CSU faculty vote to authorize strike over pay and class sizes

The job isn’t cushy enough, but a 12% pay raise might help.

I was amused to see this headline in the Chico ER today, November 1, 2023.

“Faculty at all 23 campuses of the California State University system have voted to authorize a strike, demanding a new contract with higher salaries, lower class sizes, and more manageable workloads.”

While the demand is laughable, given that their pay ultimately comes from the taxpayers who can’t strike or even vote on the pay raise, I say let them strike.  I will be doubly amused to see the reaction of parents and students who pay outlandish tuition, incur insurmountable student debt to party in Chico, and leave with an unemployable degree when they discover that all classes are canceled because instructors want more money.

What if we could vote?  What if we were in a position to negotiate?  What would we demand of the CSU system?  Let’s use Chico as an example. Here are a few suggestions:

• Fire all faculty who use their classroom and positions to propagandize ideology over academics, tenure be damned.

• Require all students who attend college to live in State housing.  That would free up ~12,000 beds in our community. That should make Addison Winslow happy.  Infill, baby.

• Reduce south and north campus neighborhood student housing to historical frat and sorority houses. Impose strict behavioral standards, including citations for disturbances, and noise and nuisance ordinances to each one, under threat of closing them down to occupation for the remainder of the school year.

• Require that University Police take responsibility for all disturbance calls within 1 mile of the campus.  No more Chico PD subsidies of the college’s promise of a “wild and free” experience attending the party school called Chico State, without also paying the bill.  Chico Police can be a backup for felony calls, but University Cops should be the very first to roll.  They carry guns and are trained, too. 

• Require every student to attend a “responsible citizenship” training class and sign a contract to obey the tenets of that training to include the duty of courtesy and consideration for the “non-student” population of Chico, who continue to live here during and after they go back home, wherever that is.

• Apply academic discipline to any student cited or convicted of an offense against the local quality of life ordinances, or state laws.  Fines, suspensions, and expulsions are on the table.

• For the transition period, where students are still occupying housing throughout the city, (and other rentals while we’re at it) hold landlords accountable for tenants who habitually misbehave.  They must be accountable for failing to enforce their rental contracts, including the part that says, “no noise or disturbances after 10:30 p.m.”

• Require the University to provide free/low-cost access to their meeting facilities on campus to legitimate groups.  The university takes ample advantage of taxpayers, has a vast inventory of facilities paid for by taxes, and sits empty most of the time.  Open the campus to community use.  If the community is part of the university, make the university part of the community.

• Adopt a philosophy and culture based on instilling virtue in students.  Require community service volunteerism, as a demonstration they are here to give as good as they get.

I could go on.  I probably will.