As many of you know, I'm a lecturer at Humboldt State University, teaching logic. While my position is temporary, and I will likely be working elsewhere in the spring, I am proud of my position and my line of work. I am passionate about teaching - I do not count the hours I put in and I devote a lot of care when working with my students and planning my lectures. As many of you do not know, there is great potential of a massive strike by all faculty in the California State University system, including tenured professors, assistant professors, lecturers, librarians, etc. etc. I am in support of this action if things don't change from the way they are right now.
What is going on?
First and foremost, the Chancellor of the CSU system, Charles B. Reed, has not been managing the CSU budget appropriately. The average salary of a CSU President has gone from roughly $173,000 a year in 1998 to 300,000 in 2011. Also, the number of administrators for the CSU has increased by a lot since Reed became Chancellor. Administrators, as increasingly different from the faculty, do not participate in educating, but are rather responsible for the corporatization of the University: finding funding from businesses, privatizing classes through the increased offering of 'extended education classes,' cutting costs which usually means hiring more part-time faculty and not extending tenure to professors, enhancing higher education's utility to businesses, gaining control over the intellectual property of professors in order to generate revenue for the University, and the lessening of department control in hiring faculty. The focus of administrators is to increase revenues and decrease costs. Administrators have been hired in abundance since Reed's becoming Chancellor. Additionally, students have been asked over the last five years to pay more for less. Student class-sizes have gotten larger and there have been less offerings. In short, the CSU is being run more and more like a for-profit business, with no benefits extended to students or faculty.
The CSU faculty had to forego a wage increase in 2008/2009 and are being asked to do so again now. The reason being used is that California's budget is in crisis, and the money is simply not there. The California Faculty Association is fighting against this, and as part of the bargaining process, hired two different independent fact-finding commissions, both of which recommended that the Chancellor settles with their modest proposals (a 1% increase in pay for all CSU Faculty). The Chancellor is not obligated to take those recommendations, and he exercised his right in refusing them. A strike is therefore imminent.
Example of a Double-Standard
In July of this year, Reed approved the salary of new San Diego State University President Elliot Hirshman with a 12-3 vote from the board of trustees. It is $350,000 a year plus housing and $1,000 per month for a car allowance. He'll also get $50,000 a year from the university's foundation. The President before him, Stephen Weber, made $300,000, so this is a substantial increase. It comes at the same time that students are asked to pay more tuition as, according to Reed, "The enormous reduction to our state funding has left us with no other choice if we are to maintain quality and access to CSU." Reed also noted that, according to studies, CSU presidents, even given Hirshman's salary, are paid less than comparable institutions. This only indicates to me that there is a more systemic problem - other institutions have likely mimicked the incredible increase in average salary for administrators over the last ten years. It does NOT indicate to me that $400,000 a year in salary is reasonable.
Presumably, Hirshman has been hired to increase the quality of education at San Diego State University. That has to be in the rhetoric of hiring him at such a price. A great double-standard unearths at that point. As faculty (those who interact personally with students, who supply the content and the feedback, who grade the performance, who design the curriculum) are asked to go years without a pay increase, a high level administrator is given 25% more than his predecessor, in an effort to maintain high standards of excellence at the university. At the same time, students are asked to pay more for less. We must remain very critical of such attention to quality given the increasing struggle teachers and students face to perform.
The Challenge for the California Faculty Association
The CFA is in a bad position - they are asking for more money at a time of economic crisis. Public perception will surely be critical. Therefore, it is crucial that the CFA pays attention to the narrative they are creating. The corporatocracy we live in has perfected a line of approaching goals that is hyper-attentive to the narrative. Before progressive arguments are even made, they are already in a losing battle of defending their principles because of the media framing of the issues. This will be the case with CSU faculty here. The narrative is already being established by the Chancellor that teachers are being unreasonable - "in an environment of economic hardship, they are asking for more money from unemployed tax payers." CSU will fall right into this line of thinking if they continually reference a 'raise'.
Teachers are not asking for a raise. They are asking for a cost of living adjustment. As not receiving any additional compensation since 2008, and as the cost of living has increased since then, teachers are making less money now. Additionally, with budget cuts, the slashing of tenure tracks, the hiring of part-time workers, the increase in class size, and the additional administrative responsibilities for departments, they are making less money and working more. Even as the Chancellor's narrative will attempt to simply reduce the terminology of a "cost of living readjustment," the CSU faculty needs to resist such a reduction and fight vehemently. In actuality, a 1% increase in pay is not a raise. It's also less than the 3% increase in pay UC faculty receive every year. Also, CSU faculty are the only state workers who do not have a cost-of-living adjustment built into their contract. That needs to be made clear to the public. Whether in economic hardship or not, state workers receive this adjustment in salary, but CSU faculty do not.
It's imperative that, in the event of a strike, or in the case of demonstrations, all CSU faculty get involved, from tenured faculty to lecturers. A variety of ages need representation and there needs to be a mass of people. The success of a demonstration relies on making the Chancellor look bad. He needs to be embarrassed. That will bring him to the bargaining table.
As professors are ridiculed in the media, think critically of the narrative that will come out. Think critically about available CSU funds and budgeting. It's the faculty that delivers the education, that helps develop the critical thinking capacity of students, that help in the development of America's future. They need to be paid respectfully and with attention to quality and retention.
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