Chancellor's Report

to the Board of Trustees

September 20, 2000

Thank you Chairman Gould. I want to welcome this board and all of the family of CSU to a new academic year. I, too, want to join with our chair in congratulating our three new trustees on their confirmation. Senator Burton and others asked them many questions, but they had all the answers. I was very proud of them.

It will be three years a week from Sunday that this board asked me if I would join the California State University system. It has been my privilege and my honor to lead one of this nation's greatest universities. I say this every place I go. I think that this university system has the finest mission in higher education in this country. I don't think a day goes by that we don't try as hard as we can to advance the reputation and quality of the California State University. We couldn't do that if it weren't for the great presidential leadership on all of our campuses. It has just been a pleasure for me to work with the men and women who provide that leadership. I am also very proud of the accomplishments of our faculty, staff, and students in the system. As we begin this new year, I really believe that we are on the right track for the future.

I want to begin by thanking the legislature and Governor Davis once again for our budget. If you haven't already, I ask you to drop Governor Davis a hand-written note. Governors don't get too many thank-you notes. They get a lot of complaints, but it's the hand-written notes that are really important.

Let me give you a couple of figures on the budget. As we begin our new academic year, we're starting with $333.7 million more than we had this time last year. Now, what does that mean? If you take that and you add to the previous two years since 1998, we have in this system $843 million of new money. I know that we are building quality with that. I also know that we're serving more than 30,000 new students that weren't here three years ago. This year, the legislature and the governor provided a 6% increase in the compensation pool for all employees that this board recommended and advocated. If this 6% is agreed to and implemented, it will mean that in the past three years this board has provided percentage increases totaling 17.7% for employee compensation. One of the commitments that Trustee Vitti and I made in Sacramento was that this board was committed to closing the faculty compensation gap. We have worked very hard on this commitment. When I arrived, it was about 13%. If we can accomplish another 6% increase next year, our gap will be under 3%. I commend this board because that represents real progress.

As Richard West said yesterday, we are showing strong enrollments. We are going to be on target or slightly above what we projected and I think that is where we need to be from an accountability standpoint.

Another important development took place this summer on a few of our campuses, specifically at Humboldt where they moved for the first time to year-round operations. Their enrollment was significantly beyond anything that they anticipated for the summer. I anticipate that San Francisco State will soon see the same. If we can offer the kinds of courses that students need when they need them, then we'll see our summer enrollments grow and grow.

Every once in a while something really big happens in higher education. During the last days of the legislative session, something really significant and big occurred. The legislature and the Governor came together to build a new financial aid program for California students. It was significant in that I believe it's the best financial aid program in the United States right now. That's because it provides merit aid for students to do well in school, to get good grades, and score well on standardized tests - while at the same time recognizing those students who have tremendous financial need. The melding together of those two components was a great example of the political process.

Our staff played a tremendous role in getting this financial aid program together. I especially want to thank Allison Jones. Al, stand up just for a second. I want everybody to know that I had to go San Francisco the night that we were pulling this whole thing together, but I got a hold of Al, and I told the people in the Governor's office and Senator Burton's office that I'd be back at 7am the next morning to continue to work on it. I know that Allison stayed up all night because the fax machine in the hotel in San Francisco and back in our office in Sacramento had faxes coming in at all hours. So Allison, thank you for all of your hard work.

We're going to send out a written message to our campuses about this, but this program represents an increase of somewhere near $50 million for just our students this next year. California had been spending less than $500 million in financial aid. When this is fully implemented, they will be spending $1.3 billion. So it is really big. It is significant and it's forward thinking, and as I have said to some people, I think it's a way for the Governor and the legislature to say that the California dream is back in place for our students. If students work hard and if they want to go to college, they can achieve that dream.

Yesterday, you heard Trustee Campbell talking about our accountability reports. This board worked very hard to create the Cornerstones report. It was essentially completed when I arrived. But the most exciting thing for me was to say, "Let's take this and put an implementation plan together and then put an accountability plan behind it." Now, as Denny said yesterday, we have connected all of the dots. I think it is significant that this accountability report gives a baseline for us to work from in seeking qualitative improvements at each of our campuses. As we said yesterday, "The benchmark is against each campus doing better next year." I'll provide you with copies of the information I shared back with the presidents on the areas that we're going to target for improvement.

We continue to work with the public schools. In fact, the California State University is gaining national importance in its influence in how this system is working to improve public schools in California. On national television, Secretary Riley singled out the California State University system as an example of a system leading in improving the public schools in America. I thought that was worth the price of advertisement on national television. Also, our campuses were recognized just last week by the U.S. Department of Education. Four of our universities received two and a half million dollars in GEAR-UP grants, which will enable these universities to work with middle schools to get students on the right track to attend college and complete their baccalaureate degrees.

This year, I believe that the legislature will take very seriously the revision of the Master Plan process. Senator Dede Alpert from San Diego has set forth a new Master Plan that proposes to include K-12 as well as higher education. I think that will be very helpful to our system.

Our faculty continues to receive many honors. The White House recognized Maria Elena Zavala, biology professor at CSU Northridge, as an outstanding science professor.

Lastly, I try to watch as much football as I possibly can and I want to say that San Jose State made us proud last week. They were mentioned in Sports Illustrated, where they were described as playing with urgency and emotion in defeating Stanford. Then they went on and had a second victory when they played Southern Utah.

When I pick the paper up on Sunday morning, the first thing I want to see is what all of the CSU universities have done the day or the night before. Last week only San Jose had a victory and everybody else didn't. It occurred to me that where I used to live, there would be a moving van out in front of my house with a sign on it if we didn't do any better. But I know this week will be better.

Mr. Chairman that concludes my remarks.