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.

A report that followed the census data release by the Brookings Institution acknowledged what the Census Bureau and others have been saying for quite a long time, that the United States will on a -- at a certain point become a majority minority nation, where non-Hispanic whites account for less than half of the population. The U.S. Census Bureau thinks that date's going to happen around 2042. Brookings Institution says, "Eh, it's going to happen a little bit sooner than that." And it's happening in California. CSUN today enrolls the highest number of Latino students in the State of California than any other university, any other institution, in fact it ranks fifth in overall national -- overall nationally in Hispanic involvement. So it's not just acknowledgment of what could happen or what the challenge at some point over the next 50 years, CSUN has embraced it today. Over the past 50 years as I mentioned the numbers, enrollment has clearly grown more than 12 times over. The programs offered have grown to include Bachelor Degrees in more than 61 disciplines, and alumni from this university include Olympic champion, and a U.S. astronaut, phenomenal, phenomenal success. I'd like to add to that list by the way on a personal note, a teacher in the LA Unified school district by the name of Julie Padilla, my sister, a graduate not only from undergraduate program here in English, but her teaching credential and her Master's in Education, still in LA Unified despite their challenges, and let me allow this point to kind of transition into an acknowledgement of a couple of examples.

You know, my job is not an educator; I'm not in front of a classroom giving a lecture. I'm not even a university administrator. I'm a state Senator, what the -- what the heck do I know about public policy and public education [laughter] other than voting on the budget. [Laughter] I could tell you this, there's a lot of issues that we grapple with in the state capitol and I've been dealing with it for more than -- almost 12 years of public service from my days on the city council to my time now as a state senator representing the San Fernando Valley. If I think of those pressing -- public policy challenges for the next 50 years of the State of California, there's a couple that immediately come to mind -- most people would agree. First, the quality of public education whether it's our kids deserve the best, whether it's how are we going to compete with an increasingly global business environment, it starts with solid education. We've heard what the numbers are from a CSU system-wide standpoint but to recognize that on an annual basis, more than 1,000 teachers get their credentials here at Cal State University Northridge alone, some in more than one discipline, is amazing, a tremendous influence, a tremendous responsibility. For Cal State Northridge to be part of solving and addressing that pressing public policy challenge, how do we do better in public education? We can fight all the fights you want at the LA Unified School District or any other school district in the state for that matter. But the CSU has a role to play as well, a significant one and C-Sun is already playing it.

Another big pressing issue, well actually before I go onto the next one, so you know, let's kick around an idea, let's kick around a question, let's kick around maybe a challenge to ourselves. If CSUN does the job so well, should we not embrace the challenge of upping that number of credentials from the 1,000 plus to 2,000, to 3,000? As soon as you get past these short-term budget challenges, I think that ought to be worthwhile conversation. We know we need it, CSUN does it well, let's -- let's acknowledge that room to grow and live up to that responsibility.

The second great public policy challenge that I think most people, not everybody, most people would acknowledge is that of our environment and specifically the impacts of climate change and greenhouse gas emissions, not just in the State of California, but throughout the country and throughout the world. You know, Governor Brown just last week signed a bill that we put on his desk in an urgent fashion to increase the amount of renewable energy that is delivered to businesses and residents in California from the current 20% mandate to 33%. It alone will not solve all the environmental challenges that we have, but it's a signature piece, a huge building block for a more comprehensive plan. Again, an area where Cal State Northridge isn't just, "Oh wow, maybe we ought to get into that. Maybe we ought to do something about it." This facility alone, the Performing Arts Center, is running partially on the energy being generated by a one megawatt fuel cell power plant. Not the first of its kind, Cal State Northridge brags and I brag too, on your behalf, about the fuel cell power plant, about the micro-turbines, about the solar panels that have been installed here, the largest of its kind for any university in the nation. And as I've come to learn, it wasn't just, "Well, let's go order it, let's contract it out, we need to reduce our energy bill". It was done in a way that is the model for other universities and academic institutions, a partnership between the physical plant, the Department of Engineering. You know, you're talking about not just about the education that comes along with technology comparisons and installations and maintenance and performance, you're actually reducing your energy consumption from the grid and you're preparing the workforce in the process. That's a -- that's not a win, win, that's a win, win, win, more to do with a growing campus, more to do to be a part of the solution of greater public policy conversations.

Third great policy area and there's a lot more, I just kind of picked the big three, the top three just to make the point, you hear from the President of the United States to the leaders in Congress to the Governor of the State of California and the Legislature to the Mayor of Los Angeles on down, you know. We're in the middle of a tough economic environment. The priority needs to be jobs, jobs, jobs. How do you create jobs? How do you grow the environment? One of the first things I do is look to Cal State Northridge and to recognize that the CSUN College of Business and Economics has enrolled over 6,000 students last year, here at the university, to train those business minds, those business leaders of the future. The university itself is acknowledged by the Business Journal as one of the leading employers in the region. Let me underscore the following point. In politics there is a saying that "So goes California, so goes the nation." Right, Chancellor Reed? You saw this from Florida for many, many years. [Laughter] So goes the state, so goes the nation. Well, in California politics we have a saying, "So goes Los Angeles, so goes California". The population here is just too big. We set the trend, we are the momentum. If you can't move the needle in LA, you're not going to move the needle on a state-wide basis. Well I can tell you having served in a state capacity as well as a local capacity that so goes the San Fernando Valley, so goes LA.

So follow me here, so goes the Valley, so goes LA, so goes LA, so goes California, so goes California, so goes our nation. It's not just a question of demographics, it's a question of performance, it's a question of economics, tremendous, tremendous opportunity, tremendous, tremendous responsibility for CSU Northridge. For these three and any other public policy challenge you want to take on, this is the epicenter, not the 1994 Earthquake epicenter, the vision of our state and our nation's future at the center, right here being served by Cal State University Northridge. So if we can outline these goals, these challenges, these opportunities but it's all for naught if the doors don't remain open. We have some budget issues to address, we can outline these goals and challenges and opportunities, and even if we were able to maintain status quo, we aren't rising to the responsibility. So how do we open the doors further in terms of access and affordability of our university system?

I was asked to touch on what specific bill I had a chance to work on last session, known as SB 1440. SB 1440 is a bill I introduced to try to streamline and reform the transfer process for students in California, who more than just state that they're working towards taking some required courses at a California community college and transferring to a four-year university, the bulk of them to the CSU system. For years and years and years we heard from students and families that it was too cumbersome, it was too complex, the goal post kept moving. It was a never ending chase to do what you needed to do at a time which you needed to do it to be able to transfer. So working together with Chancellor Reed and the CSU leadership with Chancellor Scott, former state Senator Jack Scott and the community college leadership, an organization called the Campaign for College Opportunity and a number of my legislative colleagues, we crafted a bill that enjoyed over-whelming bi-partisan support and was signed by Governor Schwarzenegger last year here at Mission College, in the San Fernando Valley, and what that bill does is it sets up -- it requires to be set up AA degrees for transfer for community college students. And if you take the required relevant course work, let me underscore, required relevant course work, upon completion of that required course work, you are guaranteed admission to the CSU system, you are guaranteed admission and status as a junior and you're well on your way to earning that Bachelor's Degree. And both the community college and the CSU's prohibited from requiring the less relevant and duplicative course work that's been a big stumbling block for students in the past. So why do we want to take on this challenge? Not just because we felt good about trying to do better for our students and have more students graduate, we're dependent on it.

If you look at every major study report, it will show you that the industries that are growing and the specific job opportunities that are growing [Background Noise] are continuously requiring an AA or a Bachelor's Degree if not higher. That's our future, next 50 years, that's our future. We need to stay economically competitive to do better in educating our students and while we can pick some subject areas and know how to do stuff really, really well; we're hurting ourselves if we don't get more efficient in the education of our students, not just the effective part, but the efficient part of moving our students through. So, that's what the degree that -- that's what that bill does in its essence and I'm sure we can get into a more detail in it through the Q and A if you're interested, but bottom line is we know that our economy needs in California alone, 1 million more Bachelor's Degrees in the next generation. At the status quo, the numbers coming out of the CSU system, the U C system, the privates aren't going to get us there. We need to do something different, we need to do something better, and I'm hoping this bill is part of the pillar of that comprehensive solution and it's happening here at Cal State Northridge. So with that let me wind up and we have a Q and A panel right about on time and just thank you all for the invitation to be with you.

[ Applause ]

Stepanek: We now have about 15 minutes that we'll be able to do a Q and A and I believe we are currently getting a number of questions collected, if we could have a few people assist, get them to the center aisles and bring them down. While we're waiting for those questions to come down, we do have a couple that I already have in my possession that we can start with. So I have one here that's actually addressed for both of you, so you can take turns on this one. What can be done so the CSU will have a more consistent flow of revenue each year? Is there some sort of a new compact or something that can be done with the state leadership?

I think, you know what Chancellor Reed mentioned earlier about call it a contract, call it an agreement, call it a business plan or work plan that's not just year to year, I think could go along the way. You know, not that it -- we may not have to be flexible on a year to year basis given not just economic downturns, but economic upturns as well, at least having a foundation for where you could predict to be, where you could relatively safely plan to be on the five-year, ten-year, 20 year, basis I think would be a huge help in stabilizing the finances and therefore the service and the quality that the CSU provides. But I'll let Chancellor Reed get into the specifics of that.

Chancellor Reed: I made reference to that in my remarks and Mark Yudof, president of the University of California and I talked to the Governor about that two weeks ago and you know, the stability that you get for planning purposes from an agreement or compact, now when I came, I you know, I worked the compact with Grey Davis, then we worked a compact with Arnold Schwarzenegger. We got criticized for that because people thought we could get more than what was in the agreement. But my experience has been that where you start with the Governor is where you end up. What we were able to do was to plan for about 10,000 net new students every year. Now, we ran into the wall when the economy went down and they had to cut our budget, but what we knew in November and December and we could tell the institutions, accept these applications and you can take about 10,000 students. And we didn't have a big argument about the budget to fund those new students and the continuing students that we had. Then there was some other things that we had in the compact, but for good planning purposes, it makes a lot of sense. Now, I think that's where the reinvestment strategy that Mark and I talked to the Governor about needs to come about California's future, so that the institutions can plan for their future.

Stepanek: The next question that I have I believe it is probably addressed to the Chancellor, what would be the role of collective bargaining in higher education as we move forward?

Chancellor Reed: Well, you know, collective bargaining is going to be with the CSU for the next 50 years. As you all know, it's a process of give and take so you know, I'm counting on sitting at the table and doing the very best we can. Now, whether you believe this or not, I want our employees, all of our employees to get paid the compensation that they earn and that they rightfully should have and have the benefits that go along with that. Now, the problem is, and the reality is if somebody gives me $100, I can't promise $120. [Background Coughing] I have to back up every year, I have to look at June 30th and figure out how much money, how much cash I need to pay the bills every month through June 30th every year. Now, our payroll is $350 million a month, and then on top of that is the benefits. That's what we have to cash flow, in the meantime, the legislature, the Governor's office, and Finance, and the Controller's office for the last three years have called me us and say, "Can you loan us a little bit for a month because we can't even meet our own payroll." And we've been able to help, but we also have insisted that we get paid back every May and June so that we can make the June 30th debts that we agreed to.

Stepanek: My next question is for the Senator. It starts out, "I applaud your efforts to make transfer more efficient. However, many majors do not have enough required lower division course slash major units to currently make this feasible. We're talking about 1440. What plans are in place to try to make this work?"

Senator Padilla: It's a -- I'll be the first to acknowledge and I think smart and it's smartly so that it's a work in progress. When the bill was going through the process, one of the big concerns and people were really upset, "Oh, you can't legislate you know, transfer curriculum, you can't put that in statute, you know, things change over time, and what needs to be taught will change over time." We never tried to, never wanted to and we didn't. What we did set up was a process and there's a task force that has been put in place to implement the goals and the spirit of 1440, and we've laid out the markers of what we want to see happen, but we get it that every discipline is a little bit different and what -- from a -- lower level course work, to a higher level course work within an undergraduate curriculum needs to be, could be different from one discipline to another even within sciences, even within engineering, even within some Liberal Arts et cetera. And so we're leaning on the spirit of cooperation between the CSU leadership, community college leadership, the faculty representatives from each of the two segments with some student input and others to craft what that transfer curriculum ought to be. What we're looking for primarily is, consistency from community college to community college and consistency from four-year university to four-year university, so that it's not a guessing game for a student. You know, do I need this list of classes depending on where I'm currently in school and where I may want to transfer or not, that moving of the goal post that I talked to earlier is not acceptable and it's costing all of us. You know, one of the -- all -- one of the silver linings here of the bill, as tough as this exercise is going to be, this transition of implementing the transfer streamlining legislation is if we can become more efficient in serving our students, guess what? We're not just saving students time and money, we're saving the CSU and or community colleges resources as well, so that there's more resources available for Chancellor Reed to balance his budget and heaven forbid we have resources available in a down economy to serve more students. So there is a win here, it's not explicitly laid out under statute, it was never intended to, but as we're implementing, I'm positive that we can achieve it.

Chancellor Reed: I just want to say ever since I came to California from Florida, I have wanted to do this, and if any of you want to call any faculty member in the State of Florida, do it. But about 1985, 1986 and I told Senator Padilla, "This is going to take us a couple of years to kind of get it smoothed out." But I testified that the CSU would save $100 million if we can put in place the perfect transfer system. That's what we're going to save students and the state and that means that we can take $100 million more of students into the CSU. Now, after I left Florida, the faculty had embraced the transfer system to such an extent that the private institutions in Florida, Miami, Stetson, et cetera, asked the state could they join in with the state system and the community colleges to be a part of one whole system and that's worked. Now, it does take faculty involvement, and it takes faculty on an annual basis or every other year to go back and look at those requirements that they -- and negotiate that with the community colleges, but it can work.

Stepanek: By an agreement with some of the -- one of the groups protesting students, they were allowed to submit several questions and I'm now going to call on Provost Harry Reed, from CSU Northridge to give us some of those particular questions.

[ Background conversation]

Provost Hellenbrand: Dude, Chancellor Reed, here's a question for you. You've agreed to meet with 12 students in a special meeting. Would you be open to meeting with more students and talking about the CSU with them today?

Chancellor Reed: Many of you didn't know that Harry was my brother [laughter].

My mother stopped having children after both of us. [Laughter]

Chancellor Reed: Harry, I was informed and I want to support the administration that evidently the students said to you all, you know, they'll take a few of us, we want to ask the Chancellor some tough questions. I'll tell you what, Harry, that's fine, but I'll just talk to all of them, how's that?

Hellenbrand: That's great. Second question, dude, [laughter] after this is [inaudible] I'll say dude, dude. Dude, your solutions handling our CSU budget is quoted in the LA Times of reducing class sizes -- of reducing class , of eliminating classes, laying off staff, firing provosts, [inaudible] your employees, and increasing class sizes to address the loss in state support. During these detrimental impasses with students and faculty, we're also seeing increase in student fees by 240%, and an increase in administrative salaries. How do you respond to those things?

Chancellor Reed: Well, I don't know where some of those numbers come from, but I know that if you back up far enough to 1958, the percentage of tuition fees would be enormous. So I think people pick certain times to calculate something to help them make a point. [Background comment] Well, you know, the other thing, is I have a responsibility and I don't particularly like it, but I have a responsibility to make the CSU the very best that I can. And my goals are to serve as many students as we possibly can, and to do it, with the lowest tuition that we possibly can and to provide as much financial aid to our students. One thing that I'm proud of, since I have been here, was we have increased the financial aid for our students significantly. Nobody has calculated what one-third of all those fees, tuition fees have been. I'm able to move around and say that if you come from a family that makes $70,000 or less, you don't have to pay tuition to come to a CSU, and that's because of our state university grants, that's because of our Pell grants, and that's because of our Pell awards. So we are sensitive to that, but my goal also is to not affect employees any more than we have to. I do not want layoffs and I think that pretty much it may be that we're one or two cases where no faculty member got laid off in the last round. A few staff got laid off, but not faculty and I regretted this but we did not take or admit as many students as I might have wanted to, but one thing I knew is if you admit students, you have to provide the classes and sections and so I didn't want to get into something similar to the community colleges where they admit everybody and then 300,000 of them just spin around all day with no classes or sections. I want us to have a system where students can move through our system and get their credits and get their degree and be successful. But somebody has to make the tough decision and I have been willing to do that. I have a very good staff, the presidents provide me great, we meet every month, great advice about how we can manage ourselves through essentially the worst financial crisis the CSU has ever had.

[ Background Noise ]

Stepanek: We have many other additional excellent questions, but sadly we're already over our time period, so I would like everyone please join me in thanking both of these keynote speakers for their presentations today.

[ Applause ]

==== Transcribed by Automatic Sync Technologies ====