Join thousands of tenure-track faculty, lecturers, counselors, librarians, and coaches to protect academic freedom, faculty rights, safe workplaces, student learning, fair pay, and fight for racial and social justice.
*Please note: a PDF version of this FAQ was emailed to all faculty and also is accessible on this post.
As the Fullerton Chapter Executive Board of your Union, the California Faculty Association, we are committed to protecting the health and welfare of our membership. Article 37 (Safety) of the Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) reads: The CSU shall endeavor to ensure that faculty unit employees will not be required (a) to work in unsafe conditions or (b) to perform tasks that endanger their health or safety. To ensure both the letter and spirit of Article 37 of the CBA as we transition to in-person instruction, CFA-Fullerton has compiled a list of frequently asked questions regarding our rights as faculty, librarians, coaches, and counselors during the return to the Fullerton campus. Below, we include the responses provided by the CSUF administration (complete with hyperlinks to all relevant documents) as well as our positions and recommendations that adhere to Article 37 of the CBA.
How does structural racism work at California State University? Our colleague (and CFA Fullerton Executive Board member) Jon Bruschke offers startling insights into CSU’s structural racism problem in an extensive analysis of campus funding structures across the nation’s largest university system.
Bruschke’s analysis finds that more money — almost $4,000 per student per year — goes to campuses with more white students. ”[A] hypothetical all-white campus would receive about $9.6 million more per year than an exclusively non-white campus,” Bruschke writes. “Using actual differences for AY2019–20 ($651 per student) the same figure is $12.4 million. In very concrete actual terms, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo is 54% white and receives $17,806 per FTES to educate their student body. CSULA is only 4% white and receives $15,184 per FTES. The student populations are roughly equal size; the difference in funding for AY2019–20 was $24 million.”
The story is part of Capital & Main’s feature “State of Inequality,” a month-long series examining the disappearance of the middle class and how economic inequality is impacting California.
An excerpt reads:
If only Loupe could get a tenured position she’d be able to envision a secure future.
“When I began I had this idea of being a professional and having a career. Now I just have a job. I see people given tenure with less experience or publishing, while some of the most talented faculty are still untenured. People say, ‘You have to pay your dues,’ or ‘You’re lucky to have a job.’ But really, we should all have tenure, especially after teaching 10 years. People should be lecturers only by choice, not because they’re forced into making a living this way.”
With no secure future in sight in California, Loupe is planning a return to her roots in Hawaii. “It’s a huge risk — to take 10 years to build up again what I have now,” she worries. “But the way we’re living isn’t sustainable.”
Academic Senate Resolution 20-93 instructed all levels of review to account for the detrimental effects of racial unrest and the global pandemic on faculty performance and allowed faculty members to include a note.
To support our members, the California Faculty Association (Fullerton Chapter) has created a template of that note with input, but not endorsement, from CSUF’s Faculty Support Services. It is pasted below and attached to this post, in PDF and Word formats. Faculty may include this note as-is in their review portfolio or modify it as they see fit.
Join thousands of instructional faculty, librarians, counselors, and coaches to protect academic freedom, faculty rights, safe workplaces, higher education, student learning, and fight for racial and social justice.
Our minds and hearts focused on our fellow CSU colleagues and CFA siblings affected by the wildfires in Southern California. Click here for assistance and eligibility details on CFA’s Disaster Relief Fund.
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