Professor Craig Smith had been a board of trustees member for four years and department chair of film and electronic arts for six. However, this year he decided to step down from both positions and return to teaching.
Although Smith has the option to continue a third term as a California State University trustee, he said via e-mail that two terms were enough, especially because this year was “particularly frustrating.”
Smith said, “We had done some good, such as preserving the unique excellence of each campus, examining workload policies, making sure audits were properly conducted on all campus, and particularly in trying to get faculty salaries on par with similar institutions across the country, and then legislature undercut everything.”
He added that faculty will take a 10 percent cut to save their part-time colleagues, on top of losing a promised 4.5 percent raise.
Smith also said it was natural for him to resign as chair of the film department at the same time since his term on the board ended July 1.
He joined the film department six years ago and was proud to be a part of its strong history of alumni, including Mark Steven Johnson, who wrote and directed “Daredevil” and “Ghost Rider”; Jonathan Lawton, who wrote “Pretty Woman” and “Under Seige”; Masanobu Takayanagi, who was the second-unit director of photography for “Babel”; and Steven Spielberg.
Smith said despite that, “After six years, it was time to step down and let others run the department.”
The film department was supposed to be run from the College of the Arts until it finds a new department chair, but since the current dean, Donald Para, will be taking over as Cal State Long Beach’s interim provost and senior vice president of academic affairs, the department does not yet have a replacement for Smith.
Smith said now that he is no longer the department chair, he wants to devote more time to directing the Center for First Amendment Studies and teaching.
“I will still be running the center and it is doing better than ever,” Smith said. “Thanks to generous grants we will put out a report on the Supreme Court on Constitution Day (Sept. 17) for the campus community.”
He also said he plans to participate in CSULB’s faculty early retirement program.