The California Faculty Association released on Tuesday the first of a series of four “White Papers,” which is a report that accuses California State University administrators of failing to invest in student success.
Titled “Race to the Bottom: CSU’s 10-year Failure to Fund its Core Mission,” the first paper is an analysis of pay trends for professors, librarians, counselors and coaches within the system.
The CFA, a union that represents over 23,000 educators, said that despite tuition hikes and increases in state funding, the CSU spending on faculty salaries has remained flat and unchanged over the last ten years.
“When compared to other university systems around the country… the CSU stands out for its unparalleled failure to improve faculty salaries or even to protect them from the ravages of inflation,” the report said.
The paper gives the example of the average faculty salary at UC San Francisco, which was adjusted for inflation from 2004 and 2013 and rose by $16,138.
At California State University, Long Beach, the difference in average faculty salary between those years was an overarching loss of $9,704 when adjusted for inflation, according to the report.
The report notes that almost half of CSU faculty is hired on a part-time basis, meaning that the reported earnings are actually less than the base salary often quoted. CSU faculty earn about $45,000 per year before taxes and other deductions, and part-time faculty make less than $38,000 in gross earnings per year, according to the report.
“Even if all faculty were working on full-time contracts, the average salary for CSU faculty would only have been $63,000 in Fall 2014,” the report stated. “Half of all CSU faculty would still have had a salary of $55,000 per year or less.”
As of Jan. 14, CSU Management notified CFA of four different salary increases, with the first implemented on Sunday, according to the CFA website.
“While we are pleased to see money finally making it into the hands of faculty, the fact is that it has taken way too long,” said Kevin Wehr, the president of CFA’s Capitol Chapter and vice chair of CFA’s Bargaining Team. “I would have liked to see these raises implemented on January 1.”
CFA representatives were also on hand at an Assembly hearing on education finance, according to the Sacramento Bee.
“We call on [CSU Chancellor Timothy White] to… shift system priorities so that they better align with the CSUs core mission,” the paper said in its closing statement. “That realignment of priorities is critical if the CSU is to succeed in providing a high-quality university education to the millions of graduates our state will need in the future.”