Good Morning Chair Kimbell, Chancellor Castro, Trustees, Campus Presidents, and Guests,

I hope everyone had a restful winter break and wish you all the best this new year; before I provide my report I wanted to congratulate President Beck, and President Sandeen on starting their terms as CSU Presidents for Cal State Northridge and Cal State East Bay. A warm congratulations to Dr.Blanchard on his future leadership and thank you for his service to the CSU and dedication to students. Lastly, a special congratulations to Dr. Castro on starting his role as the 8th Chancellor of the CSU; I truly appreciate his communication and dedication to prioritizing students. I also wanted to thank him for joining us this past weekend during our plenary, the students really valued the priorities he shared with us as they aligned with CSSA’s priorities.

As the officially recognized voice of all CSU students, CSSA once again appreciates the opportunity to address you all and we look forward to opportunities where we can collaborate to address any challenges we may face this semester. Now more than ever it is absolutely critical that we all work together to create spaces and resources that welcome students and ensure they have the institutional and academic support needed to succeed in their education.

As the new year began we have all received very positive news with the Governor’s proposed budget. We are happy to see a reinvestment into the CSU and particularly pleased to see the 15 million for mental health and technology and another 15 million for student homeless and food insecurity. With this budget proposal we were glad to receive the swift announcement from Chancellor Castro that tuition for 2021/2022 would not increase. We are excited to partner with the Chancellor’s Office and each of the CSU advocacy partners in our budget advocacy to ensure we received those funds, and I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that we heard from the Governor’s Office and budget staff in the Capitol that the budget request from the Board of Trustees in alignment with CSSA as a shared priority made all the difference in having basic needs included in the January Budget proposal.

Another important issue to highlight is the planning for the fall 2021 semester, within CSSA’s covid-19 policy agenda the health and safety of the campus community is essential. Students are both anxious and excited by the possibility of a return to an on-campus instruction in the fall. There is a hope for a return with some sense of normalcy but we must be considerate of the students who may not have the access or resources to return in the fall so I urge all campus leadership to work with and include their students and student leadership in these conversations to best find solutions to serve our entire campus community.

Lastly I wanted to address with you all an immense priority for CSSA, financial aid reform. Three years ago CSSA in collaboration with the University of California Student Association and the Student Senate for California Community Colleges started a coalition and established a Fix Financial Aid campaign. We know that our students are impacted the most by non-tuition costs, particularly low income students, and those costs have not been taken into account by the current financial aid model. Collectively we believe this is one of the most effective way to address basic needs and the affordability crisis. The new proposal from California Student Aid Commission was just voted on and while we do have some outstanding concerns we hope to see this addressed in the legislative process, now is the time for a reform and now is the time to modernize the Cal Grant.

I look forward this semester to working and advocating for student needs and engaging students in the systemwide, state and federal higher education policy making.

Thank you Chair Kimbell that concludes my report.

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