Thank you, Chair Fong, and good afternoon Trustees, University Presidents, Chancellor Garcia, and guests.

As the representative body of nearly half a million students in the CSU, CSSA serves as the official voice of CSU students to the California State Legislature and CSU Board of Trustees. It is an honor to provide my final report to this body on their behalf.

Thank you to Chancellor Garcia. Although our time together was brief, I am grateful to have gotten to know you. I hope the relationship between CSSA and the Chancellor’s Office will continue to grow. We must collaborate and deepen our relationship for the well-being and academic success of our students.

Since my last report, CSSA has convened two plenaries, one virtually and one in person at San Diego State University. During our April Plenary, our board engaged in meaningful discussions and made critical decisions impacting our student body. We also elected the 2024/2025 executive leadership team. Two of which join me today. These leaders will be instrumental in driving the agenda and addressing the needs of the CSU student body, ensuring that our students’ voices continue to be heard. Sitting to my left, I would like to introduce CSSA’s president-elect, Iese (Yes-Aye) Esera. Iese is a dedicated and passionate advocate for students, with a background in arts and music, emphasizing in vocal performance, and a minor in Political Science. Throughout his two years as a CSSA governing member and serving as the SF State AS Chief of Staff, Iese has built a reputation as an honest, empathetic, bold, and strategic leader among our students. As he begins his presidency, Iese also begins his second year in his Master’s of Public Administration program at the same institution where he received his Bachelor’s, San Francisco State.

In May, we held our plenary at SDSU. I would like to offer my sincerest thanks to President de la Torre, ASI President Tarek Morsley, and the staff who took tremendous care of us during our stay. Special thank you to DVC Perez, who attended both of our last two plenaries to present on several Chancellor’s Office initiatives and solicit input from our students. These items included Second Start and Finish Strong, updates to Graduation Initiative 2025, and highlights from the Black Student Success Initiative. All of these programs are very exciting for our students, and we look forward to continued engagement regarding their progress and rollout. We also had a robust discussion regarding how enrollment dollars are allocated amongst our under-enrolled institutions. I am happy that president-elect Esera plans to continue this conversation in our conference, to explore how our university can best equip all of our students, regardless of their enrollment level.

We also held our annual Celebration of Excellence Banquet, where we honored five remarkable individuals for their dedication to student success: Dr. Katherine Wong Lau from CSU East Bay as Administrator of the Year; Dr. Elizabeth “Betsy” Boyd from Chico State with the Faculty Excellence Award; Trustee Diana Aguilar Cruz as Trustee of the Year; Dr. Luke Wood from Sacramento State as President of the Year; and Chico State ASI President Autumn Alaniz Wiggins as Student Advocate of the Year. These awardees have demonstrated exceptional commitment to the values and mission of our organization and the CSU system, from championing the needs of students to creating inclusive spaces on campuses. We are deeply grateful for their contributions.

This year has been particularly challenging, with issues such as tuition increases, General Education reform, budget constraints, and the broader societal impacts of global conflicts. Despite these challenges, we have upheld our responsibility to advocate for students and ensure their concerns are heard and addressed.

Dr. Wood, I would like to thank you for leading the way in supporting students in their concerns and promoting their voices, including your efforts at Sacramento State to allow student encampments and your divestment statements. Your leadership has been invaluable.

On April 6th, 2024, the CSSA Board of Directors unanimously passed a resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. Our resolution unequivocally condemns the tragic loss of innocent lives due to the ongoing conflict, calls on the United Nations to uphold human rights, and urges the international community to provide humanitarian aid to mitigate suffering and prevent further casualties. Furthermore, it loudly asserts our firm stance against the suppression of free speech amid this crisis.

As student solidarity encampments began to pop up around the country and our system, we released a statement asking our university leadership to support their students’ rights to free speech and free expression, as long as they are peaceful. We are happy that in the vast majority of situations, our demonstrating students remained safe to express their views, and we applaud the university leadership who actively engaged in dialogue with their students to come to a resolution. Throughout campus protests, there have been cases, like in Humboldt, where serious injury has come to peaceful student demonstrators. We demand accountability from our university where this has occurred, and we will continue to do so. We are happy to hear that our universities will be reviewing their time, place, and manner policies to ensure our students can express themselves while avoiding clashes with our universities.

Throughout this year, CSSA has also continued to be part of the Cal Grant Reform coalition, a diverse coalition of higher education advocacy, civil rights, and social justice, business and workforce, and student leadership organizations, working to ensure the nation’s largest state-based financial aid system continues to be the pathway for affordability for future generations of students and their families. While we were hoping to see Cal Grant reform included in the Governor’s May Revision, based on the trigger set in the 2022 budget agreement, we understand the current budget circumstances before us and acknowledge that ongoing cost pressures are not viable in this year’s budget. However, our low-income students cannot afford to wait for financial support to address the ever-growing costs of higher education. Our Coalition has come together to urge the Legislature and Governor to phase in Cal Grant reform through a one-time investment by implementing key structural and eligibility changes to the Cal Grant program this year. This phased-in approach allows a pathway for the state to meet its budget goals while maintaining its two-year promise to students, especially during a time when we should invest in building up our economy and workforce of the future.

We also remain dedicated to working with all CSU stakeholders over the coming weeks to ensure that the Governor’s Multi-Year Compact is maintained and funding is not cut to the CSU. Both funding to the CSU and Cal Grant reform are imperative to ensure student success and affordability.

To close out my presidency, I want to acknowledge something obvious to us all: this has not been an easy year. Whether you are faculty, staff, a trustee, or a student, we have all faced battles that have left us with doubts about the future. And to state the obvious again, it’s not going to get easier as we see the clouds on the horizon. However, I am heartened by the fact that while I am stepping down, there is no shortage of students like incoming President Esera who are ready and willing to fight for a brighter tomorrow because they have no choice.

Even though it may not be part of our curriculum, we are all lifelong learners. If we are to brave this storm and emerge as a better system, we must learn from our students. Only by understanding them and their needs can we fulfill our mission: admitting them, providing a world-class education, and getting them to the finish line with as little debt as possible. This requires us to talk to them and engage with them, even when it’s hard or when we fear they might criticize us. We have to do this because, without the student voice, this system does not exist. We are both your best allies and your duty.

I know it can feel lonely in this building, and as if the whole world is against you. I have spent the last 12 months working alongside many here to ensure the success of our students. Please know that although it may not seem like it, countless people are rooting for you. I am about to join the biggest group of them—over 4 million alumni in just two days. Even if it doesn’t always feel like it, the alumni of this system are constantly praying for its success. The current students are also rooting for you to succeed, even if it doesn’t always seem that way. And all the students who have yet to be admitted to this system are rooting for you too, even if they don’t know it yet. We are all behind you.

Thank you all so much for creating the opportunity for me to learn in the CSU, and I hope everyone here will continue to do so when I’m gone.

Thank you, Chair Fong. That concludes my report.

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