CSUMB Presidential Search Nearly Complete

The first of CSUMB’s three Presidential candidates visited the campus on Monday, March 6, 2006. The arrival of the candidates is the culmination of a long selection process begun when Dr. Peter Smith, the University’s only President since its inception in 1994, left the job to take a position as UNESCO’s Assistant Director General of Education in Paris in early 2005. One of Dr. Smith's last acts as President was one of his most singularly controversial, insisting that his office be placed on the top floor of the new library that was to be constructed in the near future. Dr. Smith's abrupt departure has led to renewed planning absent this executive perk and the library project has been on indefinite hold as redesign plans have been slow in coming and repeatedly been deemed unfeasible. Additionally, persistent charges of racism against Latino faculty have plagued Smith, whose Republican background has long been at odds with CSUMB’s extremely liberal founding principles. Dr Ruben Mendoza, Professor of Archaeology in the Social and Behavioral Sciences department, had maintained a website that until recently functioned as a forum for the faculty united against Smith to voice their opinions. Among other things, Mendoza had charged that the University engaged in “ethnic cleansing” with respect to Latino professors who were hired at CSUMB’s inception.

His replacement, former provost Diane Cordero de Noriega Hill, is not in the running for the final position. I have personally heard faulty express their satisfaction with Noriega’s seeming reversal of philosophy regarding many issues; it seems that when she moved from provost to interim President she abandoned many of her Smith-like policies.

The three member committee to select the President is now allowing the candidates a chance to articulate their views and present themselves before a final decision is made, following final interviews on March 13. Information about the candidates can be found at http://executivesearch.calstate.edu .

As is the norm regarding Foundation/Student relations at CSUMB, the students have largely been kept in the dark regarding the selection process. Some students of an intensely political persuasion were able to crash some of the meetings of the selection board, but of course their input was largely drowned out and ignored – perhaps rightly so being as the student’s numbers were limited given the structure of non-participation that pervades many important events here. Given the CSUMB vision statement's (http://csumb.edu/site/x11547.xml) claims of inclusiveness and community participation, it would seem that Dr. Smith has left a difficult legacy that has created a perception that he failed to deliver on founding promises. Additionally, the building of social structures that function to disallow the free flow of information from the University to the students is a strong signal that either the decision maknig bodies are uninterested in facilitating community participation, or actively attempting to conceal its true motives.

Naturally, as with all issues of governance at CSUMB, the process is marked by a significant debate about the direction the university will go in the future with respect to its founding vision. Founding faculty, reduced in number severely during Smith’s tenure but still retaining positions of great influence within the decision making structure, are deeply concerned with how the new President will respond to the vision statement and its devotion to multiculturalism and representation of the traditionally underprivileged. In an objective aside, however, it is blatantly obvious that many students at CSUMB are unaware of the vision statement’s goals and concepts, something that perhaps these founding faculties should attempt to correct before grandstanding on these principles when given an official forum. Insistence on adherence to these principles is not worthy absent a more inclusive ideology that allows for significant growth without erosion of basic values.