Lettters: Showdown at CSUS
Sacramento Bee 4/16/07
From the planned new student housing to the already completed parking structure, his goals include making Sacramento State a destination university for students of our region. The general education honors program and the expanded nursing program are both new initiatives in response to student needs and enhanced employment opportunities in our region.
Gonzalez has also worked diligently to reconnect the campus to the business community in greater Sacramento to ensure local employers are fully aware of the outstanding candidates that Sacramento State graduates each year.
We gathered the other night at the Distinguished Service Awards Banquet to honor alumni who are truly incredible leaders and products of Sacramento State -- a campus that is moving forward. I, as one of many alumni, am excited to see Gonzalez's broadened perspectives on campus.
- Tina M. Treis, Sacramento
President, Sacramento State Alumni Association
Critical words for CSUS chief
President Alexander Gonzalez's published "defense" ("CSUS president defends his job," April 11) is offensive and delusionary.
I arrived at Sacramento State College in 1966 and taught history until my retirement in 2002 -- I lived through years of inept and sometimes incompetent administrations. Don Gerth was the best president California State University, Sacramento, had during my years.
Gonzalez did not inherit any problems; rather, he inherited a legacy of goodwill, competence and a smoothly functioning, well administered campus. Don and his wife, Bev, loved CSUS; they each respected the faculty, and in my case, I felt not only respect, but often genuine affection.
To say that some of the faculty are "mean-spirited" or were "gunning" to get the president is grandiose, belied by Gerth's productive and harmonious accomplishments in his tenure as president, 1984-2003.
I feel blessed and honored to have taught at Sac State/CSUS for 36 years. I feel deep empathy for the current faculty and staff as they attempt to seek redress, accountability and responsible leadership from Gonzalez.
- Gregg M. Campbell, Sacramento
Emeritus Professor, History, CSUS
Gonzalez has a great record
Sacramento State President Alexander Gonzalez has energized the campus, and students and faculty are clearly a priority of the president and his administration.
Faculty members are angry that spending for university advancement -- such as recruitment of students and community advocacy -- has increased. These are simply development efforts to bring more students and donations to campus; that ultimately benefits the university and its faculty.
The referendum is a distraction from the real work of making the university a cultural center for the region. During Gonzalez's tenure, Sacramento State has developed the Center for STEM Excellence to strengthen research and study in the areas of sciences, technology, engineering and math.
He has raised a school-record $16 million in private support in 2005-06, established an executive MBA program, is acquiring 23 acres to develop below-market-cost faculty/staff housing, has increased alumni and community involvement with the university and is beginning work on the new Broad Athletic Facility (a privately funded field house) and completing plans for a 150,000-square-foot Recreation and Wellness Center. These are all some major accomplishments that bring students, alumni and recognition to the campus. Way to go, Mr. President. You're doing a fantastic job!
- Geoffrey Sakala, Rancho Cordova
Student Body President, 1999-2000, CSUS
Gonzalez has a bad record
The faculty members at California State University, Sacramento, take the responsibility of being educators very seriously. We have worked to keep up the quality of instruction, to keep class size low so curriculum does not become just multiple choice tests, to understand the need for available class sections so that students can graduate in four years.
It is painful to see priorities turn to showcase items, rather than academics. If everyone were bearing the burden of challenging budget times together, it would also be another story.
I hope that readers understand that we are not complaining about personal issues.
The lack of support for the president is based on our understanding that if the university continues under his direction, Sacramento will no longer have an excellent public university for our children and our grandchildren.
- Lila Jacobs, Sacramento
Professor, Educational Leadership & Policy Studies, CSUS
Come together, don't tear apart
I am a faculty member of Sacramento State, and I am truly dismayed at what I read in the press and in the university e-mails regarding the referendum of "no confidence" against President Alexander Gonzalez.
I know and respect both Gonzalez and many of the faculty colleagues who are behind the referendum effort. All are saying they have the best interests of the students and the university in mind. If so, now is the time to come together rather than tear apart. I do not support the "no confidence" referendum because the only possible results of this process are irreparable strain between the faculty and administration, isolation of current students, rejection from future students and alienation of alumni and other potential donors.
I support a future that sees Sacramento State as a strong and vibrant university. I recognize there are different perspectives on how to achieve this objective, but the referendum is the big step in the opposite direction.
- Timothy P. Fong, Davis
Director, Asian American Studies Program, CSUS
Deus ex machina
In his April 10 letter, "Get behind the CSUS president," Timothy Capron writes that the faculty "would not be happy if God were president." In the comments at the sacbee.com Web site on April 10, "Spence1500" writes, "I think we would have voted out God in his first year or two." In the article "CSUS president defends his job," April 11, President Alexander Gonzalez himself makes the comparison: "They would be angry if it was God sitting in that chair."
I am glad to see that there are such consistent views from such a variety of people -- and near Easter time, no less.
I do not believe that Gonzalez is quite as innocent as all this implies. I am sure he is as decent a man as I -- and I have worked closely and productively with this administration -- but the fact of the matter is that the academic budget reported in that story would already be $2 million lower if not for faculty opposition to the cuts; it will, thanks to the priorities Gonzalez has set, be a $2 million cut each of the next three years -- that is about 300 classes. My students have certainly noticed.
Everyone agrees we need students for funding; what I lack confidence in is the claim that students don't want classes.
- Andrew Hertzoff, Sacramento
Assistant Professor, Department of Government, CSUS
Gonzalez is a hired gun
If God Herself was sitting in the president's chair at Sacramento State University, the faculty and students would be much more satisfied. Regrettably, God could not be there because She would not have been hired by California State University Chancellor Charles Reed and the trustees.
They would have feared that God would defy them and make a real educational environment possible. Sac State President Alexander Gonzalez, like most campus leaders, is a hired gun to help the Long Beach HQ run the corporate business. Some campus presidents can find their way between the Long Beach Rock and the Faculty-Student Hard Place. Gonzalez has not. He must go, but his replacement will be another hired gun.
- Gerald McDaniel, Sacramento
Name of the game is academics
I am appalled to discover that the students and faculty are not the focus of the Sacramento State administration.
Although I am pleased that the university is a community resource, strong academic programs are essential to the success of the students and our region.
Efforts by President Alexander Gonzalez to increase his stature in the community are at odds with the mission of the CSU. If this administration does not support academics in all ways, we will all be poorer. I am opposed to the administration of Gonzalez.
- Jean Roche, Sacramento