Recently, CSUSB President Tomás Morales and Provost Rafik Mohammed quietly issued a directive unilaterally raising class sizes and minimum course enrollments across the University. This reckless directive—which was issued without first consulting CSUSB’s faculty or students—will pack already overcrowded courses, massively increase faculty workload, and degrade student learning. It will also result in the cancellation of yet more innovative and impactful small courses, extend time-to-degree, threaten the existence of numerous graduate programs, and undermine faculty job security—particularly that of part-time lecturers. Indeed, this short-term thinking will cost the campus more in the long run, with fewer course options and diminished instructional quality leading to lower retention rates, and blatant contract violations resulting in costly arbitration expenses.

The CSUSB Administration knows this is a bad move. That's why they haven't shared the directive with the full faculty. Instead, they are relying on department chairs to be the bearers of bad news.

The President and Provost’s directive will make unmanageable class sizes the norm at CSUSB. Enrollment caps for some previously smaller general education courses will jump to a whopping 50-student minimum. Particularly egregious are the new caps for writing intensive courses and upper division major courses, which must now accommodate 35 and 30 students, respectively. These are courses where students should receive substantive instructor feedback and meaningful dialogue with classmates. Instead, students are being treated as “butts in seats.”

These new class size requirements directly contradict both the faculty-led curriculum development process and University policy. Specifically, the directive calls for class sizes that far exceed those agreed upon by CSUSB’s academic departments and approved through the University curriculum process. They also disregard the norms established in the CSU’s own workload policy (EPR 76-36) and the best practices of academic disciplines.

President Morales and Provost Mohammed know better. As the CSUSB Faculty Administrative Manual “Policy on the Preservation of Small Classes” (FAM 820.35) states:

California State University, San Bernardino is dedicated to providing quality education to students as its premier objective. A crucial aspect of this commitment is to ensure that a significant portion of instruction is conducted in small class sections, balanced by instruction in intermediate and large class sections. This has been part of the heritage of the University from its inception and it shall continue to be a fundamental objective of the institution. The goal of the University is to offer all of its students the opportunity to take the majority of their classes in small class sections.

Further, the CSU-CFA Collective Bargaining Agreement explicitly states: “The California State University and the California Faculty Association agree that educational quality is a function of the number and quality of faculty resources” and “that a lower Student/Faculty ratio improve[s] the quality of instruction."

In addition to undermining student learning, this directive also violates faculty rights by creating excessive workloads without proper consultation as required by the CSU-CFA Collective Bargaining Agreement. Specifically, the President and Provost's course enrollment directive allows exceptions only for "pedagogical considerations and facility limitations." However, Article 20.3(b) of the CBA requires consultation on a much broader range of factors, including class size/number of students, course modality, laboratory courses, research activities, advising loads, thesis supervision, committee service, and many others. By restricting consultation to just two narrow criteria, the administration is circumventing the faculty's contractual right to meaningful input on workload assignments that consider the full complexity of teaching, research, and service responsibilities.

These developments are part of a wider, decades-long disinvestment in instruction by the CSU and CSUSB. As CFA's March 2025 report "Shortchanging Students" explains, while the CSU is raising student tuition 34% over 5 years, the University has systematically diverted funds away from instruction and student support and into executive compensation, new buildings, investment portfolios, and high-priced consultants. That the CSU has done this while its student body has diversified is fundamentally unjust. As one CSU faculty member put it, “As the student body of the CSU became darker, funding became lighter.”

CSUSB serves a student population that is largely Latino, low-income, and first-generation college students. Yet the quality of education CSUSB students receive is being degraded through this course enrollment directive and other needless austerity measures. This contradicts CSUSB's stated commitment to social justice and educational equity. In short, this isn't a budget crisis—it's an administrative mismanagement and priorities crisis.

WE DEMAND THAT:

The CSU Chancellor's Office immediately accept the California Legislature's 0% loan offer to fully fund the CSU, and invest those funds in instruction and student support—not executive compensation, new buildings, investment portfolios, or high-priced consultants.

The CSUSB Administration immediately:

• Rescind its reckless course enrollment directive
• Return course caps and minimum enrollments to the historic norms agreed upon by academic departments and approved through the University curriculum process
• Respect shared governance by fully consulting with faculty on all matters pertaining to workload and instruction
• Restore work for faculty who have lost it due to these and other needless austerity measures
• Follow University policy and collective bargaining agreements, including the preservation of small classes and lower Student/Faculty ratios

We, the undersigned, call on the CSUSB Administration and CSU leadership to prioritize educational quality and put students first by meeting these demands.