Cuts Have Consequences Blog

PATRICIA BLACK
CSU Chico, Faculty, Foreign Languages

We are a dept. of foreign languages and literatures. As time has gone by we have gone from classes of 25, then to 30, then 40, then 50 in beginning language classes. In order for people to acquire the ability to function in a foreign language, classes should be no bigger than 20 maximum. Research and experience both bear this out. We have also had to cut classes for majors, accommodate more students in the classes that remain, teach overloads to allow students to graduate, and in short have very diminished capacity to give students an education.

NANCY GARDNER
CSU Long Beach
Lecturer, Chemistry & Biochemistry

Budget cuts have forced our department to increase the number of students in our chemistry labs dramatically. In many courses, we have up to 30 students per instructor in a laboratory section. The American Chemical Association recommends no more than 24 in a laboratory section. This is a significant increase in the laboratory population and compromises student safety as well as reducing the quality of education our students’ receive.

With this many students conducting experiments in a laboratory, and only one instructor to supervise, the instructor is forced to take a less helpful role. Instead the instructor is forced into more of a supervisory role, to minimize possible safety problems that might occur. i.e. make sure all students are following the safety protocols dictated by the State. As a result, students are less comfortable in the laboratory, there is more anxiety, it takes longer to complete experiments as students wait for equipment and supplies, and there is less time for students to get needed assistance from the laboratory instructors. Overall, this will reduce the number of science and engineering students that we are able to graduate.

MA HEDE
CSU Chico, Faculty, Electrical Engineering

I taught a graduate class, EECE 615 High Frequency Design Techniques, in the fall semester of 2007 with totally 32 graduate students enrolled in. Likewise, I taught a graduate class, EECE 643 Computer-Aided Circuit Engineering, in the spring semester of 2008 with totally 24 graduate students enrolled in. Since those classes are all Electrical and Computer Engineering ones, we don’t have enough laboratory equipment, computers, and circuit boards for the graduate students to do projects and lab experiments.

ROBERT A. MORTEN
CSU East Bay, Student

I am a student at California State University East Bay. Because of budget cuts to the CSU system, I have seen the availability of classes needed to graduate slowly dwindle. Effectively, this means that I will probably have to attend school longer than I had planned. Since I am a student receiving financial aid, I wonder how much money the state will actually save by cutting funding to my school – or if the state will save any money at all. Since mine is not an isolated case and since most students receive financial aid at CSU, please consider carefully the impact of Gov. Schwarzenegger’s proposal to cut an additional $66.3 million from the CSU.

JACQUELINE TRISCHMAN
California State University San Marcos
Chair, Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry

We have been asked to cut 22% of our Spring schedule compared to last year. In addition, we have been informed that all of our lab equipment money will be taken out of our course-based fees, which is illegal. With no funding for equipment or supplies in the Spring, our science departments have decided to completely cancel lower-division lab classes this Spring. The consequence of this will be that many students who need to take a lab class before graduating will not be able to graduate this Spring. The situation may change if we are funded, but this is where we stand.

WIN PHYOE
International Student, Computer Science, CSU Northridge

My name is Win and I am an international student majoring in Computer Science. This is my third semester in California State University, Northridge. I came from a country called Burma which is in South East Asia. My country has been under the control of the military government for at least 40 years and the worst thing is the government is only interested in how to maintain its power. Because of this, the country has been left far behind when compared with other nations. Also the education system is based on the political situation and moods of the government; we do not have the stable schedule for the school openings.

So education becomes a luxury in my country and I have better appreciation, which motivates me to apply school in US, for education and my goal of getting an internationally accredited degree.
Finally, I was accepted as a transferred student to CSUN. I got credit for my major courses and I will finish my degree in next Fall, 09. Since I am an international student, I do not have financial aid for my tuition. My family and I have to pay for my tuition. Since my mother is a single mother, she couldn’t afford to pay all fees. So, my brother, an engineer, supports me and I, taking 16 units and working 18 hours a week as a student assistant in Development Math Program, to achieve my goal.

According to the regulation, international students have to pay the total basic registration fees, which is the same as resident fees, plus $339 per unit. I understand that I have my full responsibility to pay extra fees on basic registration fees as an international student. However the basic registration fees have increased from semester to semester because of the CSU funding budget cut.

There might be many consequences among my peers and my class environments: limited course offer and crowded class rooms, because of this cut. Some of my friends are having difficulties to come back to school in next school semester because of increasing fee. It also cost me to pay more and more, semester after semester.

I hope all of my friends and I can fulfill our goals to obtain a degree in desired field and learning as much education in all aspects as we can while studying in CSUN without difficulties because of this budget cut.

DR. JANINE H RIVEIRE
Cal Poly Pomona, Music Department, Coordinator, PA Program

Already, as a result of the cuts put in place this summer in anticipation of the small budget, the students whom I advise are having difficulty getting gateway classes in TEACHER EDUCATION. The state has an ever growing shortage of credentialed teachers, and the credential program is having to offer fewer sections of prerequisite courses (which fill quickly), which then prevents students from proceeding through the program in one year–and so it is already apparent that the state will have some percentage fewer qualified teachers in this state’s classrooms come August. This is madness!

KATHLEEN M. ROSE,
CSU Sacramento, Division of Nursing, R.N., M.S. Lecturer/Clinical Faculty

I am a full time lecturer at CSU, Sacramento. My department has just received the news that we need to cut $100,000 in faculty salary expenses. This amounts to a loss of 40% of our part-time lecturers. We will be meeting to decide how we want to deal with this budget cut other than cutting all of these part-time positions.

PAULA PIERSON
San Diego State U., Theater, Television & Film

A simple example of the budget cuts and how they effect the School of Theatre, Television and Film at SDSU. I teach Theatre 100, a survey class that delves into Theatre and Western Civilization. Part of the students critical thinking is to attend our three productions and then write reviews of the shows based on questions set forth by the professor. The students first responses are usually not very good. BUT during the semester by seeing three productions, writing on each, having them thoroughly graded and trying again on each new production the students become better writers and thinkers. Hence they become better students, graduate and become good citizens of the state.

To grade these papers I need Graduate Assistant help. These classes range in size from 130 students to 250 students. The budget cuts have taken our Graduate Assistants away. So in turn the reviews have to be taken away. Hence the dumbing down of our students.

CAROL ROBINSON ZANARTU
San Diego State U.

After many years at CSU, I have now begun to look seriously at offers to apply for positions at other universities. This hard won series of raises would have brought us closer to equity with similar institutions. Given the workload and publishing demands of SDSU, and my own record of publishing and grantsmanship, I am sure I am quite competitive.

JEAN M. TWENGE
San Diego State University, Associate Professor , Department of Psychology

In the College of Sciences at SDSU, we have been told that most of our lecturers will be let go due to the budget crisis. This means:

1. Class sizes will increase. Two years ago I taught an upper-division class to 120 students. This was big but manageable. Last spring this class enrolled 260 students. I am guessing that next semester the class will be 500 students. This is with one TA and no discussion sections. Even at the UCs, where students expect larger classes, multiple TAs will conduct discussion sections with smaller groups of students. We are not even giving them that — in upper-division courses where they should be discussing the issues and writing papers, neither of which is possible in a class of this size.

2. Many of our excellent lecturers, even those with 3-year-contracts, will lose their jobs.

3. In a few cases, this could mean the departure of tenure-track faculty who are married to a lecturer. I know of one specific case, and it would mean losing a fantastic tenure-track faculty member with lots of grant funding as well as an excellent lecturer.

4. Because the psychology department (for example) will still have to teach the same number of students, the tenure-track faculty will in some cases face a larger teaching load. This means they will have less time to mentor students (graduate and undergraduate) in research, so those students will be less successful in getting into graduate school. Less time for research also compromises the great progress SDSU has made toward being a nationally recognized research institution. If research is not done, we will eventually not have anything to teach our students. We will answer more of their questions with “We don’t know.”

MELODY LASITER
San Francisco State

My name is Melody Lasiter and I am a student at San Francisco State University, majoring in Environmental Studies. I am writing to share with you the effects of the budget cut on myself.

At the beginning of the fall semester 2008 classes on campus were filled with people trying to add. I have honestly never seen so many people who were unable to get a class. For one class I was trying to add, I attended the class for two weeks until I was turned away. This class was a core class for my major, and they could only offer one session. Teachers this year are were doing anything they could to accommodate, even letting students sit on the floor.

After receiving the course offerings for the Spring 09 classes, I am even more scared. Many classes that have been offered in the past are not being offered, and we have received an email stating that there will likely be more cuts to the schedule. What makes it harder is I am paying for school with loans and if I do not take a full load of classes, I can’t get my loans. I do not want to make the choice between taking a semester off, or filling my schedule with classes I do not need, and that I must pay for, just to qualify for financial aid.

HSIAO-YUN CHU
San Francisco State University, Dept of Design and Industry

The first day of classes is the one we dread the most in the Design and Industry Department at SFSU. This is the day in which we will face twice as many students as we can take in the class, and we will have to find any available excuse in the book as to why we cannot accommodate them.

The students are juniors, some of them even seniors, some of them lacking only 3 units to graduate with a degree. But we cannot admit them to our classes. We frequently over-enroll the classes by up to 5 students, but we still cannot serve students the education that we told them that we could. For both my product design classes this semester, I overenrolled by 4 students. I still had a wait list over 40 students deep. They will come back next semester, and I will give them the same excuses. They will sign another wait list. They may be disappointed again.

Over the course of the years, I have tried to come up with every reasonable explanation in my power to students as to why we cannot offer them the classes they need. “It’s about the budget…this has been a bad year…next semester you will get this class…when the economy improves, you will get the classes.” Students have heard me say this so many times, they can recite it themselves. Our students work so hard to get into college, many of them the first in their families to do so. Then they are forced to listen to a song and dance about how though we welcome them with open arms, we simply don’t have any classes for them to take. College then becomes a battleground for them, a test of their patience, a waiting game.

Ours is a 60 unit program. If students could get the classes that they needed, they should be able to transfer in credits from a 2-year college and get a degree in 2 years, then move on to a job and professional future. Now, most of our junior students will spend 3 years if not more to complete the program. They will get frustrated and derop out for a semester, sometimes more. Sometimes they will drop out for good.

I had one student who was on my wait list for Product Design II class 3 times in a row before she got the class. She is still in school and will spend an extra 1.5 years here just to get the courses that she needs to fulfill her requirements for graduation.

We promise them an education, and then we face students emptyhanded, with lame excuses. “Congratulations, you made it to college. Just one problem: you simply can’t get any classes relevant to your future.”

Students lose hope and trust in public education. Eventually, so do we as educators. We’ve tightened out belts several times over. There is nothing left to cut. We are hemorrhaging already.

Public education is a noble goal, an investment in the future, and a path to an educated and capable workforce for the State of California. We need support. We cannot create something from nothing.

KRISTIN ANDERSON
San Francisco State U., Student

I spent three years fumbling my way around at a community college, and now that I’m finally on the right track I’m told to expect nothing but misery from San Francisco State University for the next two or three years? My school has been forced to cut lecturers and classes left and right, and now they’re planning to cut even more.

For example, all Psychology majors are required to take upper division level statistics; this semester, there were six such classes offered, which wasn’t enough to accommodate those looking to graduate on time. Next semester, the school might cut the number of classes offered from six to THREE. Three classes are supposed to satisfy not only the students who couldn’t get in in previous semesters, but now for the next set of seniors hoping to graduate sometime this decade.

In addition, in the face of such uncertainty SFSU is requiring students to pay tuition for the next semester 4 days before they allow EARLY priority registration. I can’t believe they are asking students to pay ahead of time for classes they most likely will not get a chance to take!

JAMES DANIEL LEE
San Jose State U., Associate Professor, Sociology Department

When faculty cannot rely on steady pay, or increases in pay, they have difficulty managing their personal finances, especially in high cost of living areas such as LA, SF, and SJ. This leads the most mobile, the brightest among us, to consider employment in other areas because they can get jobs elsewhere that pay well consistently. Of course, the students lose when the best professors move away. Personally, if this budget mess starts affecting my finances, I WILL look for employment in another state.

DR. PAMELA REDELA
Cal State San Marcos, Women’s Studies Program

The Cal State San Marcos Women’s Studies Program is firmly established and our courses are very popular with students. Since the program’s inception, our enrollment has done nothing but steadily increase. Personally, I usually teach 3 or 4 courses per semester, and have done so for 3 years in the Women’s Studies Program. This semester the allotment only afforded me 2 courses, which luckily enables me to keep my family’s health benefits, but will not be sufficient to provide for the daycare I need in order to come to campus to teach. Working in academia is the only career path I ever planned for myself, so I do not see a career change at this point in life as an option. My family will sacrifice a lot, even go into debt and hopefully keep up with the mortgage, so that I may continue my career.