Convocation

2007 Convocation Speech
September 17, 2007

Welcome back to campus. Welcome as well to our Palm Desert colleagues and others watching over the Internet.

As you returned to campus, I wonder if you noticed how well our facilities are maintained and how beautiful our grounds look.

Our Facilities and Grounds personnel were recently recognized by the Association of Physical Plant Administrators (APPA) with its very highest honor for excellence. Two years ago, the University of Florida won; last year, it was the University of Michigan, University of Alabama and the Smithsonian.

I’d add that this is the same crew that responded so well to the 2003 fires and the October 2006 storm damage.

Given the importance of the campus’s appearance in recruiting students, faculty and staff, as well as the critical nature of facility maintenance for everyone’s effectiveness and comfort, I’d like to recognize David DeMauro, Tony Simpson, Kevin Doyle and the crew of women and men in Facilities and Grounds for their extraordinary work—now celebrated nationally as well. Would you please stand?

I was reviewed last spring as CSU presidents are every three years. I want to thank the more than 200 faculty and staff who took the time to respond to the invitation to comment. Because of your generous remarks, and even more so because you’ve made CSUSB a continuously maturing campus, the review, which has been posted on the CSUSB homepage since March, was quite positive.

I deeply appreciate your confidence, as well as that of the Chancellor and Trustees. I was particularly pleased that the review also recognized the work of my wife, Marilyn, whom they described as “spectacular . . . in advocating for the university.” I think they were right.

Ten years is a profoundly long time to serve in a university presidency. It’s really the last thing I thought I’d do when I was a junior faculty member. A presidency brings responsibilities, a measure of authority and a mind-jarring array of competing constituencies and expectations.

I’ve sought to be accessible, with open communication and transparent decision-making. And in fact, not only does the Chair of the Faculty Senate and President of ASI serve on the CSUSB Administrative Council, the weekly minutes of the council have been posted on the web for nearly 10 years.

Although the role has its challenges, particularly during budget cuts, it’s been my enormous personal honor to be President, even during vexing times. As that thought-provoking philosopher Dolly Parton suggested, “As I see it, if you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain.” Good advice!

I’ve decentralized budgets and decision-making in order to promote leadership across campus, though I’ve viewed it as my job to get involved when outcomes aren’t acceptable.

I’ve also tried to be consistent. Since this is my 11th Convocation, I’m not about to ruin my consistent public speaking record by all of a sudden becoming interesting.

Since the Convocation video highlights last year’s achievements. I’ll mention only a very few accomplishments, ones that affect CSUSB as a whole, illustrate the university’s broader successes, or happened too late for the video.

To start, even if everyone else performed remarkably well, the university couldn’t excel without an exceptional faculty. CSUSB’s two most coveted faculty recognitions are the Golden Apple, for excellence in teaching, and the Outstanding Faculty Award, for excellence in teaching, scholarship and service. Would last year’s winners please stand. The Gold Apple Winner, Sunny Hyon. And the Outstanding Faculty winner, Lloyd Peake. Both are high achievers and highly valued colleagues.

One of our ongoing objectives is to secure additional resources to support faculty teaching, creative activity and service. A related objected is to diversify our sources of revenue. Grants and contracts assist the university to better fulfill its mission directly, as well as to generate resources that can be used for related goals.

Thanks to faculty, to staff in Sponsored Research and the Foundation, as well as to some special initiatives, last year’s grants and contracts awards topped $30 million—a CSUSB record and more than five times what it was merely ten years ago.

As you’ll see from the video, grant and contract activities varied considerably, ranging from multi-million dollar awards to small but quite valuable grants. I want to applaud everyone involved in these projects.

To further promote coordination, we’ll identify space to co-locate pre- and post-award service groups into adjoining offices.

We’ll also continue to seek special project funding from Representatives Jerry Lewis, Joe Baca and Mary Bono, each of whom has assisted us in the past.

Before I proceed, let me relate a story of two men who crashed a private plan into a deserted Pacific island. Both survived, but one started to panic while the other remained quite calm.

The agitated man screamed, “There’s no one here, there’s no food, no water. We’re gonna die!”

The other leaned against the wrecked plane, folded his arms and said, “No, we’re not. I make over $1 million a year, and I’m a college graduate.”

The first man shook him, crying out: “We’re gonna shrivel up and die.”

Unruffled, his friend responded, “I told you how much I earn, and I’m a university graduate. I joined the Alumni Association and make annual contributions. Don’t worry. Even if I’m on a desert island, the Alumni Association will find me!”

Didn’t I tell you there were advantages to joining the Alumni Association?

Because state support is never enough to meet university needs, the Trustees asked each campus to raise funds at least equal to 10% of the Campus General Fund Budget. Last year’s goal was a bit over $9 million.

We raised $10.4 million, clearly above the target. In fact, in the past two years, the Development Team has raised a total of nearly $27 million.

If we combine last year’s $30 million in grants and contracts, $10 million in fundraising, and $48 million in student fees, that $88 million approaches the $98 million that we received from the state.

Clearly, with successful grants and contracts and fundraising, we become less dependent and help to define our own future.

Given that we received a $21 million deferred trust this summer, we’ll recalibrate the 10% goal for the year. And Advancement will increasingly focus on planned and major gifts.

With funding for its Health Sciences building, we closed the initial phase of the Palm Desert Campaign. Overall, we secured roughly $40 million in non-state resources to build the campus, much due to the work of Dean Fred Jandt and Low Desert supporters.

And the Tools for Education campaign, which augments the College of Education’s centers, labs and institutes, has obtained nearly $3 million of its $4 million goal.

Shifting to students, you may recall, we created the Presidential Academic Excellence Scholarship in 2002. It provides $5,000 a year for students in the top 1% of their graduating class from any high school in San Bernardino County. With an ongoing 3.5 CSUSB GPA, students can retain their scholarships for 4 years.

In fall 2002, six students accepted the new scholarship, in ’03 it jumped to 16 acceptances, then 25 in ’04, 37 in ’05, 42 last year, and still counting this fall. We’ll have over 100 PAES Scholars on campus this year.

Of the 126 from prior years, a quite satisfying 90% are still enrolled at CSUSB or have graduated. PAES Scholarships will be the major fundraising focus this year.

Other extraordinary student successes include Ralph Salmi’s Model UN Team’s 10th year with an Outstanding Delegation award. Only 15 awards were given to the over 150 teams representing military academies, Ivies, Cambridge, the University of Paris and other European universities.

And our athletes have shown how to be scholar-athletes—with a cumulative all-sports’ GPA of 2.92 last year. And our volleyball team not only had a collective 3.06 GPA last year, in the most recent Division II poll, it was ranked the number one team in the nation.

And the Coussoulis Arena, where our volleyball and basketball teams play, will have its one millionth visitor this year.

Our students once again sacrificed for the future. They did that several years ago by taxing themselves for the Union Addition and the Recreation Center. They did it again last year, voting for higher fees to expand the Health Center; increase IRP, Athletics and ASI funding; and provide sports’ club insurance.

Let me chat about the Inland Empire, the region we serve. This far-flung two-county area of 27,000 square miles is larger than 10 states, and its 4 million population is greater than 24 states.

The region has been fast growing and tied Las Vegas last year for the best metropolitan area in the nation for economic development.

And with just 10% of California’s population, the two counties’ 45,000 new jobs last year were more than one-quarter of all the jobs created in California.

It’s estimated that there will be a 4 to 8% deflation in the price of Inland Empire houses. However, while our homes are less expensive than on the California coast, they’re still far more expensive than in most areas of the nation.

K-12 education has become a complex regional challenge and is increasing a problem in the state, as well. California is now just a scant one percent above the national average for college graduates. More critically, we’re becoming less educated. Nearly 40% of residents over 35 have a college degree, in contrast to just 36% of those 25 to 34. And in the Inland Empire, only 20% are college graduates—about half the state level.

Of greater importance, the region’s college-going rate is among California’s lowest. Less than a third of our high school students even take courses that qualify them to enter a CSU or UC.

As a result, many students come to CSUSB poorly prepared and not socialized to the expectations of higher education. Among basic facts, 70% of our first-time freshmen have no college graduate in their immediate families, and over 70% require remediation in English, math or both. Though the good news is that with a year of CSUSB pre-college work, 90% of them are remediated.

Another broad educational issue involves the fact that only 35% of our students are men. This reflects a national trend, and although such gender imbalances now affect all ethnic groups, they particularly impact Latinos and African Americans. Women compose about 56% of American college students. That gap has grown annually since 1982, the last year that more men than women attended college.

In terms of women’s versus men’s abilities, I love the observation about Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers that she did everything that he did, except that she did it backwards and in heels.

There’s no evidence that women are more talented or intelligent than men, but it’s certain that they’re far more mature about education.

Turning to funding issues, the CSU budget was finalized in late August, and the compact with the Governor was fully funded—though in the final days of the legislative session, it took very aggressive union and administration efforts to assure its approval. The system budget is now more than $4.3 billion in state and fee revenue—an increase of $300 million or 7%.

Our campus budget will grow $13.9 million to nearly $160 million overall. The bad news is that all the funding will be consumed by mandatory costs. That’s also “good news,” because $6.6 million—or almost half of the funds—are for sorely needed salary increases, and another nearly $2 million is for retirement and health insurance.

This spending is needed, even though $1.7 million of the salary increases were unfunded by the state—and must come from campus operating funds.

In addition, $1.4 million is for maintaining the new Education and Palm Desert Health Sciences building, and another $2.4 million is the state university grant that supports our neediest students. The remaining $1.7 million is funding for Nursing, implementing CMS, deferred maintenance and utility increases.

In the CSU, marginal budget growth is linked to full time equivalent students (FTES)—with one FTES equal to 45 resident undergraduate—or 36 graduate—credit hours of instruction. To be sure that the system wouldn’t need to return funds to the state for any enrollment shortfall below the system target, Trustees encouraged each campus to grow.

Campuses were required to return funds for each FTES more than two percent below their targets.

Let me give an example. If a campus had a 10,000 FTES target and came in at 9,700—300 short—the first 200 would be held harmless, but funding for the last 100—beyond the 2%—would be returned for reallocation to growing campuses.

Hang with me through some more numbers. Last year, we had a target of 14,043 FTES, which amounted to 4.1% growth. Since we grew 3%, we came in 1.1% below our target.

This year, we have a target of 14,415 FTES, representing 3.6% growth—which is composed of a 2.5% goal for each campus plus the 1.1% we were short last year.

Given the awkward transition we’ve had to the PeopleSoft student system, some student coding issues, and the increasingly late registration of our students, it’s not yet possible to forecast our fall enrollment.

However, we do seem to be struggling. We’re closer to our targets in continuing students, but after expanding freshmen enrollments by 25% since 2001, we appear to have hit a wall. And our credential enrollments have dropped to half of their peak just a few years ago.

If we don’t make our target, our revenue this year will decrease by about $500,000 for each percent, because that’s the amount of student fees that won’t be collected.

We’ll soon schedule a leadership retreat with department heads, deans and others, and we’ll also try to convene a meeting of the University Budget Council around the fall enrollment census date.

It’s premature to be discouraged, but it’s timely for all of us to do whatever we can to assist in facilitating student advising, registration and the other steps needed. As private colleges have found, if we’re to improve our recruitment and retention of students, we’ll all need to assist, regardless of our roles.

And while I surely understand that many are frustrated with the PeopleSoft conversion, we can’t allow that to impede our assistance to students. If you’re having problems, please ask for help. And if you don’t get it, contact my office, and I’ll personally ensure that assistance is provided.

Even if we get to target, it’s clear that we’re not sprinting ahead. When we were cruising at 3 and 4% increases each year, the old approaches were satisfactory. However, we need to now comprehensively review our recruitment efforts, both in the region and outside, as well as ways to improve student retention and success. So let me take some time to discuss strategies.

To start, because of factors mentioned when I discussed education in the region, we need to find better ways to inform and encourage parents and children about the value of higher education, as well as the ready availability of financial support.

There will be a 10% fee increase again for this fall, almost doubling student fees since 2000-2001. Parents and students hear this and may become discouraged about being able to afford an education.

But since costs stayed flat for so long previously, it’s also true that fees have only doubled since 1994-95. While I join you in being disappointed that fees have risen at all, in reality, public universities derive their operating budgets from only two sources: state appropriations and student fees.

This year’s fee increase was $252, leaving CSU undergraduate fees—including campus fees for health care, speaker series, etc.—at less than $3,500 a year. That’s not only among the very lowest in the nation, it’s the very lowest among our 15 public comparator universities. In fact, it’s just one-half the average charged by our comparators.

Are we affordable? Yes, I believe so. This campus has over $110 million in financial aid available. And despite recent fee increases, without relying on loans, 57% of full-time resident undergraduates have their fees covered entirely by CalGrants, Pell Grants, scholarships and/or state university grants. Another 10% of students pay only partial fees. Only one-third of our students pay full fees, and except for extraordinary circumstances, those in need will find sufficient aid to attend.

To promote enrollment, we’ll continue to invite students and parents to campus and support Gear Up, AVID and the Parent Institute for Quality Education. I’ll personally continue to speak at African American churches in the region and at churches with ample Latino membership. I’m happy to go wherever they’ll have me.

Based on 85 recommendations made in an assessment last winter by visiting colleagues from the Chancellor’s Office, Cal Poly SLO and San Francisco State University, we’ll enhance our marketing efforts and assess the university’s image in the region. And we’ll decide if we need assistance in evaluating our undergraduate recruitment processes.

To allow the Admissions Office to concentrate on undergraduates, and to give focus to graduate efforts, we’ll shift responsibility for graduate admissions to the Graduate School.

In addition, there’s consensus among deans and Academic Affairs that to better compete, we need to retain a marketing director.

It’s been said that “those who live by the sword get shot by those who don’t.” In that sense, we’ve been nailed by other schools who come to the Inland Empire to recruit.

We need to consider recruiting out of our area. And with the explosion of office and related development in Ontario, and an invitation to offer programs in Chino, we’ll look closely at a greater presence on the west side of the county.

We’ve also accelerated our international recruitment. For example, we’re the first California university to partner with Chinese institutions on a 1-2-1 dual degree program in which Chinese students spend the middle two years of the four year program at CSUSB. We’ll also seek to ratchet up our other international linkages, especially in Korea and other Asian nations.

Finally, a survey of military needs at March Air Force Base has been completed, and we’ll determine if we can help meet the educational needs of civilian and military personnel, plus those of troops mustering out.

There’s a good deal of evidence that increasing numbers of prospective students—as many as a third—secure their information almost exclusively from college websites. So we’ll need to improve our operation at all levels.

The revised Admissions webpage is about ready for circulation to test panels of high school and transfer students, as well as parents. And with so many potential students cruising between schools and programs, we’ll need to develop department pages that have parallel appearance, architecture and navigation. After the first page or two, the pages can diverge greatly.

I’ve asked Vice President Freund to work with Provost Fernandez to develop a cost proposal for implementation and periodic review.

Switching to retention, research demonstrates that successful strategies include a strong orientation program, advising that establishes bonds, a sense of belonging rooted in early decisions about a major, knowledge of university resources and co-curricular involvement.

We’ll implement various strategies to advance those ends, including a required two-day orientation program whose director will also work with other units on retention. We’ll institute a retention communication program to provide regular information to students about support services, graduation checks and more. And Professor Jodie Ullman of the Psychology Department will evaluate the impact of the Gateway Program and the Freshman Seminar on first-to-second-year retention outcomes.

With 35% Latino and 13% African American students, we have the third highest percentage of each historically underrepresented group at any California university. And we do quite well in 1st to 2nd year retention. In fact, our Year 1 to Year 2 retention is the highest in the entire CSU for Black students. And it’s the 3rd highest in the system for Latinos. Moreover, our 82.1% rate is tied with San Diego State for the 3rd highest overall. At 2% above the average and tied for number 3, our 1st to 2nd year retention is to be applauded.

Unfortunately, for 2nd to 3rd year retention, we tumble to number 15 out of 23. More critically, we drop to a 67.4% rate. As another way of measuring, we started the Second Year 2% ahead of the system average, and then in Year 3 fell to 4% below.

There are challenges, including the fact that over 70% of our students require remediation and more than 70% of our students receive financial aid. Many of our students work more hours than healthy for academic success. And if they drop out for more than a single quarter, their chances of graduation fall by more than 40%. So retention must be a key priority.

As it has been for each of the past ten years, another key priority is an environment of campus collegiality. We often spend more time with one another than we do with family. So to be as successful as we can as individuals and as an institution, it’s vital that we have a collegial workplace.

I believe that environment of collegiality has sustained us through difficult times, including budget cuts, limited salary increases, acrimonious salary negotiations and the assortment of conflicts and tensions hat have plagued various other campuses.

We survived in part by seeing the likelihood of the ’03-’04 and ’04-’05 budget cuts earlier than some others—letting us park resources in anticipation of the cuts—and thus spreading the impact over several years.

We’ve been conservative in creating a reserve. And it helped immensely that we developed budget reduction principles that were broadly accepted and implemented without gaming. Those principles differentially protected academic programs and safeguarded permanent employee jobs.

In the absence of a collegial environment, I believe those strategies would have been shredded in the jaws of conflict readily seen at some other schools.

When I say collegiality, I mean both a system of campus organization and an atmosphere that fosters collaborative relationships based on the honest search for what’s right and what are the best ways to get there.

Collegial approaches must be built on trust. So I’ve never understood why some people don’t understand the truth of Maya Angelou’s often repeated truism that “people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people never forget how you made them feel.”

So, to put it simply, liking and enjoying the people you work with is positive and promises a great deal more individual satisfaction as well as group success.

There’s an old cynical saying that “God created work so people wouldn’t fight only with strangers.” It doesn’t have to be that way. This is a special place. While we undertake change and debate what comes next, let’s make sure we keep its best features and make this workplace even better.

Let me shift to a new priority. In mid-April, as you know, there was a shooting at Virginia Tech which took the largest number of lives ever by a single assailant. We need to use that tragedy as a lens to examine public safety issues here at CSUSB.

We can’t be a medieval fortress. In fact, because we’re the most open of institutions, it’s possible for a single deranged person to wreak havoc. Conversely, while we’ll remain accessible, we also need to be vigilant.

We’re fortunate to have a highly trained professional police force of 16 members. We have disaster preparation procedures, as well as processes for evacuating buildings and the campus itself.

Current communication avenues include e-mail to faculty, staff and students; recorded voice messages to all campus phones; emergency messages on the campus hotline; news updates on our website; messages on our marquee at the entry to campus; as well as radio and other releases for those in transit.

I asked Vice President DeMauro and our safety personnel to explore other communication instruments. They recommend that we adopt a siren system, which can immediately signal students and others to check e-mail, voice-over-IP phone messages and other media for further information.

They also recommend installing software onto our voice-over-IP phone system that would permit voice mail to be broadcast over speaker phones placed in classrooms and hallways. Text messaging and classroom locks were not recommended.

To get feedback before decisions are made, we’ll discuss the recommendations in various open sessions. Given the issue, I’d like to move soon.

To deal with threatening behavior, I appointed a committee of faculty and staff, chaired by Dale West, to review existing processes and protocols concerning assessment, intervention and management of disruptive behavior by any member of the campus community. The report will be completed, and circulated, by the end of December.

Finally, our police phone number is 7-5165. Since it’s not easily remembered, I asked IRT personnel to identify an easier 5-digit number. They proposed 7-HELP (or 7-4357) or simply a number such as 7-7777. We’ll seek feedback on this question, as well.

The development of new academic programs is an additional high priority. There are several new programs in place or in planning stages. Last year, we accepted students into a new BS in Computer Engineering—our first Engineering degree and the CSU system’s first new Engineering program in over 20 years.

There’s also been planning for our first Masters of Fine Arts degrees—in Studio Art and in Creative Writing. And after an exceedingly arduous WASC review, we’ve been authorized to offer, beginning in a few days, our first doctoral program, an EdD in Educational Leadership—with faculty drawn from across campus. Debby Stine and Jenny Zorn were especially instrumental in securing approval.

And the Fullerton Art Museum was given interim accreditation by the American Association of Museums. When permanently accredited, the Fullerton will become one of only 5% of museums with such recognition.

Next, we hope to continue to improve on the number of tenure track faculty. Funding will condition our efforts, but the Provost would like to recruit at least 26 positions.

Last year, we were successful in hiring 31 faculty out of 47 advertised lines, for a success rate of 66%, about average for recent years, but significantly below the 85% success level for the year before.

To improve our chances of hiring underrepresented faculty, academic units have been asked to stay in touch with and encourage McNair and forgivable loan students to consider CSUSB as their academic home after they finish their doctoral programs.

To assist with housing costs, we developed a partnership with the City of San Bernardino, which reserved $1 million for each of two years to subsidize faculty who can qualify based on salary and dependents.

We’re also nearing agreement with the developer who has rights to land behind the university, but needs access across the eastern edge of campus. In return, we’ve negotiated for four acres of partially developed property that could be used to build about 70 homes. Other parts of the agreement including gifting the university a land preserve of over 200 acres.

Discussions are also underway to see what might be created across Northpark and on Little Mountain Road. Risa Dickson, of the President’s Office, and Lillian Hernandez, in Human Resources, will provide information to anyone interested in housing options.

I want to speak briefly about two large system-wide technology initiatives. The first is called “Academic Transformation” and focuses on offering courses through a blend of face-to-face and on-line activities that improve student learning, make more effective use of faculty time and talent, increase access to educational opportunity, and reduce both time to degree and the costs of instructional delivery.

The emphasis is on courses that have large enrollments or many sections, for example, general education “bottleneck courses” and remedial courses.

Actually, according to Professor Jim Monaghan, 83% of our students were in on-line courses last year, and about 2000 course sections employed on-line content. That’s nearly one-third of all undergrad courses. Overall, a third of our faculty taught on-line at least some of the time last year.

This initiative is voluntary, and some may feel apprehensive. I like the cartoon with two crows sitting on a telephone wire. One looks to the other and says, “I’ve been reading a lot, and I’m really worried about all this wireless stuff.”

A second Chancellor’s Office emphasis is intended to assure that technology meets the needs of persons with disabilities. Given the backdrop of federal and state laws and regulations, the CSU launched the “Accessibility Technology Initiative”—or ATI—to help campuses make information technology and services accessible to all students, faculty, staff and the general public, regardless of disability.

There’s a three-year plan to assure access to the web; access to instructional materials; and access to electronic and information technology procurement.

I appointed a committee headed by Lorraine Frost and Frank Rincon to ensure accessibility. The committee has been active, but we all need to work together if we’re to meet these moral, social and legal obligations. Vice President Freund will supply the campus with more in-depth information about the ATI.

This campus has a new logo and seal, thanks to faculty and students from the Graphic Design Program, as well as staff from Public Affairs, Academic Computing and Media, and Duplicating Services. With the start of this new academic year, the logo and seal are CSUSB’s official graphic representation.

You can order new letterhead and cards from Campus Duplicating. There’s a Public Affairs table in the lobby where you can see how the new look will be used and have questions answered. I’m sure more information will be forthcoming.

The last priority concerns capital developments. We’ve had a great growth support spurt, and when current projects are completed, CSUSB’s footprint will be nearly doubled, since 1998, to 2.8 million square feet.

Last April, we finally finished the Student Recreation and Fitness Center, which is likely to win architectural awards. It has a complement of exercise and weight machines, free weights and 35 TV sets, so no one misses their favorite daytime programs. There’s also a gym, two group-exercise rooms and a 34-foot climbing wall.

The Center has generated a warm sense of community. To further the wellness goal, I offered that the university pay one-half of the fee for full-time CSUSB employees. Partially in response, more than one-half of our full-time personnel signed up—in excess of 500 born-again athletes.

Since students will pay $140 this year, employees will also pay that amount. The campus will continue to cover half the fee, so if you sign up by October 15, it will cost just $70 for the year.

The Biology building renovations are finished and Physical Sciences is due to be completed by next March. The 130,000 square foot Education Building is springing out of the ground, to be finished by next April. A month later, in May, we’ll take possession of the Palm Desert Health Sciences building, which will complete the first phase of the campus.

The eastside parking structure, between the Coussoulis and the Education building, will be finished by November, and the westside facility in February. The loop road is near completion, and it will open after the city concludes, in late December, installation of a traffic light at Little Mountain and Northpark.

We’re in the planning phase for a $1.5 million expansion of the Nursing area and also an addition to the Student Health Center.

Thanks to David DeMauro and Hamid Azhand, the Chancellor’s Office approved over $10 million in bond funds for disability improvements. And our Facilities folks are pursuing 12 energy-saving upgrades that include a high efficiency chiller and a 425-foot water well. These initiatives will significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions and save a predicted $1 million a year after 10 years.

Finally, we’ll seek funds from the next state bond for a $70 million renovation and addition to the Performing Arts building, though we’ll need fundraising to improve our position in the queue.

As PAES students demonstrate, CSUSB is at least as effective as selective institutions in retaining and graduating well prepared students. More important is what you do for students who are not so well prepared—often due to life’s uneven playing fields—and the skills you help them develop.

A college education is the fuel for life’s opportunities, raising incomes, increasing introspection, promoting civic involvement and helping to overcome past inequities. Higher education is also the engine for a healthy economy for all of us.

Thanks for making the world a better place by what you do. I wish you a great year.