A proposal for curriculum cuts to balance CSM's 2010-11 budget brought more than 80 faculty members to an Oct. 16 meeting.Two speakers told how faculty within their division were discussing tradeoffs to fine tune the proposed cuts, while more than 20 others spoke against cutting classes and programs for the 2010-11 school year.
"The core mission (of CSM) is to provide college courses to the local community," said Ernie Rodriguez, professor of psychology. "I'm a little pissed that the first document we see is about cutting, not about how the administration is going to protect the core mission. I have heard no dialog on how to consolidate (with our sister colleges) to save programs."
"This is a 'Sophie's Choice' kind of discussion," Rodriguez said. "Which child do you want to lose?"
CSM has the only meteorology program in the district, said David Robinson, professor of mathematics and meteorology. "In this day and age to not have a place in the college to talk about climate and climate change would be a shame," Robinson said.
The state budget crisis has forced the college to cut costs by $6 million--almost 22%--over two years, said Virgil Stanford, dean of administrative services.
In an e-mail to all employees on Oct. 12, President Michael Claire shared the list of proposed reductions to courses and programs. If adopted, the cuts would trim a maximum of about $1.1 million from the 2010-11 budget.
"Even with the proposed curriculum cuts (and recently announced administrative cuts), we are $1.8 million away from meeting the 2010-11 budget," Stanford said.
"These cuts are unprecedented," Claire told The San Matean. "It's not just us. City College, the second largest community college in the state, is canceling summer school. Los Angeles Community College District--every community college in LA--cancelled summer school last year, and probably will this year."
"Unfortunately we will need to make major adjustments in order to close the projected budget gap for the 2010-11 year," Claire wrote in his Oct. 12 e-mail. "We have a difficult road ahead."
Instructional administrators met over the summer to begin to formulate recommendations for curriculum cuts, said Vice President of Instruction Susan Estes.
Estes sent an e-mail on Oct. 16 detailing the criteria by which administrators had evaluated courses and programs, to determine which should be proposed for reduction or elimination.
"Cabinet and the instructional administrators have students' academic goals as their first priority," Estes wrote in an e-mail to The San Matean. "They ... want to maintain CSM as a comprehensive college, an institution that offers transfer courses, developmental education and ESL courses, and career and technical education courses in a balanced curriculum that reflects the needs of students. We want to be able to offer a schedule of classes that addresses the goals of as many students as possible."
"Lifelong learners were identified as not a central focus of our offerings," Estes said.
Estes has been in contact with other vice presidents of instruction in the district to make sure that offerings are balanced across the district.
Because of the sequence of reviews and approvals needed to prepare next year's college catalog, faculty members have only until Oct. 30 to submit proposals offering alternatives to the class cuts proposed by the administration, said Laura Demsetz, professor of engineering and chair of the Academic Senate's Committee on Instruction, at a special meeting of the committee on Oct. 15.
"Wouldn't you have rather had a summer surprise, than the kind of deadline for debate we now have?," said Andres Gonzales, professor of ESL and anthropology. Gonzales was referring to statements by administrators that they did not want to act on budget-reducing measures during the summer, when most faculty members are not on campus.
Faculty repeatedly expressed their concern for the quality of education that CSM could offer students if the proposed cuts were implemented.
"My students are very concerned; they are alarmed; they are angry," Rodriguez said. "They are our customers. We ought to reserve as much as possible of the instructional component for them. I'm not seeing that in the plans."
"We don't want to eliminate classes, we want to trim and reduce and maintain our breadth," said Teeka James, professor of English.
"We have to shrink, there's no choice," Claire told The San Matean. "We are over our enrollment limit. We're serving more students--600 full-time student equivalents--than the state is funding us for."
"We've been slowly and steadily cutting administration since the early 90s," said Claire. "There is no place left to go now except programs and services."
The administration has handed off the list of recommended program reductions and eliminations to the Academic Senate, Claire said.
"We've used our best judgment. We may be right or we may be wrong," he said. "We are giving the faculty responsibility over the curriculum, which is where it belongs."
The list is the starting point in the conversation, said Claire. Now the Academic Senate will take the list, use their best judgment, and make recommendations to change it, with the caveat that if a program comes off the list, an equivalent amount of savings must be found.
"There ought to be a lot of debate, and some disagreement, on what we should and should not remove," Claire said. "It has to be a very fast conversation."
"When I sat in front of my computer to write my statement, I was so angry," said Jing Wu, a professor who teaches Chinese language classes which are on the list of proposed cuts. "When I came (to the meeting) I calmed down, because I realized I'm not alone, and we can work together."
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