Thank you Chair Kimbell and good afternoon to our Trustees and guests.

I’ll start off by wishing you all a happy Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month! Like many of our students, I find myself in the very broad characterization of our API label, and choose to celebrate this month by honoring the legacy of my people, the Illocanos, who’s history of resistance and strength have paved my path. It is because of the love of my ancestors, including my family’s patriarch Florencio Benito Alferos, that I am able to serve my community before you. I encourage you all to join in celebrating this month of beautiful heritage through the connection of the shared themes that tie all of us together: community, prosperity, and ancestry.

Seeing as it is May, I am excited to continue an annual tradition of ours at CSSA and acknowledge the service of some notable leaders within our CSU community. You may recall in my last report, I shared with you all that we honored Manmit Singh, a student at San Francisco State, as our student advocate of the year and also recognized Assemblyman Jose Medina and Senator Connie Leyva as our Legislators of the Year. Today, I’d like to announce more individuals who our Board would like to recognize for their work in supporting and engaging students in shared governance. I’d like to ask that when your name is called, if you can make your way to the podium to receive your award and for a quick photo, that would be greatly appreciated.

Our Faculty Excellence in Advising of the Year Award goes to Dr. Mei-Ling Malone. Dr. Malone is a lecturer at Cal State Fullerton in the African American Studies department. In her pedagogy, Dr. Malone emphasizes the application of knowledge, but what distinguishes her in the eyes of our students is her commitment to leadership by example. Despite being a lecturer, Dr. Malone has been an involved faculty supporting multiple student organizations and has supported students’ civic engagement in all spaces from ASI to student organizing. On behalf of our nearly half a million CSU students, thank you, Dr. Malone, for all you do for our students and our greater community.

Our Administrator of the Year goes to Dr. Tonantzin Oseguera, Vice President of Student Affairs at Cal State Fullerton. Though Dr. Oseguera began her current role in 2020, Dr. Oseguera has a history and preceding reputation for being a student-first leader who’s courage to take risks in the name of supporting our students is shored up by her empathy for reaching students where they are. Our students were impressed by not just her leadership at Fullerton, but also her leadership throughout the system and across the state. So, on behalf of our nearly half a million students, Thank you Dr. Oseguera, for embodying a commitment to love and support for our students and for redefining impactful leadership in a time of crisis.

The Robert C. Maxson President of the Year awards goes to Fresno State’s President Saul Jimenez-Sandoval. In the past year President Jimenez-Sandoval has stood out in the eyes of our student’s due to his embodiment of a committee to a student-centered shared governance. In all things, he has actively included and sought the guidance of student leaders at Fresno State, and has sought the expansion of critical programs aimed at addressing systemic inequities. In my tenure as CSSA President, I have come to know President Jimenez-Sandoval as not just an incredible leader, but also a good friend. In this, I have come to see that what makes his leadership so great is that he leads personally. He views his role as President as a servant to his community and has focused on developing a stewardship of place that ensures communal support for our students. And though he is not able to be with us today, true to the spirit of shared governance, he sent D’Aungillique Jackson, the ASI President at Fresno State to accept this award on his behalf. So, On behalf of the nearly half a million students in our CSU system, please extend my thanks to President Saul Jiminez Sandoval for his leadership, and humility.

Lastly, our Bob Linscheid Trustee of the Year award goes to Trustee Yammilette Rodriguez. During her tenure on this Board, Trustee Rodriguez has sought the opinion and experience of students. She has asked insightful and thoughtful questions of our students during her campus visits to better understand their lived experiences and the reality of being a CSU student during these times. We are so thankful for her student centered leadership and look forward to continuing working with her to advance student priorities. Please join me in congratulating Trustee Rodriguez.

As President of CSSA, there are two more recognitions that I would like to provide.

The first, is to Trustee Krystal Raynes. Though Krystal has spent her last 2 years as a Trustee, her service to her fellow student’s extends beyond just this body. As a student leader at CSU Bakersfield, Krystal centered the experiences of marginalized students and sought an expanded definition of civic engagement to include all students. At CSSA, Krystal sought to expand the inclusion of students around the system by spearheading the CSU Says It Right Campaign. And, as a trustee, Krystal has worked ardently to expand the support services provided for students across the CSU.

The last recognition I will be providing is to an individual who has provided steadfast leadership in what has been a turbulent time. This person stepped up and leaned in to provide the entire system with compassionate, empathetic, and consistent leadership at a time when we needed it most. Beyond this, they have served the CSU for years, provided trusted and proven guidance in their ongoing efforts to build a fairer and more equitable education here within the CSU. With that, I’d like to ask Executive Vice Chancellor Steve Relyea to join me at the podium in accepting this special recognition for his excellence in service and leadership on behalf of CSU students.

With that said, It is with a bittersweet heart that I stand before you to give my last report to this body as President of our students. And though I have many thoughts to share and many individuals to recognize, I’ll first outline the updates I have for CSSA’s ongoing work.

As always, addressing the total cost of attendance continues to be our organizations number one priority. We are thankful to this body for not increasing tuition this year and want to extend our appreciation for all the faculty, staff, and administrators that are making strides in utilizing free or affordable course materials. Over the past four years, CSSA has highlighted the immense need for the state to fundamentally rethink the Cal Grant system into one that best serves our students. We have made progress in removing artificial barriers that previously existed for students such as age and time out of high school. But more needs to be done. CSSA, along with other equity organizations, have advocated and will continue to advocate for the Cal Grant Equity Framework and the funding for its implementation. Over the next few weeks, CSSA will continue our budget advocacy efforts with legislative leaders and the governor’s office for the Cal Grant Equity framework and we hope that the system will join us in this advocacy.

I am proud to announce that as part of our partnership with CSUCESS and Apple, CSSA board members will participate in our version of CSUCESS. It is our hope that if student leaders have access to these devices, they can advocate for their own campuses to also participate in this program. We will also be utilizing these devices to streamline our own governance and create new professional development opportunities for our students.

At our May plenary, our Board also elected the new executive officers for the next academic year. It is in my distinct privilege to announce the 2022/23 CSSA Executive Officers

• Vice President of Finance-elect is a student at Dominguez Hills, Jonathan Molina Mancio,
• The Vice President of Legislative Affairs-elect is Trent Murphy of Stanislaus State
• The Vice President of Systemwide Affairs-elect is Dixie Samaniego of Fullerton
• Chair-elect is Varenya Gupta from Cal Poly SLO, and our
• President-elect is Krishan Malhotra of Stanislaus State

Lastly, It wouldn’t be fit to leave this body without leaving you all with some parting words. This past year, it has been a distinct honor and privilege to serve our students, one I will hold close to my heart as I take my next steps in my career.

I stand here, thinking of how quickly this year has gone by, and am reminded of the words of my father I shared with you at my first report. “Love looks like a lot of things to a lot of people, but it must always look like accountability”.

At our last Board meeting, I shared some words of advice for our incoming executive officers in a hope to impart some institutional knowledge. I shared with them what I consider to be the most important advice I can give: allow yourself to fall in love with our students; allow yourself to love the whole of us.

You see, it is from this love that I have come to this body before asking for guidance and intervention in support of our students. And each time I did, I was honest to share with you the severity of our crisis and the emotional toll our students bear. In my last report, I declared to our state that I, like many of our students, staff, and faculty, am a survivor of sexual assault. And, in doing so, I not only outed my trauma but laid my heart before this board as I insisted on decisive leadership and necessary action. And, as I reported to you, I received feedback from staff and faculty across the system, thanking me for sharing a voice that was “so critically needed from those of us who can’t say the same”.

Since then, more articles have come out. Since then, more stories have been published. Across the CSU narratives ring out with more and more instances of sexual harassement and assault made against students, faculty, and staff by high ranking leaders on our campuses. And, as these articles come out, I am concerned not just for the people who’s trauma is thrusted into the limelight, who have my heart as they try to heal, but also for our present circumstances. Currently, so many faculty, staff, and students are afraid to speak up because we have created a culture of retribution within the CSU. This culture being so severe that the only individual empowered to speak truth to power in this way and highlight these issues is a 22 year old, full time student.

And though I have loved this job for this past year, in full transparency, my heart has struggled under the weight of this body. As a survivor, as a student, as a queer, Black, and Illocano man, to come to you all insisting action to combat sexual assault, systemic racism, and address the basic needs leaving my students homeless and starving is exhausting. And yet, I have done such as an honor and privilege to my students.

If we are to lead courageously, if we are to ford this crisis, we must bring accountability to our system in the form of agency. Agency for our students, faculty, and staff to speak out free of fear of retaliation and retribution. Agency for our systemwide leaders to hold ourselves accountable for the role we play in creating our present. Agency for us to seek forgiveness from our community in the form of justice for them.

So, as I transition into my next chapter in life and help bring in our next President Malhotra, I ask us to hold onto my last ask. Stepping into this role, I made 3 commitments to my students, the most important being a commitment to placing our students as a partner in the planning, implementation, and evaluation of all policies impacting them. And from the COVID vaccination policy to CSUCCESS, I am proud to say that we have definitely become better partners this year. But as our system moves forward through changing leadership, as we lead through our current crisis on through our next, I ask that as a body of leaders, Presidents and Trustees alike, that we continue and grow this partnership. Let us foster a culture of learning leadership that highlights the CSU’s unique ability to includes all stakeholders in our decision making.

Again, it has been a unique honor and privilege to serve my students and I am grateful to leave our system in the hands of such capable leaders. So, in the idea of leaving you all with the greatest ask of fostering agency, I share my advice. To our Presidents, thank you for your service to our students and to our communities and I ask that you remain committed to fostering the stewardship of place that only our CSU campuses can provide.

I hope I have served you well and thank you for entrusting me with this privilege. To my students, know that loving you was easy, leading you was an honor, and serving you was a joy incomparable.

To our Trustees, please renew your commitment to not just hearing and knowing our students, but loving them. Renew our systems commitment to justice and healing for our students in ways that only education can provide. And root yourself in the knowledge that at the root of tree of knowledge is radical justice.

This, Chair Kimbell, Concludes my final report.

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