By Christian Park-Gastelum, Oct. 29, 2024
Cal Poly Pomona’s California Faculty Association chapter held a demonstration on campus Oct. 24, questioning the administration’s use of funds, lack of communication and persisting payroll complications affecting job security and quality of education for students Oct. 24.
University President Soraya M. Coley and Provost and Vice President S. Terri Gomez were invited to attend the demonstration to address the CFA’s concerns, but neither were present.
“There are a lot of austerity measures on campus,” said Bonnie Thorne, the CFA chapter president and a psychology professor. “There have been classes cut in some departments when students need those classes to graduate. We have lecturer faculty who are losing work, a reduction in travel funds for some that need to travel to present at conferences. It’s a matter of priorities. Do you spend $4.1 million on rebranding, or do you spend it on classes for students?”
Members of the CFA gathered during U-Hour at Engineering Meadow, between Building 9 and 17, wearing their red CFA shirts in solidarity and voicing concern of the lack of support by administration.
Marc Scarcelli, a political science professor in attendance, addressed several repercussions of the enacted 2024-2025 budget cuts, including loss of health care benefits, lecturers being without jobs because of cuts to classes and the inability to update equipment such as faculty laptops.
Additionally, tenured faculty’s research funds have been cut to $750 a year, he said. Tenured faculty are typically expected to do research every year, especially if they want a tenure promotion.
“We now have this new emphasis of austerity, this message of: ‘We’re broke. We can’t afford any of these things, and everyone has to engage in belt-tightening and sacrifices,’” said Scarcelli.
Scarcelli also noted the administration has been slow in hiring staff yet enrolling more students. CPP enrolled its largest freshmen class – 4,704 students – in fall 2024, which Scarcelli argued ultimately affects majors since the departments are struggling offer more of the required first–year classes for their students.
He continued with past discrepancies of equitable funding among faculty and administration, alluding to the CFA strikes and Coley’s pay raise.
Among other California State University school presidents, Coley received a 7% raise in July 2022. Her base pay in 2023 was $449,355, and is subjected to another pay raise if approved by the CSU Board of Trustees to $476,015. The president’s raise is designed to gradually adjust over time to address market inequities, as mentioned on the September 2024 agenda.
Scarcelli claimed CPP has had a multimillion-dollar surplus for more than a decade, which is why he expressed frustration with the university administration’s message of the budget situation.
“We know that this campus has the second-best enrollment numbers of all 23 Cal States,” Scarcelli said. “That’s supposed to be what’s driving all this, right? This doom and gloom about dwindling student numbers is absolutely not the case on this campus.”
Amid budget constraints, CPP was granted $40 million from philanthropist Mackenzie Scott back in 2021. The funds were unrestricted, allowing administration to freely use the donation as they see fit.
A reported $32 million was used as an endowment for the university’s strategic plan, $8 million for Coley’s Presidential Excellence Fund of which $4.1 million was used for CPP’s new rebranding campaign. The second rebranding since 2018 is one part of the plan to market CPP tp potentially attract new students, talent and donors, according to Amon Rappaport, senior associate vice president of communications and chief communications officer.
Faculty members at the demonstration expressed their disdain over the use of the donated funds as they feel the funds should have been allocated to resources for students or improve outdated infrastructure.
“I come from a university that cut the budget, cut the amount of faculty, increased the amount of classes, destroyed the union, gave us no possibility to assist and then complained about the lack of enrollment,” said Marcos Scauso, an assistant political science professor. “Students are not stupid. They’re not going to go for a f—— logo. I’m sorry. That’s not going to cut it. It’s our education that will help.”
Jeffrey Ray, an assistant professorof art, added the institution’s art department could have been part of the process in configuring a new logo.
Ray also reminded the audience subject librarians’ contracts are not being renewed after the spring 2025 semester, leaving thousands of students in the College of Letters, Arts, and Social Sciences and the College of Environmental Design without a dedicated resource.
“Our students could have designed the branding for free,” said Ray. “If we were to market our university as, student for learn-by-doing, then we need to protect the jobs of assistant librarians, lecturers and adjunct professors.”
Music department chair and professor David Kopplin recounted CPP’s recital hall flooding every year for the past 30 years, causing classes to be cancelled and an annual hiring of mold specialists for the safety of students.
“Seems to me that this is one of those kinds of things since it affects a lot of you that want to come to concerts,” Kopplin said. “It affects certainly our students, might be something that somebody wants to pay attention to in a big way at some point. To fix it would cost money, but it wouldn’t cost $4 million, for it would cost a lot less than that.”
Faculty members continued to voice their concerns over the lack of support given by the administration, including Jennifer Brown, a professor in the plant science department who shared her grievances with administration.
Brown was the former provost and vice president of Academic Affairs before being abruptly fired Oct. 2, 2023.
Brown called on the administration Aug. 31 to compensate for the $1,500 missing from her paycheck from July 2024 by contacting Coley and Nicole Hawkes, vice president and chief of staff, who promised the missing pay would appear the same day only for it to be dispersed nearly a week after according to Brown.
Brown also failed to receive her August 2024 paycheck and didn’t receive the paycheck until Sept. 3 after having to contact the administration.
“Just imagine three-day weekends,” Brown said. “You have bills and obligations to pay and yet you have no check. I want you to know this is the type of administration you have, one that has no regard for who you are or what you do, you’re only as good as what you do now for them.”
Thorne said at times faculty have been wrongly overpaid, and once the administration notices the mistake, the receiving end must pay back the funds.
Lower-paid faculty lecturers feel the brunt of the required reimbursement as it could take months or even years before administration catches the mistake, according to Thorne.
“Coley’s not here because she’s scared; she doesn’t want to deal with our hard questions,” said Nicholas Von Glahn, a psychology professor and former CFA chapter president. “We’re going to figure out ways to ask her appointed questions. We’re not going to let the filibustering happen, and we’re going to go to those town halls and demand real answers.”
Von Glahn encouraged all in attendance to be present at the Budget Town Hall meetings that will be held Nov. 5 and Nov. 7 before concluding the demonstration with a rally cry, “When we fight, we win.”
Feature image courtesy of Christian Park-Gastelum
* This story was updated for clarification purposes at 3 p.m. Oct. 29 *
