Towards a Student, Faculty, and Staff Centered Budget for SFSU
A response to the Provost's Directive Memo
Towards a Student, Faculty, and Staff Centered Budget for SFSU
A response to the Provost's Directive Memo
On January 28, 2021, the SFSU Provost released a “Directive Memo on Academic Affairs Budget Realignment,” outlining her vision for the campus budget priorities in light of the COVID pandemic and its economic repercussions. The purpose of this website is to refute the claims that are at the center of the proposal and propose a student, staff, and faculty centered alternative.
Summary of Provost's Directive Memo
Our one-page summary & response
UPDATE: At our Emergency General Meeting on Monday, February 15, we voted to hold an ALL-FACULTY VOTE during the week of March 8th on whether to reject the proposed actions in the Provost's Jan. 28th Memo.
Information about the March Referendum Vote
Like almost all universities, Covid-19 has impacted our enrollment. But permanently under-budgeting instruction will cause further enrollment decline and exacerbate EDUCATIONAL INEQUITY, hurting students primarily from working-class communities of color.
Increasing class size limits access to faculty, undermining student success and graduation rates
Similarly, hiring freezes & lecturer layoffs means fewer faculty to support each student
Eliminating non-required and elective courses robs our students of curriculum available only to their peers at elite schools
Planning based on ‘regional workforce needs as determined by data and market analyses’ positioning students as ‘future workers’ and not learners. This is an insult on its own, but it also can’t be done by reducing hands-on learning opportunities (labwork, service-learning, small classes)
We can and must protect San Francisco State's mission to 'honor roots, stimulate intellectual and personal development, promote equity, and inspire the courage to lead, create, and innovate.'
The Provost cites a $6.7m ‘structural deficit’. Ultimately, this is a problem of PRIORITIES, not funding:
December 2020 CARES Act channels $33m directly to SFSU for institutional support (source)
Governor’s 2021-22 proposed budget increases funding to CSU by 3% (source), for an additional $7m annually for SFSU over last year (source)
The CA Legislative Analyst Office reports that the CSU Chancellor’s office currently has over $400m in reserves, to distribute at will (source)
Meanwhile, SFSU increased upper administrators by 66% from 2012-2018 (source) and a 2016 independent audit showed ‘no empirical evidence for the structural deficit’ (source)
The memo claims we’ll remain ‘mission-driven’ and do this through ‘collaborative planning’, yet it hands decision-making over to deans and upper administrators, contradicting our commitment to shared governance and academic freedom
In order to have a fair and transparent budget process a few things would have to change at a minimum. We propose discussing the following changes to our campus:
Opening up of the books. All budget issues, all university expenditures, all programs, all monies, and also all projections of expenditures and losses would have to be shared with the entire university community.
Sharing (or even ceding) budget authority with/to the faculty. As long as the administration considers that it and it alone is the site for making any budget decisions (bringing along its point of view about what is and what is not expendable) we will always be fighting a against the current.
Regular external audits of university finances. The university should welcome an external and objective auditor who will make their work publicly available and also answer any and all questions from the community.
Democratization of priorities. University priorities should be revisited with regular and transparent meetings of the whole community: faculty, staff, students, families, the larger community and the administration itself.
Email your academic senator expressing your concerns.
Participate in the Referendum on the Provost Directive Memo the week of March 8th.
Organize an Emergency Meeting in your department to discuss the Provost's Directive Memo and our upcoming Referendum vote. Contact your union department representatives to set them up, or contact the union president here.
Get involved with the Organizing Committee! We have working groups doing budget research, faculty, student and media outreach, and more. Email cfa_sf@calfac.org.