By Kaity Audick, Staff Writer
*Published in the print edition of The Channel Islands View in Nov. 2009
The CSU budget crisis was the hot topic of last Wednesday’s town hall meeting. Malibu hall 100 was full of students, teachers, and other staff members, discussing the issues that our school, along with many others, will be facing in the coming year.
Professor John Yudelson lead the event, but he certainly wasn’t the only one passionate about our current financial situation.
Even with the student fee increases and furloughs, things on campus don’t appear chaotic. The problem is, this is just the beginning.
Yudelson expressed in his opening statements that:
“the student fee increase will continue going up unless we do something about it.”
How much tuition and fees will increase year-to-year is uncertain. The front page of the California State University website informs us that all CSU’s:
“will face an increasingly challenging fiscal situation over the next 17 months and beyond as a result of the budget package passed by the Legislature and signed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.”
Student Government President Kevin Schallert took a very charismatic approach when he addressed the audience.
“We need to get mad,” he said directed at fellow students. Schallert continued, “we need to let the legislators know, if they don’t change what’s happening, they won’t be voted back in office.”
Staff member Joseph Dobzynski Jr. put things in a realistic perspective for everyone. “On a state level, we spend more money on prisons than we do education. That’s not to say that our prisons and justice system aren’t important, but it does say that we spend more money on our prisoners than we do on our students,”
Dobzynski said, CSU Channel Islands has been lucky enough so far to not see any major changes as far as classes being cut. The staff of CSUCI generously voted that everyone would take a ten percent pay cut instead of facing massive layoffs. Administrator Renny Christopher explained that our current problem is that CSUCI isn’t being given the chance to develop further.
“We need to get funding for this CSU so that our campus can continue to grow and thrive.”
John Yudelson ended the meeting with words of encouragement for our students to get active, whether it be through emails, phone calls or literally showing up to speak with local government.
“I know what I’m going to do,” Yudelson said, “one person isn’t going to do it, but together we can.”
If you would like to get involved, and help fight for our CSU, you can do so by contacting John Yudelson at john.yudelson@csuci.edu for more information.
