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CFA Teach-In Draws Large Crowds

Hundreds of faculty and students attended a CFA teach-in held throughout the day on Oct. 17, with a peak attendance of more than a thousand at noon for speaker Michael Parenti. Event organizers estimate a total attendance of 2,000 for the entire event.

Beau Grosscup, president of the local CFA chapter, considered the day highly successful in raising awareness about the trends which threaten the future of the CSU and the quality of education in California. “This is what we hoped to accomplish, particularly connecting students and their concern with quality education to faculty working conditions,” said Grosscup. “We wanted to underscore the lack of both funds and the political will of administration to support instruction.”

The keynote speaker, Michael Parenti, Ph.D. in political science from Yale University, is an internationally recognized speaker on such topics as democracy and economic power and imperialism and U.S. interventionism, and the author of 15 books, including Democracy for a Few.

Parenti debunked what he described as the primary myth surrounding today’s university, that it is a democratic community of scholars and students. “Universities are controlled by rigid, top-down leaderships that do not have intellectual freedom and democracy as their top priority,” said Parenti. The boards of trustees represent corporate America, not higher education, which results in treating universities like businesses, which they are not, he added.

The Board of Trustees controls budget, capitalization, enrollment, contract renewals, structure of classes, courses that are taught, and the hiring and firing of faculty. Parenti referred to the hundreds of incidents of political firings over the last 30 years..

Greg Tropea, Department of Philosophy and a full-time temporary instructor since 1986, spoke on behalf of lecturers who now comprise approximately half of all people teaching in the CSU system. Lecturers do the same work in the classroom as tenured professors, yet are not rewarded in the same way. Tropea listed the lack of job security, last minute assignments, lower pay, and substandard equipment and offices as a few of the issues that need attention.

The teach-in was attended by a large number of members of the larger Chico community and was also covered by Chico media venues—TV, radio, and the Enterprise-Record.

Kathleen McPartland