Chancellor's Report

to the Board of Trustees

September 17, 2003

Thank you, Chair Farar. I too want to join you in welcoming all of our new trustees. I especially want to welcome my good friend Trustee Jack O'Connell, the superintendent of public education in California, to his first trustee meeting. Trustee O'Connell and I have worked together and I know how hard he works for the public schools. Almost 99% of all of our students come from those public schools. I also want this board to know that Jack is practically the father of the newest CSU University, CSU Channel Islands. He has worked harder than perhaps anyone to bring that university from a dream to a reality.

As Chair Farar said, we have our challenges cut out for us this year. We started a new academic year with a record number of students. I appreciate what our presidents and their staffs have done to make sure that all of those students have the classes and sections they need to help them towards their goal of earning a degree. I said this yesterday in the closed session, but I want to say it again today: We have the best presidents in the United States working here at the California State University.

Since there are so many new board members, I want to give a little background on how we have been working to plan for and manage these budget challenges.

Richard West and his staff and others in the Chancellor's Office started about 18 months ago to plan for what was going to happen to us this July. We planned and planned, and even though the Legislature kept dropping the number of students we could take, we remained committed to all the students that received a letter of admission to the CSU.

While we were planning for further budget reductions, this also board did its part. Last December we asked the board to adjust fees 10%. At the time we said we might have to come back and do it again. We had a huge hearing in May, and then we asked the board to defer action to see what was going to happen in Sacramento. When we came back in July, it was another story. We asked this board to stretch and go probably further than a lot of board members wanted to go in terms of fee increases. I appreciate that and I know that we took it as about as far as we could take it. But I think we had to do that because the presidents and their staffs knew what was going to happen at the end of August and the beginning of September. We were going to have about 415,000 students show up and expect to get their full complement of classes and achieve their goal of accomplishing a baccalaureate degree on time.

We set two goals at the budget summit that the Academic Senate, the students, the presidents, and the provosts all agreed upon. Those goals were 1) To serve as many students as we possibly could with quality, which meant that they could get their classes and 2) To protect as many of our employees as possible so that we would have as few layoffs in the CSU as we possibly could. I think we have met those two goals.

Now - Since the 1960s, access has been the major goal, priority, and mission of the CSU. But this year, for the first time ever, the language in the budget bill directs the CSU and UC not to grow. It couldn't be a worse time for that language to be there. You've heard me talk several times about what I call the double whammy: There's a tidal wave of students who want a chance to go to college, and at the same time there are huge cuts in state funding.

So we've got to focus on the 2004/2005 budget between now and October 31. Richard West, the presidents, and others will work to come back to present you the options that we can take to the Department of Finance and the governor's office. I don't know that we have as many options this next year as we had this year. We carry forward very little money, if any at all. Our reserves won't be what they have been. But the state's options are probably fewer than ours. They have done every trick that there is. I think the tobacco money is gone, and with all of the borrowing I think the state's credit cards are maxed out. But there is a one-to-one relationship between the number of students we have and the amount of funding that we have. We can't take 10,000 students and not be funded for them. That's not fair to students, it's not fair to the faculty, and it's not fair to anybody. I appreciate what our faculty is doing, especially because their classes are larger than they were this time last year, and they're teaching more classes and more sections.

After we present our budget I'll ask this board and the entire CSU family to help us as we work with the Legislature and the governor to figure out what can we do to fund these students who want an educational opportunity. And that's what this system does, it gives students that opportunity.

Also given that this is essentially a new board, I want to say again how important it is for this board to speak out publicly to support this university. The more this board talks about the importance of the function and mission of the CSU, the better off we'll be. We're also trying to work very closely with our constituent groups. You're going to hear a report from Bob Linscheid, who is the new president of the CSU alumni council. I think he is spending as much time with the CSU as he is making a living. He spent an entire weekend here with our students and building a partnership between our alumni and our students. Also I was with him last Thursday in Chico. He is not only a Chico alumnus, he's a Chico dad because his children attend school there. So Bob, I look forward to a renewed partnership with our alumni. They are more than two million strong, and if that part of the family starts to speak out, I think that is going to help us tremendously. Also, Jose Solache and the executive committee of the CSSA held a meeting here in July and they have had two other meetings since that time. I can tell you the students are organized and they are focused.

Last, I would just like to say a few words about our partnership with the Boeing Company and the public schools of California. I'd like to ask Bob Jouret, Steve Chesser, and Nancy Lurwig if they would join me at the podium.

One of the CSU's major goals has been to make the transition as smooth as possible between the K-12 system and our universities. Four years ago, the CSU created a "How to Get to College" poster. We learned there was a need for some kind of guide because we would talk to younger students, and many of them didn't have parents who ever went to a college or university or didn't even have brothers and sisters who had done that. And so when I would talk about algebra, the reaction was, "Why would I take that?" What's really sad is that these students get into high school and they are smart and they want to be an engineer, but it is too late when they get there because of their lack of preparation. So we came back and we said, let's put together a poster. And our faculty worked with the UC faculty so that for the first time the CSU and UC admissions standards would be the same. Then we could even put a little line in our poster that says if you take these courses, if you get these grades, if you take these tests, and if you get these scores you can go to UC or CSU.

After the poster was launched, it was an immediate success. In fact, one time when I was up at CSU Channel Islands, I showed this poster and a gentleman walked up to me and said that he would pay for every student in the Ventura schools to get one of these. In the past several years we have run out of this poster about halfway through the year. The University of Nevada system, University of Texas, Texas A&M system, the Pennsylvania State system, Iowa, Ohio, Nebraska, HACU and the Hispanic-serving institutions have all requested our permission to reprint it. We won a national CASE award and have been recognized all over the country for this.

But our demand has always been much, much heavier than we could fulfill. When we would send the posters out to schools in the fall, within just a few days of their arrival, our phones would light up and people would be asking, "Can you send 50 more?" or "Can you send x more?" and we've had to say no until this year.

That's where our Boeing partners come in. I know that the Boeing Company and especially the chair of their board are committed to education. Boeing readily stepped up and has given us a gift of $50,000 that we can match with what we have been spending. This year we can produce 500,000 posters where we have only produced 150,000 in the past. This is going to allow us not only to send the posters to all the public schools but also the YMCAs, YWCAs, the Boys' and Girls' clubs, and other youth organizations. The other thing that we are going to try to do this year is to print this in one or two other languages besides English and Spanish.

With that, let me ask my good colleagues and partners at Boeing if they would say a few words.

Mr. Bob Jouret Remarks: It is my pleasure to be here with the trustees and presidents and chancellor as we demonstrate our commitment towards our mutual goal of the education of the young people of California. The Boeing Company's goal this year and focus this year will be on our contributions is achieving individual student achievement. Toward that goal with the combination of direct contributions to the company and contributions from our employees through our giving fund, we are going to give over $2 million to the California Education System, $1.5 million will go to K-12 education and over $600,000 will go directly to universities, many of whom are represented in this room. I want to repeat some of the comments Dr. Reed mentioned. When I first saw this poster, I was very pleased to support it. I go back to a personal situation that happened. I have three children, one is in college and two are graduated. The very first child, we went on a university tour and the counselor, instead of talking about the university, talked about what it took to get into that university. He talked about the classes that were required, the classes as freshman, sophomore, very similar to this. That presentation made more of an impact on my family and my children on what they needed to do to get into college, than any of the conversations I had or their guidance counselors had with them. So I think that this poster is an outstanding achievement and it will help a lot of students toward their goal and our goal of getting them into college. With that I'd like to present to Dr. Reed a check for $50,000 to support this outstanding program.

Chair Farar, that concludes my report.