Chancellor's Report

to the Board of Trustees

May 12, 1999

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to repeat a little bit of what Chairman Hauck has said. I would also like to give my welcome and appreciation for Trustee Dee Dee Myers. I had an opportunity to spend three or four hours with Dee Dee a couple of weeks ago and we are going to be spending some more time together to talk about the CSU, but I know Dee Dee will be a great asset to this board and has already helped me. In that same light, Eric, thank you for all of your service and, as is a tradition of this board, we are going to be inviting you to come back for some appropriate recognition after you have really completed your term on this board. Also, I would like to thank this board and welcome Jackie McClain as the new vice chancellor for human resources. Jackie will be here in about three weeks, but she is already working on several human resource items for us and will be just at the other end of the phone between now and June 1.

I have been asked several times about this new building. This is my fourth full day here in the last two weeks, so I'm almost as new as the rest of you to these facilities. We are still on a shakedown cruise. Sometimes the air is on in here and sometimes it is not. Sometimes part of the building is freezing and the other parts are like a sweatbox, but we will continue to work to get that worked out. This room, when we compare it to the room across the way, seems a little big to me. The end zone, as I think it will become known, is where the presidents and some of our guests are sitting. It seems to be a lot further away than where we were in the other building. I was asked about the proper dedication of this building and some of the rooms; and we will do so, after we get everything balanced and working very well. Folks worked all last weekend just to make sure the sound system in this room was working. We plan to have the proper dedication for this building and the dedication of the Barry Munitz garden and meeting room, and also for the other named meeting rooms.

On the CFA contract, I just want to report, as Susan Meissenhelder did, that we had excellent sessions in the last two-plus weeks. We really worked hard to formalize a win-win agreement for both sides. I think that both sides made a lot of progress on what I would call collegial bargaining. I talked about that when I first came here, but with Susan's leadership and help, the sessions that we had really were a collegial set of sessions and compromises. I think the contract will be good for the CSU, good for the faculty, and good for this board.

I know that Susan is optimistic that the ratification can be completed in the next two to three weeks. This morning we talked about this board's ratification and what we will try to do is to time it so that it will occur a day or so after Susan reports back on the ratification from the faculty. As matter of fact, I am going to try to put together a telephone meeting for this board rather than having everybody come to Long Beach.

Yesterday, we had a great presentation on CalstateTEACH. I really do believe that program will help get 30,000-plus emergency certified teachers a California teaching certificate at California standards. That program is going to bring the California State University into hundreds and hundreds of classrooms throughout California and into thousands of homes where the teachers will be working in the evening to complete their certificate. There is going to be a lot of people out there watching CalStateTEACH.

I know that our friends at the British Open University are very interested in how we roll this out and conduct the sessions beginning this fall. I believe that we, in partnership with the British Open University, can pay them back in the sense of showing them how we have merged technology and the curriculum and they will learn as much from us as we learned from them this past year. But, in addition to that, the governor has his eye on what we are doing, as does California's legislature, and Secretary Riley from the Department of Education is going to be watching how this rolls out. So, I have high expectations of that success. As I said yesterday, we have plans to be able to accommodate up to 1,000 teachers this September.

I would like to announce today, that Dr. Jodi Servatius will be the CalStateTEACH director. Jodi has thirty-plus years of experience, many of those years in the public schools as an elementary school teacher, principal, and staff director. She is on the faculty at Hayward. She has had many different assignments at Hayward, and has that connection and that bridge to build partnerships between all of our universities and the public schools. I know that Jodi can provide the leadership we need as we roll this program out this summer.

I had a very good meeting this morning with Speaker Villaraigosa, and this Friday the governor will be announcing his May Revise recommendations. Richard West gave a brief report yesterday to the Finance Committee, but I continue to be optimistic that the trustees' budget will receive priority funding in the legislative and governor's budgets this week.

Yesterday and last evening we had a fantastic time with the Wang Awards. Stanley, thank you and your family for your generous contributions to recognize four outstanding faculty and one administrator of the CSU. As I said last night, there will be 50 additional Wang family members at the end of your generosity, so thank you for allowing us to do that.

The California State University system in mid-June will be hosting here in Long Beach the Business Higher Education Forum. They are the Fortune 100 CEOs and college and university presidents from the major systems, both public and private institutions, from around the United States. Again, they are very interested in two particular areas in education. One, what colleges and universities are doing to help improve the public schools. They will have a major session at Long Beach State to focus on those partnerships between universities and public schools.

The second area that they are interested in is building public/private partnerships between universities, other governmental agencies and businesses. Yesterday you heard a report on three or four different partnerships that our institutions are entering into. At Fresno and LA they are entering into partnerships with the justice system in California to bring onto their campuses some crime labs. At Monterey Bay they are entering into a partnership with the public schools in that area to provide some space that is badly needed; and at San Luis Obispo, with the business communitythe wine industry of Californiato be able to conduct research. I think creating those kinds of alliances will help build the kind of support that our system will need in the future.

Earlier this week, all of the presidents had a dinner to honor and thank Blenda Wilson and Herb Carter for their service as presidents in the California State University system. Blenda, we wish you well moving back to the East Coast, to Massachusetts, to head up a private foundation. That is the dream of all presidents: to end up at a foundation with as much money as you're going to have to spend. I am sure you will be hearing from all of these folks as soon as you get there.

In the sports arena they talk about MRs, the miraculous recovery, and Herb has done an MR at Dominguez Hills. The spirit is evidential. The students, the faculty, the facilities: it's a brand new place: Herb, thank you. But Herb is not going to be leaving us. Herb is going to be working with me and with Dave Spence on another big, big problem that we have to solve and that is remedial education. And, Herb, we need all of your help that we can get.

Let me introduce, for those of you who have not met her, Louanne Kennedy, who is here with Blenda. We have asked Louanne if on June 1 she will take over the interim presidency of Northridge. Louanne, would you please stand and be recognized.

Last week, Chairman Hauck was honored. He received the Coro Southern California Crystal Eagle Award for his outstanding leadership and dedication to public service in California. Also, recently, Trustee Pesqueira and his wife, Eva, were honored and received the Annual Human Unity Award for outstanding small business leadership from the National Conference for Community and Justice in San Diego, so those are two very nice recognitions. Mr. Chairman, that concludes my report.