Welcome to the blog
October 7th
Pizza with the President
Time: 12pm - 1pm
Location: Quad
October 13th
Student Demonstration
Time: 12pm - 3pm
Location: Quad
CFA Petition to Remove Chancellor Reed
Time: noon
Location: Quad
October 20th
Furlough Student/Faculty Work Shops
Time: noon
Location: Becker Amphitheater
OLD FLIERS
http://www.scribd.com/doc/20574798/The-Elephant-in-the-Room
http://www.scribd.com/doc/20574865/Organize-to-Defend-Education-at-Cal-State-Fullerton
-The Elephant in the Room-
Educations begins with a critique of the education business…
Welcome to campus, did you drive here on State College Boulevard? Did you see the new seven million dollar university police station? Did you see the multi-million dollar construction projects? Did you see the university’s new logo, intended to “improve CSU Fullerton’s visual identity in the academic market place” according to the president’s office? Did you notice that tuition went up by 30%? Did you notice that the top administrators in the California State University system gave themselves 20% pay raises in the past few years?
The corporate managers of CSU Fullerton know that you see all of this - but they don’t want you to see what it means. It means that the university and the state “have money” and these are its most obvious signs.
But don’t look, just listen - listen only to the voice of corporate management as it talks about “the budget crisis”. “These are hard times”, it says - but why? If the university and that are “broke” then where did they find the money for the new building projects, the new logo and the new raises for the top administrators? These large expenditures are like elephants in the room: corporate management sounds ridiculous when it talks about “the budget crisis” while it’s surrounded by the monuments of its own mismanagement and greed.
Imagine the same scenario on the national level: repetitive talk about “the budget crisis”, millions of people unemployed and facing uncertainty - but trillions of dollars given to the war machine and the banks by the federal government. If there’s no money its because they stole it all.
This year dozens of teachers at CSU Fullerton are being laid off, supposedly because of “the budget crisis”. But these teachers only make around $2000 a month for teaching four classes at a time. This is how the university saves money? By cutting the salaries that barely meet the cost of living? Who do they expect to believe this? Job losses for teachers means less classes for students, which means it will take more time to graduate because students can’t get the classes they need, which means they will be here longer and end up paying more money in tuition. Brilliant! Oh, and all teachers and staff also got their pay cut by 10% this year, but the university still managed to afford the ‘Concert Under the Stars’ extravaganza in September - did you hear them sing God Bless America? What did it mean to them?
And the funniest thing is, they want to put the blame on you.
Can’t enroll because classes are full? Its because of those ‘super seniors’ who never graduate because they can’t get their act together.
About to lose your teaching job? It’s because your student evaluations are low - like the university seriously cares about defending “a quality education”. A message to students: the “Instructor Evaluation Forms” you fill out at the end of the semester are not about “listening to your opinion”, they are used as blackmail by the administration when it wants an excuse to lay off teachers. Don’t bother to fill them out.
The university’s corporate management does nothing but lie. The “crisis” is their fault, not yours. They should pay for it, not you.
Disneyland or Science Fiction?
Have you ever seen a more alienated campus? Students walk around like automatons in a maze of corporate landscaping and surveillance. Have you ever seen a more poisoned work environment? Teachers live with the impending catastrophe of losing their jobs. How funny, in the happiest place on Earth no one wants to be here.
Choose the correct response to the budget crisis:
(A) sorry
(B) thank you
(C) have a nice day
(D) cal state fullofshit
ORGANIZE TO DEFEND EDUCATION AT CAL STATE FULLERTON
Bad decisions
Why is the gym open at night, but not the library? Why are libraries at other CSUs open at night, but not at Cal State Fullerton? It’s because the people who decide how to allocate funds on this campus have not made education their priority.
When the Cal State Fullerton administration isn’t denying that it makes any bad decisions, it likes to shift all responsibility away from itself by claiming that it only “implements orders from above.” It wants you to believe that all important budgetary decisions are made only in Sacramento by the CSU headquarters and the State Legislature, but this isn’t true. Administrators on this campus also make budgetary decisions, and in doing so millions of dollars have been misspent while classes have been cancelled and teachers with poor salaries have been laid off.
Clear demands
The reason the Cal State Fullerton administration has been able to act this way is because no one has held it responsible. The problems at Cal State Fullerton are certainly connected to the bigger problems of the CSU system, the state, the nation and capitalism as a whole, but don’t let this become an alibi for the administration. We can’t ignore what happens here and what we can do about it now.
How can we save classes next semester at Cal State Fullerton? How can we get the library to reopen at night? How can we get the administration to act in the best interests of students and teachers? By getting them to listen to us — not with solitary letters, but with a clear collective voice.
The Vice President of Administration and Finance Willie Hagan has identified who the decision makers are when it comes to allocating resources on this campus: President Milton Gordon, Vice President of Academic Affairs Ephraim Smith, the other Vice Presidents (there are a lot of them), the Deans of the Colleges, the Department Chairs, and the administrators and faculty members on the Planning, Resource and Budget Committee. These people need to hear from us:
ADD CLASSES, DON’T CUT THEM
REOPEN THE LIBRARY AT NIGHT
THE UNIVERSITY IS NOT A BUSINESS
