"Schwarzenegger rejected two Academic Senate nominees to the board and asked for a broader list, but the Senate, worried about politicizing the panel, has refused to offer other names."
The Cal State University system's governing board has been without a faculty voice for eight months because of a disagreement between Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the university's Academic Senate about who should occupy the seat.
The impasse has come at a critical time for the Cal State system, which has grappled in recent months with a $564-million cut in state funding, resulting in controversial decisions to raise student fees 32%, slash enrollment by 40,000 students over two years and require nearly all employees to take furlough days.
Last March, the faculty group sent the governor the names of two candidates it judged to be highly qualified for the trustee post. The faculty representative serves as liaison to Cal State's 23 campuses and represents the views of its 23,000 faculty members at board meetings. Cal State is the nation's largest system of higher education with 450,000 students.
But Schwarzenegger has yet to appoint either faculty nominee. Instead, the governor's appointments secretary in December asked the Academic Senate to "broaden the candidate pool with one or more candidates of diversity."
Both candidates -- Barry Pasternack, chairman of the information systems and decision sciences
The Cal State University system's governing board has been without a faculty voice for eight months because of a disagreement between Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the university's Academic Senate about who should occupy the seat.
The impasse has come at a critical time for the Cal State system, which has grappled in recent months with a $564-million cut in state funding, resulting in controversial decisions to raise student fees 32%, slash enrollment by 40,000 students over two years and require nearly all employees to take furlough days.
Last March, the faculty group sent the governor the names of two candidates it judged to be highly qualified for the trustee post. The faculty representative serves as liaison to Cal State's 23 campuses and represents the views of its 23,000 faculty members at board meetings. Cal State is the nation's largest system of higher education with 450,000 students.
But Schwarzenegger has yet to appoint either faculty nominee. Instead, the governor's appointments secretary in December asked the Academic Senate to "broaden the candidate pool with one or more candidates of diversity."
Both candidates -- Barry Pasternack, chairman of the information systems and decision sciences