By Matilda Iem
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It’s easy to grow cynical when contending with everyday academic frustrations as an ordinary student. We scowl at lofty parking prices, broken ACs, and rising tuition. Then we shake our fists at the faceless higher-ups who are behind all our collegiate troubles while themselves hidden behind bureaucratic red tape. We feel unheard, powerless, and forsaken as we’re left to just accept every fee as a part of the fine print on the enrollment package.
Last week, this cynicism was what made me sigh when I was told that Dr. Perez had invited my Honors class section to this year’s Java with Jane. I wasn’t sure what questions to ask, what to expect, nor even if I believed in The Beach’s higher administration enough to want to engage personally with the President. Before then, the event had always seemed like some kind of obscure, professional reception, exclusive only to whatever students were lucky enough to both not have a morning class and not wake up cantankerously groggy. However, in the end, I can say that I’m glad I pushed past my reluctance to attend—and not just because they provided free snacks and coffee.
Past Flyer of Java with Jane event
Introduction
First off, it’s hard to argue about the benefit of being able to see a person in power in-person. Especially in the rare event that we aren’t looking up, from the anonymity of a vast audience, at them on a stage that still manages to be far away even with a microphone. This time, we were all on the same ground; all comfortably seated, with one speaker facing a group roughly the size of a high school class. Intuitively, you become a lot less inclined to scapegoat a leader when you see their human nature.
It also helped that Jane Close Conoley brought to the table her unique perspective as CSULB President of eleven years, with a background in psychology. Serving as a representative of the school’s history, she gave us a glimpse of the multi-faceted challenges that come with managing a giant campus of seventy-five years of age—from water main disasters and minor flooding, to renovating buildings with an average age of fifty years for a changing climate and student population, to being sure to respect local tribes and Puvungna land throughout construction. That’s all in addition to handling the sheer scale of Cal State governance—with a variety of boards and committees collaborating to manage every element of the college’s resources and structure—and balancing individual freedom of faculty—like a professor’s right to teach their classes in the way they wish. Overall, the discussion provided more clarity to our limited perspectives as students, since issues such as the age of the college’s underground pipelines or managing the old in-house power plant at the USU would normally never cross our minds.
It was also through this perspective that she discussed our concerns and questions.
Jane Close Conoley, photo courtesy of CSULB website
Discussion Recap
One large talking point was the reason for high costs, including parking prices and rising tuition. Conoley explained rather reasonably that increased costs went to managing the salaries of school faculty, maintaining facilities, and funding student healthcare. She also shed light on how state funding was cut completely for facility management in 2013, and has wavered even in recent years, requiring the university to fund its own repairs on long-standing infrastructure like its very own streets. In fact, the campus expects a further 8% cut, which translates to a loss of $30 million, in the upcoming year—leading to a temporary hiring freeze. Essentially, gradually increasing costs are an unfortunate but necessary change in order to thread the needle between the college’s two biggest contributors to its budget: state funding and tuition. To alleviate financial strain on students, Conoley reinforced the importance of making good use of campus resources. On that train of thought, she also had some good news on future expansions to student benefits, which, as seen during the COVID pandemic, are constantly changing with changing funds. In this case, if philanthropic private scholarships provide proper funding—an estimated $315,000–Conoley is optimistic about improving housing and installing a dental clinic for free preventative care, an issue that she reports as the second most common student emergency after transportation troubles.
A second, broad topic was the logistic struggle behind planning the evolution of physical student amenities.
For example, ASI’s “Future U” project is seeing an upcoming shake-up with the USU in the form of a looming two-year long renovation. In this case, the President shed light on the collaborative gears making sure that a plan of this scale can chug slowly and steadily along, summarizing the minutiae of scheduling temporary resource relocations and potential shutdowns to ensure students can still find the help and recreation spaces they need even while construction commences.
Another example is the recurring suggestion of adding sleep pods to school, which shows the direct clash between students’ ideal college and the reality of management. As Conoley explained, the greatest challenges in providing this kind of resource are supplying and cleaning materials, and securing student belongings. In other words, the administration can’t practically maintain what is functionally a mini hotel in a sanitary and safe way alongside everything else offered at The Beach—leading to the idea being shot down whenever it’s brought up to the applicable boards. Interestingly, after the President made this point, the floor opened up to almost-instinctive democratic discussion. With their interest piqued and perspective broadened, attendants suggested compromises to the concept of sleep pods—such as students bringing their own pillows or blankets to places for napping, or the continued promotion of events like ASI’s hammock hang-outs that they’ve previously held near grassy areas around the USU. Ultimately, this brief collaborative period represented a microcosm of the deliberation that occurs at the administrative level of CSULB.
Another important talking point was the usage of modern technology in classrooms. On the topic of Artificial Intelligence, some attendants voiced frustration with old-fashioned professors complicating tasks that have been greatly simplified by technology, such as handwriting formal lab reports instead of compiling information with AI. Here, Conoley agreed that AI has its place in education, if used responsibly. She also informed us that the campus does offer training resources for both faculty and students on AI, through the Department of Information Technology (DoIT) and Academic Technology Services (ATS), but, they don’t have the authority to mandate that people attend these trainings or that professors use a specific way of teaching. Instead, the President encouraged students to advocate for themselves and give their professors constructive feedback. When asked to place herself in the shoes of a college professor, the President asserted that she would use AI as a tool to gauge student understanding by creating and grading checkpoint quizzes.
One of the final topics of discussion was the impact of environmentalism on our CSULB campus. Although Conoley admits that the pandemic did disrupt many sustainability groups and features at the Beach, she promises that some have been making a heroic return, especially in the form of agricultural clubs. As for older environmental infrastructure, she informed us about the in-house Central Plant, to the direct east of the USU. This decades-old, award-winning plant utilizes water and ice to distribute cooling power to buildings throughout the campus. You might have seen its steam towers from the CPACE courtyard. The President identifies it as another factor of complexity in CSULB maintenance, and offers the prospect of a tour if interest is high.
Conclusion
By providing a simple space for discussion, Java with Jane closed the distance between the experience of being a singular student in a massive ocean of over 40,000 peers, and the captain at the helm of our school’s ship. Quite literally, I and the rest of the humble number of attendees from that morning were finally able to see her eye-to-eye.
In terms of philosophy, President Conoley advised us to “be skeptical, but not cynical.” She had said this in respect to questioning online resources in order to curb the blind spread of disinformation, but I think it can also be applicable to involvement at CSULB. Instead of pessimistically accepting unsatisfactory elements of our campus as shortcomings that will always be, why not question what change could be made—even if it’s just changing someone’s mind—if we advocate for ourselves and collaborate with the right people?
Our President certainly doesn’t shy away from student input. If you have a pertinent concern about the campus, Jane Close Conoley welcomes emails to her office.
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