Thirty thousand dollars in loans sounded like a sweet deal forstudents who were accepted into the California State UniversityForgivable Loans Program to pursue their doctorate.

To a current participant and a formerparticipant, the program’s goal to offer a rare educationalopportunity and debt repayment by teaching at the CSU was clear andits mission successful. But one former participant, RicardoVillanueva, said he signed into a sour deal, left with tens ofthousands of dollars of debt and a track record of dead-endattempts to find work.

Allegations of fraud and misrepresentation ofinformation against the CSU will be brought forth in the SacramentoSuperior Court later this year, as Villanueva, a former part-timeteacher in ethnic studies, English and theater at Sacramento State,will sue the CSU for at least $325,000.

Villanueva said that the CSU didn’tfulfill its obligations to him as a participant of the ForgivableLoans Program, which he said would provide him an advantage as aminority within the faculty hiring process. He further accuses theCSU of failing to inform him that the core mission of the programhad changed during the 1990s to significantly affect his chancesfor hiring.

Questions abound throughout the case: Whatexactly is the purpose of the program, and did it meet its promisesfor students and fulfill them?

The Forgivable Loans Program, founded in 1987,currently offers loans from lottery funds and faculty sponsorshipto students pursuing doctoral degrees at various universities, whoare interested in a teaching career at a CSU campus.

Loans of up to $10,000 per year are given todoctoral students, up to a total of $30,000, according to the CSUWeb site. Loans are only “forgiven” at a rate of 20percent for each year of teaching if a participant is hired as afull-time professor at the CSU.

Candidates should be able to compete forfaculty positions within a national search. Special considerationis given to candidates whose proposed area of study falls where CSUcampuses see the greatest difficulty in filling positions.

“The program’s purpose has alwaysbeen to enrich the pipeline of people within the graduate studies.When Proposition 209 passed, we could no longer consider race andgender,” said Maria Santos, the program director, during aphone interview. She refused to answer further questions about theprogram, its change of purpose or the court case.

Proposition 209, passed in 1996, eliminatedaffirmative action programs in California.

Steve Bassoff, attorney for Villanueva in thecase against the CSU, said he believes that students likeVillanueva truly thought that they had a “leg up” inthe hiring process when they decided to enter the program.

“At some point, there was a change inwhat the FLP was trying to do. They changed the criteria,”Bassoff said. “There is a very small number of people whohave had the loan completed and forgiven. By changing it, theyessentially changed the rule of the game for them.”

Villanueva argues that there was no questionthat he would be able to get a job within the CSU in 1990, as acarefully selected applicant who earned their doctorate.

“If there was even a question, Iwouldn’t have signed up,” Villanueva said.

The story unravels…

Villanueva was drawn to the prospects ofteaching at the CSU in 1989, when former CSU dean of facultyaffairs in the Chancellor’s office Willliam Coffey said in aState Hornet article that 11,000 jobs for professors would beopening for the CSU within the next 15 years. The CSU was alsolooking to recruit minorities and women through the ForgivableLoans Program.

Having obtained his master’s in theaterand humanities at Sac State in the ’80s, Villanueva kept histies with the faculty and the campus, informed by a professor ofthe program and of the future need for faculty within thedepartment. Villanueva said he had seen a need for minority facultywithin the department since his days as an undergraduate Englishstudent taking theater classes.

The program’s objective, according to aprogram overview in an application from 1990, was “toincrease the number of faculty members who are ethnic minorities,women and persons with disability in academic fields where they areunderrepresented in the CSU.”

Part of the acceptance criteria, according tothe application, was that the participant’s academicdepartment showed a need for minority faculty. The campus wouldhave to evaluate any program nominees for their academic potentialand “potential competitiveness” for facultypositions.

Other program materials stated,”Doctoral students … will have reasonable prospects ofsecuring faculty employment in the CSU and thereby having theirloans forgiven.”

A crucial part of the acceptance criteria wasthe plan of support for candidates with the department and thefaculty sponsor &- a designated mentor for the student whilethey obtained their degree. The quality and extent of support wouldhelp increase that probability that the participant would become afaculty member.

The former teacher for the University of SanFrancisco, Sacramento City College, University of Iowa and StanfordUniversity was accepted for the program in 1990, without evercontacting his department chair, or being contacted by them. Hesaid he assumed that his faculty sponsor discussed his educationaland career plans with the department chair and that he would bewritten into a five year hiring plan.

Villanueva, when accepted to the program, saidhe wasn’t just vying to compete with other students for ajob; he said he believed he had been recruited for the CSU facultydue to the lack of Latino faculty representation, especially aftertwo letters from acting chancellor Ellis McCune and former Dean ofGraduate Studies Arthur Williamson were sent to him congratulatinghim on his acceptance into the “highlycompetitive” program.

“I had a master’s in theater andhumanities and a $50,000 a year job working for the (EnvironmentalProtection Agency). I wanted to do something noble forstudents,” said Villanueva, a former journalist for The MiamiHerald.

Villanueva signed into a loan agreement withthe CSU for up to $30,000.

“Participation does imply recognition bythe sponsoring faculty member and the department of theparticipant’s high potential for faculty status,” thepromissory note states. The note further clarified thatparticipation in the program didn’t guarantee a facultyposition.

Villanueva completed his doctorate in 1994 inthe theater department of the University of Leeds, earning thetitle of doctor of philosophy awarded by the dutchess ofKent.

Villanueva immediately began applying for jobswithin the CSU, then started teaching part-time in 1996 within thetheater, ethnic studies, English and communications studiesdepartments at Sac State.

“You start part-timing, hoping somethingwill open up. But you start facing the terrible notion that yourdegree was for nothing. But it’s all a dead end,”Villanueva said.

He learned that he was never written into thetheater department plan for hiring. Any attempts to gainrecognition from the theater department chair as a Forgivable Loansparticipant led to nowhere, Villanueva said.

Out of 25 applications, nine years after hecompleted his doctorate, Villanueva only landed one interview atSan Jose State. He was accepted into the faculty applicant pool incommunications studies at Sac State, but never heard anyresponse.

He said he even tried appealing to formerPresident Donald Gerth, sending a letter requesting that Gerthprovide him a job.

“I wanted to exhaust everyreasonableness I could. And I was exhausted,” Villanuevasaid.

After a letter of rejection from graduate deanDavid Wagner, Villanueva said the job openings within thedepartments he had taught in at Sac State completely dried up.

Filing suit

Vilanueva started researching the variousaspects of the FLP program when he said that something began to”stink,” filing a lawsuit in January 2003 against theCSU.

He said he learned that in his year ofacceptance, 133 out of 200 applicants throughout the CSU wereaccepted into the program.

“One out of two is not highlycompetitive by any stretch,” Villanueva said.

Bassoff said that the high degree ofselectivity led one to believe they had a high chance of beingselected once they got into the program.

What Villanueva said shocked him the most werethe figures of the success rates of the program participants, whichdidn’t look promising: According to the 2003 Annual Report ofthe program, out of 3,270 applications received throughout the 17years of the program, 1,681 were accepted. About 620 had completedtheir doctorates, and 239 had obtained tenure-track positionswithin the CSU or had resigned. About 240 doctorate holders had notbeen employed in the CSU.

The report further stated that 42 participantshad filed bankruptcy through June 2003, 25 were in hardship ordisability deferments and 103 were either behind in their paymentsor had made no payments. Only 26 people had their loan completelyforgiven through teaching at the CSU.

“These people are minorities and women.These are the people they hurt the most,” Villanuevasaid.

Not only was he not included in any hiringplan for the theater department, but he said he found out that thetheater department was never contacted for any hiring plan oropening of new faculty positions.

“If it’s a careful process, theywould research the candidate and the description for how manypositions are opening up. They don’t do that,”Villanueva said.

He said he was alarmed when, during thedeposition of Santos in July of 2003, was that the purpose of theloan program had changed after Proposition 209 had passed in 1996,essentially barring any special consideration of minorities forparticipation in the program.

Santos, who has served as program coordinatorsince the early “90s, said in her deposition that the purposeof the program had changed &- how many times, she didn’tknow.

Santos clarified to Bassoff during thedeposition that the current goal of the program was simply toincrease of the recruitment pool of qualified competitors forfaculty positions in a national search; before Proposition 209,race and gender could be considered a factor for acceptance.

She said that she didn’t know of anyinstitutional support Villanueva would receive from Sac State orsponsor when Villanueva applied into the program, or of anyevaluation of the probability of his hiring.

She also admitted that she didn’t knowabout the detailed selection criteria for applicants in 1990. Theselection criteria had also changed once under her tenure, now ascreening for a potential for success in a “competitivenationwide search for faculty,” for candidates to return toteach in their speciality.

The FLP selection committee, Santos futherexplained in her deposition, currently does not call anapplicant’s campus to assess its desire for the applicant toreturn to teach.

“I don’t know if we gothrough the hiring practices (of the different campuses), becausethat would be 23 different hiring practicioners … plus eachdifferent hiring practice for a department. And a campus might have400 departments, and each of the departments may have somethingdifferent,” Santos said.

“We have always, since I’ve beenin charge of the program, explicitly told participants that we havevery little influence over the hiring of faculty on particularcampuses. Each of our campuses is a separate employer, and we haveno influence,” Santos said.

FLP success story

Rita Cameron Wedding has taught for 10 yearsat Sac State within the women’s studies and ethnic studiesdepartments, also serving as a former assistant dean of students.Completing her doctorate was always part of her academic goals,Cameron Wedding said.

“The program made getting a doctoratemore feasible because I had to leave my job,” Cameron Weddingsaid.

The purpose of the program when she wasaccepted in 1989, as she understood, was to increase the number ofpeople of color in the pipeline in academia in areas likewomen’s studies.

Having known about the program through herwork within the CSU, the former sociology and ethnic studiesteacher at Sacramento City College left her job at Sac State in1989, but not before “doing her homework” on jobsearches.

“I interviewed with department chairs,asking them if my kind of degree would be something they werelooking for … and how I could increase mymarketability,” Cameron Wedding said. “It wouldbe kind of risky to wait until after graduation to look for facultypositions. It’s a very involved process that takestime.”

After completion of her doctorate in educationat UC Santa Barbara, Cameron Wedding returned to teach part-time atSac City and Sac State. She was offered a faculty position half ayear later.

“I was perfectly willing to find otherjobs outside the CSU. I made the decision that coming back to SacState was the best option,” she said. “In some way,there might have been a difference between those who have been inthe CSU and those who haven’t been in the system.”

Cameron Wedding believes that the program wasbeneficial throughout the pursuit of her doctorate, with theuniversity mentoring her throughout her education.

“The concept was to “grow ourown’ and support viable people to get a degree,” shesaid, having paid off her loan years ago.

Jessica Gordley, a senior communicationsstudies student, was accepted as a recipient of the loan this year.She plans to study at the University of North Carolina, ChapelHill, where she’ll pursue a doctorate in communicationsstudies and hold a teacher’s assistant position.

She heard about the Forgivable Loans Programthrough her participation in the McNairs Scholars Program, whichpreps undergraduates for post-undergraduate studies throughrigorous training and scholarships. Coordinators of the programencouraged her to apply for the loan.

The 25-year-old single mother, Sac StateDebate Team member, and teacher’s assistant for acommunications class applied in February to the program withProfessor Barbara O’Connor in the communications studiesdepartment as a sponsor.

“She made a commitment to be the contactpoint for me throughout my years, to tell my classes, prepare me,what other ways I can network,” Gordley said.

She said that her understanding of thepurpose of the loan program was two fold: to honor students withinthe CSU that show an aptitude to get a doctorate and to give anincentive to students to come back to the CSU system.

“Ideally, I’ll come back to theCSU system, but I hope to come back to CSUS as a professor,”Gordley said.

Gordley said that she has researched trends inhiring in the communications studies department through casualconversations with the department chair and discussions withO’Connor, who sits on hiring committees.

“Nobody knows clearly what (jobopenings) there will be in five years. Normally postings go sixmonths to a year before hirings,” Gordley said.

“I can’t say that I would be whereI’m going if it wasn’t for McNair and the ForgivableLoan. Between financial aid and the loan, I’ll get to focuson being involved in teaching, being on committees, that I wouldnot have been in otherwise,” Gordley said.

The case goes on

After the CSU postponed arbitration in Januaryof this year, and missed a court appearance on the second scheduleddate in February, the Sacramento County Superior Court judgeawarded Ricardo Villanueva damages of $322,000 and costs.

The award was later rejected, as the CSU choseto go to trial. A conference to set the trial date is set for Oct.18.

CSU attorney Dawn Theodora said that the CSUsystem doesn’t take an official stand on cases, and refusedto comment on questions regarding the charges brought forth byVillanueva.

Villanueva currently works as a boat mechanic,and is looking at job prospects in other universities outside theCSU.

“It’s really embarrassing,”Vilanueva said. “I have aunts who tell me I’m a loser.They say, “How could you get a doctorate and not get ajob?’ I’m lucky my parents aren’t alive so Idon’t have to explain this to them.”

Villanueva said that he plans to fight thecase until the “bitter end.”

“The perfect scenario would be to findall these people who’ve been wronged and bring them into theCSU. They’ve ruined these people’s lives,”Villanueva said.