Chancellor, California State University
Chancellor's Report - CSU Board of Trustees Meeting
Long Beach, CA
May 17, 2006
Thank you, Chair Galinson. I want to thank you for the many hours of time you have spent and for your wise advice and counsel as chair.
Congratulations to Debra Farar, who has been reappointed to the board by the governor.
Also thanks to President Norma Rees for her leadership as president of Cal State East Bay, and to Diane Cordero de Noriega for her service as interim president of CSU Monterey Bay.
Yesterday we honored our Wang Award winners. We had a truly outstanding group this year.
We continue to be grateful to former Trustee Stanley Wang and his family for this generous gift that allows us to recognize outstanding faculty and staff achievements.
May Revise
We heard an update on the May Revise yesterday. We have a good budget but not a great budget. We did, however, receive $1 million for recruitment and hiring of nursing faculty. Also this budget reflects several important items we have been seeking, such as differential costs for graduate education, and the ability to manage our student fee revenue.
Once we get this budget, we'll be focused on the next one, and we'll be another step closer to rebuilding.
I want to thank our budget and legislative teams here and in Sacramento. We will continue working to make sure that we have the best possible result for the California State University and its students.
Bond Measure
You heard the news about the bond measure for November. It will appear on the ballot as Proposition 1-D. The bond measure would include $345 million for the CSU.
Our continued growth has required new construction and has placed increasing demands on our capital resources. More than half of our existing facilities are over 30 years old, and the increased usage has added to the need for repairs and renovations.
Our capital outlay program - which is funded entirely by voter-approved general obligation bonds - has built the classrooms, laboratories, libraries, and technological infrastructure necessary to the operation of the university.
We will be working in the next several months to help share information about how the dollars in Proposition 1-D would be used.
Other Updates
Super Sunday
On June 11 in Oakland, we will hold a Super Sunday event at 12 African-American churches to share information about college preparation for students and their families.
This event is a follow-up to a very successful event that we held in Los Angeles in February. We reached approximately 20,000 congregants that day, and we had some people waiting in line for more than 30 minutes to get information. We believe that there is a similar need and demand for information in the Oakland area.
City Superintendents
Two weeks ago I spoke at a conference of the California City School Superintendents. It was a very receptive audience and they were very interested to hear what we are doing with our outreach efforts, the Early Assessment Program, and the poster. I committed another 40,000 to 50,000 posters to those superintendents for the upcoming school year.
EAP
We continue to receive praise from around the country for the EAP test. Last week, Time magazine highlighted the EAP as "the best cure for a strong case of senioritis."
Also last week, the publication Inside Higher Education last week had a story on a new ACT report on college preparation. The article referenced the CSU's Early Assessment Program as a nationally significant model.
The EAP has also been highlighted by USA Today. We know that Michigan, Illinois, Colorado, North Carolina, and Texas are all adopting similar efforts.
NCEE
I have begun serving on the board of the National Center on Education and the Economy, a national organization that is looking at education and workforce development.
The NCEE board will report to the White House and Congress at the end of 2008 on how we can give young people the skills they need to succeed in a global economy. This report is only given once every 15 years. Incidentally, I am the only university president on the board.
Commencements
Last but not least, it is commencement season on our campuses, and this is really why we are all here - to see our students all the way through to graduation.
We will have at least one trustee at each of our 23 commencements this year. I want to thank the board for its support and participation in these events.
Chair Galinson, that concludes my report.