CSUS faculty airs its anger
Sacramento Bee 3/22/07
After an unusual general faculty meeting, the college's Faculty Senate president said there probably would be a no-confidence vote on university President Alexander Gonzalez within weeks.
The meeting marked the first step in a process that probably will end with a referendum on Gonzalez.
At the same time, the faculty -- along other California State University professors throughout the state -- overwhelmingly authorized a strike over salaries, faculty leaders said.
The strikes, which could happen as soon as April, wouldn't take place at all campuses at once.
"We are not going to take it," said Kevin Wehr, an assistant professor of sociology who has taught at California State University, Sacramento, for four years.
For his part, Gonzalez, who assumed office in 2003, took a conciliatory tone on the strike vote, saying that instructors deserve good raises and that he hopes the dispute is settled soon.
On the no-confidence vote, he said the faculty has a right to take such a step. But he added that he has always acted in good faith and done what he felt was correct.
"I do my job in the best way I can, working in the best interests of the university," he said.
The general faculty meeting, organizers said, was extremely rare and it drew 450 faculty members -- more than 40 percent of the college's instructors.
Much of the meeting focused on Gonzalez. Many faculty are angry about the school's budget situation and Gonzalez's handling of it, said Faculty Senate President Michael Fitzgerald.
This year, the university has a $6.5 million structural deficit, according to an official report by a special budget task force of adminstrators, teachers and students.
That deficit, the report found, was due, in part, to decisions to increase funding in some areas, compounded by a failure to meet enrollment targets.
Recently, to try to balance the books, the CSUS administration has been frugal with funding for academic affairs, the bread-and-butter of the university that also represents its largest expenditure.
That means less money for academic programs, fewer tenured professors and larger classes, several faculty members say.
"The money that pays for classes -- that budget has steadily depleted," said mathematics professor Scott Farrand, a member of the budget task force.
Meanwhile, faculty members say, the administration has increased funding for areas such as University Advancement -- which includes things like student recruitment and community advocacy.
"A lot of (the budget problems) appear to be self-inflicted," said Fitzgerald.
And that is what has led to serious discussions of a vote of no-confidence regarding Gonzalez, Fitzgerald said. At Wednesday's meeting, most of the faculty had copies of a resolution that expressed "outrage over (Gonzalez's) placement of the interests of management, publicity and cultivation of community favor over the needs of instructional programs."
With the faculty at large stating such a strong preference for a no-confidence vote, the Faculty Senate likely will authorize such a referendum during an early April meeting, Fitzgerald said.
"I think there will probably be a vote of no-confidence in the spring," he said.
"I would be very surprised if there wasn't."
Responding to the complaints, Gonzalez said some faculty members are misinterpreting the task force's report. The failure to meet enrollment targets, among other things, has put the administration in a bind, and cuts had to be made, he said.
It's no surprise, he said, that academic affairs funding is tight because it makes up the bulk of the budget.
"If we don't have the students," Gonzalez said, "we don't have the structural revenue."
"Everyone has to take a hit," he added.
Gonzalez said he has been upfront about the school's budget situation with the faculty.
"I inherited this," he said. "It started a long time ago."
While all this was going on, the faculty, for largely unrelated reasons, was getting ready for a walkout.
California State University faculty around the state on Wednesday authorized the strike, with walkouts to start as soon as April.
About 81 percent of the California Faculty Association's more than 11,000 members voted. About 94 percent of those who voted authorized the strike. The figures were even higher at Sacramento State, said Wehr, who helped out with the strike authorization effort.
The strikes are to take the form of two-day rolling walkouts, not happening on all campuses at once.
California Faculty Association President John Travis promised the walkouts would not take place during final exams.
Faculty members are frustrated that two years of talks haven't produced a salary proposal they like.
"We want to approve a settlement," Travis said. "But the administration of CSU has been extremely obstinate."
CSU Chancellor Charles Reed said the university has a contingency plan on all campuses that could minimize the impact of a strike. He noted that the faculty association does not represent all professors and said the system is committed to reaching an agreement soon.
"I don't see it as a black eye," Reed said just before the vote was announced, when it was pretty clear it would go against the system.
"I see it as those people, faculty, don't want to get an agreement."
At CSU Sacramento, Gonzalez said that in his almost three decades in the CSU system, "I've never seen it get this far."
"The faculty deserve a raise," he added. "They are underpaid. California is becoming more and more of a state difficult to live in."
But hammering out the raises, he said, "has to be done at the system level."
Some CSU Sacramento faculty took pains to note that the proposed no-confidence vote and the authorization of a strike, while rooted in a general frustration, are over two separate issues.
One, they say, is about fair pay. The other is about budget management.
"If the salary issue was settled to the satisfaction of everyone tomorrow," Farrand said, "the vote of no-confidence would still be in place."