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CSU Advocacy in the LA Times

May 5th, 2011
Steve Lopez receiving an honorary degree at SJSU honors convocation

2011 SJSU Honors Convocation

Last Friday night, I had the honor of representing the Senate and the SJSU faculty on the platform for the 2011 Honors Convocation. If you haven’t been to this event (or if you haven’t been recently) I really recommend that you attend in the near future. Honors Convocation is the closest thing SJSU does to a small college graduation, and it is an amazing celebration of our best students.

This year, the Convocation included the presentation of an honorary doctorate to Steve Lopez, a graduate of the SJSU Journalism program, columnist for the LA Times, and author of “The Soloist.” Steve gave an impassioned speech about the state of the CSU and the starving of higher education in California.

You can read Steve’s thoughts on the honorary degree, the California budget, and funding for the CSU in his LA Times column. You can also watch his degree acceptance speech from the Convocation.

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Posted in Budget, California, CSU

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Why have a chancellor?

May 5th, 2010

Liz Cara, an SJSU professor of Occupational Therapy and president of SJSU’s CFA chapter, has penned a provocative opinion piece for today’s Mercury News. She suggests a way for the CSU system to be governed in a less-centralized way, with more shared governance and rotating leadership. What do you think? Click on the “Comments” link below and let me know. (Interestingly, the Mercury News opinion page is currently unavailable, so I’ve linked to the copy on the Chancellor’s Office web site).

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Posted in Announcements, Budget, Chancellor, CSU, Shared Governance

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Advocacy, Part II – March for Higher Education on March 4

March 2nd, 2010

This Thursday, as part of statewide efforts to raise awareness of
the crisis in California higher education, there will be a march and rally. The march will begin at
11:45 in front of City Hall and will proceed from there to the 7th Street Plaza. This is a CFA-organized
event, but participation by anyone who supports public higher ed is encouraged. Please pass the
word on to your colleagues, faculty or otherwise. If you are a faculty member and plan to attend,
consider wearing regalia to identify yourself as faculty.

A flyer advertising the event can be found here.

Frequently Asked Questions about the event can be found here.

Michael Kaufman
Chair, SJSU Academic Senate
(408) 924-2442
senate.chair@sjsu.edu

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Posted in Announcements, Budget, California, CSU

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Advocacy, Part I – contact your legislators

March 2nd, 2010

As you may know, there are a large number of events advocating for California higher education
this week. Thursday, March 4 is a statewide day of action, with participation from CSU, UC and
Community College faculty, staff, students and other higher ed supporters. In a follow-up message to this
one, I will be providing you with information about our local March 4 event.

My colleague Shawn Whalen, Chair of the Academic Senate at San Francisco State, has made
available a web link through which it is simple to contact your state legislators and urge them to
support restoring funding to the CSU. The link will take you to a SFSU page with a prepared
statement that you can edit or augment before having it sent. Although the web page is “SFSU-branded”
the letter to legislators is not; in fact it is easy to add SJSU-specific language to the letter.
I urge you to use this simple advocacy tool and to pass it on to your colleagues in your colleges and beyond.

Urgent Message to Legislators

Best,
Michael Kaufman
Chair, SJSU Academic Senate

###################################################################################

Colleagues,

Many of you are aware that our advocacy efforts last fall resulted in Governor Schwarzenegger’s proposal to restore $305 million to the CSU budget next year. While that was a significant victory, we must now make sure that our legislators know that supporting that proposal is critical to the CSU, our students, and our state. To that end, I am hoping that you will take a moment to send your legislators an email asking them to support restoring funding to public higher education in this year’s budget.

By following the link below, you can instantly send your representatives a pre-drafted letter or you can write something more tailored to your individual experience.

Urgent Message to Legislators

The link will work for faculty on and off campus, so feel free to forward it to faculty on other campuses. I am hopeful that this effort will make this week’s advocacy activities resonante even more strongly with our elected officials.

Warm regards,

Shawn Whalen

Academic Senate Chair
San Francisco State University

http://www.kintera.org/c.bdJHKPNoFmG/b.5833073/k.EF2D/Faculty_2010_Action_Item/siteapps/advocacy/ActionItem.aspx

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Posted in Announcements, Budget, California, CSU

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Welcome Back, Budget Info, Graduation Rates, etc……

January 27th, 2010

Welcome back to the Spring Semester. I hope everyone had a chance to relax, rejuvenate and be productive during the break .

Here are a few items of general interest to the Senate and to your colleagues and constituents:

1. In the first week of January, the Governor released his 2010-2011 budget proposal, including a request for two increases in funding for the CSU: a $305 million increase in base budget from last year, plus an additional $60 million for enrollment growth. This $60M piece of the Governor’s request is contingent upon the state receiving large amounts on Federal stimulus money in 2010-2011; it would not be so much for “growth” as for a reduction in the amount that we need to cut enrollment in the coming year. Details of the proposal can be found in this letter from the CSU Chancellor. While the Governor’s proposal is an important move towards re-growing the CSU budget, it is still subject to months of negotiation in the State Legislature and is far smaller than the full restoration of  base funding that the CSU Board of Trustees requested. Given uncertainties about State revenues and the budget process, it may be months before we know whether this money will really be flowing to the system. For more details of how the CSU budget fits into the overall state funding picture, see this presentation.

2. On a related note, the Board of Trustees January meeting included a presentation giving an overview of the CSU budget in the past year or so. The presentation highlights the places where revenue to the system dropped from the previous year.

3. Also on the Board of Trustees’ agenda was a presentation on the Chancellor’s new and aggressive initiative to increase graduation rates for our student body in general and for under-represented groups in particular. The presentation is a little thin on details, e.g. where the funding required to make this initiative successful will come from, but it is clear that the Chancellor office is serious about pushing this forward. Provost Selter briefly mentioned this initiative at the November Senate meeting (Minutes: see the last paragraph of the Provost’s report), and the Senate will continue to be involved as plans move forward.

I hope you are finding the blog to be a useful communication tool and encourage you to send your comments by clicking on the “Comments” links below each post.

Again, Happy New Year and welcome back.

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Posted in Achievement Gap, Budget, CSU, Graduation rates

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