Bay Area university students, staff demand no more funding cuts for Day of Action

SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) -- Dozens of students gathered on the lawn of San Francisco State University Thursday for a so-called "teach-in."

The event was one of several scheduled throughout the morning.

All of them, a part of the National Day of Action where universities around the country demand further investment in their schools and a stop to any funding cuts.

"A lot of students, even though they're opposed to what's happening, they feel powerless to stop it," said Ali Noorzad.

Noorzad is one of the students who led Thursday's teach-in.

He says over the past few years, the California State University system and its students have been severely hit by budget cuts.

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"I almost didn't graduate this semester because the classes I needed to take were so quickly filled up. I got dropped from a class last minute," Noorzad said.

The teach-in here at SF State isn't the only event that happened at universities around the Bay Area.

There were also demonstrations in San Jose as well as in Berkeley.

At CAL, student protesters gathered outside university buildings.

And in the South Bay, SJSU demonstrators also demanding a reinvestment at their school.

Back in San Francisco, professor James Martel says the cuts have impacted not just the students, but faculty and staff too.

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"We've lost about 300 lecture faculty now, which are our colleagues. We've had them for many, many years. Students are suffering but so are we. In my department I lost like 10 colleagues just last year," Martel said.

Martel says he worries what the long-term impact of budget constraints will be, especially since the CSU system is currently running a budget deficit in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

As for who's at fault, Martel believes there's plenty of blame for everyone.

"There's two problems. One is when we go to the CSU to complain they say the state isn't giving us enough money. And when we go to the state to complain, they say the CSU spends all the money on administrative stuff so we don't want to give them anymore," Martel said.

More cuts are coming.

Governor Newsom's budget for the next fiscal year includes further reductions.