A service will be held Wednesday for the “death” of the California Master Plan for Higher Education in attempt to get California State University system administration to take a stronger leadership role.
As the CSU board of trustees meets, the California Faculty Association will hold a mock funeral for the plan, which was established in 1960 for the Liaison Committee of the State Board of Education and the Regents of the University of California.
According to Teri Yamada, CFA president of the Cal State Long Beach chapter, the plan — also known as the Donahoe Higher Education Act — states that the top one-third of high school graduates should have access to the CSU system.
“Certainly that vision for higher education in the state of California is one thing that has made the state really great,” Yamada said. “The state’s [public] higher education system … was the envy of many countries around the world.”
The goal of the event is to inform the public of the cuts being made to education as the state needs education the most to fuel the economy, Yamada said.
The event is from 10:30 a.m. to 12 p.m. and the performance will start at 11 a.m. There will also be speakers present, including faculty, students, unionwide CFA President Lillian Taiz and CSU Employees Union President Pat Gantt.
“The public needs to be aware of what this means to them as far as their own quality of life is concerned in the future, with fewer nurses, fewer engineers, fewer IT people, fewer teachers, fewer entrepreneurs,” Yamada said. “It will impact the quality of life for every Californian if we have a public education system that’s being dismantled.”
There will be signs at the funeral listing problems and solutions to the CSU budget crisis; Yamada said the solutions include prioritizing education in California, a show of vision and leadership at the chancellor and trustee level, and support for Assembly Bill 656, which would allocate oil and gas taxes to the state’s higher education systems.
The funeral procession outside of Chancellor Charles Reed’s office in downtown Long Beach will include an altar, hearse, coffin, eulogy, Scottish piper and pallbearers to carry the coffin, which will hold a mannequin dressed in graduation robes. Yamada said the event is also a memorial for students who are unable to attend CSU campuses because of decreased enrollment.
“We will be mourning the 50,000 students who have been denied access to the CSU because of this downsizing,” Yamada said, adding that there will be 50 stakes driven into the ground outside the chancellor’s office, each representing 1,000 students.
Requested to wear all black and carry white lilies, students will have the option of dropping messages of complaints and problems into the coffin, which will be sent to the chancellor’s office along with written complaints from CSU campuses around the state, Yamada said. Students unable to attend can wear black while on campus to mourn as well.
Yamada said she thinks the memorial will be effective because of the media’s involvement. The performance has also gained attention on an international level; NHK, a station in Japan, will film the event for a documentary on the national higher education crisis. It is set to air in Japan but may be made available later in the U.S., Yamada said.
About 100 to 200 students, faculty and staff are expected to attend, Yamada said. She added that they can get to the chancellor’s office for free in a red double-decker bus. The bus will leave the CSULB Fountain Turnaround on upper campus tomorrow at 10:15 a.m., returning to CSULB at 12:15 p.m. Reservations must be made by Tuesday by e-mailing [email protected] or calling 562-985-7022.
The performance installation is funded by both the CFA and the CSUEU, which represents staff members. Yamada said the costs are kept as low as possible.
The CFA is also still accepting letters to be sent to the CSU. It has received about 600 since it started collecting almost two weeks ago and hopes to reach 5,000. According to Yamada, the writers of the two best letters will each win a $200 textbook stipend, while two students who get involved with their parents will be flown to Sacramento to deliver the letters directly to state lawmakers.