Alex Padilla Unedited

CSU: The Next 50 Years April 22, 2011 Transcription first pass. Steven Stepanek: Thank you Doctor Reed for that excellent presentation. As I mentioned before, what we're going to be doing is introducing Senator Padilla and then at the end of his particular presentation we will go to a Q A with both of those presenters. Alex Padilla was born to immigrant parents from Mexico. He was raised in the San Fernando Valley community of Pacoima, where he attended various local public schools. Senator, sometime you and I need to talk, we may have gone to some of those same schools. He graduated from MIT with a degree in mechanical engineering and today serves as a member of the board of trustees for the MIT Corporation, which is that institution's governing body. Senator Padilla was first elected to public office in 1999 when he ran for the Los Angeles City Council. He later stepped down from that particular position so that he could run for the position of Senator, and December 6th, 2010 he was sworn in to serve a second four-year term on the California Senate. For that reelection, he won by nearly 70%, confirming his broad appeal across the diverse voters of the 20th Senate District which, by the way includes CSU Northridge. Amongst his accomplishments, Senator Padilla has served on the Senate Rules Committee and has chaired the Senate Energy, Utilities and Communications Committee. During his 2009 -- 2010 legislative year, he authored SB1440 creating a clear and certain pathway for community college students seeking to transfer to California State University. It is now my pleasure to introduce Senator Alex Padilla. [ Applause ] Senator Alex Padilla: Good morning everybody…still awake out there? Hasn't been 50 years since you started the program, right? [Laughter] I know that I feel like it, there's a lot of exciting bits to share, bits of history, bits or present and bits of the future. I do have some prepared remarks I'll try to zip through here because we want to get to some Q and A, but a couple of things that I didn't expect to talk about that I feel compelled to address. I'll get to the budget in a second. First I just don't see how glancing over at me and the audience and seeing me and recognizing me triggers, in our Chancellor's mind, a joke with a punch line of a horse's ass. [Laughter] I'll try not to take that personally, especially when it comes to agendas in the capitol. But -- you know, that -- you know, kind of a good story with a -- with a good theme here that we all should take to heart, whether you're in admissions, a counselor, officer, adviser, a professor, any other -- any function at a university. The university's really a family and when you serve students and prospective students, you know, it has to be a collective. So I'm sure in there there's some good things that we all need to kind of sleep on. Also, a couple quick words about the budget and I know there's some students here with significant concern and trust me, as much as this pains all of you and weighs on your heart about the options and there's a not so good scenario for this next year and even worse case scenario, depending what happens politically in the capitol over the next several weeks, it weighs on me as well. You know, what we've had to do in the last several years is not what I signed up for, in terms, of balancing the budget through a whole heck of a lot of cuts and what we may or may not have to do over the next several months to balance yet another year's budget dependent on whether there's sufficient by-partisan cooperation for a way forward for the State of California as a whole, not just the CSU system, trust me weighs significantly on my heart. So the best I can advise for all of us, all of us who care about the CSU system, who care about education, who care about accessing quality and not only the future vis-a-vis, our students and young people, but our future vis-a-vis our state and our economic competitiveness is to please lean on the Legislators who have yet to arrive at a yes to present the options, the alternatives to the voters, and let the public decide. If the public decides, "Hey, we've had enough already", nobody loves taxes you know or increasing or extending tax increases, but the options are just unacceptable, that message and sentiment may carry the day. If it doesn't then it will have been a will of the people. We live in a democracy after all. It will have been a will of the people to go down a more harmful path for our state as a whole. So you know, I'm sure in the Q and A, there may or may not be questions about the budget, we can get into more specifics. But I wanted at least acknowledge that up front. You know, the theme of today, what I was invited to talk about today was not only the celebration, this recognition of 50 years of Cal State Northridge, but to kind of look ahead at another 50 years, look into that crystal ball, that CSU crystal ball and kind of kick around what we all see. Thank you, President Koester for the invitation, it's been wonderful, wonderful working with you and I'll also say this before I go into my prepared remarks, there are very few advocates that are staunch and as adamant and as passionate in the state capitol for their departments, for their agencies, for their institutions than Chancellor Reed. You know, the -- I take it by the sentiments of some students here today that he's not the most popular today here? [Background grumbling] but rest assured, he takes his job to heart, he takes his job personally, he does a tremendous job with what the governor and the Legislature has given him in terms of resources. Not easy, nobody's having an easy time right now but he cares and he fights. 50 years ago, a little bit more than 50 years ago, it was actually 1958, when San Fernando Valley State was first established and as President Koester went through a little bit of the history, but if you want to know where we're sort of going, I think it pays to kind of revisit where we've been. Back in 1958, this campus didn't look like what it looked like today. In fact, the student population was only about 2,500 students. You probably have lecture halls that size now. [Laughter] Today, we have 36,000 students enrolled at CSU Northridge. You have 4,000 faculty and staff. So clearly there's been this growth of an institution in terms of the people. You've seen the growth of an institution physically, as you walk around the campus, not only the number of buildings, but the newness of some buildings including this performing arts center complex that we find ourselves in today. A big trigger along the history for that growth and modernization of the campus was, we have to acknowledge the Northridge Earthquake. What better example of even in significant tragedies, there's a silver lining. It was the resources and the public support of Cal State Northridge that allowed the institution to -- not just survive the incident where all 170 buildings at its time suffered some level of damage, but come out of it years later, even stronger and bigger. From the newly built Student Services Center to the reengineered Science Building, the changes are dramatic on campus. Let's also look at who C-Sun serves. It serves obviously primarily the State of California but specifically primarily the people of the San Fernando Valley and last year was a census year, right? So this year we get all this new information about who we are as a country, who we are as a state, who we are as a community. I know that Chancellor Reed went through some of these statistics but just to kind of reiterate and reinforce, from the year 2000 to the year 2010, the State of California grew in population about 10%, from just shy of 34 million people to nearly 37 and a half million people. And if we start peeling away layers of the onion, it's not just numbers of growth but you know, demographically, statistically, what are we talking about? The Latino population on a natural basis grew tremendously as Chancellor Reed said. In the State of California, for example, the Latino population grew from about 11 million to 14 million, a growth just shy of a third. Chancellor Reed talked about what the population looks like in our K through 12 school districts. A little bit more comprehensively, 51% of Californians under the age of 18 are Latino. You know and these may be statistics, this may be data that kind of makes your eyes cross over, but look around this campus. Look around the San Fernando Valley. The San Fernando Valley in many ways is sort of the crystal ball for the future of the region, the future of the state and the future of our country and therefore, a prime opportunity and responsibility for Cal State Northridge to show the way for the rest of the region, the rest of the state and the rest of the country on how we educate, how we serve, how we succeed with an ever- growing, ever-changing, ever-diverse population.

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