Budget Advocacy speakers urge action by attendees to help restore CSU budget Students, staff, professors, administrators, and alumni turned out in large numbers on March 19 for a Budget Advocacy Summit to highlight the negative impacts of proposed state budget cuts. The summit speakers spoke against the proposed budget cut of $312.9 million for 2008/09 and the heavy impact it would have on the California State University’s 23-campus system. The Budget Advocacy Summit was part of a systemwide effort to detail the impacts to local campuses and to encourage the entire CSU community to urge lawmakers and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to restore the funding. CSU Stanislaus students were among those from the 23 CSU campuses who went to Sacramento on April 21 to demonstrate against the budget cuts and to meet with legislators. CSU campus leaders converged on the Capitol on April 28 to air their concerns to legislators, and California Faculty Association leaders and faculty members gathered in Sacramento on April 30 to denounce the budget cut proposals. CSU Stanislaus President Hamid Shirvani said the reduction would directly impact student access in the form of limits on enrollment, larger class sizes, less student support, and potentially higher student fees. System-wide, the CSU estimates that the proposed reduction will reduce access by 10,000 students and limit enrollment to 2007/08 levels. Speakers at the Budget Advocacy Summit included administrators, union leaders, and alumni who encouraged attendees to join a CSU-wide grassroots effort to make phone calls and send e-mails to elected officials, stressing the CSU’s value to the economy and the need to restore the budget cuts. The opposition campaign to the budget cuts has been a unified effort by all groups in the CSU which has also teamed with the University of California and California Community College systems to emphasize the importance of maintaining higher education program budgets. Summit audience members were urged to visit a new budget feature on the campus website at www.csustan.edu/budget to stay informed about the budget process and learn how to communicate with the Governor and local lawmakers, such as Assemblymembers Greg Aghazarian, Tom Berryhill, and Cathleen Galgiani and Senators Dave Cogdill, Jeff Denham, and Mike Machado. Many in the audience completed written messages airing their concern about the budget cutback proposal. The Governor's May budget revise is expected after May 14 and all are being encouraged to continue sending letters to their elected officials through "Budget Central" on the University website.