Summit asserts Latino unity

The California Faculty Association held its first CFA-CSU Chicano/Latino Summit recently to assert the Latino role in the California State University system.

"If we don't get active right now, we'll have an apartheid situation on our hands," said Rick Gutierrez, a psychology counselor at San Francisco State and chairman of the summit.

More than 100 educators, counselors and state Chicano/Latino leaders from all over California gathered at the Hyatt-Regency Airport Hotel in San Francisco to attended the summit Nov. 12-12.

"I call the CSU Latino faculty to unite in a common goal: to better serve students," said Rodolfo Acuna, an activist and a professor of Chicano studies at Cal State Northridge since 1969. "We need to become more involved."

Acuna is noted for having established the first and largest Chicano studies program in the CSU system.

The purpose of the summit was to unite the Latino faculty to discuss common concerns, define goals and develop strategies for professional and community enrichment, Gutierrez said.

One of the items discussed at the summit was the CSU Retention, Tenure and Promotion Program. The program includes a review of teaching effectiveness, publication and research, and community service.

"Publication and research has become the most important part of the review and I believe that teaching effectiveness and community involvement should be more important,"Gutierrez said. "We have the responsibility to retain students,."

He said that for the program to be effective, faculty members need to spend more time teaching and getting involved in the community.

"We pledged to renounce the Board of Trustees' decision to get rid of remedial classes," Gutierrez said.

One of the demands that came from the summit was for the CFA to have more of an impact in supporting Latino faculty members.

"We want the CFA to support the Chicano/Latino faculty more vigorously," Gutierrez said. 'It seems that when hard decisions have to be made, a lot of Raza faculty are the victims because there is no statewide organization representing them that will outcry."

One of the conference highlights was the speech by Maria Nieto Senior, a professor of counselor education at San Diego State.

Increasing connections between the on-campus and off-campus Latino communities, Senior said she addressed the frustrations felt by many Latino students.

"Just because they have an accent, some teachers think they're dumb, as if being able to speak two languages doesn't make us superior," she said.

The Latino faculty members who participated at the summit resolved to ask the CFA and the Chancellor's Office to fund another conference next year, Gutierrez said.

"If we don't take responsibility, when the Raza youth comes pounding in, who will be there to let them in?" he said.