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Hundreds of students and faculty gathered in front of the Cal State Long Beach University Bookstore Wednesday to protest Gov. Schwarzenegger's proposed budget cuts to the California State University system.
CSULB President F. King Alexander acted as the master of ceremonies for the event. He started by urging students and faculty to sign the CSU Alliance petition, volunteer, write letters to local newspapers and send messages to state senators and assembly members. He said that the upcoming budget decisions will affect everyone in the state of California.
"We want them to know that we do not think that we are an expenditure," Alexander said. "We are the greatest investment in this state."
Alexander mentioned that last year alone, the CSU system graduated 90,000 students and put them into the state economy. Alexander and the other speakers announced that if the state wants more engineers, schoolteachers and nurses, the last thing it should be doing is cutting educational institutions.
Elizabeth Hoffman, a California Faculty Association representative and CSULB English department lecturer, was also at the rally. Hoffman said the proposed cuts would cause more overcrowding in classrooms, longer lines during registration, fee increases and fewer course options.
Long Beach City Councilwoman Suja Lowenthal pointed out the influence of constituents on elected representatives. She said students, parents and faculty must let their concerns be known.
"We need to get our elected representatives to understand that forfeiting our prospects for a happy tomorrow in order to balance the budget today is short-sighted at best and self-destructive at worst," Lowenthal said.
Lowenthal said how big a mistake it would be to assume that others will carry the message. If community members do not speak to their representatives, only special interests will have their messages heard, according to Lowenthal.
Nina Delavin, the event's last speaker and a member of CSU Students for Quality Education, went over some of the budget cut statistics. She informed audience members that budget cuts already made have increased undergraduate fees by 94 percent and graduate fees by 127 percent since 2002.
According to Delavin's statistics, 87 percent of teachers, 51 percent of engineers and 67 percent of business professionals graduated from the 23-campus CSU system.
Event coordinators had tables set up throughout the Friendship Walk to allow students to write letters to local officials. There were three tables set up for students to write their own letters, as well as nine computers for them to type and print their complaints.
The CFA gave out free pizza and drinks to students in order to attract attention to the event and passed out fact sheets and buttons urging people to get involved. By the end of the event, volunteers had gathered boxes full of sign-up cards from people who were willing to help.
