Associated Students Inc. (ASI) held a town hall meeting  that allowed students in attendance to receive updates about crucial issues like the California Faculty Association (CFA) Fight for Five campaign and apparent firing of Arturo Ocampo.

The meeting was held during U-Hour on Tuesday, Feb. 16, in Academic Hall 102.

The first topic covered at the meeting was the California State Student Association (CSSA) resolution highlights, which addressed goals and outlooks on future CSU issues. The entire resolution can be found on the CSUSM students public information website.

ASI president Tiffany Boyd read from the resolution, “CSSA supports more year-round course offerings and [the effort to] reduce the number of courses that are bottlenecked that often prevent students from graduating.”

The next topic discussed was the Fight for Five campaign. ASI members discussed the details of the negotiation process and revealed that official outcomes of the CFA and CSU negotiations to reach an acceptable wage raise will be released in early March.

A short video was shown of the last Board of Trustees meeting on Jan. 26. The video showed CFA members singing a song to encourage people to support faculty in their fight for a 5 percent wage raise.

ASI members then presented more detailed information on the Fight for Five campaign, displaying a bar graph illustrating the CSU faculty wages that haven’t increased in years, while student tuition and CSU president salaries have increased steadily.

Once the ASI presentation was finished, the floor was opened to students for questions. One student asked a question that has been floating around campus the past few months: “Where is the money to pay for an increase in teachers’ salaries going to come from and will it be from students’ pockets?”

“What CFA is saying is that there is money somewhere that the board of trustees is not allocating. The CFA says the money will not increase student tuition because the money is there, it’s just not being used,” Boyd said.

Boyd continued, saying that students who want to support CSU professors can go to Board of Trustees meetings, join the Students for Quality Education (SQE) or join the strike team on campus.

The final question requested updated information on the status of Arturo Ocampo, the former Associate Vice President of the Office of Diversity, Educational Equity, Inclusion and Ombuds Services, who is no longer with the university.

Bianca Garcia, ASI Executive Vice President, said, “As of now, there has been no update on why Ocampo was fired, but there is now a search being held for a Chief Officer of Diversity.”

The Office of Communications has said that they cannot discuss the reasons behind Ocampo’s departure from CSUSM and cannot confirm whether or not he was fired due to personnel issues.
The ASI Town hall meeting came to a close with a raffle where one student won a backpack filled with CSUSM items. The next ASI Town Hall meeting will be at 12 p.m. on April 12 in Academic Hall 102.