“It’s amazing to see you all here, standing in solidarity with my union – the CFA! I’m Shana Charles, the Councilmember for this district in Fullerton. I’m also an Associate Professor in Public Health here at CSUF and a proud, dues-paying, hard-working member of the CFA,” said Fullerton Councilmember Dr. Shana Charles at the California Faculty Association (CFA) strike rally on January 22, 2024.

“Let’s talk about why we’re here. We’re here today because the CSU has turned its back on us and on the students we serve.

We’re here because, as we all learned during the global pandemic we survived, the definition of a university is professors teaching their classes.

We’re here because we moved heaven and earth to persevere, to keep our students learning and the lights online, and the CSU kicks us to the curb like we don’t even matter.

We’re here because as the number of sections we teach every semester rises, our support has been cut, our wages haven’t even kept up with inflation, and our students face a tuition hike while the administrators get 30% salary increases and tens of billions of dollars go to construction.

We’re here because we can’t teach four, six, or eight sections a semester with no teaching assistants, no students hired as peer tutors, and no future course releases and keep our sanity intact. There have been cuts across the board – except for administration salaries.

And then the CSU won’t even negotiate, won’t even talk about reasonable, meet-in-the-middle options. They slap us in the face, walk away from the table, and then gaslight us with an insulting 2.5%.

I have an honest question – how does Chancellor Mildred Garcia sleep at night? She should be ashamed that this is on her watch. When I was hired here at CSUF, she was our president. And as a new faculty member, I looked to her as a role model, as a successful woman I wanted to emulate.

NO MORE! I call on Chancellor Garcia to do the right thing and send their negotiators back to the table. Our CSU faculty live to TEACH, but you have pushed us long past our breaking point. We will stand strong, and when we WIN, the CSU system will be stronger in the end.

Because without us, there is no CSU,” said Dr. Charles.

The California State University has announced that it will provide all instructional faculty, librarians, counselors, and coaches with a general salary increase of 5% effective January 31, 2024, concluding contract negotiations and exhausting the state’s impasse process. The university claims that the campus will remain open and will operate as normal during the strike.

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