November 10, 2009

Jerald Reodica documents the corruption and greed in the heart of the California State University system that have led to budget cuts.

ACTIVISTS AT almost all the 23 campuses of the California State University (CSU) system are mobilizing for a strike and day of action on March 4--the date chosen at a statewide conference of activists at the University of California-Berkeley on October 24.

A variety of actions are planned, including walkouts, rallies, marches to the capital in Sacramento, teach-ins, occupations and strikes--all with the goal of building the confidence to fight the cuts among CSU students, faculty and staff hit hard by furloughs, cut classes, higher fees and a lower quality education.

Activists around the state also recognize the importance of organizing to reverse the privatization of CSU, a key public institution that's already crawling with corruption.

A July 6 San Francisco Chronicle article, titled "CSU chancellor hires two lobbyists without bids," shed new light on CSU management. Over the last decade, the CSU has paid more than $2 million in public funds to two Sacramento lobbying firms--Capitol Advocacy LLC and Sloat, Higgins, Jensen & Associates.

Students protest cuts across the California State University system (Tim Pulling)

While the board of trustees increased student fees, canceled classes and implemented more faculty and staff layoffs, CSU management paid these private lobbyists to block bills aimed at full disclosure of CSU salaries--a shameful abuse of public funds.

Instead of finding ways to increase revenue for the CSU to cover the $584 million budget deficit--the largest in the system's history--the board of trustees, with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger at the helm, has decided to further increase student fees, lay off lecturers and force the workers who remain to choose whether to see more of their colleagues fired or take deeper pay cuts.

CSU Chancellor Charles Reed has indicated that he plans to eliminate more classes, student enrollment positions and faculty until the CSU system is downsized to match the $584 million in cuts. This is in addition to closing the doors on 40,000 prospective enrollees, out of CSU's 450,000 total, by the 2010-2011 school year.

Students who aren't able to register for all the classes they need to graduate will face greater financial burdens, as they are forced to attend CSU for another semester or two. Already, as of last year, the average student graduated with more than $20,000 in loan debt.

The board of trustees voted for a 10 percent fee increase in student fees last May and another 20 percent fee increase two months later in July--and now it's set to vote November 17 to administer "significant reductions in labor costs."

SOME PEOPLE have talked about the importance of an organization like the Alliance for the CSU in trying to win back the reductions. But there can't be an alliance when it includes members of the board of trustees--the uber-wealthy of California--and the overpaid upper management on CSU campuses.

Take Dr. Glen Toney, a CSU trustee since 2006. For 23 years prior to his retirement in 2002, Toney served as a top executive with Santa Clara, Calif.-based Applied Materials. Applied Materials has negotiated contacts with the Pentagon to create semiconductor equipment for weapons systems.

Toney isn't the only war profiteer on the board. Raymond Holdsworth Jr. is the president of Los Angeles-based AECOM Technology Corp., and has been a trustee since 2004. AECOM Technology Corp. has provided military maintenance support to U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan and received contacts worth $293.7 million from 2004-2006.

Then there's Dr. Robert Corrigan, president of San Francisco State University (SFSU) since 1988--21 years is an unheard-of tenure for a college president.

Before he came to SFSU, Corrigan resigned from his chancellorship at the University of Massachusetts at Boston following the discovery of his secret "Chancellor's Fund" by his vice chancellor. The Boston Globe specified the details of an audit revealing that $127,000 had been deposited into this special account. Much of the funds--$70,000--had been withdrawn by Corrigan from the Boston Food Services Trust Fund without authorization.

Curiously, Corrigan was never charged with embezzling funds from the university system. Instead, upon resignation, Corrigan received farewell compensation.

At SFSU, Corrigan's privatization efforts continue, as he implements the SFSU Campus Master Plan, a long-term redevelopment of campus. This "Plan" includes an on-campus Recreation and Wellness Center, which will cost $93 million to build.

Two student-run organizations, Associated Students Inc. (ASI) and the Cesar Chavez Student Center Governing Board, as well as Campus Recreation, a program under Student Affairs, are pushing this project along.

Initially, ASI proposed the Center and paid Brailsford & Dunlavey, a private architectural firm, $300,000 in student fee money to assess the "feasibility" of the project, without ever informing students. This corporation has successfully gentrified more than 300 campuses across the nation, including most of the schools in the CSU system.

Additionally, according to GuideStar, a searchable database of the activities and finances of U.S. nonprofits and charities, SFSU's very own Cesar Chavez Student Center holds a series of investments to the tune of over $4.8 million.

At the end of the 2008 fiscal year, the center held $1.35 million in publicly traded securities while holding over $3.5 million in other investment securities. These investment holdings include companies such as Chevron, Exxon Mobil, Pfizer, Proctor & Gamble, DuPont, Monsanto, McDonald's and Halliburton.

It goes without saying that this project will have an impact on struggling students, mostly poor students forced to work multiple jobs to pay for an increasing cost of living, and people of color, unable to keep up with fees.

At the beginning of this semester, while students attempted to crash classes, the Student Fee Advisory Committee--a group in charge of reviewing proposed changes and recommendations to President Corrigan--scrapped democracy (via a student fee referendum) and opted instead for a potentially biased petition requiring minimal approval from students on campus.

SUCH APPALLING actions at SFSU and the 22 other campuses must be challenged and blocked through grassroots democracy. General assemblies, such as those that took place over the last couple months at various California public educational institutions, are spaces where dissension can be voiced, and where both students and workers may pose alternatives to corruption and gentrification.

Democratization is a process; people must be able to come together in an inclusive space that aims to eliminate inequality and build trust networks. Such networks were necessary during the 1968 student strike led by the Black Student Union and the Third World Liberation Front.

In 1968, SF State students battled with police and inspired faculty to go on strike themselves early the next year. As a result of struggle, and student and worker unity, the College of Ethnic Studies, along with the Educational Opportunity Program, was won. Now, however, this college at SFSU is facing disproportionate cuts. The American Indian Studies Department, for example, has been cut down from 20 sections to only seven this semester.

In addition, the Student Resource and Empowerment Center--which offered credit for students who worked as interns, and provided information and referrals to students in need of financial aid, jobs, scholarships, housing, psychological and health services, academic counseling, legal aid, crisis intervention and more--has been indefinitely closed.

Now is the time to revive the legacy of activism at SFSU and the rest of the California public educational sector to inspire others to build resistance to budget cuts. Another university is possible.