next »

[zyzzx]

I have an campus interview at a Cal State school coming up. I know that California is going broke, and that the university system is being affected, but I'd like to know a little more about the current state of affairs. If I did start a TT job there, how would the financial situation affect me? I'm assuming salary and raise hits, but are there other effects I should be aware of?
Is it bad enough that job security would be an issue?
Are there any questions along these lines that I should be asking at my interview, or is that considered crass?
Thanks!

[madhatter]

California's economy is a mess, and its state government is broken, possibly beyond repair. (There are structural problems with the referendum-mandated rules for raising revenue and passing budgets that make it nearly impossible for the state to balance the books.) The state has one of the highest unemployment rates in the nation. The three big state systems (the community colleges, UC, and CSU) have been taking it on the chin in the budget, and each is suffering in a different way. The community colleges have been slammed with massive enrollment surges (due to the unemployment situation) while they simultaneously charge ridiculously low tuition rates. UC has taken some big cuts, but the various schools are dealing with them in different ways. UCLA and Berkeley will be OK; Riverside and Merced are nervous.

CSU is caught in the middle -- big cuts, low tuition, and not enough prestige or independence to have a lot of freedom to move. They've also had their own dunderheaded PR moves, such as the recent flap over presidential salaries.

What does this mean for you? Yes, I'd expect all of the above -- no raises, salary freezes or cuts, cuts by other names (i.e., furloughs, benefit cuts or benefit rate hikes) -- as well as dealing with tight institutional budgets that will affect the infrastructure and resources you have to work with. I would certainly be worried about job security. As a faculty member, you would not be first on the chopping block, but the budget situation in California is unsustainable, and something will have to give, sooner rather than later.

You should certainly ask about the budget situation and its impact on faculty members -- bear in mind that the people you are talking to won't have all the answers, but they can at least tell you what the history has been over the past five years.

[litdawg]

It's good to ask these questions, but a Cal State job will be far more stable than you might expect at least if you are hired into a tenure-track position. The CSU faculty is unionized and TT folks are last on the chopping block. Consider also the department you are joining--is it a core discipline, or is it one that serves a boutique major that may be on the chopping block? Asking questions about the health of the major and role of the department on campus may be more important than global questions about the health of the Cal State system.

The benefits package is still amazing. CalPERS retirements are the best in the world--for now. If you join the system before there are reforms to the pensions, then you are getting a benefit that is unattainable almost anywhere else.

You should also approach this question differently depending on your discipline: do you have large overhead requirements for lab space, etc? Or are you a humanities person who isn't much affected by the loss of such subsidies?

General questions about the system will leave you vaguely concerned. Specific questions about where the budget would rub you in your new department/discipline will give you a clearer picture of decision points.

A good question to ask while on campus: How have California's budget woes affected day-to-day life in this department? Probe the impacts on research funding, travel funds, class sizes, etc. You may uncover some areas of concern. For the most part, though, I suspect you'll find that life in the CSU is still a good deal.

[zyzzx]

Thanks for the replies. The state of California does sound rather grim. It does sound good to hear that TT faculty are somewhat protected - I didn't realize they were unionized, but I am happy to hear it.
The department does seem to be doing well - this hire is actually part of an expansion, and I think it has some community/industry support. It's maybe somewhere between boutique and core. Not very large, but it does bring in some grant money.

Is the benefits program likely to last? These days the news seems to be full of stories about places screwing their employees out of promised pensions. Although I suppose the union would help prevent that.

Anyway, thanks for the suggested questions, litdawg. I will be sure to look into these things.

[madhatter]

Is the benefits program likely to last? These days the news seems to be full of stories about places screwing their employees out of promised pensions. Although I suppose the union would help prevent that.

I wouldn't count on it, but there really are no safe harbor retirement plans any more. I suppose it's better to start with a good pension plan and hope that it doesn't get too bad than to start with a crappy plan and hope it improves.

[offthemarket]

Litdawg's remarks are spot on, in my view. I have some recent experience with the CSU and a number of friends at CSUs. The campuses are hiring fewer and fewer tenure track faculty, but those that do get hired are in a very good position. There are pension "reforms" coming through the state, but this year's hires will come in before there are any changes. Other benefits are solid, too. These kinds of jobs at public universities are going to be harder and harder to get.

The union is robust and the jobs of tenure-track faculty are quite secure. If catastrophic cuts do show up at a particular campus, it would be in the form of eliminating certain programs - and the programs at risk are usually pretty obvious. Programs that would be cut (if any) wouldn't be the ones hiring tenure-track faculty right now.

Keep in mind that there is a massive number of students in the CSU system, which are very important to the state. The level of funding from California to the CSU and the UC systems is on the decline, but the campuses are not going to disappear, and programs will not disappear. They just will get more expensive for the students. One or two of the money-pit CSUs might disappear in an economic disaster, in a worst case scenario - but if anything, the state needs more universities and more faculty - and enrollment won't drop to the point where tenure-track faculty jobs are at risk.  The worst case scenario is that salaries do not increase - though bumps at promotion are going to continue. Furloughs happened once already a couple years ago, and the faculty won't vote for those again.

If you get a job offer, your highest priority in negotiating is to get your salary as high as possible from the start, as this is the basis of all future raises. There is also a publicly searchable database of all state employee salaries, so you can learn what everyone else in the department is making when you negotiate.

Most campuses have a 4-4 teaching load, and there are some great researchers in the CSU system, but it varies from campus to campus.

On edit - in California, it is most likely that when pension changes happen, they will occur to newly enrolled employees, and that people in the system will keep their benefits and everything at the prior negotiated rate. That's the proposal that everyone has except for the tea party nuts, who aren't likely to prevail. That said, it would be wise to not solely count on the pension.