work addresses social equity and racial disparities. We no longer face a dire budget situation – we urge the DEI to strongly advocate for tenure-track cluster hires, to be drawn from the ranks of our exploited lecturer faculty.

You write, “The division of Equity & Community Inclusion works diligently with all members of the University community to ensure that we best realize the potential of our diverse community” and continue by saying that Faculty Affairs & Professional Development has created “initiatives to increase retention of faculty of color.”

We as representatives for the CFA, the Union for the faculty have been made aware of one initiative the Equity & Leadership Development Program within the College of Liberal and Creatives Arts, for which Frederick Smith is a part, has no Black Faculty leadership and is closed to Non-Tenured Faculty. Wouldn’t such an initiative benefit from the Black & Brown voices, whether tenured or not, to be sought out to contribute to these initiatives which you say are created to benefit them? 

Despite promises by President Mahoney to meet and collaborate with the CFA’s Executive Board and the Council on Racial and Social Justice, the CFA was never asked to collaborate on any of these action items. You also fail to mention any specific material support for Black faculty and the curriculum they produce. We repeat our demand for resources that protect Black/Africana students, departments, and centers, and for greater mental health support in light of our long-understaffed counseling services across the CSU and at SFSU in particular. 

Also, your claims of having inclusive searches are also unauditable. The CFA was excluded. The CFA was not included on the large search committee for the Vice President of Student Affairs and Enrollment Management, nor are there any initiatives to always include members of the CFA Executive Board on all administrative searches. This type of initiative would be reaching out to ALL of the campus community, and most importantly faculty representatives that are not cherry picked by the administration. 

Regarding campus safety, you write that through “the creation of a University Public Safety Advisory Committee, ongoing discussions with Associated Students, and a University Police Department (UPD) whose Chief is an experienced student services professional reporting to the Vice President for Student Affairs & Enrollment Management, our structure provides a significant advantage as we build a 21st century, student-centered model for campus safety.” 

The Associated Students passed a resolution in July of 2020 supporting abolition of the University Police Department. The CFA’s Cops off Campus group made the same demands in October of 2020, and enumerated a robust list of actionable steps toward decreasing the University police force. When plans for the Public Safety Advisory Committee were announced last fall, we asked you, Interim VP Hellwig, to invite the CFA, Students for Quality Education (SQE), Black student organizations, external community representatives, and mental and public health experts. We asked that you treat this work as a community-led project rather than another bureaucratic committee. These requests were completely ignored. Further, the phrase ‘21st-century policing’ like its twin euphemism ‘community policing’ refers to policies that promote more police presence and which have been shown to further harm communities of color.

We do not need another task force to know that police presence on campus terrorizes and traumatizes Black students, faculty and staff. We do not need a police chief with student services experience, because we know the history of campus policing is rooted in suppressing student demands for racial justice. We demand information on the percent of the police budget that was reallocated to campus programming, as you promised to do nearly a year ago, and spend that money on life-affirming alternatives for community safety. 

In the same July 2020 statement noted above, the Associated Students write “San Francisco State University has consistently noted the vision of Equity and Inclusion, but disregards the actions needed to ensure those truths be followed. We must remind ourselves what enabled the opportunity for equity and inclusion to exist on our campus in the first place: activism, protests, grassroots organizing, and calls for accountability.” 

San Francisco State’s mythic status was created by the protest of Black and Third World students in 1968-9. The Bold Thinking Campaign saw the Office of Marketing plaster pictures of BIPOC students on buses, banners on and around campus, downtown San Francisco, and on BART. Also, in 2020, the SFSU website’s main page blasting pictures upon pictures of Black Students. This represents a sad bit of self-congratulatory tokenizing to use the shrinking number of Black students as visual capital for outside consumption when Black leadership is ignored and under-resourced on our campus.

We stand with our students and offer this letter as a repeated and urgent call for accountability and transformative structural change. We look forward to the first Black Faculty Forum with President Mahoney, and the newly hired, Dr. Jamilah Moore, the soon to be seated Vice President of Student Affairs & Enrollment Management. 

The EXECUTIVE BOARD of the SFSU CHAPTER OF THE CALIFORNIA FACULTY ASSOCIATION

FROM “A SENSE OF COMMUNITY”  ANNUAL REPORT 2017/2018 THE BLACK UNITY CENTER AT SAN FRANCISCO STATE UNIVERSITY 

———————————

Message from the Director-DR. SERIE MCDOUGAL.

Malcolm X was once asked why people were so receptive to the teachings of the Nation of Islam in the early 60s when the organization had actually been around for such a long time before then. Malcolm responded by explaining that people react to social-political conditions just like a seed responds to environmental and atmospheric conditions. His point was that the social-political atmospheric conditions were ripe for change in the 1960s and thus Black people responded by increasing their involvement in self-determining organizations. The same analogy holds true for the emergence of the Black Unity Center on SF State’s campus. The current social-political climate can be explained by the colliding of two storm systems. One system is defined by emboldened and institutionalized racism,  injustice,  hatred, and oppression shaped by political and institutional leadership and other forces. The other system may be defined by an empowered sense of agency and a revolution of rising expectations for equity and social justice following on the heels of the election of the first Black President and in the midst of a Black political advocacy climate shaped by organizations such as #BlacklivesMatter. It is in this context that the Black Unity Center at San Francisco State University, within the Division of Equity & Community Inclusion, emerged. In this, its first semester of existence, the Center has been able to help the University to build its bridge to opportunity by increasing the university community’s awareness, appreciation, and understanding of the unique cultures and geographies students of African descent reach the bridge from and the unique identities and resources they carry over. Indigenous/pre-colonial African knowledge traditions,  rooted in unique cultural and spiritual systems,  were frequently structured as lifelong processes designed to empower people to be of service by advancing the collective lives of communities. During the antebellum period of enslavement, resistance, and liberation struggle, people of African descent in the American context continued to struggle to attend schools, construct schools, and to educate themselves under the constant threats of lynching, anti-Black terrorism, and institutional racism. In a monumental analysis of Black student activism from 1919 to the 1970s, Kendi (2012) identifies four challenges that Black students have confronted, including attempts to: use higher education to impose Eurocentric value systems and behavioral expectations on Black students; exclude Black students from services, opportunities, positions of leadership and exclude their heritage from the curriculum;  present White people, ideas, and scholarship as normal and universal; and teach them  to adopt individualistic, careerist, materialistic philosophies of success which require them to abandon the notion of education for liberation and community advancement. Black students fought these forces in several ways, including but not limited to , 2012): more holistic curriculum,  and  Black leadership on campus, increased Black student college attendance while protesting racism on White campuses, becoming involved in larger social-political issues and movements like the civil rights and Black power movements. This is the tradition that Black students on Sf State’s campus are advancing.  Today,  Black student populations around the country on campuses where they are underrepresented, each have their own stories. Yet, the all-to-familiar consistent narrative focuses on their struggles with feeling isolated, unsupported, and unwelcome on campuses where they encounter racism, marginalization, and exclusion in their attempts to adjust to campus life (Patton, Bridges & Flowers, 2011). Yet, the Black Unity Center has had an amazing semester creating a supportive environment. Students who frequent the Black Unity Center and its events have described the Center’s programming as creating for them a sense of community on campus. This has been one of the primary successes of the multi-faceted programming of our very first semester. According to our survey of attendees at Black Unity Center events, the most significant contributions the Black Unity Center has made have been introducing students to Engaging and Passionate Facilitators and Presenters, doing programs that provide Relevant Knowledge and Awareness, providing students with a Communal Energy and a Welcoming Space, and doing programs that give our attendees Inspiration and Upliftment. 

• BECA Department Representative Election Period: Monday, March 27th to Friday, April 7th by 5:00 PM. Only CFA members from BECA Department can vote during this election period.
• Part of the department, but not a member and would like to participate in this election? Please join here. If you may have any questions, please contact CFA SFSU, cfa_sf@calfac.org.