Students and faculty gathered in front of the Cesar Chavez Student Center Tuesday afternoon and marched through campus to protest the budget cuts, show solidarity and "stop the insanity."

Protestors carried signs and chanted as American Indian Studies lecturer Phil Klasky led the crowd to 19th Avenue while beckoning others to follow.

"Come on and join us," Klasky said to onlooking students. "We're marching for your classes, we're marching for your financial aid."

Students joined in the march, and the crowd doubled in size as it crept up the hill and through the quad.

"A lot of my friends are trying to crash all their classes, classes they deserve," 18-year-old business major Dustin Staples said. "It's gonna make them stand up for what they know is right."

After leading the rally through the Quad to the corner of 19th Avenue and Holloway, California Faculty Association members and SF State students addressed the crowd and those passing by. Speakers expressed their disgust with the state of educational funding in California, and pushed for alternatives to furloughs and urged the entire campus to support one another during this crisis.

"It's not about you and your classes, and it's not about us and our jobs," SF State CFA Executive Board Vice President Sheila Tully said. "It's about the future of this state."

One of the guest speakers included Margaret Leahy, a veteran of the historic 1968 SF State strike, who was thrilled to lend her experience and her voice to this very familiar cause.

"I haven't used one of these in 40 years," Leahy said while grasping a bullhorn.

In addition to educating the SF State community on the budget crisis in general and its effects, CFA members also suggested ways in which the state might raise revenues without continuing to cut California State University funding.

According to Klasky, an oil extraction tax called bill AB 656, written to fund public education, as similar legislation does in many other states, would generate enough revenue for the CSU to reinstate all faculty and classes. But CSU board of trustees voted down the bill.

"We are destroying California's future," Klasky said. "This makes absolutely no economic sense."

Tully, who wore a sign that read "UCB PhD, will teach for food," said hundreds of long-time lecturers have no classes for the fall semester and have subsequently lost health insurance for themselves and their families.

The CFA organized the rally and involved everyone on campus who was concerned about what was happening to the students and to SF State.

"The idea is that students, staff and faculty must work together to defend public education in particular and public services more generally," Tully said, who is also an anthropology lecturer at SF State.

Collaborating with CFA to promote this event, is the brand-new SF State chapter of Students for Quality Education. SQE hopes that by offering their full support, they can show lecturers that the students are on their side and will support them during these difficult times.

"It's the same struggle that we're both facing," said 20-year-old Literature/Raza studies major and SQE member Samantha Adame. "We're also hoping to get student voices out there too to express their feelings."

Activist leaders, like Tully, feel that the state's government is failing the students and as educators, and that something must be done. The California Master Plan--the idea that every qualified student who wants to go to college would have a place in the University of California, CSU, or state community college system--is being abandoned, according to Tully.

"The promise is being broken, and this is destroying the dreams of many first-generation college students," Tully said.

According to SF State chapter CFA president Ramon Castellblanch, this is the first of many actions planned at SF State and a precursor to a statewide "week of actions" scheduled to begin Oct. 12.

"The worst cuts may be coming this spring, and by the fall whole departments may be gone," said Castellblanch referring to what has been projected by SF State President Robert Corrigan's office.