Faculty Feature: CFA San Bernardino Member Teaches, Organizes with Empathy

Teaching anthropology is what CFA San Bernardino member Dr. Guy Hepp calls “formalizing empathy.”

“One of the things I want to share with the students is just, sort of having an anthropological outlook on life. You know, we’re not trying to turn everyone into an anthropologist, but if more people looked at things anthropologically, we would be in a better place. If our politicians, for example, would look at things from that perspective, if our business leaders would look at things from that perspective, I think we might be in a better place,” said Hepp, CFA San Bernardino Treasurer and Associate Professor at CSU San Bernardino.

Hepp planned a career as a Cultural Resources Management archeologist but “accidentally” fell for education while a teaching assistant in his master’s program.

“I just fell in love with it, like seeing the students react when they learn something about humanity that they didn’t know, and watching the look on their faces,” Hepp said. “I really enjoy sharing that with people.”

Starting his ninth year in CSU San Bernardino’s Department of Anthropology, Hepp is branching out into union activism and racial, social, and climate justice advocacy. Now in addition to serving as his department representative, he’s chapter treasurer.

“…If our politicians, for example, would look at things from that perspective, if our business leaders would look at things from that perspective, I think we might be in a better place.”

– Guy Hepp, CFA San Bernardino Treasurer and Associate Professor at CSU San Bernardino.

Hepp previously worked in Colorado and Florida, two states that make it hard for workers to form and sustain unions. When he had the opportunity to join a union, Hepp signed up for CFA after hearing about the benefits of having and belonging to a union.

Hepp’s wife is also in academia and a member of UAW at the University of California, participating in their historic 2022 bargaining strike. Her “infectious passion” for unions also rubbed off on him, Hepp said. Now starting a postdoctoral position at Cal Poly Pomona, she’s also become a member of CFA.

“I joined and paid my union dues and didn’t think a whole lot about it and focused on publishing and getting tenure,” he said. When there was a vacancy for a CFA department representative, curiosity took over.

As a department representative, Hepp saw his job as a conduit for his colleagues: “I bring information to them, and I bring their concerns to CFA chapter leaders.”

Fellow CFA San Bernardino member Hareem Khan has seen Hepp’s organizing up close. Hepp is thoughtful and dependable and has inspired her to be more active in CFA.

“Many of us are overburdened with research, teaching, and service that we don’t have the capacity sometimes to understand the bureaucracy or the nuts and bolts of how things work,” said Khan, Assistant Professor in CSU San Bernardino’s Anthropology and Ethnic Studies departments. “It can be overwhelming. It helps to know where to go, or else you can feel pretty isolated on a campus where pretty much everyone else is overwhelmed. It makes a huge difference to have someone like Guy as a union colleague. It expands our understanding of what our participation can be in CFA.”

When sharing information with colleagues like Khan, you also want to agitate for change, Hepp said.

“I learned a lot about our university’s policies of being kind of a cynical investment firm or sort of acting like one, and having this massive investment portfolio and rainy day fund and then having the gall to guilt trip us in faculty meetings and in dean meetings and so forth about how our raise is one of the reasons we’re getting this austerity,” said Hepp, who served on CFA San Bernardino’s contract action team during last year’s contract bargaining and strikes. “You’re acting like a hedge fund and raising the tuition on students by 34 percent as a response to declining enrollment. Are you out of your minds?

“When a colleague complains about how much money we’re asking for in a raise, I find myself bringing up information about the massive investments as a counterpoint: hey, this is a manufactured crisis of austerity. Let’s not fall for that line about how there’s no money.”

Like many faculty, Hepp’s efforts reach beyond campus. When the COVID pandemic interrupted Hepp’s volunteer work at his local adult literacy program, he was looking for another way to grow roots in the Inland Empire. Participating more in CFA and the larger labor movement helped Hepp invest more in his community.

“I’m trying to do things to improve other people’s lives, too. And part of that has been becoming a delegate to the Inland Empire Labor Council,” he said. “I go to the meetings with steelworkers and nurses, and I hear what’s going on in local labor. It’s made me feel what I was missing. It’s made me feel more tied to my community.”

“We’re part of one of the largest university unions in the world. The things that we fight for can have a trickle effect and a domino effect. We should get involved in things that are ‘not union business’ because it could help more broadly in higher education, which I think is under attack.”

– Guy Hepp, CFA San Bernardino Treasurer and Associate Professor at CSU San Bernardino.

An active issue in the Inland Empire is the expansion of commercial or industrial warehouses for companies like Amazon and FedEx that exploit cheaper labor and pollute air and water in communities composed largely of people of color.

Many of Hepp’s students experience that economic, climate, and social injustice.

“Most of our students are employed, many of them are parents, many of them are working, many of them are caregivers,” he said. Some “are taking care of sick parents or a sick sibling. There’s a lot of pulls on their time and a lot of pulls on their commitments. These students keep having life happen to them, so many little emergencies popping up. We have students who are homeless. We have students living in their cars. We have a food pantry on campus.”

“I think in some ways, it’s been eye-opening – these students are aware of suffering, or they are aware of inequality because they experience it. They’ve seen their community being taken advantage of for decades.”

With this social justice lens, Hepp is gearing up for the next round of contract bargaining in 2025. Along with raises, Hepp wants to see gains in anti-racism and social justice areas like improving parental leave, lifting the floor for the most vulnerable faculty, and strengthening protections for lecturers.

He also sees CFA members’ role in the larger, critical fight for quality, accessible public higher education.

“We’re part of one of the largest university unions in the world. The things that we fight for can have a trickle effect and a domino effect. We should get involved in things that are ‘not union business’ because it could help more broadly in higher education, which I think is under attack.”