Good morning. It is such a pleasure to be with all of you as we gather at the dawn of a new academic year to reflect on our recent accomplishments, refocus on our aspirations, and welcome new members to our academic community.
So, let me begin by welcoming:
- Our new student government President Sara Ruiz and Vice President Isaiah Ball
- Academic Senate Chair Dr. Greg Wood
- Returning Staff Council Chair Rosario Cuevas
- Several members of our Foundation Board
- The newest members of our senior leadership team
- Dr. Alicia Virtue, Dean of the Broome Library
- Dr. Sheila Grant, AVP for Faculty Affairs
- Dr. James August, CIO and AVP for IT Services
- Barbara Rex, Assistant Vice President for Budget, Planning and Analysis
- And Mark Patterson, our new University Ombuds Officer.
- The newest members of our faculty: 13 new tenure-track faculty members and 20 new lecturer faculty who hail from disciplines ranging from Health Science to Communication.
- 34 new staff members who have joined teams across the campus.
- And last but certainly not least, my new sidekick Doc, named after the late Dr. Richard Grossman and his wife Elizabeth whose foundation along with New Life K-9s so generously brought him to us. If you have not met him, I recommend swinging by the Veterans Resource Center to say hello.
Welcome to our academic community, I look forward to partnering with each of you in the years ahead as we continue to reimagine higher education for a new generation and a new era.
Every year, as summer approaches and the exuberance of our academic community begins to fade, I notice that it transfers to my home which becomes animated with the adventures of two boys. This summer, we had the great fortune of spending time with family and visiting my childhood home. As I basked in the nostalgia that ensued, I relished the opportunity to show my boys two bookends of my childhood. The first was the elementary school where I discovered my passion for science; the second, the intersection where my sister introduced me to my first fender bender that transpired when, she insists to this day, a tree jumped in front of our mother’s car.
As we continued on this journey and my mind was flooded with memories attached to places from long ago, I began to reflect upon a sense of place. A sense of place cannot be found by looking at a map and it is often difficult to describe. It is the lived experiences; the smells, the sounds, the feelings, that are attached to a given location and that imbue it with meaning.
And in that moment, I realized that establishing a sense of place for our students may be among the most vital aspects of our work.
We are not just any academic community; we are an exceptional institution of higher learning rooted in imagination, idealism and hope. Hope that we will enable the potential of every student that enters our doors and that they will flourish beyond them as future leaders in service of a more learned, just and equitable future. Hope that each of us will realize our greatest intellectual potential here as well and leave a legacy as innovators who set a new path for the future of higher education.
That is the sense of place that I experience on our campus.
Of course, the place in which we find ourselves has a much richer and deeper history than any of us have personally experienced as the first people to gather here were the Chumash. Legend shares how the ancient Chumash crossed over to the mainland from the Channel Islands on a rainbow bridge between sacred mountain peaks. Those who fell from the bridge were turned into dolphins by Hutash, Earth Mother. The dolphin is a symbol of Chumash stewardship of the waters and lands of this region, which is now also entrusted to all of us. The sacred Round Mountain, known as sat’wiwa, that overlooks our campus is a powerful reminder of this shared responsibility.
This year, we will be working collaboratively with our Chumash partners to increase the visibility of their local heritage, to restore places and practices of cultural significance, and to promote opportunities for education and outreach.
Soon we will begin to restore the trail to Round Mountain, sat’wiwa, where people gathered to acknowledge one of the most important times of the year, the winter solstice. You will have the opportunity to participate with the trail restoration on September 21 and the celebration of winter solstice in late December. We will be updating our building and road signs to include the Barbareño-Ventureño Chumash dialect of our region and our campus will be constructing a tomol - the Chumash plank canoe - for educational purposes.
We are working to strengthen our connections with and promote opportunities for indigenous peoples, including our own faculty, staff and students. It is through the strengthening of these relationships that we also recognize and honor how cultivating a sense of place, and in this case one that is informed by indigenous values, can set us on the path to realizing our greatest aspirations.
Today, each of you received a new dolphin pin which serves as a symbol of this connection. I hope that the artwork will remind you of our bond and shared sense of place.
As we reflect upon this past year, I am reminded of the tremendous accomplishments from every corner of our campus:
- In June, we received the extraordinary honor of being recognized with the Seal of Excelencia for facilitating the success of Latinx students. This recognition was sought after by colleges and Universities across the country and we were one of only nine and the only campus in the State of California to receive it.
- Last Friday, I received word that Time’s Money magazine just ranked CI as the 9th Most Transformative University in the country based on the post-graduate success of our alumni.
- And earlier this year we were ranked as the 4th best college in the nation for transfer students. The quality of this work is featured on the cover of the most recent issue of the Association of American Colleges & Universities in a publication authored by several members of our faculty and staff.
- Dr. Andrew Morris and Dr. Jared Barton both received Fulbright Teaching Awards and MVS alumna Sharon Espinosa was honored with a Fulbright Teaching Assistantship.
- The Class of 2019, led by Student Government, raised the largest class gift in the history of our campus to establish a hot meals program for students struggling with food insecurity.
- Dr. Jason Miller and Dr. Michael Soltys served as fellows in the Office of Naval Research’s Summer Faculty Research program.
- Tonee Sherrill received the national Revis A. Cox Award for Social Justice.
- Dr. Maria Ballesteros-Sola and Dr. Robin Mitchell were among a handful of CSU faculty members selected to attend the CSU’s International Faculty Partnership Seminar this summer in Paris.
- The Communication & Marketing team was recognized with a host of awards for the exemplary quality of their creative work.
- Dr. Kaia Tollefson and Dean Sevier brought the Encampment, a youth project initially supported by Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Eleanor Roosevelt, to CI this summer where teens from across the country wrestled with issues like immigration, labor and the environment.
- Dr. Sohui Lee served as one of the faculty leaders at the prestigious International Writing Centers Association Summer Institute.
- And, just three weeks ago, Assistant Professor of Art, Jasmine Delgado learned that her Reseda Rye IPA label was chosen by 8 One 8 Brewing.
We do not have enough time to recognize all of the accomplishments of the past year. And while we often focus on the visible awards and national recognitions, it is the cumulative impact of the daily successes that often go unnoticed that truly advance our mission. The staff member who sees a gap in support for our students and takes the initiative to work across areas to provide it. The grounds crew, who partners with our faculty and students to advance a more sustainable campus environment.
So, I’d like to take a moment to thank each of you for your daily commitment to enabling a place where the transformative power of higher education is realized.
And while we celebrate the accomplishments from last year, we look forward to the work ahead as we continue to advance our strategic initiatives.
Our first Strategic Initiative is Educational Excellence.
- I’d like to begin by congratulating the 11 faculty members whose commitment to the highest academic ideals was recognized with their promotion to the rank of Associate Professor with tenure.
- Earlier this summer, we received a $5 million appropriation to begin planning the establishment of a childcare facility and lab school that will serve as a model for expanding access to high-quality early childhood education for underserved communities.
- The Student Undergraduate Research Fellows devoted their summer to conducting primary research examining everything from compounds to cure cancer to preserving the history of our region for the Museum of Ventura County. The quality of their work was nothing short of remarkable. These experiences would not be possible without the financial support that allows our students to participate. So, it is my great pleasure to announce that we just received the lead gift to establish an endowment for Undergraduate Research and Creative Activities. I would like to thank Rod Gilbert and the TOLD Foundation for this generous investment in academic excellence.
- Because of the continued investment in expanding data infrastructure, we now have accurate information on how many of our students go on to graduate school. I am delighted to share with you that 29 percent of our 2012 and 2014 graduating classes entered post-graduate programs.
- Our nursing faculty, in collaboration with the broader School of Arts and Sciences crafted a proposal for a Master of Science in Nursing that will help alleviate the national shortage of nursing faculty.
- And, Dr. Amy Denton led an interdisciplinary group of students on an 18-day, 2,000- nautical-mile-research journey through the Arctic Ocean, researching the effects of climate change on the Northwest Passage.
In the year ahead:
- We will continue to invest in expanding our tenure-track faculty and this year, I have authorized the search for 16 net new tenure-track faculty members in programs ranging from Anthropology to Business Ethics and Physics.
- To ensure that our faculty have the resources they need to advance their scholarly and creative work, I have authorized a new $200,000 research travel fund in Academic Affairs that will be allocated as part of a peer-reviewed process.
- Thanks to the generous gift of a Santa Barbara couple, the Santa Rosa Island Research Station, is developing an interdisciplinary field school that is focused on the island’s natural and cultural resources and its global relevance.
- Under the leadership of our Accreditation Liaison Officer, Dr. Jenn Perry, we will be preparing for the midcycle accreditation review from WASC this year.
- And, finally, we will be engaging with a broad compliment of campus stakeholders to begin the search for a regularly-appointed provost.
And now, on to Student Success:
I know that each of us believes in our students and their aspiration of attaining a college degree. We set high academic expectations; and we scaffold opportunities for discovery, learning and growth.
In reviewing the most recent student success data, we have experienced mixed results in realizing our GI 2025 goals. In encouraging news, the 2- and 4-year graduation rates for our new transfer students have improved, and with the addition of this summer’s anticipated graduates, we are ahead of pace to meet both of our GI 2025 transfer benchmarks - this is a significant accomplishment.
However, facilitating the success of our freshmen students is where we have the most work to do. As you can see, the Fall 2013 and 2014 first-time full-time cohorts have a 21.5% 4-year graduation rate – this figure combines spring and summer graduates. For the Fall 2015 cohort, we anticipate the final numbers being slightly higher with the addition of this summer’s graduates, but we are not making satisfactory progress. Our goal as delineated by the Chancellor’s Office and the legislature is to graduate 40 percent of our freshmen in 4 years and 67 percent of our freshmen in 6 years. When examining the Fall 2011, 2012 and 2013 cohorts, our 6-year graduation rates have steadily declined, and we are not on track to meet our benchmarks. Most concerning of all, the equity gap has increased for the 2013 cohort with regards to our historically underserved and Pell recipient students.
It is important to remember that this work is complex, it involves multiple strategies and it takes time. But we must approach our work with a sense of urgency - each and every one of our students deserves our commitment to helping them succeed. I am confident that we will realize our goals, not by lowering our rigorous academic standards, but by elevating them.
Decades of research indicate that what distinguishes those universities with high graduation rates and non-existent equity gaps is a shared belief in the collective responsibility for student success. Though institutional processes are important, it is individuals that make the difference. Every person in this room, every office across campus plays a critical role in realizing these ambitious goals and in eliminating the equity gap. With dedicated and sustained effort, we will get there.
As part of our work with Student Success, I’d like to highlight a few of our accomplishments:
- The Division of Student Affairs has developed a comprehensive interactive dashboard that integrates institution level data with Student Affairs program-specific data to examine the relationship between utilization of services and student success. The dashboard provides timely access to student success data to enable evidence-informed decision making with regards to prioritization, program improvement, and budget decisions. The Chancellor’s Office is spearheading a more comprehensive system-wide data and assessment program to examine the impact of Student Affairs programs on our GI 2025 efforts, and I am proud to share they are utilizing our Dashboard as the model by which all CSU Student Affairs programs should be evaluating and assessing the impact of their DSA programs on student success.
- Our Basic Needs Program continues to expand. The Division of Student Affairs received a CalFresh grant, a Ventura County Continuum of Care grant and partnered with Food Share to provide additional support to our students experiencing food and housing insecurity. During the fall 2018 semester, our Dolphin Food Pantry served 731 unique students and 90 percent of students who utilized the food pantry stayed enrolled through the spring 2019 semester.
- Academic advising has partnered with our Student Academic Success & Equity Initiatives (SASEI) and their PEEPS program to work with students on academic probation. These efforts have involved intentional outreach, increased advising support and peer mentorship. These efforts contributed to a 25 percent reduction of students on academic probation.
- Financial aid has fully implemented software to improve the verification process, which allows financial aid staff to conduct targeted outreach to various student groups (e.g., EOP and TRiO) to ensure their financial aid paperwork is completed in a timely fashion. In addition, financial aid has partnered with our Housing and Residential Education program to embed financial aid support in our residence halls to proactively support our housing students.
In the year ahead:
- Our MVS School of Business will launch an embedded peer mentor program in first-year, high enrolled, high failure gateway courses focusing on academic support and co-curricular engagement.
- Our School of Arts and Sciences will implement degree planners for all programs to enhance course scheduling and facilitate timely degree progression.
- The Division of Student Affairs will implement a comprehensive student wellness initiative and case management model for our CAPS, Basic Needs, and CARE teams that will allow for greater outreach, prevention and support.
- And finally, since our campus data indicates that students who meet with an advisor have greater success than those who do not, the advising team, in close collaboration with the academic deans and faculty advisors, will be implementing a mandatory academic advising program for all incoming freshmen.
Now on to Inclusive Excellence
As a vibrant, multicultural campus community that is rooted in a sense of place, we are committed to ensuring that every member of our campus experiences the university in a way that facilitates a sense of belonging. Now, more than ever, it is imperative that we stand firmly in our values of social justice and reject false equivalencies between ideologies that seek to dehumanize with those that seek the basic human rights of dignity and respect for all. There is not more than one side to hate crimes and domestic terrorism that target people for their race, religion, who they love, their gender identity or where they come from. Hate has no place in our republic. Hate has no place in higher education. And hate, most certainly, has no place at Cal State Channel Islands.
There is only one way to realize academic excellence and it runs right through equity and inclusion. If we are to realize our greatest potential, we must embrace and engage the richness of diversity in our community.
- With the support of a grant from the Chancellor’s Office, Student Affairs and Enrollment Management launched the African American Outreach and Transitions Academy which resulted in a 71% increase in African American students enrolled on our campus this fall over last.
- Led by Principal Investigator Dr. Blake Gillespie along with several of his colleagues, our campus just received a $2.5 million grant from the National Science Foundation to develop programming and research opportunities to facilitate the success of Latinx and female students pursuing STEM fields.
- Last spring, we received the analysis of our first campus Climate Survey and are beginning to use the results to enhance campus climate and engagement.
In the year ahead,
- My Advisory Council for Inclusive Excellence will continue to host dialogue on campus and begin advancing recommendations for future policy and practice.
- Faculty Affairs, under the leadership of Dr. Sheila Grant, will be working across Academic Affairs and the Academic Senate to develop a faculty hiring handbook and a plan for increasing faculty diversity.
- Inspired by community leaders Bedford and Dr. Irene Pinkard, several of our faculty members will be launching a Living-Learning Community with specific focus on the African Diaspora.
- In concert with our efforts to embrace our indigenous culture, I am establishing the President’s Advisory Council for Cultural Protocols under the leadership of Raudel Bañuelos and Dr. Jenn Perry.
And, it is with great enthusiasm, that I announce that under the leadership of Dr. Jennie Luna, we have created a home for the Michele Serros collection which will serve as a tribute to the revered and accomplished poet and author who is an inspiration to our entire academic community. You are all invited to the ribbon cutting ceremony this afternoon.
As we turn to our Capacity and Sustainability initiative, I want to take a moment to express my sincerest appreciation to everyone who dedicated themselves to advocating for investment in the CSU including our students and CSSA, our faculty and CFA and our staff and CSUEU.
The final budget did not fully fund the Trustees request, but it reflected a 6% increase to our general operating budget and several sources of one-time funds.
Overall, this investment reflected a significant infusion of new resources into the CSU and the recognition that an investment in the public higher education is an investment in the future of California. You will all receive an updated budget memo from me next week that details the impact of this investment on our campus.
While the budget was markedly improved for the CSU this year, there is nothing about our present circumstances that has caused me to re-think the need to continue to develop innovative new revenue streams to ensure we are able to continue to provide the highest quality educational experiences to our students.
While we will continue our steadfast advocacy for state investment, we must also recognize that resources are unlikely to be provided to us at the levels we have received in the past or at the levels we need to advance our vision for academic excellence. This means that we must simultaneously invest in areas central to our mission while also improving efficiency and regularizing our business practices.
This year, we have some additional flexibility with one-time funds and I have set aside $1.5 million in one-time funds to support our Strategic Initiatives that advance our GI 2025 goals. The details of this budget process will be distributed from the Strategic Resource and Planning Committee.
We have made significant progress in Capacity & Sustainability.
- Our fundraising efforts continue to expand and we closed the fiscal year with nearly $3.9 million in new philanthropic investment. I am deeply grateful to our Development team and our Foundation Board for their partnership in advancing these critical efforts, including the establishment of our new Peer Mentor Ambassador Program.
- We have continued to expand summer activity on campus and this year we increased the revenue from Conferences and Events by more than 200% resulting in the infusion of additional resources to our campus.
- After the series of tragedies we experienced last year, we developed a comprehensive plan to improve campus emergency communication and response. As part of those efforts, we will invest $1.2 million dollars this year to upgrading our facilities.
- Our new solar array will be installed this year which represents an important step in our conversion to green power and will provide long-term savings to the University as the cost of grid electricity continues to rise.
- Thanks to the generous contributions of our community supporters, we will be renovating Central Mall this year to accommodate the ever-increasing number of graduates who participate in commencement.
- Our conceptual plan for the Mixed-Use Capital Project that we initiated last year has moved forward expeditiously and we are now in the process of finalizing a feasibility study for this innovative new space. Yuba and Sage Hall will be replaced by a dynamic and innovative campus hub that will include more than 250,000 gross square feet of apartment-style student housing, an expanded health clinic, faculty offices, instructional and research space. And, as a result of a seven-figure gift that we just received from a donor with great passion for the arts, this space will also include a long overdue and sorely needed performing arts theater to support our extraordinary performing arts programs.
- And, in particularly gratifying news for a campus that has had only four buildings constructed with state capital funding, I am absolutely delighted to share with you that our steadfast advocacy for additional state investment in the physical infrastructure of our campus has paid off and we have received funding for not just one new campus building, but two. Gateway Hall, a $71 million project, encompassing two buildings and 120,000 gross square feet of space, will serve as a vibrant new entryway to the University – a one-stop shop for academic and student support services including advising, career services, financial aid, instructional space and faculty offices.
As a whole, this collection of new, thoughtful and sustainable spaces will transform our campus for generations to come and will play a critical role in advancing knowledge and creativity on campus.
But a “space” does not transform into a “place” until it is imbued with the aspirations of the people who mold that space into a community.
CI is not just any place. It is an exceptional place.
Our ideals, our academic pillars and our unique mission cannot be found on a map and our impact extends far beyond our geographic boundaries. Our place sits in the largest and most diverse university system in the world. It is one of the fastest growing academic communities in the nation, and as a result, it provides us with an unparalleled opportunity to enable human potential, disrupt intergenerational inequality and transform lives.
I simply can’t imagine a more impactful place than ours.
Where is your favorite place on campus? Is it in North Quad as the sun begins to wane and the surrounding hills turn pink; the Student Union Courtyard in the spring when the jacaranda trees display their brilliant flowers or on the third floor of the library where, on a clear day, you can see the Channel Islands
Those places, and your place in them, is what makes this campus exceptional.
As we begin the academic year anew, I hope that each of us will take time to renew our commitment to giving the very best of ourselves to the place that has been entrusted to us by those who came before. And to remember to nurture it for those faculty, staff and students who have yet to arrive.
There are entire generations who are counting on us to be here, decades from now, to facilitate their own transformation to a brighter, more learned and equitable future.
It is an honor to be with you on this journey and serve as your President, in this cherished place we call California State University Channel Islands.