Message from Academic Senate Interim Chair Janet McDaniel
July 24, 2009
Colleagues,
As the Interim Chair of Academic Senate, I am writing to bring you up to date with the news that comes from the perspective of shared governance.
Last week (July 13-17), several things happened in quick succession:
Provost Cutrer invited Senate Executive Committee to a meeting of the Academic Affairs Leadership Council (AALC is the division’s deans/directors/AVPs group). While the Senate chair is a member of this group, it was unusual to invite the entire Executive Committee. Though the meeting dealt with many “what ifs” (especially due to the ongoing California Faculty Association furlough vote), we had a very good exchange of questions, suggestions, and agreement to meet again as a large group.
The Academic Senate Executive Committee, acting on behalf of the Senate, appointed me to serve as Interim Chair of the Senate until Chair Shaoyi He’s return from China in late July/early August. This was at Shaoyi’s request. For those of you who are new to CSUSM or are unacquainted with Senate, I chaired Senate in 2008/09. I am working closely with Vice Chair/Chair-Elect Rika Yoshii and Secretary Mohammad Oskoorouchi as your leadership team.
The deans and associate deans of COAS, COBA, and COE conducted meetings with their department chairs (or equivalent) to fulfill the Chancellor’s Office (CO) directive to make a hypothetical plan for a 10% cut in Unit 3 salaries. These plans were thought by many faculty members to be a scare tactic to convince CFA members to vote for the furlough. Since a 10% cut in Unit 3 salaries will be achieved through the furlough approved this week, these plans (if they were real plans at all) are moot.
There was lots of talk around the 23 CSU campuses about a directive from the Chancellor’s Office to the presidents to identify the top 50 faculty wage-earners on each campus, including summer pay, grants, and other CSU-related sources of income. No one (including our provost) can come up with a reasonable explanation of the motive for this info-gathering. Again, this could be some kind of scare tactic dreamed up by the CO.
Here’s what happened this week, July 20-24:
The CSU Board of Trustees (BOT) met on Tuesday, July 21; there are meeting notes from the statewide senate office posted on our Senate website for both the July 7 and 21 BOT meetings.
The statewide Council of CSU Senate Chairs passed a resolution urging administrators to engage faculty in shared governance around budget-cutting plans. Some campuses reported absolutely no contact between their administrators and Senate, while other Senates are actively engaged. This was communicated to the CSU Board of Trustees on July 21. The resolution is posted on our Senate website.
The staff union, CSUEU, approved an agreement for a 2-day-per-month furlough with the CSU. Administrators and confidential employees will have a similar furlough starting August 1.
The faculty furlough was approved by a majority vote of CFA members. The general parameters of the implementation must be negotiated by CFA and the CSU. Now that all employees (except police) will be in some type of furlough in 2009/10 and student fees have been greatly increased, we know that we have to deal with a $3.4 million budget gap at CSUSM instead of a much larger one.
The Senate Executive Committee met for two hours on Thursday, July 23, with almost all members in attendance, including a CFA representative. [FYI, here are the faculty members on EC this fall: Shaoyi He, Rika Yoshii, Mohammad Oskoorouchi, Glen Brodowsky, Allison Carr, Jule Gómez de García, Eun Kang, Chet Kumar, Janet McDaniel, Yvonne Meulemans, Dick Montanari, Kathy Norman, Kathleen Watson, and Don Barrett (CFA rep, non-voting).] Provost Cutrer (a non-voting member of EC) was able to be there for the first 45 minutes. Although the formal minutes of that meeting are not yet approved and official, I’m having detailed notes from the meeting posted on our website. Please note that we met without knowledge of the result of the furlough vote, so there was still a great deal of “iffiness” to the conversations.
And here is what’s ahead for the week of July 27-31:
President Haynes and I will meet on Monday, July 27 to discuss the budget and faculty concerns. Please email me at if you have a topic or question that you wish me to raise with the president.
President Haynes is holding an open budget forum on Tuesday, July 28 at 3:00 PM in ARTS 240. I hope you are able to attend; if not, be sure to check her website for a transcript of her remarks and perhaps a video or audio recording.
Senate Executive Committee is meeting on Wednesday, July 29.
The provost and I are working on an agenda for a joint meeting of the Academic Affairs Leadership Council and Senate Executive Committee, also scheduled for Wednesday, July 29. Now that we know the budget cut that CSUSM must absorb, we hope to turn our attention to the processes for making required cuts to Academic Affairs. It’s clear that we are going to be hurt by these cuts, but I am heartened by the provost’s commitment to shared governance as we approach this task.
In closing:
The Senate Executive Committee understands the challenges the university administration is facing in terms of undesirable choices and the complexity of the decisions needed to address the budget cuts to the CSU. Consultation between administration and the Academic Senate is at this time critical for the success of both conceiving and implementing a plan to address the budget cuts. If you have specific questions for our administrators, please contact me () or any member of our EC.
Ensuring that our academic community is engaged in this process is vitally important to the Senate. We are prepared to raise issues and make recommendations in the best interests of our students and campus community. I hope you will stay informed by monitoring our Senate website, CFA’s messages, and the websites of our campus administrators.