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| Chancellor Charles B. Reed |
By all accounts, this has been a remarkable year for the California State University. We have made significant strides in our goals to continue to deliver high quality education, to make our universities accessible and affordable, and to engage business and community leaders in supporting our mission.
Thanks to your hard work and dedication, we have accomplished:
- The granting of 84,000 degrees to students who will improve their own lives as professionals while meeting the workforce needs of a dynamic California; and the promise that the 405,000 students who entered the CSU's doors this year (including more than 300 students whose lives were disrupted by Hurricane Katrina) will have the same opportunities;
- Landmark legislation that will allow the CSU for the first time in its history to offer an independent educational doctorate degree to prepare more educational leaders for California's public schools and community colleges;
- Statewide forums in which CSU faculty, staff, and administrators shared the positive ways that our universities impact industries and communities and how we are working together to meet California's needs;
- A solid new budget that allows us to address our many areas of need, and to reward employees with salary increases. We now have a five-year plan to bring all CSU employee compensation to market levels.
The CSU is on the move because it has the right mission, and it has people who believe in that mission. In fact, the CSU's greatest strength is the quality of its students, faculty and staff members whose perspectives, ideas and opinions come together toward a common goal: transforming lives through education. Kevin Starr, state librarian emeritus, said it best in a recent opinion piece published this fall in the Los Angeles Times: “The CSU system, in short, is keeping California afloat, while offering poor and middle-class people a continuing opportunity to move into the sort of well-paying jobs a college degree affords. Few state agencies possess such a clear-cut and necessary role.” (See the full piece at www.calstate.edu/impact) It is a role to be immensely proud of and one in which each of you plays an important part.
Thank you again for all that you do to make the California State University an outstanding institution. I wish you all a very safe and happy holiday season.
Charles B. Reed
Chancellor
The California State University