Cuts Have Consequences Blog

Pamela Hughes
Composition for Multilingual Students
San Francisco

I’m writing to give voice to my story as a lecturer in San Francisco State University’s Composition for Multilingual Students (CMS) program. For about two and a half years now, I have made a home for myself in the CMS program at SFSU. Sadly, however, that will be ending shortly since I will not be rehired in the spring as result of the recent budget cuts.

I am very fortunate to have work lined up in the spring, even though it is outside the field of education. Not surprisingly, I need financial security like so many others, and if this means leaving teaching, I feel I have no other choice but to go where my talents will be appreciated (and compensated). Since I am still relatively fresh from graduate school, I continue to think that it is not too late for me to reroute my career path. Unfortunately, if I do this, it will be at the expense of my original vision for myself as an educator. I fear that I might join the ranks of those who abandon such a worthy and rewarding field solely because the state of California is not willing to stand up for teachers and education.

Dorothy Wills, faculty
Geography and Anthropology
Pomona

Our small department of Geography and Anthropology had a faculty search cancelled in mid-interview last year in anticipation of hard times. It was the first search we’d had permission to conduct since 2003.

Our budget to hire lecturers has been reduced, so some of our lecturer colleagues don’t have enough work. Our student-faculty ration has been raised to 34:1. The full-time faculty are so overloaded with students in classes, students to advise, assigned duties, and attempts to participate in shared governance that they can barely keep up with their research and professional life. How can we be teachers/scholars?

Fewer, fuller sections means more frustrated students and more time to graduation. It means less writing in the curriculum, because it is impossible to grade and give feedback on fifty or sixty essays in three classes more than once or twice a quarter.

Fuller classes call into question the learning orientation and quality of the university. Gone are the interaction, discussion, application of which our university is justly proud. We have a feedlot approach to education now.

RACHEL HASSNA
Student
Monterey Bay

In May 2009, I will hopefully graduate from CSUMB with a bachelor’s degree in Global Studies. June 2009 will mark the 10-year anniversary of my high school graduation. In July 2009, I will celebrate my 28th birthday, and by fall 2009 the $45,000 in school debt I’ve accrued will be owed. Admitting these realities of my life to complete strangers is intimidating, borderline shaming. However, in the ten years of my educational career as a CSU student, I have come to understand how common my story is within the Cal State University system. I have attended three different State Universities (San Francisco, Hayward, and Monterey Bay) and have met students from various CSUs. More and more the average Cal State student is a working adult with multiple jobs, accumulating thousands in school debt, and graduating in five to six years–the last thing I should feel is ashamed or alone.

ROBERT DAVIDSON
English
Chico
As a member of the creative writing faculty, I have protested (to no avail) as the enrollment cap in my Beginning Creative Writing classes has risen to 30 students. (Upper division and graduate course caps have also risen.) Suffice it to say that the quality of attention given to each individual student has fallen rather dramatically over the last few semesters.

Kathleen M. Rose
Nursing
Sacramento

I am a full time lecturer at CSU, Sacramento. My department has 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.

Kelly Bennett
Student
San Francisco

Budget cuts are continuing to get worse as time passes. Not only are classes getting cut and students getting turned away, but extremely qualified professors are getting laid off.

My communications instructor, a grad student, informed our class that next semester he will be out of a job. This was extremely hard news for our class to hear considering he was one of my best professors of the semester, but he was new to teaching. Not only are professors getting laid off but budget cuts are making it extremely hard for students to graduate in four years.

Because of the economic crisis, my parents cannot afford to pay for my schooling thus, I am forced to take out student loans. I will be in about $80,000.00 worth of debt already, and that is if I graduate in four years. I cannot afford to pay for an extra year of school because there are not enough classes available that I will need to finish my required units.

Shelly Arsneault
Politics, Administration & Justice
Fullerton

In fall 2008, we had to cancel completely a finance class required for our Public Administration BA majors; this put at least one student back in graduation by one semester. I was told that we have to cut our classes again for spring 2009; while I can now offer the required finance class for these students, I can’t offer the required human resource management class! I’m sure this will put more students behind in graduation.

Paula Pierson
Theatre, Television and Film
Diego State

A simple example of the budget cuts and how they effect SDSU, I teach Theatre 100, a survey class that delves into Theatre and Western Civilization. Part of the student’s 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.

Kristin Anderson
Student
San Francisco

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.

These extensive and painful cuts are forcing schools like SFSU to cut back on REQUIRED classes that students NEED TO GRADUATE.

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!

This budget crisis in California is painful and will have long-lasting effects on everyone, but the CSU’s can’t keep giving and still expect to effectively educate its students in a timely and efficient manner. SFSU just accepted its largest freshman class ever, apparently. If the schools cannot afford to teach the students it has, it cannot keep accepting more and more.

Derek L. Jasmin
Student
Cal Poly Pomona

Since the budget cuts, classes I need have are no longer available.
Unfortunately, it looks like this upcoming quarter there won’t be any electives available from my department. It’s not just the electives but some G.E. courses that are campus-wide.

Update from Derek: My Graduation has been delayed because of the cuts budget cuts.

DAVID SCHLEGEL, student, Urban Planning
Cal Poly Pomona

As I was trying to register for classes this fall quarter, I noticed a significantly less amount of classes available in my major program than the year prior. Several of the classes offered are classes that follow the strict curriculum and I have no choice but to take this quarter. However, these classes are limited to only one scheduled class so that a working student such as myself has no other option but to take that class. In addition, the lack of flexibility due to minimized staffing has caused my schedule to be so dysfunctional that I have to go to school 6 days out of the week (keep in mind I work 4 – 5 days a week just to fill the gas tank and get to school). As I am trying to register for the winter quarter, I realize that most of the classes I was relying on to be there this quarter, are not offered because professors have been cut. It leads me to worry about whether or not I’ll graduate on time!

Sean Strachan
Student
California Maritime Academy

Due to the budget cuts and lack of college professors and facilities, I was forced to drop out of Math 100, a crucial class for my major. Because of this drop, I had to wait a semester to do many of the classes that required Math as a pre-requisite; classes such as Physics, Navigation, and so on. Also, many of the classes that are required for my major are only offered once per school year. That means, along with me being behind in my requisites, I cannot make up for them by doing extra classes. Many of the classes have caps of 20 with only 3 sections. In my current class, there are 65 Marine Transportation students. That means that after registration, 5 students are left snooping around in sections, begging the teachers to take them in. Why should we as students, with the increase in fees, have to spend more money for a class we might not even be allowed in? I was supposed to graduate in the year 2010 and now I have to graduate a year later. There must be something done about this.

ALINE SOULES,
Librarian
East Bay

The library at Cal State East Bay (and other CSUs) has been cut to the bone in order to meet budget reductions. As one faculty member in our English Department said to me: “How can they expect us to conduct research if they don’t give us any resources?”

At this point, our book budget has been cut by a third; we have cut our standing orders; and we are likely to have to cut further into our databases. When will it stop?

A number of programs now have only the indexes to information and students must be prepared to use Interlibrary Loan to get the full text. In many cases, particularly as we are on a quarter system, there isn’t time for them to do that and they end up with nothing.

We continually urge our students to use resources beyond the web, but what are they supposed to do if only the web will cover their topics?

Julian Dixon
Music
Sacramento

Because of budget cuts, two of the classes I teach are to be eliminated. That means I will lose my medical and pension benefits because, although I have been at the CSU for many years, I teach on temporary appointments. The loss of these classes also injures my students and the Sacramento community. The brass instruments classes that I teach are the only place for young professionals in the CSU system to get this kind of training. In the professional world, tuba players are on their own. Our program at Sacramento State is one of rare opportunities they will ever have in their career to learn with other tuba players, and to learn how to survive in the music business. We teach them to form chamber groups which offer an important way for them to earn a living as musicians, and to perform in these groups in the community. That is being taken away.