Professors Plan to Skip Graduation Over Contract Acrimony

Lingering emotions over bitter contract talks have led to an informal faculty boycott of today’s Cal State Fullerton graduation ceremonies, faculty leaders said Friday.

While the 19,600-member statewide California State Faculty Assn. approved a three-year contract this week, the head of the Fullerton chapter said some professors will skip today’s ceremonies at the campus to protest the presence of Chancellor Charles B. Reed.

“A significant number will boycott,” said Gangadharappa Nanjundappa, a sociology professor and president of the Cal State Fullerton faculty union. “They are still very resentful.”

The union called off a formal boycott of the ceremonies after a tentative contract was reached earlier this month, Nanjundappa said.

“We told them you have to use your own judgment to go or not to go,” Nanjundappa said, adding that he plans to attend. “We made it clear to the faculty that we do not encourage any activity that would disturb the main ceremony or interfere with the graduation.”

Reed, scheduled to deliver the keynote address, infuriated faculty members during the protracted contract negotiations with what they took as provocative statements about faculty work ethics.

Yet Jane Hall, president of the Cal State Fullerton Academic Senate, said the dissatisfaction with Reed extends beyond the rhetoric of contract negotiations.

“It’s more a matter of the faculty’s sense that Reed does not grasp what faculty really do, and the depth of the interaction with students and with the community,” said Hall, an economics professor.

Hall, who plans to attend the ceremony, said she could not estimate how many faculty members will boycott.

“It’s nothing organized,” she said. “Some individuals will not be attending.”

Ephraim Smith, the college’s vice president for academic affairs, said he hoped faculty members will place the student celebration ahead of their frustrations.

“Graduation day is for students to celebrate with family and the faculty after earning their degrees,” he said. “Hopefully, now that the contract was ratified by the union this week, we’ll have a good turnout . . . hopefully, the ratification of the contract will help soothe some of these issues and bring us back to focus. It’s been a difficult year.”

Ken Swisher, spokesman for the chancellor’s office, described the informal boycott as “unfortunate.”

“It is our understanding that the Academic Senate did not approve that,” he said. “I think it’s unfortunate that they’d be disrespectful of the students on a day that should be very happy.”

He dismissed faculty concerns that Reed does not understand the work they do.

“He has tremendous respect for the faculty,” Swisher said. “We’re optimistic that the contract will be signed by the trustees on Tuesday.”

The contract shifts money into a pool for merit raises, which faculty members initially balked at, but also gives them more control over who deserves the raises. Both sides said they gave up ground in order to reach the agreement, which is retroactive to September.

Whether the boycotting faculty members will be missed is uncertain.

Some 28,000 people are expected to attend the ceremony, the first university-wide graduation since 1974, when the university shifted to “mini-commencements” over several days.

With 6,225 students, this is the largest graduating class in Cal State Fullerton’s history, university officials said. Honorary doctorates were to be presented to Academy Award-winning film director James Cameron and community leader Clarence Iwao Nishizu.