Thank you, Chair Fong, and good afternoon, Presidents, Chancellor Koester, and the Board of Trustees.

My name is Krishan Malhotra, I am a recent graduate from Stanislaus State where I earned my Bachelor of Arts in Business Administration degree this past May. In the fall, I will pursue my MBA at Stanislaus State. I am honored and humbled to serve as the 2022/2023 CSSA President.

I ran for this position because of my years of experience advocating for students. The first time I spoke in front of members of the Board of Trustees was in December of 2019 during the campus open forum for the Chancellor’s search. It was then, at Fresno State, that I knew I wanted to learn more about CSSA and become involved in this organization. It was then that I knew amplifying the voices of students who aren’t heard was something that I loved doing. Now, in 2022 I stand before you – doing just that.

I’m looking forward to engaging with this Board and the Chancellor’s Office staff on the priorities of [the CSSA] board, as well as the work that this body is working on including – the Systemwide Title IX assessments, the Chancellor search, and addressing digital equity concerns including CSUCCESS.

This year, I have the great privilege of serving alongside four incredible executive officers: Mr. Varenya Gupta from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo will serve as the CSSA Chair. Varenya is an incoming junior at Cal Poly and is currently pursuing an Industrial Engineering degree. Varenya is an international student from India who became interested in policy and student advocacy shortly after he started at Cal Poly. From there, Varenya joined [the Cal Poly] ASI and last year served as a very active member of [the CSSA] board.

Ms. Dixie Samaniego from Cal State Fullerton will serve as our Vice President of Systemwide Affairs. Dixie is a fourth-year political science major with a women and gender studies minor. She is the proud daughter of immigrants, a first-generation college student, and an EOP student. We are excited about the voice she will provide on behalf of students as she engages in system-wide work with the Chancellor’s Office staff and members of this body.

Next and with me today is Mr. Trent Murphy from Stanislaus State. Trent is a fourth-year political science major and transfer student from the California Community College system. He will be serving as our Vice President of Legislative Affairs. He has already hit the ground running and has provided testimony on bills that will improve the lives of students over the past few weeks.

Also with us today is Mr. Jonathan Molina Mancio from Dominguez Hills. Jonathan is a fifth-year business finance major with an English language and Linguistics minor. He is a first- generation and EOP student. Jonathan most recently served as ASI President at Dominguez Hills, and we are excited about the knowledge and skillset he will bring in managing budgets and fiscal policies as our Vice President of Finance.

As the executive officers of this organization, we are both honored and humbled to be able to serve our fellow students in these roles.

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CSSA represents nearly half a million students in the CSU and serves as the official voice to the California State Legislature and this Board of Trustees. This year, I and my fellow executive officers look forward to sharing the student perspective, experience, and stories on the actions that you will be taking and the impacts they will have on our students.

This past weekend, CSSA hosted our July orientation and our first Board of Directors meeting for the 2022-2023 year. While we had hoped to be in person, the ongoing realities of the COVID-19 pandemic had us switch to a virtual format. At orientation, we had the opportunity to meet our new governing members and hear about why they chose the CSU. I’d like to share the experience of two incredible governing members with you today:

The first is Obioha (OH-BEE-OH-HA) Ogbonna (OG-BOH-NAH), the current ASI President at Cal State Dominguez Hills. President Ogbonna (OG-BOH-NAH) is an international student from Nigeria studying cyber security. He began his coursework while he was still in Nigeria and was taking classes at 3 am. When he arrived in the United States last year, his first experience was going to an ASI training and since then found his first family in the United States at ASI. In addition to being a graduate student and campus leader, he is also an African music composer.

As an international student, President Ogbonna (OG-BOH-NAH) navigated the LA County Public Transportation systems with no assistance. This allowed him to experience more of the sights and sounds of the Carson area; unfortunately, he was on the receiving end of numerous racist experiences.

President Ogbonna (OG-BOH-NAH) has a unique story, but the reality is that he and so many of our students experience harassment and racism, every day, both off campus and on campus. He and several other governing members of CSSA attended the inaugural Juneteenth Symposium a few weeks ago. They shared their experience with me and spoke on how they hope that the difficult and uncomfortable conversations that were had there, continue and that we as a CSU community must come together to create and reshape policies that will lead to inclusive and welcoming campus environments, outside and inside of the classroom, for our students.

The next student story I would like to share is that of Krystal Alvarez from Chico State. Krystal hoped to attend the University of Arizona but the realities of the cost of attendance quickly set in and she, as the oldest sibling in her family, realized that $50,000 per year was not feasible for her or her family. Krystal instead applied to CSU [campuses] that had her major, which is speech-language pathology, and she found an unlikely connection and kinship with Chico State, Home of the Wildcats. Krystal visited the campus and has immersed herself in her new community. She now serves as ASI President and says she wouldn’t have it any other way.

The CSU’s high-quality and affordable education is one of the reasons that Krystal chose the CSU.

CSSA is proud to have advocated alongside other CSU stakeholders for the system’s budget request. We appreciate Governor Newsom’s commitment to a compact with the CSU which will provide predictable funding for our system. One we hope translates into predictable tuition costs for our students, as well as a focus on college affordability.

While there were many other investments in the final state budget that we are also excited about – including funding for basic needs, foster youth, and student housing – we were most excited to see that the Cal Grant Equity Framework was also included, with a 2024/2025 implementation timeline. Our students have passionately advocated for Cal Grant Reform for the last four years as part of our Fix Financial Aid efforts and we can finally say that the work has paid off. CSSA thanks Governor Newsom, Assemblymembers Medina and McCarty, and Senator Leyva for their leadership on this critical student priority.

With funds having already been allocated to the California Student Aid Commission to begin working on an implementation plan, CSSA looks forward to working with our Chancellor’s Office partners in the next two years to discuss new institutional aid policies and how we might best address the total cost of attendance for our students in the most equitable way possible.

Over the course of the next three months, our board will be embarking on our policy agenda development process, which outlines CSSA’s priorities for the year. I look forward to sharing our policy agenda with you all once it is passed. This past weekend at orientation, we did get a glimpse of some of the issues that our students are passionate about and where they plan to direct their advocacy efforts. A few of those issues include:

• Increasing the number of mental health and wellness resources available to students on campuses,
• Addressing the increasing costs of attending a CSU, specifically as it relates to housing,
• Increasing funding to support campus basic needs programs, and
• Ensuring that students are living and learning in safe and inclusive environments free from harassment, discrimination, and racism on our campuses and in our classrooms,

This list is not exhaustive and as our board discusses and deliberates issues – I will surely share the perspectives and experiences that our students are facing across the State.

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This year, CSSA is looking forward to being back in person for our plenaries and conferences. We are excited to visit campuses across the system and be able to engage in meaningful in-person interactions as we continue to improve the lives of CSU students.

We will be hosting our annual CSUnity conference, our first in-person event since March 2020 on September 11th and 12th at Long Beach State. We hope that you will be able to join us on September 12th to hear directly from our amazing students about what their experiences of being CSU students are like.

On the in-person note, I want to extend my thanks to the Long Beach, Fresno, San Jose, Sacramento, and Bakersfield Associated Students who will be hosting in-person CSSA plenaries this year.

In closing, I want to share what an honor it is to be in this space with you all and to be given the opportunity to lead this incredible organization. It is not lost on me that CSSA serves as the official voice for nearly half a million CSU students and I am humbled to be able to provide this report on their behalf.

Thank you, Chair Fong, that concludes my report.

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