The California Faculty Association has requested class time from professors to discuss how budget cuts affect students.

Sacramento State’s chapter of the association sent emails to professors asking for 10 to 15 minutes of class time for union student interns to speak to their peers about how these cuts to higher education are affecting them, and what students can do about it.

Kevin Wehr, vice president of the Sac State CFA chapter, believes student announcements are a routine part of the classroom experience at Sac State.

“I have students coming into my class asking to make announcements for volunteer work over spring break and all sorts of things,” Wehr said.

Ramzi Mahmood, civil engineering department chair, thinks that it is important for his students to be informed about the budget issues.

“In civil engineering we are witnessing growth in the student population and have been very busy to keep with the demand for our classes,” Mahmood said. “Of course the budget is of concern to us. Part of my job as a department chair is to educate our students about the budget so when they become tax payers, they make better informed decisions.”

Some professors and students think that it is poor use of class time. “It’s a public university and that’s essentially using state resources to campaign. Furthermore, I think its problematic using class time because, given their role, they hold a special position with students,” said government graduate student Evan Oneto.

“It’s not unlike a doctor patient relationship. They’re the same people that are grading these students, they have a lot of authority with them and it’s a little exploitive for them to be using class time to do that, to advocate their salaries with the very people they are teaching.”

Ana Rosales, senior ethnic studies major, indicated that the California State University system is approximately $213 million under funded and for the first time, 10,000 qualified high school seniors were denied access to the CSU.

Humanities and religious studies major Shukri Farah said students can help in many ways. One is to fill out cards at the end of class visits, which allow the association to contact students for events they can help with.

Rosales said that last semester 50,000 Alliance cards were filled out and made a difference.

“Because of that, they were able to restore 97 million dollars to the CSU,” she said.

Oneto strongly believes that although it is very effective, it is essentially forcing students to listen and an unethical way to approach the matter.

“I think they could have held a rally outside of class time and made it more optional,” he said.

Tammy Nazanda can be reached at [email protected]