Faculty, staff and students filled Chumash Auditorium on Tuesday, when California State University Chancellor Timothy White held an open forum. Some attendees wore red shirts to support the California Faculty Association, while others donned duct tape and signs to show solidarity with ethnic studies, women’s and gender studies and more. Here’s what you missed.
Ethnic studies sophomore Jabemarvis Sanchez Williams
“In regards to the open forum, I felt like Chancellor White did a lot of redirecting. I was asking him a question about budgeting and funding for the Ethnic Studies Department, and he kind of just redirected me to another source, our president. And I felt as if, in certain circumstances, the Chancellor has more power in delegating funding than our president, and there’s a reason why I went to the CSU Chancellor for these questions besides our president because I haven’t been receiving a lot of success when contacting President Armstrong.”
Political science sophomore Matt Klepfer
“I thought the protest went really well. Certainly, the answers he provided us were not helpful in any way, but that really wasn’t the point. The point was to raise awareness to these issues facing queer studies, ethnic studies and women and gender studies. And I think we were very successful in doing that.”
History senior Sam Holzer
“I think today’s demonstration — today’s protest — and the three questions that Jabe, Matt and I got to ask was successful. I was most disappointed in Chancellor White’s deflection of the questions and of his kind of non-acknowledgement of a lot of the issues that face marginalized students on this campus. I appreciate him taking ally training, but I’d actually like to see significant policy changes at the California State level and across the CSU system. And he really addressed and talked about none of those, which was unfortunate. So I was most disappointed in his answers, but I thought that our actual demonstration and our questions were successful in actually raising those issues.”
Psychology sophomore Sena Agbemadon
“The reason I came out today was I think it’s important that Cal Poly has more diversity and representation in their courses and what they have to offer, and I really just came to support the larger cause.”
Child development sophomore Colleen Mayone
“I’m here to support Mick and Matt and their attempt to change the way that we have ethnic studies, queer studies and women and gender studies curriculum in our school.”
Political science sophomore Mick Bruckner
“We want to make changes in curricular offerings at the CSU level to include women and gender studies, ethnic studies and queer studies in the CSU curriculum.”
Architecture freshman Caroline Ambrose
“I’m really excited. I haven’t been a part of something like this at Cal Poly before, and I think we have a group of people who are really dedicated to the cause. So, I’m excited to see how far we can go with this.”