Let's start with the good news. CSUSB's first ever lecturer rep election has concluded, and while we're hearing reports of some irregularities (ex. some people never receiving ballots), CSUSB Lecturers for Equity honors the election results. We always knew that tenure track CFA members outvote lecturer members by a large margin, and we always knew that our chapter president and vice president would set out to campaign heavily for whichever candidate played no role in forcing them to hold the election in the first place. We fully anticipated this outcome. However, the good news is that this whole rep election has opened many eyes to a number of disturbing truths about the treatment of lecturers on our campus, and that is good because we can't fix what people don't believe exists. 

Unfortunately, the most unsettling news is that this is not a great time for lecturers to have an entire faculty rights team with so little faculty rights experience and training. There is a lot more at stake for lecturer faculty in these budget troubled times than for tenure track faculty. Lecturer issues are much more complicated and time-consuming, and sadly, it is the opinion of many CL4E lecturers that in the past year, the CFA has been ineffective in ensuring we receive the same quality representation that our tenure peers receive. 

The best news is that this first ever lecturer rep election saw lecturers mobilizing for the first time and engaging in self-advocacy. This is a wonderful and promising new development. While many of us have been turned off to our union by the events of this past year, we have turned to each other and that's where we will always find our greatest strength.

CSUSB Lecturers for Equity has many future plans for ensuring changes that do not require any help from our union. We will start with biweekly posts curated specifically to show CSUSB lecturers the different professional resources available to us. We will include guest posts that range from informational pieces to opinion pieces. We're sure we won't always agree on everything, but we will always agree that lecturers deserve the professional support they need to serve their students well. 

Our next step is to educate CSUSB lecturer faculty on the conditions that we don't have at CSUSB that the other 23 CSU campuses offer to their lecturers. Some of these conditions should be easy to change, others not easy, but one thing is clear: it's a new day for CSUSB lecturers and we're pretty darn excited about that. 

By now many of us have received the memo from our campus chapter's default incoming president where she counters our lecturer messaging with a bunch of misinformation of her own.  

Sigh. 

Once again we have a tenure-line chapter leader assuming they know more than we do. Once again we have a tenure-line chapter leader explaining to us what our chapter experiences have been. Once again we have a tenure-line chapter leader spreading misinformation while accusing us of doing the same. 

Once again we face the inevitable tenuresplaining that follows any of our attempts to be heard. 

All hopes that the new chapter leadership would be more ethical, more equitable, and less tenurist have all been dashed in one premature and misguided email.

Sigh. Again.

While this is a discouraging moment, we need to trust the process. People who benefit from unchecked privilege will always be clueless. We need to stay the course and stay connected. 

Do not forget to send state CFA your letters/emails. We are hearing of lecturers who have called to invalidate the results of the current election. If they are successful we will work to find a new potential chapter president we can support that would not make the same kind of poor divisive decisions as yesterday's email demonstrated. 

Of course we are not against the idea of a subsequent apology email from this incoming president. Something like that would say to us that this potential president is different than the previous leadership who routinely doubled-down on their mistakes like they were placing $1 opening bids on The Price Is Right. 

The fight for equity is a long one. Do not be discouraged by setbacks. We are creating a better CSUSB for our lecturer colleagues and for our students.


 

Lecturer faculty in the CSU work under complex conditions. We need union representation that understands those complexities. 

The California Faculty Association--the union that represents all Unit 3 faculty employees--provides specialized representation to lecturer faculty in the form of a lecturer rep that is elected by their local chapter's membership. 

That is, unless you are a CSUSB lecturer. 

CSUSB's local CFA chapter has never run a lecturer rep election. Never. 

CSUSB lecturers are at the mercy of their exclusively tenure track faculty leadership in selecting the chapter's lecturer rep. We have no say, no agency, and no choice. 

Besides the obvious ethical issues with a practice that goes against the shared governance values of higher education, CFA-SB's refusal to hold lecturer rep elections is in violation of CFA state bylaws. 

It appears that the only time we truly matter to our campus CFA leadership is when they need us to authorize a strike or honor a strike action. 

Join us in demanding our chapter comply with state level bylaws and the basic tenets of a democratic organization. Remember the names of the tenure track faculty who do not support this action, and work to campaign for their replacements in future elections. 

Together, we can force CFA-SB to get with the times and quit treating their lecturers like subordinates unworthy of the same professional conditions that they work so hard to protect for their tenure track faculty.