Chancellor's Report

to the Board of Trustees

March 15, 2000

Thank you for the privilege that this board has given me to work with all of you and the presidents. This is absolutely the finest board that I know about in the country and the way this board works together, focuses on the major policy issues, and what’s best for the students and our employees in this system is remarkable. I couldn’t have done any of this without the finest group of presidents in the United States. I have worked for 15 years with presidents around the country, and the CSU has the greatest group of presidents who focus on their campuses every day on what the students of this system need. So I want to thank them. Our staff in the Chancellor’s Office do great work too, and so I appreciate that. We still have a lot to do but I feel that this board has the right agenda for California and the California State University system, and that’s what really gets me up early in the morning every day to work on that agenda. So thank you. Bob Caret, thank you for hosting us here at San Jose State University; but we also know, Bob, that it’s really your staff who’s done 98 percent of the work to make this such a smooth meeting. And it’s the staff that we forget to thank sometimes, so thank you.

My congratulations to our new student trustee, Bubba Murarka. This year, we have the absolute finest support from students that I’ve ever seen. Our student support could not be any better in Sacramento. And I want to thank the students for what you do for us. We have the best working relationship, and if you could pass that on to the students who will be coming behind you after May, I’ll do anything to do this trip again with the students.

Harold, congratulations to you on your reappointment by the governor. I look forward to your wise counsel and representation of the faculty on this board.

Mr. Speaker, Chairman Hauck said a lot of nice things and the resolution said a lot of nice things. I’ve spent 25 years of my working life with a lot of politicians. You are absolutely the best consensus builder politician I have ever seen. You do better in putting people together, people with cross-purposes, people who come with a lot of conflict, people who need to figure out where to go, and you are able to do that and that is a very special performance that not all politicians have. I want you to know how much I appreciate that as well as, frankly, how you’ve helped the CSU in many ways.

The other thing, Dave Spence, and Richard West, and Karen Yelverton, and all, we can say that we tried to get that $9 million for outreach for the public schools. Singlehandedly the speaker got that $9 million for the CSU for outreach and set some very high expectations and he did it with the governor. It wasn’t in our budget when we went in past the May Revise but, somehow, when they walked out the back door, that $9 million was there. And that’s not done every day, either.

Now, we know you’re not leaving, and we know there’s more where this came from, so if you can sneak in that back door again....Your focus and your priority for this system has been to focus on improving the public schools and building our partnerships with the public schools. There was a report yesterday that we’ll ask to be approved today showing our remedial numbers are turning around. I think it’s through your efforts the past several years that that has happened. And if I can put the kidding rule into effect here just quickly, CSU Los Angeles President Rosser, and I am sure there are some other presidents here, would be glad to start a law school and I guarantee you that our numbers will be better than that other group of law schools.

Speaker Villaraigosa: I’ll tell the regents that one tonight when I go to the meeting. I’ll say it was my idea.

Chancellor Reed: It was your idea. Believe it or not, I probably have had a couple of presidents already ask me about that. The speaker and Chairman Hauck said this, these are the best of times in California economically, and the system can benefit by that and make huge gains qualitatively and maintain the access that this system is so well known for. My hope, over the next few months and weeks, is that we can speak with one voice and we can be united when we go to Sacramento. If we’re united, we’re going to give the speaker a harder time than if we’re divided, so that’s really important for us.

Just briefly, I asked the staff to distribute the Annual Report for 1999. This report focuses on excellence in the California State University system. There are many stories in this annual report. The stories are about the best of our students, our faculty, and our staff, and I commend this report to you. It tells the story of the CSU and it tells the story of the students who the speaker was talking about who don’t generally get a chance and are the first or second in their families to get to graduate and go on to better their families, and their lives, and their communities.

The only other couple of announcements are that I hope that April 3 is on your calendars for CSU Legislative Day in Sacramento. We will be organizing the presidents and trustees to make visits to our legislators and advocate for the CSU and our programs. Second, I also would like to welcome Elaine Achilles from Arizona State University who is an ACE Fellow spending time at Sacramento State. She joins our fellows, Karen Mendonca, Ray Lou, and Don Chu; would you just please stand and be recognized? Chairman Hauck, that concludes my report.