Hi Golden Eagles!

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Kyle Frizol Editor-in-Chief

We are now pushing into week five of the semester; that’s right, we are already one-third of the way through the Spring semester. I hope that you’ve all had a great few weeks and are ready for what lies ahead.

Impaction. If you haven’t heard it yet, this is the plan at the university that will decrease student enrollment, increase minimum GPA and SAT requirements for admission and will make it harder for low-income and first generation students to enroll in the university. In your emails, you’ll find a convenient message from President Covino, who reassures students, faculty and staff at the university that they have nothing to fear and that a $30 million deficit at the university is the source of the impaction proposals. Campus administrators claim that there is not enough funding to cover the 28,000 total students on campus, and that they must close the gap by impacting the campus beginning in 2020. Worse yet, administrators argue that there isn’t enough funding to support faculty and infrastructure at the university to serve the current population of students. Yet, the university continues with its construction projects and six-figure salaries that are increasingly common among top administrators. If there truly is a lack of funding so serious that it will disconnect hundreds of students each year from higher education provided by Cal State LA, shouldn’t administrators refuse such extravagant salaries? Shouldn’t the university president do more than try to reassure the university community of an issue that they cannot even involve the other stakeholders of our campus with?

This decision was conceptualized, structured and rolled-out from within the tapestry-lined walls of the president’s grand palace. Faculty, administrators or students did not have a say in this decision and we are the ones that will feel the backlash. For incoming freshman, it will be more difficult to be admitted, community colleges will become overcrowded and will leave students, who once looked at Cal State LA as the bridge to their goals, with structured educational obstacles that they must now learn to overcome on their own.

Don’t worry, everything will be alright, the president and his office reassures. Until then, we’re left to rummage through this mess and find a way to preserve the foundation from which this university was founded. Education is a right, and the mis-spending tendencies of university administrators should not deny a student from equipping themselves as they prepare for the world ahead.

Sincerely,

Kyle M. Frizol