Faculty
association wants more classroom attention
By
Sonya Smith
On-line Forty-Niner
Working
as a part-time lecturer during the 1990s
at both San Francisco State and Cal State
University Hayward while raising two teenagers,
Lil Taiz was laid off due to budget cuts.
Later on her new job at Cal State Los Angeles
was also eliminated for the same reason.
During
the early 1990s the California State University
system faced a severe budget shortfall,
and as a result the higher education budget
was reduced.
The
California Faculty Association combined
politics, budgets and lunch Tuesday in an
effort to support classroom funding during
California's current budget crisis.
Currently
more than 50 percent of the CSU's budget
is spent on non-instructional areas and
classrooms receive 42 to 45 percent of those
funds said CFA researcher, Andy Lyons.
Taiz
who is now a recently tenured professor
of history at CSU Los Angeles and the vice
president of CFA statewide said, "the
CSU system should spend its money in such
ways as to protect instruction."
During
the budget cuts of the early 1990s the,
"classes and library services were
cut, class sizes increased and many lecturers
disappeared," said Elizabeth Hoffman,
a CFA Long Beach Chapter representative.
Assemblyman
Alan Lowenthall, D-Long Beach, said that
the budget problem may be as severe as in
the past, but the "way of resolving
it has become more partisan and difficult
to fix."
He
added that with a budget shortfall of $
9million this year, next year proves to
be much worse with a potential shortfall
of $12 billion. As a way of preparing for
this, Lowenthall said the Legislature has
asked all services currently receiving state
money to cut their budgets by 20 percent.
In
response to how the CSU budget should be
cut, instead of increasing fees by 90 percent
or cutting 450 classes, Lowenthall suggested
the CSU system, "keep instruction and
take management or non-essential cuts."
"Cutting
access to students is what we do not want
to do," said Sharon Weissman, representative
for Jenny Oropeza, a council member for
the 55th district. "You do not want
the Legislature to interfere with these
things."
The
new president of the Cal State Long Beach
CFA chapter, Mike Hassul, said his top priorities
for the campus are protecting the libraries
and classrooms, as well as guarding against
overloading. He said that guarding the library's
funds would help the current promoting of
more graduate work.
A
resolution has already been passed by the
CSU along with the CFA, which created the
Supplemental Report Language, a guide to
the Legislature on their policies and spending
priorities. The report said, "The CSU
will give priority to funding core classroom
instructional needs, student services and
libraries."
The
report also said that the CSU system will
ensure that cuts are proportionate to the
quality of the services they would affect,
reduce the amount of administrative costs,
seek alternative funding sources and that
they defer money to be spent on any Common
Management System proposed.
"Classes
and library services were cut, class sizes
increased and many lecturers disappeared."
-- Elizabeth Hoffman, CFA Long Beach
chapter representative
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