California State University Board of Trustees voted to increase the salary for executive staff during Tuesday’s meeting, despite California Faculty Association members’ urge to increase faculty wages.
The Board of Trustees gave 14 CSU presidents a large raise in July, with Long Beach State President Jane Close Conoley receiving a 28% raise. However, faculty were only given a raise of 3%.
Los Angeles State associate professor, Anthony Ratcliffe, who is also the CFA Los Angeles chapter president, argued at Tuesday’s meeting that faculty do more work than the presidents.
“[CSU presidents] make decisions that really have a lot of impact on faculty and students,” Ratcliffe said. “They tell people what to do, but the staff and faculty are the ones that are doing the actual work.”
CSULB librarian and CFA Long Beach faculty vice chair, Kelly Janousek, said faculty are the people doing the work that helps students.
“[CSU executives] are not in the classroom,” Janousek said. “They’re not mentoring them where they go to school next, or what jobs might be viable, the direct hands-on content that students currently need to survive in college.”
Randal Santiago, a CSULB fourth year political science major, also advocated for faculty salaries, as well as improvements to campus infrastructure.
“You cited pay equity when justifying executive raises, yet you further pay inequity between faculty staff and these executive positions,” Santiago said. “We the students, faculty and staff deserve better. Fund the classrooms, not the boardrooms.”
Some CSU trustees, such as Lateefa Simon, acknowledged the staff compensation concerns.
“We heard today, many of our staff, many of our faculty are making very, very difficult choices to stay a part of the university,” Simon said. “This conversation of compensation, it should be an ongoing conversation for everyone.”