Resolution Opposing the Proposed Cuts at Sonoma State University
Resolved, that the Academic Senate of Sonoma State University (SSU) reject the proposed and untenable cuts to our academic departments and programs, athletics, faculty, and staff as currently advanced by the SSU Interim President and her administration; and be it further
Resolved, that the Academic Senate of SSU further exhort Interim President Emily Cutrer to immediately cease all plans or announcements of cuts, mergers, and terminations of departments, faculty, staff, and athletics, and that she be held to account for her actions; and be it further
Resolved, that the Academic Senate of SSU call on the California State University (CSU) Board of Trustees to hold CSU Chancellor Mildred García and SSU Interim President Cutrer to account for these poorly-developed and disastrously-implemented cuts; and be it further
Resolved, that the Academic Senate of SSU call for a new leadership model for Sonoma State University –an approach that is in accordance with the Senate’s own, long-held disposition on shared governance that includes: consultation and full participation in the development and framing of decisions,1– collaboratively and transparently with faculty, staff, students, community members, and elected political representatives– to develop a sustainable financial model for SSU that respects its history and mission to provide the quality education that our students deserve and have planned for, without these proposed, capricious budget cuts; and be it further
Resolved, that the Academic Senate of SSU urge the CSU Board of Trustees and Chancellor’s Office to immediately adopt strategic, systemwide enrollment management practices and the distribution of critical resources, –including but not limited to deployment from reserves,– to address the enrollment crises at SSU and multiple CSU campuses without resorting to program cuts and employee layoffs; and be if further
Resolved, that the Academic Senate of SSU urge the CSU Board of Trustees and Chancellor’s Office to immediately address the barrier to CSU access that the current CalState Apply application process presents, as the sole channel for admission to all CSU’s, which has led to systemic underenrollment especially at the Northern California campuses; and be it further
Resolved, that Academic Senate of SSU insist that Sonoma State University and the CSU system provide the level of financial transparency that would enable faculty, staff, students, and our community to genuinely participate in discussions about SSU finances and any requisite problem-solving, with respect to the same; and be it further
Resolved, that the Academic Senate of SSU require that all future SSU presidents and other leaders, interim or otherwise, be held to the highest expectations of shared governance and community-based collaboration possible prior to crucial planning and decision-making, for the future short- and long-term welfare of SSU to reinvent and preserve SSU’s mission and all else that is good about the University–in a sustainable manner–without invoking budget cuts, attacking tenure, or refusing to engage with the local and broader community; and be it finally Resolved, that this resolution be distributed to the following for serious and timely consideration, and for even wider issuance:
– Governor Gavin Newsom
– Lieutenant Governor Eleni Kounalakis
– U.S. Representative Mike Thompson
– Senate Pro Tem Mike McGuire
– Assembly Majority Leader Cecilia Aguiar-Curry
– State Senator Christopher Cabaldon
– Assemblymember Chris Rogers
– Assemblymember Damon Connolly
– Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas
– State Senator John Laird
– Senate Education Committee Chair Al Muratsuchi
– Senate Budget and Fiscal Review Subcommittee 1 Chair John Laird
– Assembly Higher Education Committee Chair Mike Fong
– Assembly Budget Committee Chair Jesse Gabriel
– Assembly Budget Subcommittee 3 Chair David Alvarez
– CSU Board of Trustees
– SSU Interim President Emily Cutrer
– SSU Provost Karen Moranski
– SSU Vice President of Administration and Finance and Chief Financial Officer Monir Ahmed
– SSU Vice President for Advancement Mario Perez
– SSU Vice President for Strategic Enrollment Ed Mills
– SSU Vice President for Student Affairs Gerald L. Jones
– SSU Chair of Staff Council Gillian Estes
– California Faculty Association
– California State University Employees Union
– Teamsters Local 2010
– UAW – Academic Student Employees
– Academic Senate of the CSU Chair Elizabeth Boyd
– Emeritus and Retired Faculty and Staff Association (ERFSA)
– American Association of University Professors
Rationale: On Wednesday, January 22, 2025, just one day after the term began, Sonoma State University (SSU) Interim President Emily Cutrer and Chancellor Mildred García announced cuts of 130+ faculty (including lecturers, tenure-track, tenured full professors, and more, who have collectively given decades upon decades of service to SSU), 23 academic programs, 6 departments, and the merger of 7 other departments, for uncertain net positive benefit, and the entirety of intercollegiate athletics programs, to represent approximately 25% of all faculty, cut without notice and due to no fault of their own. These cuts were announced that day by Administrative email, without prior notification or consultation to the campus, local legislative representatives, our regional stakeholders, and our whole community, leaving SSU faculty, staff, students, parents, alumni, and many others in a state of shock, bewilderment, grief, and turmoil.2
● As a consequence of the January 22nd proposal, an entirely predictable and avoidable exodus of students began occurring within days (e.g., enrollment drops on course rosters, requests for recommendation letters for transfer applications, and public student comments far and wide), ushering in a new and administration-induced enrollment crisis that now looms.
● Community support for SSU’s future has been widespread: news media have reported nationally on the extreme situation, mass campus protests have ensued, lawsuits have been filed, and California lawmakers have written a joint letter expressing “an overarching goal of holding the [California State University] system accountable” while “committed to strengthening SSU and disappointed in the university’s inadequate consultation, transparency, and vision.” This situation led to legislators’ urgent visit to the SSU campus in an over five-hour, standing-room only public legislative hearing on Feb. 21, during which lawmakers demanded “a comeback plan” from the Interim President, in writing, within 30 days.34 Lawmakers expressed extreme, open concern and deep disappointment in the actions and attitudes of both the SSU and CSU administrations and will return in March 2025 for follow-up.5
By any metric, SSU’s future has been hurt by mismanagement due to a revolving door of short-lived presidential terms with ineffective, if not catastrophic, budgetary plans over years during a global pandemic and multiple disastrous wildfires, as well as decades-long anticipated (and well-documented) demographic shifts in student populations that have been progressing through the California K-12 education system.
Interim President Emily Cutrer has proven no exception to SSU’s history of mismanagement. Cutrer claims that her drastic actions are requisite to resolve an acute budgetary crisis, exacerbated by recent further budget reductions imposed by the CSU Chancellor’s Office–even when most programs on the campus slated to be cut are actually profitable. In addition, other funds are available to buy time to resolve current problems strategically and effectively: in 2022, the CSU system had over $6.5 billion in unrestricted net assets and ran a $2.1 billion budget surplus; in June 2024, over $775 million was set aside for “Reserves for Economic Uncertainty.”6 Additionally, the recent compact between the CSU Chancellor and Governor Gavin Newsom specifically indicates the use of reserves and other existent funds during a predicted two-year period of State revenue reduction. The CSU has not honored this request and has seemingly selected SSU as a test case to violate previous agreements and understandings. Therefore, it is of broad and acute concern that SSU will be used as a model for imposing self-destructive fiscal austerity at other CSU campuses; as Interim President Cutrer disclosed to KQED: “[w]e may be the first, but we’re not the last CSU where you are going to see issues.”7 The austerity cuts now being imposed at SSU are the culmination of decades of failure by CSU administrators to aggressively advocate for funding the “people’s university” from the California State Legislature, resulting in systematic and long-standing inadequate support for an increasingly diverse and representative CSU system.8
The paradigm for these proposed cuts also fails to account properly for the crucial regional roles that the various CSU campuses provide as a statewide system of geographically-distributed centers providing CSU access and resources to their respective service areas. Systemwide, proactive enrollment management, such as has already been used in both the University of California’s and the CSU’s past (during previous times of enrollment and budget difficulties, for example, when certain campuses and programs were declared impacted) could have significantly mitigated this current crisis, and should be implemented immediately to prevent further damage. Instead we see the system taking desperately needed resources away from campuses, like Sonoma State, already struggling due to underenrollments and then redirecting those to campuses burdened by overenrollment demands from applicants outside of their service areas. Doing so risks the total collapse of struggling campuses and incurs a broad range of losses for these campuses' geographic service districts. Instead, student enrollments (and their associated resources) could be redirected to those specifically struggling campuses.
Appropriate management means that we do not balance our budgets on the backs of California’s faculty, staff, students, athletes, and future community members and leaders.
Additionally, a return to normal consultation, processes, and procedures, transparency, and a commitment to the mission statement of both the CSU and SSU matter deeply to better lives, educations, and futures. All are long past due. SSU, in particular, holds a special role within the greater CSU as a system, yet it now faces an existential crisis. The CSU is composed of 23 individual, unique campuses, each with their own educational history and culture, employing over 53,000 faculty and staff, serving almost a half million students, and standing as the “nation’s largest four-year public university.”9 The CSU’s mission is to provide access to exemplary education for the greater public of California who wish to pursue this through the University System, which benefits both individuals as well as the State. As a system, the CSU endeavors to meet this mission by:10
– offering “opportunities for individuals to develop intellectually, personally and professionally”
– “to offer undergraduate and graduate instruction leading to bachelor’s and higher degrees in the liberal arts and sciences, the applied fields, and the professions”
– while promoting “an understanding and appreciation of the peoples, natural environments, cultures, economies, and diversity of the world”
– and providing “an environment in which scholarship, research, creative, artistic, and professional activity are valued and supported”
– so as to serve communities as “educational, public service, cultural, and artistic centers”
– which also “recognizes and values the distinctive history, culture, and mission of each campus.”
Within the CSU, SSU is unique for being the only California Public Liberal Arts University (COPLAC) plus a Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI), whose specific mission states “a commitment to the liberal arts and sciences” to furthermore “prepare students for meaningful citizenship in a complex world.”11 SSU has historically contributed to the individuals who live in the region and to the region as a whole, through specific, invaluable, unique, and irreplaceable educational degrees and programs. It additionally holds the 3rd highest graduation rate within the CSU system for first-time students and transfer students. SSU has long balanced effectively maintaining an exceptionally strong community drawn from both traditional majors and backgrounds as well as from more marginalized communities and fields of study. Due to Interim President Emily Cutrer’s mismanagement, under the supervision of Chancellor García, SSU, as an exceptional institution is now facing vast and untenable cuts which will have, and have already had, life-altering, long-lasting, negative, material consequences for large numbers of people.
SSU has long been in need of capable leadership to guide its own strategic planning in response to recent enrollment challenges and budgetary shortfalls. Unfortunately, instead of providing constructive leadership now at this most exigent moment, Interim President Emily Cutrer, following other past presidents of SSU, has been allowed to deliver inefficacies at the expense of the people of California State one too many times.
To sum it up: SSU deserves better.