Impaction Proposal: Food for Thought Apr 17, 2015
We should continue to fight Impaction especially the lack of funding from Sacramento. However, there should be an interim plan since business and usual encourages those who are privatizing the university and in the process raising tuition and dorm fees. According to CSUN “CSUN aims to reduce its undergraduate enrollment by 1 percent — approximately 300 students — each year for the next four years beginning fall 2016.” For those of us who are actually in the classroom, it is no secret that it is a matter of space. But is the administration’s solution the correct one? What are the implications of eliminating Ventura County from our service area?
The following is an alternative plan:
- If the objective is to relieve space impaction then an alternative would be to look at the number of International students as well as out of state whose numbers apparently have been promoted for past years. According to the Chancellor’s Office, we have just over 2600 International students. According to Provost Hellenbrand we have 4200 International and Out of State students. We don’t know how many students the Tseng College has.
- Proposal: Reinstate Ventura County and not eliminate 300 freshman and Transfer student annually but instead cut 300 International and Out of State Students annually.
- We have expressed serious concerned about eliminating students of color. In order to assess this we must have accurate statistics. We want to know specifically how many Latino students are being admitted. The following nations are in Middle America and among the highest senders of immigration. We should know the percentage of students enrolled at CSUN in order to make certain that these groups are not impacted. In addition we should know how many tenure track professors of color are employed at the university.
Mexico 120,286,655 0
Guatemala 14,647,083 1512 miles
Honduras 8,598,561 1622 miles
El Salvador 6,125,512 1665 miles
Nicaragua 5,848,641 1797 miles
Costa Rica 4,755,234 2034 miles
In addition there is concern about the budget. Students on the impact hit list pay tuition just not as much. However, in order to compensate for the shortfall, the administration from the President’s team through the colleges should cut their staffs 7 percent annually for the next five years. It is nice to have a development officer at each college but are they necessary at the college level.
The eliminated administrators should be reassigned to the classroom, which is after all our primary mission. We should earmark the savings to reduce student fees and reduce the number of contract workers who should be made permanent employees.
Lastly, there is a rumor being floated that CSUN faculty is paid less than professor at Cal State Los Angeles and other campuses. We should ask for an explanation.
