Chancellor's Report

to the Board of Trustees

July 17, 2002

Thank you, Chair Farar. I, too, want to join you in welcoming President Richmond to the California State University. As I have shared with you, I have known Rollin for about 15 years or so and I know he will do an outstanding job.

Last evening, we honored former Trustee Larry Gould and Dan Cartwright. I ask you today to approve the resolution for Dan.

Former Trustee Stanley Wang was unable to join us last evening, but he wanted me to give all of you his very best. He is currently in China at his new plant in Shanghai. I want to report to you that in the next two weeks, thanks to Stanley and his family, ten students and two faculty members will be leaving to spend this next year in China. This is yet another example of Stanley's ongoing generosity toward our students and faculty.

Also last evening, we honored former Humboldt State President Alistair McCrone for 28 years of great service. On our agenda today is the approval of his President Emeritus recognition.

Over the weekend, I had an opportunity to spend some time with the outgoing and incoming California State Student Association teams when they met here in Long Beach. I met with Art Pimentel from Sacramento State and his new leadership team and look forward to working with them. We have three presidents of the CSSA here with us here today. We have Robert Garcia somewhere, and we are going to honor Robert as the outgoing CSSA Chair in a minute. We also have Shaun Lumachi, who has come back for this event and to show that if you do get your degree there is hope. Shaun graduated and he is now fully employed in Long Beach working for the Long Beach Chamber of Commerce.

I also want to welcome Jackie Kegley and the new board of the Academic Senate. Wayne Adelstein, welcome back, and I look forward to seeing you Sunday at the CSU's "Dodger Day," where many of our colleagues will be.

Regarding the budget, as Richard and Bill Hauck discussed yesterday, we have nothing new to report. The Assembly indicated that they are going to meet again on Thursday but we still have no budget in sight. What I am concerned about is the longer we go without a budget the more at risk the California State University is. I worry that they will just say, "OK, let's just give everybody a 3% across-the-board cut to make it out of here." We have already admitted students to the CSU for the coming year. We tried to hold our growth to 4%. The governor recognized what was happening to us and put 5% growth into our budget. Now we are looking at 6% growth on a 400,000 base. That is phenomenal. We can do this one time, but if we don't get our growth funded in this budget, there are going to be some tough decisions in October and November when we come back to this board. So we will keep you informed about the budget.

Some good news: The WASC accrediting group have re-accredited the California Maritime Academy and also California State University, Long Beach so we continue to have every one of our institutions fully accredited.

The board yesterday approved the CSEA contract and I want to thank the CSEA for how hard they worked on the contract and also for their partnership in working with the California State University and the Trustees in Sacramento to help us achieve the budget that we hope that we are going to be able to get. Continuing to work together will be best for all of us, so I want to recognize you and thank you for that.

Congratulations are in order for Chris Helwick, who just two weeks ago was installed as the president of the National Association of Colleges and University Attorneys. That is a prestigious position and it brings great recognition to the California State University on a national level.

Next, we have a number of resolutions and commendations. We are honoring Robert Garcia, outgoing chair of the California State Student Association, and Audrey Mink, a Cal State Long Beach student who is a champion debater. Also Dijana Fazlic of CSU Chico, Julia D. Sutton of CSU Fullerton, Alfredo Ruben Gay of CSU Los Angeles, Sally J. Smith of CSU Northridge, Joseph Richard Mullin of San Francisco State University, and Annette F. Gilbertson of San Jose State University, all are the recipients of the CSU Trustees' Hearst Award for outstanding achievement.

Last but not least, I think everybody knows that at the June meeting of the Alumni Council, Trustee Fred Pierce was reappointed for a third term as Alumni Trustee. So we welcome Fred back again.

Chair Farar, that concludes my report.