August 22, 2024
Welcome to Fall 2024! It’s a pleasure to be here with all of you today and to welcome those who join us virtually.
I offer a special welcome to our newest faculty and staff colleagues, to the recipients of this year’s distinguished faculty and staff awards, SF State Foundation Chair Mary Huss and CSU faculty trustee, Dr. Darlene Yee-Melichar.
I hope all had good summers and, while I am sure it went by too fast, I hope everyone accomplished some of their summer goals and found time to enjoy some downtime.
I will keep my remarks brief as we attempt a streamlined event for all the busy folks here. First and foremost, I thank you all for everything you did to ensure that last year was a successful one. I am sure many of us watched in horror as universities across the country found their spring semesters disrupted or even worse experienced violence. I am regularly proud of SF State and never more so than when students, staff, faculty, and administrators worked together last spring to support student activism and keep our campus safe and operational.
When I first met with Students for Gaza in May, I expressed hope that SF State would be an exemplar of peaceful activism that results in positive institutional change. Once again, as we have in the past, this University met that challenge. While work remains to be done, faculty, students, and administrators met through the summer to ensure that our investment strategy continues to evolve to meet the values of our community. As a result, our current approach which limits investment in fossil fuels while emphasizing investments which advance race and gender equity will be expanded to limit investment in any company whose revenues come from weapons manufacturing.
We are also proposing that our investment policy be expanded to include a core commitment to advancing human rights. And we will also soon be implementing new features to the Foundation website that will put the Foundation on the leading edge of disclosure. It has been a busy and productive summer. I thank, in particular, Students for Gaza and representatives of the SF State Foundation Board and Investment Committee and the UCorp Board for their dedication to this work.
I am very grateful to all my colleagues in Academic Affairs, Finance & Administration, Student Affairs & Enrollment Management, and Advancement. Under the most challenging of circumstances, our teams work tirelessly and produce incredible results for our students. Among the many things that made last year difficult was the unsuccessful federal rollout of a revised Free Application for Student Aid, better known as FAFSA. To say this has been a disaster might be an understatement. I want to offer a very special thank you to Denise Pena, director of Financial Aid, and all of our colleagues in Financial Aid. This team worked harder than any team I have seen to meet the frequent and mounting challenges the new form produced, all with the goal of ensuring that our students—who so deeply rely on financial aid—could enroll. I have watched with wonder from afar and offer you my deepest thanks.
I could stand up here for hours thanking the many people who make SF State special and who make it a joy to work for…but Chair Wilson would get out the hook. So, I conclude with two invitations and a challenge of sorts:
This fall we open two new buildings. I invite you to spend some time exploring our new Science and Engineering Innovation Center—our students will finally have learning space they need and deserve. And I also encourage you to check out the Grove, our newest first-year residence hall. This hall is unique as it is the first constructed with state dollars (65% of the cost was supported by the state). This allowed the University to implement the first affordable student housing program in the CSU. This fall, almost a quarter of our FY students, those with the greatest financial need, received a 25% reduction in housing fees. I hope this is just the beginning.
As we continue to prepare for a present that includes resizing and shrinking budgets, we must also prepare for the future…a future likely reshaped by artificial intelligence. Colleagues in CEETL, AT and IT are working to help us the capacity to govern, manage and harness both the potential and problems AI heralds. As time allows, I invite you to explore the opportunities afforded by AI—many free tools are out there for you to experiment. Our SF State Microsoft enterprise license gives us access to the free version of Microsoft Copilot. Perhaps see how AI can help you research answers to looming questions or even help with drafting emails or correspondence. While, of course, avoiding plagiarism! And, please be on the lookout for invitations to learn more about emerging AI initiatives at SF State.
Finally, the challenge. With continued conflict abroad and a likely active election season looming, Fall 2024 will be no less exciting than the semesters preceding it. I remind all that democracy is messy and that university campuses are typically the tableaus upon which political and cultural conflict play out. We can expect rallies, and we can expect controversial speakers. As you confront ideas with which you disagree or that are unsettling at best and deeply wounding at worst, please remember that at SF State we support the rights of all to speak. In the spirit of academic freedom and free speech, let’s conduct ourselves peacefully. We need not be silent, but we must allow others to speak. We meet speech with more speech and with supportive services. So, as we embark on a messy semester, join me in actually embracing the messiness as part of our mission and work together again to make sure this all happens peacefully.
On that note and with great gratitude, I wish all a great semester!