California Faculty Assn

As a lecturer at Cal State Fullerton, I cannot share (Vice President for Academic Affairs) Jack Coleman's optimism with regard to personnel cuts at the university ("CSUF Moves to Utilize Its Classrooms More Fully," April 6). He states that "the school will try to avoid layoffs of permanent employees." He does not mention that more than half of the CSUF teaching faculty are not classified as "permanent." Coleman is "optimistic that the campus will experience minimal layoffs, if any."

A California State University faculty union embroiled in a salary dispute said Monday its members will strike at two campuses next week. The governing board of the California Faculty Assn. authorized a one-day strike Nov. 17 at Cal State East Bay and Cal State Dominguez Hills after 93% of members voted to approve the walkouts, officials said. It would be the first strike since the union won the right to collective bargaining in 1983. The association represents 23,000 professors, lecturers, librarians, counselors and coaches at 23 Cal State campuses.

The Sept. 15 article "South O.C. College District Salaries Are State's Highest" misrepresents the salaries of faculty at Cal State Fullerton. Your article gives the impression that faculty are paid far more than they actually receive. In the article, the "average annual pay scale" for full professors is stated as $82,176. For associate and assistant professors, the reported salaries are $78,408 and $71,376, respectively. The fact is, according to figures computed on Sept.

A Los Angeles County Superior Court judge ruled Tuesday that California State University did not violate the state's open meeting law in January when it approved a $350,000 annual salary for the new president of Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. In April, Lillian Taiz, president of the California Faculty Assn., sued the university's Board of Trustees and Cal State Chancellor Charles Reed, arguing that the public should have received prior notification that the salary for Jeffrey D. Armstrong would exceed the previous maximum rate of $328,212 for top executives by nearly $20,000.

After playing coy for weeks, the powerful Service Employees International Union on Monday joined a new coalition opposed to Proposition 1A, the May 19 ballot measure intended to help stabilize the state's teetering budget. But the union, which represents a majority of the state government workforce, remains silent about how much money it's willing to spend. In the electoral calculus, it's big dollars that count. A healthy war chest is needed to fund mass mailings and ads on radio and other media to spread the opposition gospel -- that Proposition 1A was drafted on the run by Sacramento politicians and is "fatally flawed."

I support Dan Wightman's positive remarks about part-time college instructors (Letters, Feb. 29), but his situation, teaching one class, seems exceptional to me. Speaking as an officer of the California Faculty Assn. at SDSU, and editor of "The Quarterly Lecturer," the statewide CFA publication for CSU part-time faculty, I know many lecturers who are very professional, very dedicated, but also very much full-time teachers, long-term dependent on these "temporary" part-time jobs for their livelihood.

Letter writer Peter Bretnall raised some important issues about the "expensive association" of Cal State L.A. and the Joffrey Ballet (Saturday Letters, Sept. 9). He is correct in saying that under Chancellor W. Ann Reynolds expenditures have "run amok" while "real-world problems continue to fester." Unless James Rosser, Cal State L.A. president, has changed his management style, Bretnall would be refused any information on the cost involved, although the campus and the system are spending state funds.

Re "Raises OKd for Cal State presidents," Jan. 24 As a retired Cal State San Bernardino faculty member, I can tell you that I was always offended by administrative salary increases. But when salaries for corporate executives and University of California administrators are considered, California State University administrators are grossly underpaid and deserve a lot better. The same can be said for the CSU faculty and staff, who are underpaid and overworked by any measure of academic life.

Re "Underappreciated and Unrepresented, With Nowhere to Turn," by Craig Smith, Commentary, April 12: In his 13 months with the system, Chancellor Charles Reed has been a tremendous advocate for the California State University. And, whether the faculty acknowledge it, Reed has been their champion in Sacramento. All of us with responsibility for running the CSU appreciate the outside service and academic responsibilities of our faculty. That does not mean there isn't room for improvement--be it the more efficient use of facilities through year-round operations and more evening and weekend classes, or more flexible structure within some related institutions such as the Commission on Teacher Credentialing.

In defense of the Day administration at SDSU, John Witherspoon (Commentary Sept. 13) argues that President Thomas Day was facing a 25% budget cut in two years; that Day was merely implementing the academic Senate's restructuring document, and that Day was carrying out his concept of "what makes the university unique" through protecting graduate programs, research, diversity and recently hired professors. These statements are all essentially incorrect. First, the CSU budget was not cut by 25% in two years.

California State University lost 10% of its teaching force in the last year, a result of crippling budget cuts that reduced job opportunities on many campuses, according to a faculty union group. Numbers released by the California Faculty Assn. found that about 2,500 fewer faculty members were employed on the university's 23 campuses in May 2010 than in May 2009. The figures are based on payroll data and include full- and part-time faculty, coaches, counselors and others. The numbers represent a loss of about 1,230 full-time equivalent faculty positions.

The Cal State University system's governing board has been without a faculty voice for eight months because of a disagreement between Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the university's Academic Senate about who should occupy the seat. The impasse has come at a critical time for the Cal State system, which has grappled in recent months with a $564-million cut in state funding, resulting in controversial decisions to raise student fees 32%, slash enrollment by 40,000 students over two years and require nearly all employees to take furlough days.

California State University Chancellor Charles B. Reed said Tuesday he will ask the university's Board of Trustees next week to approve a 10% student fee increase for the coming school year. Speaking in a conference call with reporters, the Cal State leader said the $306 annual hike, which the board is expected to approve, was the only way to maintain the quality of education in the face of what he called California's "economic meltdown."

After playing coy for weeks, the powerful Service Employees International Union on Monday joined a new coalition opposed to Proposition 1A, the May 19 ballot measure intended to help stabilize the state's teetering budget. But the union, which represents a majority of the state government workforce, remains silent about how much money it's willing to spend. In the electoral calculus, it's big dollars that count. A healthy war chest is needed to fund mass mailings and ads on radio and other media to spread the opposition gospel -- that Proposition 1A was drafted on the run by Sacramento politicians and is "fatally flawed."

Re "Raises OKd for Cal State presidents," Jan. 24 As a retired Cal State San Bernardino faculty member, I can tell you that I was always offended by administrative salary increases. But when salaries for corporate executives and University of California administrators are considered, California State University administrators are grossly underpaid and deserve a lot better. The same can be said for the CSU faculty and staff, who are underpaid and overworked by any measure of academic life.

Re "Underappreciated and Unrepresented, With Nowhere to Turn," by Craig Smith, Commentary, April 12: In his 13 months with the system, Chancellor Charles Reed has been a tremendous advocate for the California State University. And, whether the faculty acknowledge it, Reed has been their champion in Sacramento. All of us with responsibility for running the CSU appreciate the outside service and academic responsibilities of our faculty. That does not mean there isn't room for improvement--be it the more efficient use of facilities through year-round operations and more evening and weekend classes, or more flexible structure within some related institutions such as the Commission on Teacher Credentialing.

California State University lost 10% of its teaching force in the last year, a result of crippling budget cuts that reduced job opportunities on many campuses, according to a faculty union group. Numbers released by the California Faculty Assn. found that about 2,500 fewer faculty members were employed on the university's 23 campuses in May 2010 than in May 2009. The figures are based on payroll data and include full- and part-time faculty, coaches, counselors and others. The numbers represent a loss of about 1,230 full-time equivalent faculty positions.

The Cal State University system's governing board has been without a faculty voice for eight months because of a disagreement between Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the university's Academic Senate about who should occupy the seat. The impasse has come at a critical time for the Cal State system, which has grappled in recent months with a $564-million cut in state funding, resulting in controversial decisions to raise student fees 32%, slash enrollment by 40,000 students over two years and require nearly all employees to take furlough days.

The Sept. 15 article "South O.C. College District Salaries Are State's Highest" misrepresents the salaries of faculty at Cal State Fullerton. Your article gives the impression that faculty are paid far more than they actually receive. In the article, the "average annual pay scale" for full professors is stated as $82,176. For associate and assistant professors, the reported salaries are $78,408 and $71,376, respectively. The fact is, according to figures computed on Sept.

In defense of the Day administration at SDSU, John Witherspoon (Commentary Sept. 13) argues that President Thomas Day was facing a 25% budget cut in two years; that Day was merely implementing the academic Senate's restructuring document, and that Day was carrying out his concept of "what makes the university unique" through protecting graduate programs, research, diversity and recently hired professors. These statements are all essentially incorrect. First, the CSU budget was not cut by 25% in two years.