Report of the Chair

Our Chair, Jeff Bleich, will not be able to join us for this meeting for reasons that will become obvious in a moment, but he has asked me to share the following statement.

"I am sorry to miss today's meeting, and unfortunately will be absent tomorrow as well. As some of you may have heard, I am in Washington, D.C. and serving in the White House as Special Counsel to the President for the next 3-4 months. This is a temporary assignment, and therefore will not require me to resign from the Board. It may, however, limit the scope of my activities and travel between now and August. I will do my best to minimize disruption to the CSU, and I have every confidence that Trustee Carter will demonstrate that the Board is not merely in good hands, but in better hands, during my absence. I have made arrangements to continue my service to the CSU during this period, and I look forward to participating to the extent I can in upcoming Board activities, commencements, and campus events. I am very honored to have this opportunity to serve our Country, and grateful to Trustee Carter and the other members of the CSU community for shouldering some extra responsibilities while I do so. Finally, I hope that my fellow Board members and campus leaders -- administrators, faculty, alumni, and student leaders -- will stop by to visit if you find yourself in Washington, D.C." Jeff

In the absence of Chair Bleich, I will make some brief remarks.

Welcome is in order to Assembly Speaker Karen Bass. On behalf of the Board of Trustees, we are pleased to have you here today and hope you will always come when your schedule permits.

Congratulations to Trustee Margaret Fortune on the occasion of successfully completing her nomination hearing before the Senate Rules Committee last Wednesday. Your colleagues, the presidents, your family and friends are proud of you.

Fresno State opened the new Madden Library with a ribbon cutting ceremony on February 19. The combination of the library addition and renovation creates the largest academic building on the Fresno campus and the biggest library in the entire CSU system. Guests at the ribbon cutting included trustees Carol Chandler, Pete Mehas and Russel Statham. Because of the freeze on state-funded capital projects halted the delivery of furniture, there was a lot of built-up anticipation about the building opening. The campus staff did its best to place temporary chairs and tables in the building pending the arrival of the new items.

The CSU Stanislaus Division II baseball team was ranked number one in the nation by the Collegiate Baseball Newspaper this month. Congratulations to the team and coaching staff, and good luck for the rest of the season.

This past weekend, San Diego State hosted the first two rounds of the NCAA Division 1 women’s basketball tournament at Cox Arena. Hosting the opening tournament rounds was a first for San Diego State.

Finally, this spring several of the CSU campuses are participating in “The Big Read”. This is an initiative of the National Endowment for the Arts to restore reading to the center of American culture. The Big Read gives communities an opportunity to read and discuss selections from American and world literature.

That concludes my report. Now, the Chancellor’s Report.