CSU Priorities
Updated: Jan 3, 2022
Hint: It's not the faculty or the students.
Recent history of the CSU
“Don’t tell me what you value. Show me your budget, and I’ll tell you what you value.” - Joe Biden
Ever wonder why students can't get that class, or why your department can't get another hire? Wonder no more! The graph above is a nice summary of what has been happening at the CSU, namely lots more managers and lots fewer faculty. To summarize: between 2004 and 2014 almost every single CSU campus increased the number of managers and decreased the number of faculty. The data come directly from the CSU and were compiled by the California Faculty Association. There's is a lot more great info in the report which you can find here:
https://www.calfac.org/resources/research-and-data-center/
Much worse than it looks
The percentages are terrible to look at, and the reality is worse. Keep in mind the following:
Upper management typically makes more money than faculty. This means more benefits, particularly retirement and a greater burden on the retirement system.
Managers often come from the faculty. This means that they are no longer teaching leaving others to pick up the slack.
With fewer faculty to pick up the slack, this means increased class sizes, fewer sections/labs and more difficulty scheduling office hours.
Managers get regular raises, which means even more money for the same people moving forwards.
Hiring new managers means more staff, new offices, new computers and even new buildings. Can you hear that "giant sucking sound?"
Who exactly are they managing?
"...not a single CSU campus has had an increase in tenure-line faculty consistent with student population growth over the last decade." - pg. 4, Race to the Bottom
So there are more managers, but who exactly are they managing? The number of existing tenured faculty declined during this time by 3% and the number of pre-tenure faculty declined by a whopping 31%! Meanwhile, the number of students has been growing and growing. Since Admin doesn't teach and there are fewer faculty, why do we need them? (Hint: We don't.)
Salary explosion
It's a good time to be a pencil pusher. The graph below shows the percentage change in average salary for Management versus Faculty between 2004 and 2014. Managers received average raise between 20% and 42% (what the heck Humboldt?). Not only are there more managers but they get paid more. Remember these number next time the Admin says they need to raise fees or, gosh golly, they just can not fund teaching assistants or hire new faculty.
