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Chancellor White

 

President W. Hagan

 

A basic concern about the wellbeing of our university students and an appreciation for our mothers’ work and sacrifices for their families compels us to write this letter.

 

The great majority of our students at California State University, Dominguez Hills are women beyond their post-adolescent years. Indeed, many of them are working mothers whom we’ve discovered often juggle two and sometimes even three jobs. It is obvious that their education under these conditions is really much more than time dedicated to pursue an academic dream. It is a stake in their families’ welfare in today’s trying economic times. We are moved, as you can imagine, when we learn that in addition to assuming personal struggles for their own families’ security our students are active and involved community members who work hard to guarantee justice for their extended families and community members. Among these students, for example, is a recent graduate, Linda Hinójos, who has drawn from her education to confront a waste disposal company that would have constructed a waste processing plant in her neighborhood. Her capacity and her vision to oppose this indignity and brand of environmental racism is testament to the importance of our students’ education and the respect and consideration it deserves.

 

Really, it is not brash youthfulness that moved students at CSUDH to call for a referendum on the euphemistically named “Student Success Fee.” It is instead a call that the university system respect the halt on fee hikes that students won in the last academic year. Chancellor White and President Hagan, our students should not pay for the mismanagement and poor administrative decisions that each of you have inherited. Nor should the fee increase keep them from contributing to their families’ and communities’ well being as it also stands to do. But the call for a referendum was rejected.

 

We are passed the call for a referendum now. We respectfully ask you to reject the recommendation to implement the student success fee.

 

Signed.

 

José Prado, Associate Professor, Sociology, CSUDH, Co-President Dominguez Hills chapter of California Faculty Association
Vivian Price, Associate Professor, Interdisciplinary Studies, Co-President Dominguez Hills chapter of California Faculty Association