2001 Convocation Speech | Albert K. Karnig

September 13, 2001

Welcome to the beginning of the fall quarter. I hope each of you had a productive and refreshing summer.

As I suggested in my e-mail invitation yesterday, because of Tuesday’s terrorism and its staggering toll, I considered delaying this convocation and the conferral of staff awards. My heart was then, and is now, quite heavy -- and I share with you a feeling of emptiness.

As you might guess, I’m from NYC originally, so I might be a bit better acquainted with the Twin Towers and have more family and friends who work in the area. Fortunately, I don't know of anyone who died on Tuesday.

I believe education offers the only possible long-term bridge over the chasm of beliefs and hatreds that now exist -- beliefs so immutable and hatreds so white hot and intense that personal death -- suicide -- is a viable outcome.

At the University, we are, or at we least we should be, much like a family. We work to accomplish various goals and, like in a family, we're often cranky with one another. But if we work well, we nurture one another and the next generation. And you know, we often spend more time with each another than we do with our families at home.

While selfishly thankful that none of our family of students, faculty or staff were evidently caught up in the furious whirlpool of Tuesday’s events, our family here -- and the broader family of Americans and citizens across the world -- simply ache for those who were sucked into the vortex.

Our thoughts, our prayers and our solidarity are with the innocents who were struck down and with their families and friends whose burden of grief will be great. We also feel pain for those who saw directly the horrifying events unfold -- and who will forever have seared into their memories the unthinkable visions of that day.

The expression, “there but for the grace of god go I,” is one that doubtless came to the minds of many who watched the cataclysmic images uncoil in New York and Washington. Many fear that our history of security -- being bathed and protected by two mighty oceans -- is now over. And our way of life in the United States will be forever changed.

I don't know if that's true, though clearly, beyond efforts to punish those who plotted the terrorism, there will be efforts to reinvigorate the CIA, FBI and other agencies; and there will be tradeoffs, as there always are, in civil liberties.

But our attention for now should be in honor of the thousands who perished Tuesday, in honor of the families and friends who will shoulder the heaviest grief, and in honor of the many heroes -- from ordinary citizens to fire and police personnel, nurses, and countless others who sought to help.

Would you please join hands as we honor them with a minute of silent thought and prayer?

I believe the best thing we can now do is to continue the essential work of education: of fighting ignorance; prejudice; class, race and ethnic hatred. It's fundamental to our enterprise that we teach our young to live successfully, with tolerance and forbearance for one another; to stand against hatred and violence; and to stand against those who preach hatred and violence.

And so we come together, once again, hopefully, as a family, as we have at the beginning of each academic year, to consider how best to move forward, how best to conduct the essential work of higher education in our time, and in our place. Thank you for joining me here today.

Before going further, I’d like to also recognize and honor several Cal State faculty and staff who died this past year. Please join me in a few moments of silence in memory of:

Dan Mosley, University photographer with academic computing and media;
Larry Kramer, professor of English and poet of great repute;
Pierrette Serna, lecturer in Foreign Languages;
Gerald Scherba, professor emeritus of Biology; and
Vivian Bull, professor emeritus of Foreign Languages.

In addition, this past year – for the only time in recollection, a student, Coreen Flores, died on campus. During her fight for life, she was aided heroically by two other young women who rose to help and, in each case, gave CPR for their first time.

Those two women students were Pamela Taylor and Jennifer Valadao. Neither of them knew Ms. Flores but instinctively worked to try to save her life. Their courage and compassion are worthy of both recognition and praise. Pamela and Jennifer, would you please rise? Thank you again for your bravery and caring.

As I was developing my comments for today, I thought about the fact that my wife Marilyn and I were beginning our fifth year at Cal State. They’ve been good years for us, and I want to thank all of you for the friendship, encouragement, warmth, and support you’ve given to us. I hope the period has been good for you and the University as well.

In the nearly 30 years that I’ve been an academic—starting in 1972, what seems like just yesterday -- I’ve only observed one other period, during the early 1980s at ASU, when the planets lined up as well, with solid state economic expansion; strong student enrollments; general goodwill and collegiality on campus; excellent relationships with federal, state and local government officials; and virtually no town-gown conflict of any kind. While we can’t control the state’s economy, most of the other elements are at least largely in our own hands.

I want to discuss some University accomplishments, our enrollments, budgets, our changing environment, and a number of priorities for the year. And as I’ve often underscored, your views, concerns, and assessments are critical to me. That’s why I’ll continue to hold open sessions – twice each quarter – with faculty, with staff, and with students. I’d like to know what questions and suggestions you might have.

I also hope you’ll join Marilyn and me at the reception for faculty and staff this evening from 4:30 to 6:30 pm at the Upper Commons. Come for a few minutes or stay the entire time. It’s healthy to be together.

I believe the University has taken advantage of its favorable environment these past four years. Let me share some – but only some -- indicators of our success:

We’ve had record enrollments, budgets, grants and contracts, overhead funds, fundraising and nearly every other thing that is measurable.
We’ve had the largest international student class ever – with over 600 students.
We awarded the campus’s first honorary doctorate.
New program concentrations were instituted in Latin American studies, e-commerce, logistics, and water management and policy.
The Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism was created – and quickly recognized nationally.
The University and Physics professors Paul Dixon and Tim Usher reached agreement with an international corporation to commercialize Paul and Tim’s invention for teaching electronics.
Our Political Science honorary, Pi Sigma Alpha, and its advisor, Brian Janiskee, received the national “Best Chapter Award for 2001.”
From CUP to the Institute for Applied Research, to the Center for Developmental Disabilities, to the Center for Entrepreneurship, to our Health Collaborative, to the Water Resources Institute, our Centers and Institutes had considerable success in creating partnerships and delivering programs in the communities we serve.
Our Environmental Expo was the largest and best attended such function is California; and its director, Darlene Stoner, was selected South Coast Air Quality Management District Environmental Educator of the Year.
Jenny Zorn was elected president of the California Geographical Society.
Tom Rivera was honored as the Humanitarian of the Year by the Inland Empire Business Press; and he was given the Loma Linda Children’s Foundation award entitled “Hometown Hero.”
Robert Whitehead won first and third place in the sports division of the national Military Photography of the Year contest.
Irv Howard was named to serve on the B’nai B’rith Anti-Defamation League Committee to develop a Los Angeles museum to celebrate diversity and inspire tolerance.
Jessica Flynn, a Chemistry major, received one of only six Randolph Hearst/CSU Trustee scholarships for outstanding achievement.
Thanks to Elva Salgado and many others, we completed the University’s first scholarship campaign – for $1.5 million.
We raised another $9 million for the palm desert campus.
We’ll open the first palm desert permanent building next spring – and soon thereafter break ground for the second building.
We’ll open the college of social and behavioral science facility next summer.
We’ll accept students into our new apartments later this week – with 319 beds – and then break ground on an additional 314-bed facility to open next fall.
Our athletic program rose to a new level, as women’s volleyball and men’s basketball and baseball each went to their regional finals and were just a few points, hoops and runs from going to the nationals. (You should know our women’s volleyball team is already 10-0 and ranked number 2 nationally.)
Our men’s basketball coach, Larry Reynolds, was chosen California Collegiate Athletic Association Coach of the Year for an unprecedented third straight time.
The Department of Educational Psychology and Counseling was named one of ten “engaged departments” nationally for its involvement in service learning.
Larry Mcfatter has been nominated for the Grawemeyer Award – the leading international prize in music composition. And
Les Kong was elected V.P. and President-elect of the California Library Association.

We clearly have an extraordinary faculty and staff, as well as students.

I’d like to introduce several individuals who, since last year, are in new positions as dean, assistant or associate dean, and assistant or associate vice president. Please stand when I call your name:

Associate Dean of Business and Public Administration, Dr. John Chaney.
Associate Dean of Business and Public Administration, Dr. Don Dorst.
Assistant Dean of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Dr. Mike Lemay.
Associate Dean of Natural Sciences, Dr. John Craig – to whom we owe much for his service for two years as acting dean.
Associate Dean of Natural Sciences, Dr. Jerry Thrush.
Dean of Natural Sciences, Dr. Rob Carlson, who joins us from San Diego State University.
Graduate and Undergraduate Deans, Dr. Sandra Kamusikiri and Dr. Milton Clark, whose acting appointments were made permanent
Dr. Robert McGowan, Associate V.P. for Enrollment Management, who came from Kutztown University in Pennsylvania.
Dr. Howard Wang, Assistant V.P. for Student Development, who joined us from UCLA.
Our new associate V.P. for Advancement, Lynda McNamara, who came from USC.
And finally, Dr. Kumadhavalli Sarangapani, who is President of Bombay’s SMT. P. N. Doshi Woman’s College. She is an American Council on Education-Fulbright Scholar, and we’ll be her host campus until mid-February. She would like to learn from us, and we should take the opportunity to learn from her, as well.

Please welcome each of them to their new roles and, in some cases, to our campus, as well.

If you recall last year's convocation, I spoke at length about an incident in which a young gay man had evidently been harassed on campus. I've distributed to you once again a set of principles that I discussed at my installation and at several prior convocations. While I won't retrace the points on the sheet in front of you, it's clear that the way we work with and treat one another is of overarching importance -- not just for the quality of the University but for the quality of our lives.

As I commented last year, I’m sometimes deeply disturbed by unnecessarily mean, sharp, shrill, rude commentary on our list serves. But they're usually within acceptable bounds.

That said, once again I want to stress that shared campus values, established policy, the University's very mission statement and any sense of decency dictates that hate behaviors are, with no exceptions, thoroughly unacceptable. If nothing else, we must require of ourselves a campus that is a place of safety. And we ought to accept the view that what diminishes any of us diminishes us all.

Because the University must be a refuge for diversity of opinion and freedom of speech, there will be many occasions in which opinions clash and words become heated. Some may become offended by the polar views expressed by others and the way in which an argument is framed. Freedom to commit that type of offense is protected by the first amendment and by our goal to be a sanctuary for information flow and dialogue.

But there are no protections for acts that create fear. And the University can neither condone such behavior nor avert its eyes when it occurs.

To improve our chances of success, last year:

Public safety took training to deal with hate crimes and incidents.
Housing staff underwent training on sexuality and they developed mechanisms to identify harassment.
And a group chaired by Chani Beeman produced a recommended set of campus procedures to report and respond to hate crimes and harassment.

All these steps are in the right direction. But none will be successful in the absence of each us being committed to a wholesome and egalitarian work environment.

We will accept no bashing, no harassment, no intimidation -- whether it's toward gays, lesbians, women, minorities, heterosexuals, members of religious groups or anyone else.

Permit me speak a bit about enrollments, our budget, our environment, and some of this year’s principal priorities.

Our enrollments will approach 16,000, and we’ll readily make our target of 12,300 FTES for the year. Being able to easily meet our numbers is, in part, due to our extraordinary success this past summer – with enrollments up 140 percent due to YRO funding.

Our enrollment growth is, of course, central to securing funds for future construction, including an education building, science and library add-ons, and a larger theater-music complex.

Further, enrollments are essential for funding new faculty and staff. We’ve brought in 102 new faculty since 1997-98, with a net gain of 37 positions. Last year alone, we recruited on 51 lines, and were able to hire 36 faculty. Nonetheless, if we’re going to improve on our overall ratio of permanent to temporary and fulltime to part-time faculty, we’ll need to recruit even more proactively in the future.

Enrollments are also pivotal for implementing planned academic degree programs.

However, as I’ve remarked before, most importantly, enrollment growth means the needs of students in our area – one with the second lowest college attendance in the state -- are being met.

And because of increases in graduates, we’ll have, for the first time, a December commencement.

Let me turn to this year’s budget and the likely funding picture for next year. I’d say this year’s budget is both pretty good and not very good. And next year’s is apt to be somewhat worse.

On the “pretty good” side, the CSU system was given a 6.9% overall increase – with $62 million devoted to a 3 percent enrollment increase, about $34 million in one-time and permanent funds for higher costs of energy, $10 million in campus technology build-out money, and $23.5 million for the Governor’s K-12 initiatives.

Conversely, the budget was not so good for salaries. The allocation of $40 million for raises amounts to a salary increase of only 2%.

The CSU had a great run during the past four years. The period was about as good as any I’ve observed. For example, not including promotion funding, there was an average faculty increase of 23.5%. The national rate during the same time was 14.9%.

The forecast for the near-term future is rather unfavorable – both nationally and in California. About one-third of the states have already introduced higher-education cutbacks, and the federal government is once again going to run a deficit.

For its part, California’s quarterly tax receipts and exports are both down, energy costs are the highest ever, and the budget surplus of $7 billion has plummeted to less than $1 billion – and dropping fast. It’s hard to find good in any of that.

It’s this environment that made me reluctantly withdraw my proposal to convert to semesters. While I continue to believe a conversion would be advantageous to students, faculty and staff, in these budgetary circumstances, I can’t place the campus in financial peril.

But before we get particularly gloomy, let’s remember that our state’s economy has become the 5th biggest in the world, recently replacing France. And it’s an economy of enormous resilience. I believe we’re experiencing a dip that may last a year or two, but not more.

Whether I’m right or not, we have no choice but to plan for the worst as well as work for the best. To those ends, I’ve asked each vice president to hold a minimum of 3 percent flexible for possible mid-year budget cuts. I don’t think it’s likely that we’ll have mid-year givebacks, but it may happen, so we need to be ready.

We also need to reduce, where we can, dependence on state funds. We can accelerate the flow of non-state revenue from at least 4 key sources.

The first is fundraising. Each college and student affairs will have its own development officer, as will the Water Institute and the Palm Desert campus. The last two years were records (with over $10 million a year in fundraising). We need both to continue the growth and go beyond bricks and mortar to secure program funding. Last year was an important step with the successful scholarship campaign. You’ll see a lot of activity, with advisory boards created, clear fundraising priorities established, prospects identified, and relationships developed and sustained.

Second, we’ll seek to further advance our grants and contracts. Last year was, as well, a record. Thanks to many excellent faculty proposals and the work of our Grants and Contracts Office, we had over a 20 percent increase in awards and nearly a 20 percent rise in overhead funds. There were many multi-year grants in excess of $1 million, and we’ll build on those successes.

Third, we’ll continue our efforts in Washington for special initiatives. This year, for the first time, we’ll draw funding from our multi-million dollar grants for navy civilian employee education and technology transfer. These awards come with much larger overhead that will, in turn, be employed as seed funding for various other activities. Among next year’s priorities is the search for federal, state and local funds to help build a campus conference center that can also be used for faculty and staff dining.

Finally, we have to effectively manage our enrollments and the resources devoted to them – on campus and off. This year, for example, we’ll need to add a recruitment plan for our palm desert campus. As part of that overall enrollment management model, we should continue our efforts to recruit international students and those from other states. Each adds to the genuine diversity of our campus. Moreover, non-resident tuition provides valuable additional revenue. Furthermore, we will continue to explore program linkages with institutions in other nations.

I’d like to now discuss our broader environment as I see it. Some elements are little changed; others appear quite different.

The region we serve remains huge in area and population. The Inland Empire, composed of San Bernardino and Riverside Counties – the largest and third largest counties in area below Alaska – encompass 27,000 square miles. If a state, we’d be as large as South Carolina and 9 others.

With over 3.3 million residents, as many as live in Oregon, we’d rank about 20th as a state. Region population grew nearly 30% in the 90s and will do the same in this decade.

Using conservative estimates, by the year 2020, the inland empire will add 1.8 million residents. That increase is so staggering that, once again, if we were a state, we’d rank number 4 nationally in growth – behind only Florida, Texas and California itself.

It’s that pace that will carry us to enrollments of at least 25,000 students. But unless the area deals with transportation outcomes, that pace of growth will produce gridlock and a total breakdown in the quality of life. The University can contribute its expertise, as it does in other key areas, by assisting in the identification of issues and solutions. I look forward to seeing the final recommendations for a University Transportation Center.

But while we talk about the “Inland Empire” region, there really is little in place to provide regional information and perspective for the area’s citizens. In fact, newspaper coverage is quite fragmented. And the limited local TV news comes from Los Angeles, with a heavy tilt to the sensational – crime, drug labs, and the like.

And there is essentially no television public affairs programming on education, area politics, cultural issues, economic development, water, transportation, air quality, health care, and myriad other concerns.

Moreover, just as the area has little capacity for mass communication about itself, and is basically invisible, the University also lacks recognition in the community.

To help treat both shortcomings, we’ve entered a partnership with a dozen cities along the I-10 corridor – from Montclair, Upland and Ontario to Redlands and Yucaipa -- for the University to manage their public access cable TV channels during prime-time hours. We don’t know of any other similar network in the nation.

Our goal is to develop news and public affairs programs that may be viewed by a network with over 800,000 cable subscribers. We believe it has the potential for extraordinary service to the communities we serve. It’s also a remarkable opportunity to showcase the University’s expertise and academic programs, gain visibility of value in student recruitment and fundraising, as well as present, from time to time, concerts, plays, museum exhibits, and athletic events.

Cindi Pringle, who is directing the project, and others will work with units on campus to find ways in which they might wish to contribute their disciplinary expertise – potentially from every college on campus.

The increases in regional population have not been across the board and, interestingly, our enrollments have also changed in unexpected ways.

In the last decade, our area has seen a sharp increase in Latinos – a rise of 550,000 (an astonishing 82 percent) -- as well as substantial 42 percent growth in African Americans and 50 percent among Asian Americans. There’s also been an actual loss of over 80,000 Anglos. The result is a region without a majority, with 47 percent Anglos and an emerging future majority of Latinos (currently 38 percent).

The population growth will continue because housing is much less expensive here than on the coast, where only a scant quarter to a third of families can afford median priced homes. And our base occupations are likely to continue to be largely blue collar, including manufacturing, construction, and logistics. There will remain substantial socioeconomic disparities, social fragmentation, as well as many students who come from families with language obstacles and little prior experience with formal education. So we’ll continue to have many first-generation students on campus.

We already are among the four most diverse campuses in California for Latinos and African Americans; and given population swings, the percentage will grow among Latinos, African Americans, and Asian Americans, as well.

We are now a Hispanic and Minority Serving Institution – designations given by the federal government which provide access to various grants and opportunities for the campus and all of its students and personnel.

Given our enrollment profile, to reasonably reflect the diversity of our student and community constituencies, we need to be vigilant in our recruitment processes. I’ve also asked both the Provost and the Diversity Committee to examine the possibility of creating a Diversity Training Center – a unit that can employ the University’s expertise in treating issues that are found, and will likely grow in importance, in the communities, governments, businesses and other institutions found in southern California.

In addition, we’re creating partnerships with both Catholic and African American churches to help improve college attendance rates. Specifically, we want to meet with students and with parents, who themselves may have little or no experience with formal education, in places where they may feel more comfortable, to discuss requirements, expectations, financial aid, and other matters of relevance.

Clearly, we must continue our efforts to reduce the need for remediation by efforts such as our work with 25 high schools and the $4.3 million dollar gear-up grant led by Donna Schnorr. Actually, our gear-up math project has been selected as the program model for the University of California Office of Educational Outreach.

In addition, when students are successful in coming to Cal State, we must be certain that we’re offering sufficient guidance. We need to examine closely recommendations made by the University committee focused on advisement and retention. And we will review again this year our services to evening students.

With regard to a different kind of program, some members of the Mexican American community want us to develop an undergraduate Chicano Studies degree to be offered by a department of Chicano Studies. At a meeting last spring including community and CSUSB faculty and student advocates, as well as other personnel, I said we would assess the request this fall. Provost Fernandez and Assistant to the Provost for Diversity Initiatives and Special Projects, Juan Delgado, have begun to examine what other universities are offering, and they will undertake an analysis of student interest. Appropriate Faculty Senate committees also will participate in the examination.

Beyond ethnicity, the campus is undergoing other serious changes in enrollment patterns.

For example, contrary to what many believe, our median undergraduate age is just 22; and over 80 percent of undergraduate students are full time. These measures will shift even more toward traditional profiles with the addition of over 630 students living on campus in the next two years. Because of the growing numbers of younger, on-campus and fulltime students, our Student Affairs division will begin to develop long-term strategies for programs and services that meet their needs.

Furthermore, even as we celebrate that we’ll have more than a thousand students living on campus, we need to understand the host of related issues that may follow. For one, Student Affairs will work on our policies and goals with respect to alcohol.

In addition, to meet the needs of the campus community, I’ve asked that we employ a temporary exercise/recreation facility until a permanent one can be built. Those temporary quarters should be in place by this January. We’ll accelerate construction of both the student union addition and the exercise/recreation facility. And you’ll see improved signage and the creation of new campus social spaces, by Jack Brown Hall and elsewhere.

Our division of Administration and Finance also will explore alternative plans for parking and street access. With regard to parking, we don’t have enough space to simply add surface parking to accommodate all future growth. And we clearly need to add street access to campus. Fortunately, as a starter, we’ve worked with the city on developing a new thoroughfare, from Kendall to North Park, which will intersect with the campus near the corporation yard.

We’ll also devote this year to getting our arms a bit better around technology opportunities and challenges. Specifically, we’ll work on developing a long-term technology plan and complete the Human Resources and Finance CMS projects.

We’ll closely review our system of telecommunication charges and try to reduce the often-unnecessary flow of paper processing by instituting electronic approvals.

And we also need to explore ways to better integrate our various distributive learning programs and distance technologies, including our commitment, in a $2 million title 5 grant, to provide degree completion programs at community colleges. As part of this review, we’ll assess whether we wish to pursue a request from the Governor’s Office that we consider serving as the university portal to provide distance education programs across California for teachers, advanced high school students, and state employees.

There are obviously a great many opportunities for the University, and some challenges, as well. How we treat the opportunities and challenges will help to define what we are as a University and who we are as individuals.

Not yet 40 years old, we have behind us a solid history of achievement. And ahead of us is the prospect of great future progress. For most universities, their best days are behind them; for us, the vistas are just unfolding.

Permit me a few concluding remarks. I believe that as a University faculty and staff, you can be very proud of what you’ve become and what you’ve developed. And you have every reason to be profoundly optimistic about what’s ahead. You’re the reasons for the University’s success and stability – and the reasons for its future. Thank you!

I’ll be happy to address any questions you have after the convocation or at one or another of the meetings I’ll hold with faculty, staff and students. Or call me, send an e-mail, or ask tonight at the reception.

This is a special place to be -- and a special time to be here.

I look forward to seeing you tonight. And once more, please accept my appreciation and applause for all you do.