The following statement can be attributed to the California State University Office of the Chancellor:
“The California State University (CSU) welcomes the outcome of the Teamsters vote and looks forward to the CSU Board of Trustees Committee on Collective Bargaining’s ratification of the agreement in March. CSU’s skilled trades employees are critical to meeting our educational mission and this agreement will bring much-deserved salary increases to our Teamsters and movement toward a salary steps program.”
For more information about Teamsters Local 2010’s vote results, visit Teamsters2010.org.
A link to the tentative agreement can also be found on the CSU Labor and Employee Relations website under Tentative Agreements.
The California State University is the nation’s largest four-year public university system, providing transformational opportunities for upward mobility to more than 450,000 students from all socioeconomic backgrounds. More than half of CSU students are people of color, and nearly one-third of them are first-generation college students. Because the CSU’s 23 universities provide a high-quality education at an incredible value, they are rated among the best in the nation for promoting social mobility in national college rankings from U.S. News & World Report, the Wall Street Journal and Washington Monthly. The CSU powers California and the nation, sending nearly 127,000 career-ready graduates into the workforce each year. In fact, one in every 20 Americans holding a college degree earned it at the CSU. Connect with and learn more about the CSU in the CSU newsroom.
Award-winning journalist Caitlin Dickerson shares how her CSU education inspired her career.
Curious. Driven. Trailblazing.
Cal State Long Beach alumna Caitlin Dickerson (‘11) is a fierce defender of democracy who uses investigative journalism as a check against inequality. Through deep research and powerful storytelling, Dickerson reports on urgent issues impacting American life and brings light to injustices hiding in dusty files and dim detention centers. She also travels the country to deliver a powerful message to the next generation of reporters about the essential role journalism plays in upholding the democratic values of transparency and accountability.
Over the course of more than a decade in journalism, she has earned numerous awards for her writing and reporting, including an Edward R. Murrow Award and a George Foster Peabody Award for a series on secret World War II mustard gas testing that grouped subjects by race. That reporting prompted the first official government acknowledgement of the experiments and a law that was passed providing better access to disability benefits for the remaining living veterans who were exposed to mustard gas.
A Merced, California native, Dickerson has reported on immigration, history, politics and race across four continents and dozens of American cities. She served as a producer and investigative reporter for NPR and as a reporter for the New York Times before becoming a staff writer for The Atlantic in 2021.
In 2023, Dickerson earned a Pulitzer Prize—arguably the top honor for a journalist—in the explanatory reporting category for her “deeply reported and compelling accounting of the Trump administration policy that forcefully separated migrant children from their parents, resulting in abuses that have persisted under the current administration.”
Annual statewide events seek to inspire a college-going culture among African American youth.
The California State University (CSU) has partnered with a number of predominantly African American churches throughout California to present the 19th annual CSU Super Sunday on February 25, 2024. CSU system leaders, campus presidents, administrators and students will visit places of worship—both in person and virtually—to share personal stories and important college-related information with congregants to advance access, opportunity and success for Black and African American students.
“CSU Super Sunday remains a key element in our year-round efforts to engage with local faith-based communities to share a message of access and opportunity, and to provide prospective students and their families with important information about college preparation and admission,” said Dilcie Perez, deputy vice chancellor of CSU Academic and Student Affairs and Chief Student Affairs Officer. “As we collectively work to advance Black student success across our university system, we want to build lifelong relationships and make sure every one of our Black students attains the life-changing benefits of a CSU degree.”
After Super Sunday services, outreach directors and staff will provide information on the CSU application and admission process, as well as scholarships and financial aid available to Cal State students.
Since its launch in 2005, more than a million people have participated in this signature awareness event for CSU’s African American communities. The CSU remains committed to closing equity gaps and ensuring all Californians have access and support in achieving a high-quality college degree as part of Graduation Initiative 2025. In 2022-23, more than 3,800 African American students earned CSU bachelor’s degrees and more than 750 earned CSU graduate degrees.
The CSU’s Black and African American community engagement extends beyond Super Sunday. The university plans to hold additional faith-based outreach events in the spring and fall to continue to build upon the message of Super Sunday. In addition, the CSU is creating a systemwide steering committee with faith-based leaders to provide support and share best practices to promote Black student success. The CSU has made elevating Black excellence on its universities an urgent priority and has developed a 13-point action plan as part of its June 2023 report on Black student success. In addition, the university has committed $10 million over three years to advance these priorities.
With 23 universities across California, the CSU offers more access to diverse higher education pathways than any public university system in the United States. Nearly one-third of CSU students are the first in their family to earn a degree, more than half are from traditionally underrepresented communities and nearly half of undergraduates receive the Pell Grant. And, more than half of CSU bachelor’s recipients in 2022-23 graduated with zero student debt.
To find a CSU Super Sunday church location near you, visit the CSU Super Sunday website. Learn more about the CSU’s ongoing work to elevate Black excellence at the Black Student Success website.
About the California State University
The California State University is the nation’s largest four-year public university system, providing transformational opportunities for upward mobility to more than 450,000 students from all socioeconomic backgrounds. More than half of CSU students are people of color, and nearly one-third of them are first-generation college students. Because the CSU’s 23 universities provide a high-quality education at an incredible value, they are rated among the best in the nation for promoting social mobility in national college rankings from U.S. News & World Report, the Wall Street Journal and Washington Monthly. The CSU powers California and the nation, sending nearly 127,000 career-ready graduates into the workforce each year. In fact, one in every 20 Americans holding a college degree earned it at the CSU. Connect with and learn more about the CSU in the CSU newsroom.
Today, the CFA announced that its members had voted in favor of the tentative agreement reached with the CSU in January.
The following statement can be attributed to the California State University Office of the Chancellor:
“The California State University (CSU) is pleased with the results of the California Faculty Association’s (CFA) ratification vote. This agreement provides for a 10 percent general salary increase to all faculty by July, with a raise in salary minimums for the lowest-paid faculty that will result in increases—some as high as 21 percent—for many of them. It also addresses issues that the CFA identified as extremely important to its members, such as increased paid family leave from 6 to 10 weeks and a process for making gender-inclusive restrooms and lactation spaces more easily accessible. We look forward to the CSU Board of Trustees Committee on Collective Bargaining ratification of the agreement in March and to continue working in partnership with the CFA and its members to carry out our mission in service to our students and the university.”
A link to the tentative agreement can be found on the CSU Labor and Employee Relations website under Tentative Agreements.
About the California State University
The California State University is the nation’s largest four-year public university system, providing transformational opportunities for upward mobility to more than 450,000 students from all socioeconomic backgrounds. More than half of CSU students are people of color, and nearly one-third of them are first-generation college students. Because the CSU’s 23 universities provide a high-quality education at an incredible value, they are rated among the best in the nation for promoting social mobility in national college rankings from U.S. News & World Report, the Wall Street Journal and Washington Monthly. The CSU powers California and the nation, sending nearly 127,000 career-ready graduates into the workforce each year. In fact, one in every 20 Americans holding a college degree earned it at the CSU. Connect with and learn more about the CSU in the CSU newsroom.
California State University (CSU) students who work on-campus jobs under the student assistant classification have voted to join the California State University Employees Union (CSUEU). With nearly 20,000 student assistants employed by the CSU, the new unit will be one of the nation’s largest represented groups of predominantly undergraduate student workers.
The CSU will begin bargaining with CSUEU’s student assistant unit in the near future. Until a final agreement is reached, the student assistant classification will maintain current standards and requirements.
The following statement can be attributed to CSU Vice Chancellor for Human Resources Leora Freedman:
“The CSU has a long history of providing on-campus jobs to students through student assistant positions, which give our students the opportunity to gain valuable work experience while they pursue their degrees. The CSU respects the decision of student assistants to form a union and looks forward to bargaining in good faith with the newly formed CSUEU student assistant unit.”
About the California State University
The California State University is the nation’s largest four-year public university system, providing transformational opportunities for upward mobility to more than 450,000 students from all socioeconomic backgrounds. More than half of CSU students are people of color, and nearly one-third of them are first-generation college students. Because the CSU’s 23 universities provide a high-quality education at an incredible value, they are rated among the best in the nation for promoting social mobility in national college rankings from U.S. News & World Report, the Wall Street Journal and Washington Monthly. The CSU powers California and the nation, sending nearly 127,000 career-ready graduates into the workforce each year. In fact, one in every 20 Americans holding a college degree earned it at the CSU. Connect with and learn more about the CSU in the CSU newsroom.
The Technology Infrastructure for Data Exploration (TIDE) project at SDSU will give CSU researchers access to new high-performance data processing capabilities.
Image rendered with superimposed TIDE logo by Dell Technologies and San Diego State University
Funded by a $991,749 grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Technology Infrastructure for Data Exploration (TIDE) project will establish a new computing core facility at San Diego State that will allow researchers throughout the CSU to conduct high-performance computing processes, expanding their ability to perform high-level research.
“This is the first computational core in the CSU, a shared service where SDSU is hosting hardware that will benefit faculty across our system,” says Jerry Sheehan, TIDE’s principal investigator, as well as an SDSU adjunct professor and former chief information officer. “Increasingly as you have more data-intensive courses, you have more students who are interested in being able to use the same sort of tools that someone in the UC system is going to get access to.”
The computing center will first be available for partners at Cal Poly Humboldt, Cal State San Bernardino, San Diego State and Stanislaus State, who are conducting research that requires advanced computational infrastructure—such as identifying antibiotic-resistant tuberculosis strains, programming robots with more human reactions, digitally reconstructing archeological artifacts and developing models of water circulation.
CSU researchers will be able to connect remotely to the center to process their research data. By running on graphics processing units—rather than central processing units like many computers and networks—TIDE will allow researchers to process massive amounts of data in a much shorter amount of time. This is because graphics processing units utilize a unique technological architecture that uses machine learning and artificial intelligence to process data more quickly.
Installation of the servers is expected to be complete by April 2024, and researchers from the initial partner institutions should have access May 2024. The center will eventually be available to all 23 campuses.
Such a resource will bolster students’ academic and professional success by giving them more opportunities to engage in high-level research and use high-performance computing technology. It will also help attract and retain quality faculty who will now be able to conduct research at the same level as those at research-focused institutions. In fact, data has shown that faculty working at campuses with high-performance computing resources like TIDE tend to have more academic publications.
“Our proposal is based on putting the resource in the CSU to serve our faculty—as well as to increase awareness around and opportunities for our workforce of students to use these tools to make them competitive, not only academically, but also as they enter their professional careers or go on to more advanced degrees,” Sheehan says.
Ed Clark, Chief Information Officer at the CSU Office of the Chancellor, says: “I’m excited about what the TIDE initiative means for the CSU. Certainly, it will benefit our current faculty members and attract new scholars working on computing-intensive research projects. But just as importantly, these resources will be used to teach our students critically needed skills that are in high demand across the country. This student aspect sets the project apart from other high-end research computing initiatives.”
Significantly, TIDE is also addressing equity challenges. Through its Campus Cyberinfrastructure (CC*) program, the NSF has sought ways to expand access to campus-based resources and technology that will allow faculty and students to conduct high-level research. This has included investments in high-speed networks and data storage, but more recently NSF efforts have focused on computing capabilities and the creation of regional computing centers like TIDE that could be accessed by a collection of institutions. NSF has also targeted these efforts toward institutions serving historically underserved populations, such as Historically Black Colleges and Universities and Minority Serving Institutions. The goal is to diversify the research field.
TIDE will help achieve this goal as it will make such technological resources available to the nation’s largest system of public higher education, which is home to the most ethnically, economically and academically diverse student body in the United States. In addition, 21 CSUs are designated Hispanic-Serving Institutions, and the CSU provides more than half of all undergraduate degrees earned by California’s Latinx, African American and Native American students combined—many of whom are first-generation and Pell-eligible.
“In order for science to be democratized, everyone has to have access—and the easiest way for that access to occur is for there to be resources that are broadly distributed with the right support infrastructure,” Sheehan says. “Investing in the CSU is foundational to creating a level playing field for everyone to compute.”
In March 2024, the TIDE Project received the 2024 Innovations in Networking Award for Equitable Access to Cyberinfrastructure from CENIC, a nonprofit that provides computing network services and resources to California educational institutions.
The live conversation on April 2 will highlight powerful stories of overcoming obstacles.
Two inspirational leaders… Two powerful stories of overcoming obstacles…
On April 2, California State University Chancellor Mildred García and Chair of the CSU Board of Trustees Wenda Fong will participate in a live “Journeys to Leadership” conversation/interview as they describe the paths they took to reach some of the highest leadership positions in higher education.
The event, geared toward a student audience, will give participants a firsthand look at who these two leaders are, where they came from and how they advise the next generation to reach for the stars. Daisy Navarrete, the president of CSU Channel Island’s Associated Students Inc., will serve as moderator.
“Journeys to Leadership” will take place at CSUCI and will be livestreamed beginning at 1:00 p.m. PDT.
CSU students are encouraged to register for the event to receive the livestream link and submit questions in advance of the event.
CSU chancellor calls for predictable funding in 2024-25 California state budget.
From left: CSU Chancellor Mildred García, Speaker of the California State Assembly Robert Rivas, Chair of the CSU Board of Trustees Wenda Fong and CSU Monterey Bay President Vanya Quiñones in Sacramento, California for CSU Advocacy Day February 2024.
CSU Chancellor Mildred García testified in front of the California State Senate Budget Subcommittee #1 on Education in support of the CSU’s budget request March 14, alongside University of California President Michael V. Drake.
In her testimony, Chancellor García reminded legislators that the CSU serves one of the most ethnically, economically and academically diverse student populations in the country—more than 450,000 students across its 23 universities—and that it is California’s greatest driver of social mobility and economic vitality. More than half of CSU undergraduates are from traditionally underrepresented backgrounds, nearly half are Pell-eligible and more than one-quarter are the first in their families to attend college.
“The CSU is a model for serving America’s new majority,” Chancellor García said. “Resources entrusted to the CSU are not an expenditure, but an investment, an investment with dividends measured in social mobility, in more vital communities, and in powering California’s future diverse and educated workforce—all at a scale only the CSU can provide.”
Chancellor García also highlighted key areas where support is needed, underscoring the message that “predictability is as important a currency as the money itself.” The CSU requests that the state honor the funding set forth in the governor’s multi-year compact—either as originally structured or as modified in the governor’s January budget proposal—and support an education facilities bond that includes higher education.
On January 10, California Governor Gavin Newsom proposed a state budget that would defer the 2024-25 CSU compact funding commitment of approximately $240 million by one year—until fiscal year 2025-26—to help address the state budget shortfall. Reiterating his commitment to the CSU and to advance compact-related goals, the governor proposes to reimburse the CSU with a one-time payment of approximately $240 million at the start of fiscal year 2025-26, in addition to resuming ongoing compact funding.
State Funding is Key
Unlike other educational institutions, the CSU relies on only two revenue sources: the state’s general fund—which comprises approximately 60% of its core revenue—and student tuition and fees, which remain among the lowest in the country. The CSU also faces increased costs from recent collective bargaining agreements, rising health insurance premiums and costs associated with its steadfast commitment to strengthen Title IX and other anti-discrimination programs and to achieve full and timely compliance with NAGPRA and CalNAGPRA.
Considering both the multi-year compact and the five-year tuition plan the CSU adopted last September, revenue projections enabled the university to reach multi-year contracts with its labor unions, which include increased parental leave and a return to salary steps for some unions.
In addition to deploying difficult cost-containment strategies at both the campus and system levels, the CSU has introduced key efficiency strategies, including an Enrollment Target and Budget Reallocation Plan that will better align funding resources with the realities of shifting demographics and student demand. And it is identifying additional collaboration opportunities among the 23 universities to further reduce costs.
“But without sustained state funding, this work becomes exceedingly difficult—our progress in mission-critical areas will be slowed, to the detriment of our diverse and deserving students,” Chancellor García said. “When students enroll at the CSU, they expect they will receive the quality academic programming and student support they need to graduate in a timely manner. These cannot be turned on one year and off the next due to volatility in our ability to pay for them.”
To comply with a recent California bill, the CSU is now collecting data on student parents—which will help the university better serve this group.
Photo courtesy of Cal State East Bay, Kelley L Cox/KLC fotos
Even though they represent more than one in five college students in the U.S., student parents have historically not received the targeted focus they require and deserve along their educational journey. Champions across the CSU have been working tirelessly to ensure student parents have the support and resources they need to persist to graduation.
“This is a huge swath of people who are not being served as well as they could be, who are being treated like every other student when they have, in a lot of ways, more barriers,” says Julia Rose, director of basic needs at CSU Channel Islands. “But they also have more wisdom and more life experience than some of their peers, and that is not being engaged because the population has been invisible. … I think about this work as inclusion work. The first step is remembering that this is a population on your campus that you need to consider when you’re planning things and when you’re building things, whether it be a program or a physical facility.”
As part of the CSU Pregnant and Parenting Student Network—a committee sponsored by the Michelson 20MM Foundation that includes campus representatives from Fresno, San Luis Obispo and Sacramento, among others—this group of champions recently threw their support behind California Assembly Bill No. 2881 (AB 2881). Passed in 2022, AB 2881 seeks to improve access to classes and information about basic needs resources for student parents, smoothing their path to graduation. One provision required that the CSU and California Community Colleges, and requested that the University of California, offer priority registration to student parents.
To provide them with priority registration, universities need to identify their enrolled student parents—making the formal collection of data on this student group a beneficial byproduct of the bill. Such data will help universities understand the unique characteristics or challenges of their student parents, such as their personal demographics or first-generation or Pell-eligible status.
“Student parents are a visible population in terms of the sheer numbers, but they’re also invisible because we don’t intentionally collect that data on them,” says Larissa Mercado-López, chair of Fresno State’s Department of Women’s, Gender & Sexuality Studies. “AB 2881 allows us to take advantage of that data to better understand the experiences, the challenges of our students and help them to feel a stronger sense of inclusion.”
“This is an opportunity to make visible this population that’s been so historically invisible—but that has tremendous skills and assets that we could be uplifting—and be purposeful in how we support and include and recognize them,” she continues. “Through their experiences, they enrich our classrooms. They have such deep connections to their education because they’re sacrificing time spent with their children to be in our classroom—so there’s so much intentionality that they bring.”
By the bill’s deadline of July 1, 2023, the CSU was able to implement a mechanism in the online student registration system that allowed students to self-certify their student parent status and receive priority registration for future semesters.
“AB 2881 has presented a wonderful opportunity for the CSU system to collaborate between our Registrar’s Offices and our Basic Needs and Housing constituency groups in order to find and ultimately better support our pregnant and parenting student population,” says Liz Reed, CSU assistant director of Enrollment Management Technology. “We are in full compliance across the system with AB 2881 and are pleased to share that 2.1% of our total student population self-reported that they have at least one dependent under the age of 18 during the fall 2023 semester and received a priority registration date.”
Former president of San Diego State University passes away at 82.
Photo courtesy of San Diego State
The California State University (CSU) commemorates the life of former San Diego State University President Stephen L. Weber, who passed away on March 17, 2024, due to complications from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). He was 82.
Weber was the seventh president of San Diego State University from 1996-2011, leading SDSU through a time of growth and national prominence.
Through Weber’s creativity, strong work ethic and dedication to his students, the university experienced notable increases in diversity, student support services and academic excellence. Of note during his 15-year tenure, SDSU led the nation in improved graduation rates, with the percentage of students who graduate in four years growing from 38% to 66%, and pioneered programs for military and low-income, first-generation students. Additionally, Weber helped successfully advocate for a state bill that authorized the CSU to offer independent doctoral programs. Today, SDSU offers more than a dozen doctoral degrees.
The university also saw growth of its physical space with several new buildings brought online during Weber’s tenure, including the Arts and Letters Building and the Parma Payne Goodall Alumni Center. Research and philanthropic support also increased, with more than $1.1 billion secured in external research and development funding between 2000 and 2011.
“Dr. Weber leaves a rich legacy at San Diego State, and the positive impact of his service will span generations,” said CSU Chancellor Mildred García. “Under his visionary, principled and compassionate leadership, the university made extraordinary gains in student success, enhanced access for students from all backgrounds, elevated its athletic program, inspired philanthropic support and forged vital community relationships that continue to this day. San Diego State—and the CSU more broadly—are more vital and impactful institutions for his extraordinary service.”
Weber had a profound influence nationally, serving as chair of the American Association of State Colleges and Universities Board of Directors in 2002 and on the board for AVID (Advancement Via Individual Determination) from 2011-2020. He also sat on the boards of The Peres Center for Peace and Student Veterans of America.
He was an engaged supporter of student-athletes and was instrumental in the formation of the Mountain West Conference in 1998. He served on the NCAA Board of Directors, NCAA Executive Committee, NCAA Subcommittee on Gender and Diversity Issues, the Presidential Oversight Committee for the Bowl Championships Series and the Board of Directors of the Mountain West Conference, which honored him with the Dr. Albert C. Yates Distinguished Service Award.
Weber joined San Diego State after a year as interim provost for academic affairs at the State University of New York system. Before that, he served eight years as president of SUNY’s Oswego campus. He also held the positions of vice president of academic affairs at St. Cloud State in Minnesota, dean of arts and sciences at Fairfield University in Connecticut and was an assistant professor of philosophy at the University of Maine.
A native of Boston, Weber earned his bachelor’s degree in philosophy from Bowling Green State University and his Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Notre Dame.
Oregonstate News Blog 