Preserve our ASAM Department!

Hey folks. I know I haven't blogged in a while, and I'm terribly sorry about that. Something prevalent has come to my attention though and I need to spread the word, so heads up. Y'all know I'm not one to ask for a favor too often, but I'm asking for a favor now.




What’s going on with Asian American Studies at CSU Fullerton?

Here’s the short story.

The Asian American Studies Program (ASAM) at Cal State Fullerton (CSUF) may be cut this summer from 5.0 Full-time Equivalent Faculty (FTEF) in its budget to 4.0 FTEF for 2009-10. We don’t want this to happen because it means that our faculty will have to teach classes for other departments and not for Asian American Studies. Please help us to keep 5.0 FTEF in ASAM at CSUF by:

1) enrolling in ASAM classes in Fall 2009 and Spring 2010 (during Titan I, July 7-27) and/or
2) sending an email of support so that we can collect 500 letters for 5.0 Faculty in 5 days!

Your letter will help us to show that you value Asian American Studies and feel more satisfied with your education at CSUF because of the critical thinking skills and leadership development you learn through Asian American Studies.





Here’s the long story.

Background: CSUF is a University comprised of eight Colleges in its Division of Academic Affairs: Arts; Humanities & Social Sciences; Natural Sciences & Mathematics; Communications; Business & Economics; Engineering & Computer Science; Health & Human Development; and Education. The budget allocated to each College is determined by a number of factors, including the number of students that each College enrolls in previous years. The University’s Office of Academic Affairs sets the targeted number of Full-time Equivalent Students (FTES) that each College is supposed to teach in order to merit the College budget allocation. The College of Humanities & Social Sciences houses 21 academic departments and programs, including a modest-sized Asian American Studies Program within Ethnic Studies.

In 2006-07, the College of Humanities & Social Sciences decided to invest in the Asian American Studies (ASAM) Program at Cal State Fullerton by hiring two faculty members, bringing the total number of full-time, tenure-track faculty members to five (5.0 FTEF). Since Fall 2007, the enrollment in the program’s classes dipped because some of the faculty took family, medical, and research leaves. During this time away from teaching, the ASAM Program was not able to hire other part-time faculty to replace the classes that the tenure-track faculty were supposed to teach. Hiring replacement lecturers is common practice within the College and across the University. However, because of budget cuts by the Division of Academic Affairs, this money for ASAM’s replacement faculty was taken away and used instead to hire part-time faculty for non-ASAM departments whose courses had higher enrollments.

ASAM’s inability to offer replacement sections has become an issue because the number of students who enroll in classes helps determine the program budget for the following year. If one were only to look at the numbers of students enrolled in ASAM classes from 2007-08 and 2008-09, one might conclude that the ASAM program did not reach its enrollment targets. However, the numbers of enrolled students don’t tell the whole story because ASAM could not offer its full number of courses that it needed to reach enrollment targets.

Losing one faculty line (1.0 FTEF, or a 20% cut) in the ASAM program budget does not mean that any of the ASAM faculty will be laid off this year. It does mean that some ASAM faculty would be required to teach classes for other departments, and these classes may be unrelated to Asian American Studies. With fewer ASAM courses offered, fewer students will be able to enroll in and benefit from ASAM courses. This also means that, in future years, ASAM may not be able to afford its Full-time Equivalent Faculty because its student enrollment will decrease. Ultimately, this weakens the ASAM program, as reduced faculty leads to reduced courses, which leads to reduced enrollments, which leads to reduced budget allocations, and so on.

For these reasons, we ask for your help to keep the 5.0 FTEF in our ASAM budget in two ways:

1) Enroll in ASAM classes in Fall 2009 and Spring 2010 (during Titan I, July 7-27) and/or
2) Send an email of support so that we can collect 500 letters for 5.0 Faculty in 5 days!

Your letter will help us to show that you value Asian American Studies and feel more satisfied with your education at CSUF because of the critical thinking skills and leadership development you learn through Asian American Studies.



PLEASE HELP ME OUTTTT!