Legislation that would double the number of student and faculty representatives on the Cal State University Board of Trustees passed in the State Senate Education Committee on a 6-2 vote last week.
Senate Bill 1515 would also add two nonacademic CSU employees to the board.
“This bill gives a greater voice to the real stakeholders of the CSU system – the students, the faculty, and the employees of the 23 campuses,” Kim Geron, California Faculty Association vice president and political science professor at CSU East Bay, said in a press release.
CFA has pushed for the bill ever since it helped Sen. Leland Yee (D-San Francisco) introduce it in February.
Yee’s bill would amend Section 66602 of the Education Code, which establishes that the board be composed of 25 members, including five specified ex officio members, a representative of alumni associations, 16 members appointed by the governor, and two CSU students and one CSU faculty member also appointed by the governor.
If Yee’s bill becomes law, only 14 members would be appointed by the governor, two of which would be faculty members, four would be students and another two would be permanent nonacademic employees.
“There will be opportunity for board members to ask each other how to handle issues of the university system, to find out what students and faculty want on the ground level,” CFA Legislative Director Shirley Kim said.
Kim said the bill will next be referred to the State Senate Appropriations Committee.
The CSU system, however, does not support the bill because it says it will encourage political or sectarian bias on the board.
According to Elizabeth Chapin, a CSU spokeswoman, Yee’s bill is in direct conflict with a state statute.
Chapin said via email that the bill violates Education Code Section 66607, which states “that the CSU be free from all political and sectarian influence, including the appointment of trustees and in the administration of its affairs.”
According to Chapin, because faculty, represented staff and students are directly affected by policy created by the board, increasing the appointments of these groups while decreasing the board’s public membership “could result in increased political/sectarian influence and bias.”
“It becomes a concern when too much power is concentrated in the hands of one group,” Chapin said.
She said that because board policy directly affects personal lives of students and faculty, there is more chance that these trustees’ personal interests do not necessarily align “with the best interests of the university – a public institution that serves many different groups in various capacities.”
However, even though the CSU claims the current number of student and faculty trustees is sufficient, Yee and CFA still don’t think it’s enough.
“We just think that having students, faculty and staff that work on campus every day and know some of the struggles would be able to stress some concerns to the board,” Kim said.