The ship is sinking. Sonoma State University has seen constant turmoil throughout the semester ever since Interim President Emily Cutrer announced the closure of 22 majors and six departments on Jan 22.
Students are angry – especially when Cutrer announced the cuts were “final”. “There is no plan B,” Cutrer told the student body at a virtual town hall following the cuts, while students chanted “Go back to Texas” or called Cutrer a “hired gun,” refering how she had been hired seemingly just to take the cuts and then leave at the end of the semester.
In response to the backlash, the SSU Academic Senate has called for a vote of no confidence for the interim president, the provost Karen Moranski, and Chancellor of the CSU system, Mildred García.
Students and faculty were allowed to give input on a forum that will be read before the vote; and of the 75 responses given, 60 are in favor of the vote with only 10 opposed and five undecided.
In an interview with The Star, Emily Acosta-Lewis, the chair of the Academic Senate, claimed the chancellor had not been addressing the governor’s recent $375 million cut to the CSU budget fairly. Instead of cutting the budget based on a school’s overall budget, she cut $8 million from each – which affects smaller schools drastically more. “What’s the point of a system if we’re not going to help each other out?” asked Acosta-Lewis.
But she posed a theory that the chancellor is attempting to use the community backlash to call Gov. Newsom to reverse the cuts. “We’re being used politically,” said Acosta-Lewis.
At a legislative forum on campus on April 15, Vice Chancellor Steve Relyea, attending in place of Chancellor García (who has yet to attend any meetings here at SSU virtually or in person), revealed that their office had no intention to use the reserves to help SSU. “We just don’t have the legal ability to do that, and if we did have the legal ability to do that we probably wouldn’t want to do it anyway,” said Relyea.
He also partially revealed that the decisions to cut certain departments were encouraged by the chancellor’s office – backing up the “hired gun” theory. “Cutrer and her program have tried to reduce costs for the programs that are not going to bring the larger group of students to Sonoma State, and really invest in those things that do resonate with what students want to learn.”
The idea that Emily Cutrer was hired to take a “PR hit” for the chancellor has been gaining traction, especially noting how quickly the chancellor forced former President Mike Lee to resign. Lee’s plan to address the demands of pro-Palestinian protests was met with backlash from the Jewish community, as it would cut all academic ties to the Jewish ancestral homeland of Israel in a way that disproportionately affected Jewish students and programs. But firing the president instead of revising the plan was a bit extreme, and it is suspicious that the same chancellor acted on the controversy of one president but not another.
The legislators showed clear frustration towards the administration, as Senate President pro Tempore Mike McGuire called Cutrer’s recent “Bridge to the future” plan “vague” and stated “I am done being taken advantage of. It feels like you are trying to run out the clock.”
There are 23 active CSU campuses; more than pieces in a game of chess – and little SSU is nothing more than a pawn to the chancellor. One García is risking in a gambit with the governor. But life isn’t a game – and the lives and futures of over 6000 students, and 1000 faculty and staff are at risk. Not to mention the possibility of future state cuts if legislators lose trust in the administration. SSU is sending out an SOS. It’s not too late to Save our School, García. But if we’re going down, you might be sinking with us.
Correction and note from the editor: In the original print version of this article, one instance of ‘pro-Palestinian’ was miswritten as ‘pro-Palistinian’.
