Chancellor's Report

to the Board of Trustees

Remarks by Dr. Charles B. Reed
Chancellor, California State University
CSU Board of Trustees Meeting - Chancellor's Report
Long Beach, CA
March 15, 2006

Thank you, Chair Galinson.

I want to join you in welcoming our new student trustee Andrew LaFlamme. Andrew, we are very pleased to have you as a part of this board.

I want to use my time to give a brief update on some of the projects we've been working on over the past two months.

The best way to sum up is to say that the CSU is a university "on the move." We have some great momentum and I want us to take advantage of it.

We are looking at a good budget year ahead, we are working on important projects that are making a difference, and we are getting national recognition for our work.

Major Events

To begin with some major events:

Last month, I appeared before the U.S. Education Department's Commission on the Future of Higher Education to discuss our partnerships with the private sector, K-12 schools, and community colleges. I spoke along with several other higher education leaders and students. The commission was very interested in what we had to say about our partnerships with various industry leaders around the state and our EAP.

Another major event was the "Super Sunday" event we held last month at eight African-American churches in the Los Angeles area.

I joined Herb Carter, CSU Foundation board member Matthew Jenkins, and seven of our presidents at services at those churches. We spread the message to the community that the CSU wants to help more African American students prepare for and succeed in college.

With all of the people attending services, we estimate that we reached 20,000 people that day. Parents and students were hungry for the information. We had some people who waited in line 30 to 40 minutes to pick up a poster.

I'd like to give a special thanks to everyone who worked on that event:

Herb Carter
Matt Jenkins
President Jim Rosser
President Jolene Koester
President Mike Ortiz
President Jim Lyons
President Horace Mitchell
President Milt Gordon
President Dick Rush
And Tony Ross, vice president for student affairs at Cal State L.A., who will be in charge of follow-up

Also thanks to our staff for their hard work:

Jorge Haynes
Claudia Keith
Clara Potes-Fellow
Marge Grey
Christine Destefano

And special thanks to Barbara Young for her outreach efforts and work on this event. Many of you know Barbara from when she worked at the Chancellor's Office. She is here today.

We are planning to follow up this success with a similar event in Oakland in June.

Other Events

The CSU has also participated or led a number of other important events in the last few weeks:

• We convened the CSU Mathematics and Science Teacher Summit earlier this month to bring together leaders from all 23 campuses who are going to help us in our effort to double the number of math and science teachers we produce each year. We had about 400 people in attendance.
• President Baker made a presentation on my behalf at the Business Higher Education Forum on the CSU's efforts to address the math and science teacher shortage.
• We convened an Early Childhood Workforce conference to bring together leaders and educators from around California to discuss the important job of preparing high-quality teachers for very young children.
• We held dinners with the Latino Caucus and the Asian-Pacific Islander Caucus last week in Sacramento, and we asked those members to partner with us in our efforts to improve outreach and financial aid for our future students.
• I made a presentation last week before the Assembly Budget and Fiscal Review Subcommittee on the CSU's budget and our most urgent needs for the future.
• I made a presentation and talked with students last weekend at the CHESS conference organized by the CSSA in Sacramento.
• President Rosser and I hosted a special screening of Trustee Esparza's new film, "Walkout," at Cal State L.A. to an overflow crowd of 700 people.

In another important development, we are preparing to launch our first independent educational doctorate programs in 2007 with seven campuses: Fresno, Fullerton, Long Beach, Sacramento, San Bernardino, San Diego, and San Francisco.

This will allow us to better serve California - by building on our teacher education expertise in the field of education to meet the demands for advanced training for California's public K-12 and community college administrators.

Last, but not least, we were honored to be mentioned in a USA Today editorial about college readiness.

The editorial praised the CSU's Early Assessment Program or EAP.

It said, "California State University offers the most innovative solution. By using the state's 11th-grade standards test to determine whether a student can take a college course for credit, students get a heads-up as to whether they're learning what the university expects."

I've heard from people all over the country on that editorial. That's the kind of recognition we hope to continue to get for our efforts.

Chair Achtenberg, that concludes my report.