Issue at Sac State isn't trophies, it's leadership

Sacramento Bee, 10/12/07

Alexander Gonzalez, president of California State University, Sacramento, wants to put to rest the issue of letters he signed to help a potential donor. He wrote an op-ed column for these pages (published last Friday) and met with the editorial board Monday (see excerpts on next page). He has even hired an expensive crisis management consultant to help him.

But he is still not addressing the real issue -- that he allowed his office and the university's name to be used to facilitate sport-hunting of threatened and critically endangered species in the east African nation of Tanzania. He did so without consulting the World Conservation Union Red List, the standard inventory of the status of species; without investigating current museum practice; without even telling administrators and others involved since 2001 in the university's proposed Wildlife/Natural History Museum.

Gonzalez says he takes responsibility for his actions, but it doesn't take much reading between the lines to see that he's shifting blame to others. His op-ed piece and interview reveal a management style that is over-reliant on a few individuals, unwilling to seek expert advice and dismissive of faculty -- not a good combination for a university president.

He emphasizes that the faculty had taken a vote to support a natural history museum project before he arrived on campus in July 2003. That's true, but leaves out important information. The Department of Biological Sciences supported accepting the animal collection of Paul and Renee Snider, scores of sport-hunted trophies currently displayed at their home in Elk Grove -- under the condition that no new species be killed to add to the collection.

This project was proceeding when Gonzalez decided to help the Sniders with two hunts to kill 84 species of mammals, snakes and birds from Tanzania. We may never know if the Sniders would have donated their collection without Gonzalez's support of these two hunts. In any case, Gonzalez's explanations of his February 2004 and October 2006 letters just don't hold up. He says that he wasn't even thinking of adding specimens (though that's the crux of the two letters). He says he never even saw the lists of animals.

According to Gonzalez, only two people knew about the letters -- Phil Hitchcock, an art professor, and Marion O'Leary, who was dean of the College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics and then interim vice president for university affairs. Gonzalez blames O'Leary, who brought him a letter that he says he signed without really reading: "I gave it back to the man that I trusted who had brought it to me."

The cavalier manner with which Gonzalez has treated this major potential donation -- $2.4 million, plus the value of the collection -- is astounding. How many $2 million-plus donations does Sac State get? How many will it get in the future if the president follows such lackadaisical processes?

There's more to this matter than Gonzalez is letting on. The CSU chancellor's office and CSU trustees need to get to the bottom of it. It has become clear that this fiasco isn't about policies for accepting collections. It is about the Sac State president's leadership and integrity -- and whether he can successfully lead an important institution in our community.