A Moment with President Tomás Morales – August 2023

I hope that you have been having a good summer. Here at CSUSB, August has become one of the busiest times of year. That is because we do not slow down over the summer months but continue with our robust offerings to our continuing, prospective and incoming students. We have expanded our available summer courses. And added more onboarding, orientation and college remediation programs. Lastly, now that we are on a semester schedule, August means a brief couple of weeks of final preparations before the fall semester launches mid-way through.

Our classrooms are being refreshed, our faculty are completing their course plans, and our departmental heads and divisional vice presidents are assessing the last year and putting in place best practices for the coming twelve months. If we’ve learned one thing over the past three years, the constant in all of this is change. We also know that, in spite of all our planning, some of that change may be completely unexpected. Finally, while change can be painful, we have also learned that it presents us with tremendous opportunities to grow stronger, more resilient and better able to serve our students.

One of the largest changes for the CSU System came this July, when the CSU Board of Trustees appointed the 11th—and first Latina—chancellor, Dr. Mildred Garcia. I am delighted to welcome incoming Chancellor Garcia back to the CSU where she previously served as the president of Dominguez Hills and then Fullerton. She is currently serving as the president of the American Association of State Colleges and Universities.  She will assume her duties on October 1, 2023. A link to her announcement video is here.

Also in July, California Governor Gavin Newsom and the State Legislature reached a deal on the 2023-24 budget. On behalf of CSUSB, I express my thanks to the Governor and State Legislature for:

1. Supporting the CSU budget augmentation compact of a 5% increase, per the fiscal year 2022-23 Compact—we send our appreciation to the Governor for his continued support of this agreement. While the base funding increase does not fully cover the CSU’s projected ongoing operating costs, it offers predictable and reliable levels of current and future funding and provides a valuable element of protection against a more severe economic downturn.
2. Providing funding to support debt service payments for CSUSB’s infrastructure projects: the Palm Desert Campus Student Success Center (Wallis/Garcia) and a $4.34M increase to the MSPA Capitol Building project funding to accommodate a 50-student co-hort.  I would like to note that the latter was championed by California State Senator Richard Roth himself—this was not a budget request made by CSUSB.
3. Providing funding for mental health services for our students.
4. And providing funding for the basic needs of our housing and food insecure students.

However, based on the fiscal year 2023-24 enrollment projection, CSUSB is projecting a base deficit from the loss of student fee revenue. The Cabinet and I continue to work with all university divisions, including all the academic colleges, to address the budget deficit.  We will also be meeting with the University Budget Advisory Committee early in the fall and will be holding a campus budget open forum on October 17th. 

I remain optimistic. CSUSB has weathered past economic storms, and I believe we will do so again. We do this by remaining thoughtful, assessing our actions and making decisions that are data-driven, and taking a people-first approach as best as we can. We are here to serve the residents of the Inland Empire and that mission continues to lie at the core of all that we do.

Until next time—