Faculty, students and staff attended the Reimagining Academic Affairs Town Hall on Monday to hear Provost Leslie Cornick provide updates on the models from Phase One and to have a chance to raise their concerns directly to her. During the question-and-answer section, Cornick responded to comments and questions from students, faculty and staff. 

Cornick laid out three pillars for the restructuring initiative:

• Drive enrollment growth
• Reduce deficit
• Future forward

The first two pillars, “drive enrollment growth” and “reduce deficit” are budget driven.

Cornick charged the 19-member Special Action Team with developing two to three recommendations for restructuring academic units. Despite the SAT being told initially to not think about the budget and the fact the Reimagining website states that “the initiative is not budget-driven” in its opening paragraph, this town hall reflected the opposite. 

Many community members have voiced outrage about the perceived lack of transparency around the restructuring. Students and staff alike have argued that Cornick hasn’t done enough to keep the community in the loop. Cornick said they “tripped” on transparency and later emphasized the importance of shared governance. 

Cornick then explained five of the models that were presented at the beginning of Phase One. This was the first time since the models were presented to the campus community that the potential savings were listed alongside them. Along with the savings, Cornick gave a brief overview of what each model would do. These models, however, will change as Phase Two progresses.

Questions were sourced from those in attendance and those submitted via Zoom. Several faculty members asked questions focusing on workload, layoffs and the future steps of the process. 

Cornick responded to an attendee expressing their fears over losing faculty.

“You said that there would be casualty of staff,” Cornick said. “That is not the plan.”  

This was met with gasps and exclamations throughout the audience. 

Later, President Steve Perez took to the microphone to address the crowd’s reaction. He reaffirmed that they were “not talking about layoffs.” He went on to explain how exciting this initiative was. 

This was followed by an attendee pointing out that while some lecturers won’t technically be laid off, they will not be offered any more work leading them to lose their jobs here. They criticized Cornick for semantically working around saying the word layoffs. Cornick apologized if she came off as flippant on the matter. 

In each of the models proposed a certain number of deans, from two to six, and a certain number of chairs, from 10 to everyone, would lose their positions, reentering the classroom. By returning so many faculty to the classroom it would mean there isn’t enough work to keep as many part-time faculty.

In an prior interview with The Orion, Cornick explained that during the process of streamlining items like course offerings it results in a less of a need for part-time faculty which are the lecture faculty as she explained are generally on either year to year or two or three year contracts.

“And that’s difficult, right?” Cornick said, “That’s a hard thing to have to deal with. But when you’re in the budget environment that we’re in, and we’re also constrained by collective bargaining agreements and sort of the order of how we have to offer work to faculty, that is part of the result. And that is where the biggest lever is for helping us to reduce that deficit.”

Part-time faculty make up 43% of the faculty at Chico State, according to the fall 2024 Chico Facts site.

Many expressed concerns that the restructuring would increase their workload and reduce support by cutting part-time faculty. One attendee commented that they weren’t concerned about the workload, because they couldn’t possibly work more. 

Diana Dwyre, program coordinator for the social science program, accused Cornick of violating EM-22-013, an executive memorandum outlining the steps and procedures for restructuring Academic Affairs. She concluded her comment by officially asking that the new models coming out of Phase Two have the involvement of who created them laid out. 

A student asked if their program would be cut, which Cornick responded to by explaining that they are not cutting majors. This was heckled by an attendee demanding that Cornick show the student respect. 

Maredith Berdeja, a biology graduate student, asked a series of questions to the provost and one question to Christian Sullivan, AS President, regarding his role in transparency as the “bridge” between students and administration. 

Sullivan responded directly to Berdeja in front of the crowd, explaining that he had already been communicating with the Student Academic Senate and each college’s student representatives before being cut off by Cornick due to time constraints.  

Berdeja asked if the provost would consider “minority groups” and first-gen students when proposing the next models. Berdeja stated that aspiring students look for keywords like “college of natural sciences” and if that is not in the name then they may not think Chico State has that program. 

Berdeja also pushed back on only two days being offered for listening sessions, and argued that there should be more student listening sessions. Cornick said she would continue to work to find more ways to engage students and bring them in on the process.

Earlier in the meeting, Michael Coons, an associate professor, presented a data modeling system to help faculty self-select into colleges, a recommendation that will carry into Phase Two. 

More listening sessions will take place on:

• March 10 10:00 – 11:00 in Selvester’s 100 – Students only 
• March 10 11:00 – 12:30 in Selvester’s 100 
• March 11 2:30 – 4:00 in Selvester’s 100

Chris Hutton and Nadia Hill can be reached at [email protected].