Conflict puts Sac State in a sorry state
Sacramento Bee 5/14/07
"Never hire a beaner to do a white man's job."
Sacramento State President Alexander Gonzalez was the target of this vulgarity, which was discovered in late April scrawled near a Sequoia Hall toilet, and came to light last week in the campus newspaper.
Penned with black markers, the sentiment exemplifies the dark side of a caustic climate afflicting Sacramento's public university.
How caustic? When a call for comment went out to the chancellor of the California State University system last week, Charles Reed called back in minutes.
"That is totally uncalled for on a university campus," he said.
No one is saying there's a link between the racist graffiti smeared in anonymity in a Sac State bathroom and the professors on campus at odds with Gonzalez. Those Gonzalez opponents -- 77 percent of the faculty members who participated in a referendum -- went very public on April 27 with a vote of "no confidence."
"It was not about Alexander Gonzalez the man," Juanita Barrena, a professor of biological sciences and campus fixture since 1975, said of the vote.
"It's about what's happening inside the university."
Put more bluntly, it's about power.
"We're supposed to work under a shared system of governance," Gonzalez said of his relationship with the Faculty Senate. "That is being tested."
On the surface, it appears Gonzalez's massive plans to upgrade Sac State's facilities ran afoul with faculty concerns over class size, class availability and rising student fees.
But strip this dispute down to its essence -- dissect why faculty members have sharply denounced Gonzalez in campus protests and letters to The Bee -- and you have an even more basic reason for a warring campus.
Gonzalez is like an NBA coach whose players want to call the plays, too.
By some accounts, faculty enjoyed such privileges with Gonzalez's predecessor, Donald Gerth.
Barrena said the role of past faculty leaders was to "train the president in the whatevers of the university."
"When I had opposition to President Gerth, I would go to him first ... I don't have that kind of relationship with (Gonzalez)."
That's because the 61-year-old Gonzalez doesn't want to be trained. He assigned his deans and provosts to handle faculty beefs so he could fund-raise. And -- at least off campus -- he's become a respected figure who could land $12 million deals with Pepsi. But on campus? Reviled is not too strong a word.
Sadly, it's all so unnecessary. Even Gonzalez's foes don't doubt his commitment. He admits he's made mistakes and is setting up committees to reach out to faculty.
He also held off cutting $1.6 million from the Academic Affairs budget, instead dipping into university reserves. Academic Affairs encompasses the seven academic colleges on campus, the library, continuing education and several other programs. It has a budget of $104 million, the largest on campus by far.
So you're telling us that cutting $1.6 million out of a $104 million budget is cause for revolution? That the only way to deal with a president credited with raising the profile of a sleepy university is a vote of no-confidence?
Meantime, the discourse at Sacramento's public university dips into the toilet -- or is scrawled in racist epithets near campus toilets.
There is plenty of fault to go around. But if you're going to have a college president, you should let him be one.