CSUB budget at issue
Bakersfield Californian 1/15/07
The Academic Affairs division, which oversees instruction, held several town-hall meetings with faculty last fall. Faculty asked budget-related questions during those meetings.
Soraya Coley, provost and vice president for academic affairs, said Thursday she's been working on answering those questions as she promised.
There are about 50, and Coley said she will e-mail those answers to the campus community.
"We want to make sure people realize we're taking these questions very seriously," Coley said.
On Jan. 2, a professor e-mailed faculty, Coley, President Horace Mitchell and academic deans asking why the answers weren't yet available.
Larry Taylor, a math professor, wrote that questions asked during the town-hall meetings have yet to be answered. He also included an analysis of faculty/student ratios.
Taylor is the president of the campus chapter of the California Faculty Association, a union.
"They have a duty to explain themselves to us (and) haven't done so," Taylor said.
When told Thursday the answers were forthcoming, he said he wanted to see them in writing.
Coley said the e-mail she's crafting isn't related to Taylor's message.
In his e-mail, Taylor questioned an increase in how many management positions have been added to the university since2004. According to his tabulations, the head count went from 54 to 70.
But Mitchell said at an Academic Senate meeting Thursday that some jobs were added to the management category to be more in line with other campuses.
At least two management positions that exist at other California State University system campuses weren't at Cal State Bakersfield, Mitchell said. They are a director of safety and risk management and an associate vice president for faculty affairs.
Enrollment
At the senate meeting, Mitchell said he expects the campus to exceed the CSU's enrollment growth target of 2.5 percent for the 2007-08 school year.
Preliminary figures show the university may grow by 3.1 percent, which Mitchell said is good news because funding is tied to enrollment.
Through a spokeswoman, Mitchell said the campus won't know its funding until the May revision of the budget is available.
Enrollment is growing because more local high school students are choosing to attend CSUB.
"We're seeing a steady trend of more and more students coming from out of the area," said Terry Dunn, director of institutional planning and research.
Graduate student enrollment has held steady and new master's degree programs, such as social work and mathematics, are attracting students.
Dunn expects the new master's program in biology, which launches this fall, will draw students.
"Biology is our largest science program. All the biology teachers in the county earn a lot more if they get a master's degree," he said.
CSU budget
The governor's proposed $4.3 billion budget for the CSU assumes nearly $123 million in student fee revenue based on a 10 percent increase in student fees and money associated with a 2.5 percent enrollment growth, according to the CSU.
Ken Beurmann, president of Cal State Bakersfield's Associated Students Inc., called the proposed fee increase horrible.
He said the California State Student Association, which represents the more than 400,000CSU students statewide, expected a fee increase but was surprised it's 10 percent.
"It looks like the students are going to get hammered no matter what happens," Beurmann said.
He wonders why the CSU doesn't incrementally raise student fees, say by 2 percent each year, which he says would help students budget.
Nadir Vissanjy works with Beurmann in the state student association and said the group will join forces with students in the University of California system and community colleges to advocate for students' rights.
"Our fees have increased (dramatically) in the past five years, which is making us be in debt or not even be part of higher education," said Vissanjy, chairman of the CSSA and student body president at Sonoma State University.
Average academic year undergraduate student fees for residents totaled $1,839 in 2000-01 compared with $3,199 in 2006-07, according to the CSU Web site.
The governor's budget includes a proposed $7 million cut from funds to support campus-based outreach in the governor's budget. It's unclear how that might affect Bakersfield's recruiting efforts.
The CSU had requested an additional 1 percent funding to help close the gap between employee salaries at its campuses and comparable institutions. This request wasn't funded; the CSU said Chancellor Charles B. Reed will seek this funding for employee salaries from Sacramento.
The CSU and CFA, the faculty union, are in salary negotiations.
Taylor, the Bakersfield faculty union president, said the CFA is disappointed the 1 percent additional increase wasn't funded. He added that because that funding isn't automatic, it shouldn't have been included in the CSU's salary offer.
Meanwhile, the CSU's Board of Trustees will consider increasing executives' salaries by 4 percent at a meeting Jan. 23-24, according to the CSU.
Campus presidents' and Chancellor's Office executives' salaries lag behind comparable institutions, according to the CSU.