CSU OFFICIALS, FACULTY FACE VITAL CHALLENGES; SYSTEM TRAINS 60% OF STATE TEACHERS.

Byline: Charles Reed 

NOW that the California State University and the California Faculty Association have reached a contract agreement, it is time for the CSU and CFA to build on their new era of collegiality and cooperation.

The tremendous progress made in the collective bargaining process over the past few weeks shows what can happen when everyone cooperates for the good of the university and its students. Now we all must work together and focus on ensuring that the CSU remains the main source of high quality education for hundreds of thousands of California students.

CSU faculty are hard-working expert scholars dedicated to their students and academic disciplines. More than 250 on the CSU faculty were named American Fulbright Scholars over the past decade, and this is just one measure of our faculty members' outstanding accomplishments. Their experience and expertise will help guide the CSU through the many challenges accompanying the higher education needs of California's rapidly growing population.

Among many other activities, the CSU is addressing those challenges in four ways:

Assuring the quantity and quality of California's teachers.

California needs at least 250,000 additional teachers in the next decade because of class-size reduction, a large number of teacher retirements and a tremendous surge in student enrollment. Further, 30,000 teachers in California are currently teaching with emergency credentials, meaning they are not fully prepared to teach. As the system that produces 60 percent of the state's teachers, the CSU must ensure that the quality and quantity of those teachers meet the needs of the students in kindergarten through 12th grade.

We are implementing several initiatives in teacher education, including curricular reform and aggressive recruitment efforts. The CSU also will increase by 25 percent the number of teachers it produces. Most recently, the CSU established CalStateTEACH, a site-based program that will help teachers earn credentials by using the latest in technology for self study with quality support from the CSU faculty.

Expanding outreach to the K-12 system to address critical issues such as reducing remedial education.

The CSU will continue to improve its relationship with the public schools. That means communicating better, working more closely and offering them greater assistance. There's no reason why half of CSU's freshmen should need remedial courses. It's a poor use of their time and taxpayers' money to offer them what they should have mastered in high school. The university system will greatly expand local alliances between CSU faculty and K-12 teachers, increase the number of CSU students tutoring in high schools and pilot earlier mathematics and English testing of students to determine what they need before they enter college.

Implementing Cornerstones, CSU's strategic plan for the future.

Cornerstones outlines a series of specific actions to guide CSU into and beyond the next decade. These actions center on financial stability, student access and learning, and institutional accountability. They indicate what CSU is prepared to do to meet the needs of California effectively and with a continuing level of high quality. Cornerstones also indicates the resources required to educate greater numbers of students and support faculty teaching and scholarship. We believe that the successful, visible implementation of Cornerstones will justify an increased investment of state resources in the CSU.

Using resources effectively through expanded partnerships, technology and year-round operations.

The CSU continues to look for new ways to use resources wisely. Over the past three years the CSU has rechanneled more than $45 million from administrative costs to educational services through productivity improvements. Meanwhile, 12 CSU campuses rank among the top 100 in the nation in terms of efficiency and accountability. We will continue to seek partnerships among campuses and other public and private institutions. We will maximize the latest technology so faculty and students have more choices about how and when they teach and learn. Finally, we will move to year-round operations so that we can ensure access to all qualified students through greater use of our facilities.

Because the CSU is the social and economic engine of the state, how well we address these challenges will have a tremendous impact on California's future. It will determine citizens' quality of life as well as California's economic viability in the next century. By working hard, working wisely and working together, we can be sure that these challenges are hurdles to overcome, not barriers blocking our way.