CCA Ranked Faculty Urge Administration to Settle Contract, Pledge to Honor Picket Line

Today, 99 ranked (tenured and tenure-track) faculty at California College of the Arts sent a letter to CCA President Stephen Beal and Provost Tammy Rae Carland urging them to settle a fair contract with staff that provides a living wage and job security. They also pledged to honor CCA staff’s picket line during the strike.

They wrote:

February 7, 2022

To: President Stephen Beal and Provost Tammy Rae Carland
Cc: Secretary, CCA Board of Trustees; Academic Deans; Executive Committee of the Faculty Senate; CCA Staff Union; CCA Adjunct Union

We are ranked faculty members at CCA writing to express our support for the Staff Union strike. Staff are absolutely essential to the extraordinary learning, teaching, and making that happens at CCA. Without the people who run the shops, manage programs, check out and maintain equipment, install artwork in the galleries, and operate the libraries, our community would not function.

While we recognize this is a financially difficult time for the College, we believe CCA has an essential responsibility to provide a living wage and reasonable job security to all its employees. We also believe that two years is long enough to wait for a contract.

These are challenging times, and we need to come together as a community. As faculty we do not agree with some of SEIU’s harsh rhetoric. We also don’t believe there are clear villains, nor easy solutions. But at the end of the day, we feel it’s important to stand with our staff and adjunct colleagues. We are not willing to cross the picket line, and will instead find ways to express peaceful solidarity during the strike, including engaging in strike-related teach-ins and pedagogical activities.

It is deeply unfortunate that the strike will cause disruption in the experience of our students, who have endured nearly two years of distance and hybrid learning during the pandemic. We therefore urge the administration to reach a speedy resolution with the union on a tentative contract so that we can all get back to where we want to be–in our classrooms and studios.

We want to begin the process of repairing relationships that have been damaged and rebuilding the trust and spirit of collaboration that are critical to our community.

Respectfully,

1. Irene Cheng, Associate Professor, Architecture

2. Adam Marcus, Associate Professor, Architecture

3. Christine Wang, Assistant Professor, Painting and Drawing

4. James Graham, Assistant Professor, Architecture

5. Mia Feuer, Associate Professor, Sculpture, Digital Tools, Grad Fine Arts

6. Lynn Marie Kirby, Professor, Film

7. Christoph Steger, Associate Professor, Animation

8. Kim Anno, Professor, Painting, Graduate Fine Arts, Critical Ethnic Studies

9. Susanne Cockrell, Associate Professor, Undergraduate and Graduate Fine Art

10. Leslie Carol Roberts, Professor, MFA Writing, BFA Fashion Design

11. Rachel Berger, Associate Professor, Graphic Design

12. Terri Friedman, Associate Professor, Undergraduate and Graduate Fine Arts

13. Jaime Knight, Assistant Professor, Undergraduate and Graduate Fine Arts

14. Donald Fortescue, Professor, Furniture Design and Graduate Design

15. Shalini Agrawal, Associate Professor, Critical Ethnic Studies

16. Alison O’Daniel, Assistant Professor, Film

17. Emily McVarish, Professor, Graphic Design

18. chris hamamoto, assistant professor, graphic design

19. Brook Hinton, Associate Professor, Undergraduate and Graduate Film

20. Joseph Lease, Professor, MFA Writing, Writing and Literature

21. Aimee Phan, Associate Professor, MFA Writing, Writing and Literature

22. Juan Carlos Rodriguez Rivera, Assistant Professor, Graphic Design

23. Juvenal Acosta, Professor, Writing and Literature

24. Haakon Faste, Associate Professor, Interaction Design

25. Valerie Mih, Assistant Professor, Animation

26. Judith Serin, Professor, Writing and Literature

27. Shylah Pacheco Hamilton, Assistant Professor, Critical Ethnic Studies

28. Melinda Luisa de Jesús, Associate Professor, Critical Ethnic Studies

29. Owen Smith, Associate Professor, Illustration

30. David Skolnick, Assistant Professor, Writing and Literature

31. Kota Ezawa, Associate Professor, Film and Fine Arts

32. Janette Kim, Assistant Professor, Architecture

33. Matt Silady, Associate Professor, Comics

34. Katherine Lam, Assistant Professor, Furniture

35. Marilyn da Silva, Professor, Jewelry/Metal Arts

36. Karla Wozniak, Associate Professor, Painting and Drawing, Graduate Fine Arts

37. Gloria Frym, Professor, MFA Writing & BA Writing & Literature

38. Rob Epstein, Professor, Film

39. Russell Baldon, Associate Professor, Furniture

40. Michael Wertz, Assistant Professor, Illustration

41. Jeanette Roan, Associate Professor, History of Art and Visual Culture

42. Maxwell Leung, Associate Professor, Critical Studies and Critical Ethnic Studies

43. Genevieve Hyacinthe, Assistant Professor, History of Art and Visual Culture

44. Erik Scollon, Associate Professor, Chair of First Year CORE Studio

45. Julian Carter, Associate Professor, Critical Studies and Graduate Fine Arts

46. Mark Eanes, Associate Professor, Illustration

47. Aspen Mays, Associate Professor, Photography

48. Christina La Sala, Individualized, Critical Studies, First Year

49. Jeanne Finley, Film, Graduate Fine Arts

50. Jacqueline Francis, Associate Professor, History of Art and Visual Culture; Chair, Graduate Program in Visual & Critical Studies

51. Nelson Chan, Assistant Professor, Photography

52. Bryan Keith Thomas, Associate Professor, Painting and Drawing, Critical Ethnic Studies

53. Antje Steinmuller, Associate Professor and Chair, Architecture

54. Ren Fiss, Professor of History of Art and Visual Culture, MFA

55. Ignacio Valero, Associate Professor, Critical Studies and Graduate Design

56. Margaret Ikeda, Associate Professor, Architecture

57. Linda Yaven, Associate Professor, MBA Design Strategy

58. Brendon Levitt, Associate Professor, Architecture

59. Erin Malone, Associate Professor and Chair, BFA Interaction Design

60. KC Rosenberg Associate Professor, First Year Core Studio

61. Susan Worthman, Associate Professor, MDes Interaction Design

62. Graham Plumb, Associate Professor, iXD

63. Lynda Grose, Professor, Fashion Design and Critical Studies

64. Peter Simensky, Associate Professor, Chair of Sculpture and Individualized major

65. Gregory Climer, assistant professor, chair of fashion

66. Sara Raffo, Assistant Professor, Graphic Design

67. Patricia Kavanaugh, Animation Associate Professor

68. Rebekah Edwards, Associate Professor, Critical Studies

69. Deborah Valoma, Chair, Professor, Textiles

70. Meghana Bisineer, Associate Chair, Animation

71. Corey Jones, Associate Professor, Industrial Design

72. Neeraj Bhatia, Associate Professor, Architecture

73. Christopher Falliers, Associate Professor, Architecture

74. Claudia Bernardi, Professor, Critical Ethnic Studies, Community Arts

75. Kristian Simsarian, Associate Professor, Interaction Design.

76. Mia Yinxing Liu, Associate Professor, History of Art and Visual Culture

77. Anne Shea, Associate Professor, Chair, Writing and Literature

78. Josh Silverman, Associate Professor, Chair, MDes Graduate Interaction Design

79. Allison Yasukawa, Associate Professor, First Year Core Studio and Director of Multilingual Art & Design Pedagogy

80. Clark Thenhaus, Assistant Professor, Architecture

81. Eric Olson, Associate Chair, Writing and Literature

82. Josh Faught, Professor, Textiles and Graduate Fine Arts

83. Shalle Leeming, Assistant Professor, Writing and Literature

84. Ranu Mukherjee, Associate Professor, Film

85. Mara Holt Skov, Associate Professor of Industrial Design, Critical Studies, Design MFA

86. Jeremy Mende, Associate Professor, Graphic Design, Graduate Design

87. Scott Minneman, Associate Professor, MFA Design

88. Rickey Vincent, Associate Professor, Critical Ethnic Studies

89. Nilgun Bayraktar, Assistant Professor, History of Art and Visual Culture

90. J.D. Zamfirescu, Assistant Professor, Critical Studies

91. Carol Elkovich, Associate Professor, First Year Program

92. Elizabeth Mangini, Associate Professor, History of Art and Visual Culture

93. Jordan Kantor, Professor, Painting and Drawing, Graduate Fine Arts

94. Nataly Gattegno, Professor, Architecture

95. Ghazaleh Khalifeh, Assistant Professor, Fashion Design

96. Anthea Black, Assistant Professor, Printmedia, Graduate Fine Arts

97. Sandrine Lebas, Associate Professor, Industrial Design

98. Eric Heiman, Associate Professor, Graphic Design

99. Angela Hennessy, Associate Professor, Textiles, Critical Studies, Graduate Fine Arts