CSU Trustees Put Politics Ahead of Students and Faculty Yet Again

For the last eight years, the California State University Board of Trustees has held its annual budget meeting in late October. But this year will be different—and the difference is all about politics. Gubernatorial politics, to be exact.

On October 6, 2006, the Trustees announced that the annual budget meeting will be postponed until mid-November. This was a surprising development because the Trustees normally hold the annual budget meeting in late October in order to meet a long-standing November 1st deadline for state agencies to submit budget proposals to the State Department of Finance. However, this year, the Trustees decided to wait until November, because—according to CSU spokesperson Clara Postes-Fellow—the Trustees want to “wait for the outcome of the election.”

Originally designed to provide an affordable, quality four-year college education to eligible California students, the California State University system has undergone wrenching changes under the current CSU administration, and our students are suffering because of those changes. Under the leadership of Chancellor Charles Reed, tuition rates in the CSU system have risen 76% while campus resources have declined dramatically. At the same time that California’s college-eligible students have been shut out of CSU because of spiraling tuition costs, declining educational access, and reduced educational funding, Chancellor Reed and his fellow elites among the Trustees have engineered extravagant pay deals and “no-work required ‘consulting’ contracts” for high-priced executives who left the CSU system.

And now, the CSU Trustees are doing what they can to engineer the upcoming gubernatorial election. Apparently, the Trustees believe the success of their plans to increase student fees 10 percent—as well as their ability to deflect attention away from growing faculty and student public protests against rising tuition costs, stagnant faculty salaries, and dismal graduation rates at some campuses—is heavily dependent on who is elected governor on November 7th. And, they may be right. Governor Schwarzenegger believes that faculty salaries need to be “held at bay” and that—since students “benefit” from their education—they should pay for it themselves. Taxing students and faculty while rewarding top-level administrators is right in line with the actions and sentiments of Chancellor Reed and the CSU Board of Trustees. In contrast, gubernatorial hopeful, Phil Angelides, supports protecting educational access and is calling for “more financial aid for students, better funding for state universities and a student fee rollback.” Angelides, the self-styled “anti-Arnold,” is also the “anti-Reed” in that his position on making higher education accessible to eligible California students mirrors the original mission of the California State University system.

Thankfully, the Trustees’ politically motivated postponement of the annual budget meeting hasn’t gone unnoticed. In a letter to the Trustees, Speaker Fabian Nunez demanded an explanation for the postponement: “Given the fact that any increase in student fees is likely to generate concern among parents and students in the weeks prior to the election, coupled with the fact that in recent years the Trustees have voted on the CSU budget at the scheduled late-October Trustees meeting, I would like to know why the discussion of the proposed budget was moved from the canceled meeting scheduled for just before the election and postponed to a meeting shortly after the election.” The California Faculty Association has also demanded answers. As important, the CFA has called upon CSU faculty, students, staff and allies to gather at the CSU Chancellor’s office in Long Beach on Wednesday, Nov. 15, 2006 to “show the administration that their meeting will not be business as usual.” For more information and to read CFA’s news release as well as Speaker Nunez’s letter, visit: http://www.calfac.org/releases/html.