Sonoma State is notoriously one of the whitest college campuses in California, in fact on Sonoma State’s website a student ethnicity profile was created and summarized from a CSU statistical abstract in which students self- reported their ethnicities in the Fall 2011 semester. The profile states that the races were broken down by, “Caucasians 65%… Latino/Hispanic 15%… Multi-Racial 6%… Asian 5%… African American 2%…American Indian 1%.” (www.sonoma.edu). Almost three quarters of the student population reported to be Caucasian at SSU in Fall 2011, and all you need to do is take a walk around campus to see that percent is probably still accurate.

Our research group decided to focus on the concept of racial diversity on SSU and more specifically, personal comfort levels of minorities on campus. Our central research question is, “What are the feelings of Sonoma State University students of color in terms of personal comfort levels pertaining to race on campus?”

In more recent times there has been more research on this concept of diversity on college campuses across the United States. This may partially come from statistical research that campuses are supposed to gain more diversity nationwide. Omiunota Nelly Ukpokodu, an associate professor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, examines this further and explains that “data suggests that between 2000 and 2015, the Latino American college-age population is projected to increase by 52 percent, Asian Americans by 62 percent, African Americans by 19 percent, and American Indian/Alaskan Natives by 15 percent…More specifically, there is an increase in the proportion of all high school seniors in minority groups who plan to continue their education at four-year colleges and universities after high school” (Ukpokodu 2010, p. 27). However, in this research the consensus has surfaced that more often than not, college campuses are not placing enough emphasis on diversity and personal comfort then they really should be. “Because of racial segregation in many areas of American life, multicultural educational institutions are among the most important settings in which the next generation has the opportunity to develop positive attitudes toward racial/ethnic groups other than their own.” (Simmons, 2010 p. 468)

Diversity on campus is important for numerous reasons, Jeremy Hyman tells us of eight reasons why diversity is so important; diversity expands worldliness, diversity enhances social development, diversity prepares students for future career success, diversity prepares students for work in a global society, interactions with people different from ourselves increase our knowledge base, diversity promotes creative thinking, diversity enhances self-awareness, and diversity enriches the multiple perspectives. (Hyman, 2009)

Sonoma State has stated they, “…strive to create a campus climate in which the will to build trust among people – and groups of people – is widely shared, and opportunities for enhancing diversity and a sense of community are encouraged and supported. We stand committed to fostering and sustaining a pluralistic, inclusive environment that empowers all members of the campus community to achieve their highest potential without fear of prejudice or discrimination.” (www.sonoma.edu)

Samantha Simmons, Michele A. Wittig and Sheila K. Grant conducted a study in which they used survey data from 434 college students of diverse racial/ethnic heritage. The results showed that, “…valuing positive interactions with members of ethno cultural groups other than one’s own is a positive mediator and strength of ethno cultural identity is a (much less important) negative mediator of the relationship between student perceptions of multicultural campus programming and personal acceptance of diverse racial/ethnic groups.” (Simmons, 2010 p. 468)

Students are not the only ones who face diversity issues; faculty members who are minorities also have to struggle with a concept of diversity. Theresa Mohamed examines the concept of ethnic faculty members and describes the importance to maintain comfort for them as well on college campuses “…the growth of Black and Hispanic populations is increasing faster than the White population and having diverse faculty is a benefit to minority students because “it is the best predictor of success in recruiting and retaining minority students” (p. 3). The research overwhelmingly indicates that a diverse faculty is a benefit. Ways of increasing minority faculty still face many challenges that must be overcome.” (Mohamed, 2010 p. 2).

Sonoma State University faculty and students conducted a study in 2008, where they did face to face interviews with 102 minority students from three different CSU campuses. They did these interviews to assess comfort levels and other issues of diversity across the campuses. The study was executed by using interviews and transcription and then coding to map out their findings. The study also found at that time that the other campuses had became much more diverse while SSU remained of similar diversity for the prior 14 years. (Phillips, 2008)

Data on SSU, SFSU, and CSU East Bay from 1994, 1997, 2004, and 2007 and showed the percentage change in these ethnicities. SSU showed the least diversity in these numbers. For example, the largest change at SSU was a +2% change in the percent of Latinos at SSU over the prior 14 years while at CSU East Bay there was a +8% increase in Asian/ Pacific Islanders and a -15% decrease of White students over the prior 14 years.

The 2008 researchers performed a survey of open and closed ended questions. The closed ended questions ranged from evaluations of comfort levels at their campus to whether the respondents felt that faculty supported diversity on their campus. Students interviewed were asked their comfort levels on campus in terms of their race.
Question: What is your overall comfort level on campus in terms of your race?
a. Very Comfortable
b. Comfortable most of the time
c. Mixed comfort levels
d. Somewhat uncomfortable
e. Very Uncomfortable

Results: SF State (n-44) East Bay (n-30) SSU (n-34)

Very comfortable: 64.6% 62% 32.4%
Com. Most 2 3.7% 37.6% 47.0%
Mixed 11.4% .04% 17.6%
Somewhat 00% 00% 3.0%
Uncomfortable .03% 00% 00%

While about two thirds of the students interviewed at SF and East Bay reported being very comfortable all the time regarding their race, at SSU less than one third made such a statement.

For the second question regarding faculty and diversity, the responses were a bit more spread out. At SF State 38.6% felt the faculty was completely accepting of diversity, at CSU East Bay 47.7% felt the same, and at SSU only 18.2% agreed, a large majority at SSU (54.4%) responded “most of the time” the faculty was accepting of diversity.

Keeping this idea in mind, it is not only important to have campus wide diversity in a more social setting but as well in the curriculum. “Smith (1997) reviewed the benefits of diversity on students in higher education, and found that diversity initiatives positively benefit both minority and majority students on campus, especially in improving attitudes and feelings toward intergroup relations. Also, he found that comprehensive institutional change in teaching methods, curriculum, and campus climate benefit both minority and majority students, especially majority students who have had less opportunity for such development.” (Ukpokodu, 2010 p. 28)

Diversity on campuses is beneficial for students of color, faculty, and college campus climate in general. The articles we have highlighted have merely exemplified the importance of diversity on campus. As we have pointed out, Sonoma State is attempting to better support the idea of diversity on our campus, as the rates of diversity of ethnicities rise in the years to come hopefully other campuses nationwide will be able to see the benefits and follow suit.

At the start of our research project a problem at Sonoma State had just occurred, many students of color felt attacked when they heard that a BSU poster had been marked with the word “nigger”. Our group’s biggest concern was that perhaps this incident would skew our results into either a negative or positive direction. However, as we began approaching students and inviting them to join us in our interview, it turned out a lot easier than we pictured it. A lot of these students were people who knew some of our group-mates already from various classes and campus activities. Having this advantage allowed us to approach most of the students we saw, and we were rarely denied the opportunity to interview.

The previous study was conducted in 2008, where thirty-four Sonoma State students were asked, “What is your overall comfort level on campus in terms of your race?” and this question provided them with five different answer options, ranging from very comfortable to very uncomfortable. In hopes of seeing a difference from 2007, our group also included this question in our survey. In our 2013 interview, we included forty-eight students of color. In 2007 32.4% of students felt very comfortable and now in 2013 our results were 37.5%. Students that answered to being comfortable most of the time were 47% in 2007 and 39.6% in 2013. Mixed comfort levels in 2007 were 17.6% while 16.7% in 2013. Somewhat uncomfortable in 2007 was 3% while 6.25% in 2013 and in 2007 we had 0% of the interviewed students who were very uncomfortable and now inn 2013 it still remains at 0%.

We brought in another question from the 2007 survey for comparison, where we asked, “Do you feel that campus administration, staff and faculty support diversity on campus?” In 2007 the results were completely 18.2%, Most of the time 54.4%, sometimes 21.1%, occasionally 6.0%, and 0.3% for not at all. In our current 2013 interview our results were as follows: Completely 37.5%, Most of the time 29.2%, Sometimes 27.1%, Occasionally 4.2% and leaving Not at all at 2.1%.

Taking the results from both these questions, using a Chi-square test for homogeneity, we determined that there was no significant statistical difference in the results. Even though the percentages for each answer changed slightly, the distribution yielded no significant change. Our survey results verify that there has been almost no change in the personal comfort level for students of color at SSU since 2007.

In one of our interviews, we asked a Latino student to tell us whether he felt this school was racially diverse or not, and in his words he said, “This campus is not racially diverse, and in terms of a social support system for diversity and cultural sensitivity, I think the campus is in between and they do not know how to improve the situation”. If a student does not believe in the ability of its school to improve and do as much as possible to make them feel at home then this will affect how comfortable they are at Sonoma State. This is evident in the percentages above.

When the question “Have you ever experienced racial discrimination or racism on campus?” was asked, multiple people responded with shocking answers. One Latina responded by saying “Yes, everyone automatically assumes I speak Spanish. I’ve even had a professor ask me if the language barrier was hurting my schoolwork. And, I speak English as my primary language!” This has much to do with the lack of support students feel coming from the faculty on campus.

Our group was able to have the opportunity to interview some of the faculty/staff here at Sonoma State. The three-faculty/staff member that we interviewed were Mark Fabionar, Elisa Velasquez, and Bruce Peterson.

Mark Fabionar is the Director of the Multicultural Center, known as The HUB. Having been hired in March of 2012, Mark has been a part of the Sonoma State University community for just over a year. When asked his opinion about how the Black Scholars United graffiti incident was handled, Mark explained that he was in charge of handling the event, and that he was happy about the good turn out for the rally. However, he was also clear that much more awareness and acceptance is needed on the campus. When asked if he felt the campus administration, faculty and staff valued and supported diversity at Sonoma State, Mark stated the “hiring of his position shows value”, as the position was not previously a reality as a support system for the campus. In order to increase diversity awareness on campus, Mark explained that funds and student assistance is needed. Mark stated, “we need to maximize our opportunities for success by aligning efforts for a more cohesive offering”. Mark also suggested that promoting awareness and civility would help prevent future incidents, such as the hurtful BSU incident.

As the Director of Diversity for SSU, Elisa Velasquez is coming to the end of her third year in the position. However, Spring 2013 will be her final semester as the Director of Diversity because the position is being eliminated due to budget cuts. Elisa seemed very concerned about this, and worries about who will absorb the responsibilities associated with this role. Although Elisa Velasquez will still be teaching at SSU, she is concerned about the termination of her position as Director of Diversity because she views it as a very important resource for the entire campus community. Funding has been terminated for this position as of Fall 2013.

During her time as Director of Diversity, Elisa has created and implemented procedures to deal with diversity related incidents, which were not previously available to students. Currently, there is an easy and systematic format for students to report a diversity related incident, as well as steps in place for that incident to be dealt with by administration. Elisa is the first person in the chain of Administration for such incidents to be reported to. As Director of Diversity, it is her job to initiate the proper sequence of events and to notify others to begin the process of handling a situation associated with issues of diversity. Who will be responsible for this process when the position is gone? It seems that all of this responsibility may be falling on Mark Fabinoar, Director of the Hub, previously known as the Multi-Cultural Center.

While discussing her concern for the loss of the position, Elisa referenced a recent example of incivility, which was handled efficiently through her administrative responsibilities as Director of Diversity. On April 10, 2013 President Arminana sent out an email in regards to a poster, which represented student/faculty research on gay men and lesbian women, which had been torn down from the wall and crumpled on the floor on multiple occasions. In the President’s email, he stated, “I want to be clear that this type of behavior is not only harmful to creating a safe learning environment at Sonoma State University, but completely unacceptable”. The President’s immediate response, delivered to all students, faculty and staff, was a direct reaction from being notified of the incident by the Director of Diversity, Elisa Velasquez. The incident was reported directly to Velasquez and she took immediate action to make sure it was dealt with, and made clear to everyone that it was unacceptable behavior at SSU. The loss of the position of Director of Diversity means one less resource for incidents such as this to be handled quickly and sensitively. The loss of this position is a loss of support for diversity and a serious demonstration of where the school’s values lie.

When presented with the results from the Investigative Sociology group’s survey on personal comfort in terms of race at SSU, Elisa was pleased that there seemed to be a slight change in students’ feelings, but recognized that there was not much overall difference in the results compared to those of 2007. When asked her opinion on the current results and lack of change, Elisa stated that these results were not good enough for what she dreams of for the campus. Elisa commented that for the past 14 years the administration’s been saying they want to see positive changes in diversity and personal comfort levels for students of color on campus, but there have been no changes in the actual practices which would offer any results. She continued to say that “it is a slow process, conversations are starting, but every department from the top down should say how they’re supporting diversity on campus”. Elisa hopes that one day everyone will be aware and address the issues concerning a lack of diversity, and she believes if the faculty and staff are provided with enough training this could be possible. However, Elisa recognized that this type of training would require more priority and funding to be focused on this issue. Elisa believes that currently there is not enough training available to faculty and staff, and the loss of the position of Director of Diversity is another loss of opportunity for this type of training.

Over the past three years, as Director of Diversity, Elisa has led what she calls speed diversity trainings with students and faculty alike. At least 1800 students and numerous faculty members have participated in these trainings, and the feedback Elisa receives has been very positive. The speed diversity training assists participants in communicating with one another about the “big 8 of diversity”, including race/ethnicity, culture, gender, sexual orientation, religion, age, disability, and socio-economic status. Elisa strongly believes that communication is the key to making people aware and more accepting of each other, as well as preventing racist or other attacks on diversity. The speed diversity trainings are a learning resource that will be lost with the termination of the Director of Diversity position.

When asked her opinion about the way the Black Scholars United graffiti incident was handled by the campus, Elisa answered that in this case the campus initiated a “reactive response, which showed as a community we don’t accept this type of hurtful activity”. She found the large turn out and support for the demonstration, where staff and faculty joined the rally and spoke about the incident, to be very positive. However, she stated it was “after the fact. It’s not the first time something like this has happened”. Elisa continued to say as a campus, we need to focus more on prevention, not just reaction after events take place. She views the loss of the position of Director of Diversity as a loss of prevention.

In her final comments, Elisa Velasquez concluded that empowerment is lacking in general on the campus. She feels we need to “make people allies by making people aware”. This, she believes, is possible through communication and a focus on primary prevention. As a campus, we need to practice daily our prevention of incidents of incivility and discrimination. However, without the support, funding, and training Sonoma State will not see the results it says it wants.

Bruce Peterson is the Director of EOP, or the Educational Opportunity Program, at Sonoma State University. The Spring 2013 semester is Bruce’s last at the school, as he is retiring in May. However, after Bruce’s retirement, the school is not planning on replacing his position. There will no longer be a Director of EOP, but rather the administration related to his position will fall on someone else and his EOP student case loads will be dispersed amongst other staff members in the EOP office. Bruce explained that in order to deal with the increased workload for the EOP staff, the school is cutting back on freshman admissions, which will in turn mean less EOP students. “Otherwise it would just be a revolving door”, stated Bruce. The EOP students would start at SSU, and without receiving the proper support, many would end up leaving the school due to financial, family, or other personal reasons. Why is the school not hiring a new Director of EOP? The school needs to balance its budget.

When presented with the results from the Investigative Sociology group’s 2013 survey results, Bruce stated “no school should be proud when only 37% of its students feel very comfortable” on campus in terms of their race. When asked if he felt the campus was more diverse than in the 2007 survey, Bruce stated, “Yes, but the values of the school are reflected in where the resources go”. He explained that the EOP freshman class has grown, and that we are a more racially diverse campus. However, the school is facing budget cuts, and as Bruce mentioned, some of this financial hardship has to do with the debt created by the Green Music Center. Bruce suggested there doesn’t seem to be very much commitment in relation to supporting diversity on campus. He posed the question “do you keep support for students or balance the budget?” and the answer seems to be in favor of a balanced budget. Bruce also mentioned that Sonoma State’s debt is second in California only to Cal Poly. This type of debt will certainly lead to more cuts when the support systems for students are already waning. Bruce continued to explain that the school needs to “put more thought into who gets replaced” and to “consider the long-range health of the campus”. In order to do this, Bruce suggested the campus administration ask the question “what do we want the campus to look like? More like California or more like Sonoma County”? If we want a diverse campus, where students feel comfortable, we need a support system dedicated to student retention. However, with loss of key supporting positions, such as the Director of EOP, this type of student retention will not be an easy task.
Although Bruce seemed worried about the loss of the position, he stated, “hopefully it’s not permanent”, and perhaps after the budget is back on track they can hire a new Director of EOP. But how long will Sonoma State have to go without key support systems, and how many students will the campus lose in the process?

Through a qualitative study in the spring of 2013 involving face to face interviews and responses, and comparing these results to that of the 2007 study, we can conclude that there has been little to no difference in personal comfort levels on campus in terms of diversity. As an overall consensus, people feel that Sonoma State does not excel in the area of diversity. Sonoma State is still predominantly a white campus, in which those who are not white can experience feelings of discomfort and feeling as though the campus lacks in the area of diversity. Using interviews of student’s opinions as well as faculty members, we have received an honest and accurate depiction of what people’s true perceptions are on this issue. Due to incidences such as the vandalism at the BSU meeting, we feel that we had an easier time developing people’s true feelings on the area of diversity after the campus had witnessed a very realistic account of discrimination. This also heightened our awareness of how serious the issue of diversity and personal comfort is and should be on every campus. It is unfortunate to discover that due to budget cuts the school is eliminating key diversity support systems in a time where the school is clearly in great need of these positions. If Sonoma State is committed to making the campus diverse and comfortable for students of every race and background, these values must be demonstrated through its adamant support of programs and personnel, which work specifically on this issue. The results of our research, however, suggest that that Sonoma State’s commitment to diversity is dwindling at best. The personal comfort levels for students of color have not improved and the campus is cutting important diversity resources. Thus, it appears Sonoma State will continue to be one of the whitest, richest school in California for some time to come.

Work Cited

“How a Sustainable Campus-Wide Diversity Curriculum Fosters Academic Success.” Multicultural Education 17, no. 2 (Winter2010 2010): 27-36. SocINDEX with Full Text, EBSCOhost (accessed February 26, 2013).

Hyman, Jeremy, “Why does diversity matter at college anyway?.” August 12, 2009, Http://www. Usnews.Com/education/blogs/professors-guide/2009/08/12/why does-diversity-matter-at-college-anyway (Accessed February 26, 2013).

Mohamed, Theresa. 2010. “Surviving the Academy: The Continuing Struggle of Minority Faculty on Mainstream Campuses.” International Journal Of Diversity In Organisations, Communities & Nations 10, no. 4: 41-52. SocINDEX with Full Text, EBSCOhost (accessed February 26, 2013).

N. A. “Ssu diversity.” February 5, 2013, Http://www. Sonoma. Edu/diversity/ (Accessed February 26, 2013).
Phillips, Peter, et.al: Building a Public Ivy, Sonoma State University, 1994-2007: A Study of Student Racial Diversity and Family Income at SSU Compared to Other California State Universities: Research by Nelson Calderon, Sarah Maddox, Carmela Rocha, And the Spring 2008 Investigative Sociology Class at Sonoma State University: ://www.projectcensored.org/top-stories/articles/building-apublic-ivy/
Simmons, Samantha J., Michele A. Wittig, and Sheila K. Grant. 2010. “A Mutual Acculturation Model of Multicultural Campus Climate and Acceptance of Diversity.” Cultural Diversity & Ethnic Minority Psychology 16, no. 4: 468-475. SocINDEX with Full Text, EBSCOhost (accessed February 26, 2013).
Ukpokodu, Omiunota Nelly. 2010. “How a Sustainable Campus-Wide Diversity Curriculum Fosters Academic Success.” Multicultural Education 17, no. 2: 27-36. SocINDEX with Full Text, EBSCOhost (accessed May 7, 2013).

Recently I have heard students and staff frame critiques of the university and faulty in terms that refer to students as “customers” (an interesting notion, in light of the fact that these “customers” do not offer more than a fractional payment of the cost of a “product” that is provided by a non-profit institution). While this is the setting wherein diverse and even oppositional views are welcomed, we should recognize that this kind of terminology (which presumably derives from TQM) implies a mercantile model of the university.

Such a model differs significantly from the monastic origins of the western university, which generated a contrasting model altogether.

Of course, a number of implications follow from a mercantile model (e.g., a focus on training rather than education; the primacy of the cash nexus; a pragmatically utilitarian and impersonal character to relations between merchant and customer; reliance on marketing and promotional activities, grounded in hedonomics; SSU as trade school rather than university).

In any case, I do not regard our students as “customers,” but rather as “clients”. Sales clerks deal with customers; attorneys, physicians and other professionals offer their expertise in working with clients to achieve common goals. In sum, I offer these comments on the chance that others might wish to attend to this fundamental change in the current discussion of what we are all about. And, of course, differing and even oppositional views are appropriate. — Noel Byrne
******************

From Mario Savio (5/9/96)
To: Noel Byrne

Reply to: RE>Profesor as Merchant

Dear Noel-

Bless your heart! I have even harbored an ideal view of the university as “in the world but not of it” would you believe. But honestly, the motto of this place is not “caveat emptor”; it’s “lux mentis, lux orbis”—and I believe we should try to live up to it.

I’ve actually thought quite a bit about this ever since I first met with this dreadful “customer” lingo. I’m not sure I even feel comfortable with the analogy of provider of professional service (physician, etc.). Some of our students would actually like to think that they are — or could be — members of a community of learners, in which of course some of the learners are, in certain areas, further along. I’d be happy with that.

Ciao! Mario.

The new Center for Ethics, Law, and Society at Sonoma State University in Northern California has caused quite a stir among our academic community during the first week of classes, as well as from those outside SSU. Its funding and the further corporatization of public higher education have been questioned.

The notorious insurance monolith AIG provided two-thirds of the Ethics Center’s $16,000 first year budget. What might AIG’s intentions have been for funding the Center? AIG has not been known for its ethics. In fact, the insurer’s risky bets on derivatives were central to the 2008 economic crash. They received a $182 billion bailout. Yes, billion, with a big B.

Retired SSU Professor Robert Plantz reminded the university community on the faculty email list that AIG is “talking about suing our government for what they think is a lousy deal in the bailout.” AIG complained that since they are “too big to fail,” that $182 billion bailout was not enough. So much for gratitude and ethics. AIG is one more mega-corporation jumping on the bandwagon to further privatize SSU and influence the education it offers students.

“If we allow economic entities to control our culture, to create the assumptions that underlie our lives, there can be no possibility of individual human freedom,” according to Abraham Entin of Move to Amend Sonoma County. “Economic entities need orderly access to resources and markets. They need docile workers and striving consumers. The last thing they desire are free human individuals. When they ‘support’ education it is for these ends and no others. We are fools when we allow them access to our children and schools.”

Corporations are pumping an increasing amount of ill-earned big money into public education throughout the United States, trying to bend it to meet their corporate goals. This threatens academic freedom and free speech.

It is bad enough when one is censored. Self-censorship can be even worse, where one holds back communicating what they really believe. Humanities faculty, such as this reporter, are supposed to teach critical thinking. Instead, when corporations and millionaires buy their way into universities, receive unearned honorary doctorates, and fund research, their biases prevail and dissent is diminished. Students tend to fear challenging corporate power and policies and become obedient, partly so they can get jobs in an employment-scarce climate.

Former Citigroup CEO Sandy Weill gave $12 million to SSU’s controversial for-profit Green Music Center last year, for which he was rewarded with an honorary doctorate. Time magazine describes Weill as one of the “25 people to blame for the financial crisis.”

MasterCard then matched Weill with another $12 million dollars to the GMC, in exchange for special access to students to sell its products. One wonders what other millionaires and corporations might be already or soon knocking on SSU’s door to help direct education at the public university.

“The funding of SSU’s Ethics Center is one more example of the privatization of education,” said SSU alumnus Susan Lamont of the Peace and Justice Center and a key organizer of the ShameOnSSU protest against Weill’s honorary doctorate at last year’s graduation.

“The wealthy and corporations make sure they pay little or no taxes, public institutions become financially stressed, bonds are sold and the wealthy profit at both ends of the deal,” said Lamont. “‘Philanthropists’ or corporations come in as saviors with wads of cash, the public is grateful, and academic freedoms are chipped away slowly, but surely.”

The public first heard about the Ethics Center in an article headlined “Some Topics Too Close to Home for SSU Ethics Center.” The sub-head of the Jan. 17 article in the daily Press Democrat by Jeremy Hay was “Director of new venture opts not to weigh in on donor AIG’s role in economic crisis.” Since the article appeared, numerous letters to the editor have questioned SSU’s ethics.

When asked by PD reporter Hay if the Center would deal with the controversy of financier Sandy Weill receiving an honorary doctorate, the Center’s director, philosophy lecturer Joshua Glasgow, responded, “I don’t think I can comment.” What happened to free speech and academic freedom at SSU?

“I’ve learned to zip it here,” a long-time SSU staff member commented, drawing her fingers across her lips, when asked about the Ethics Center. Such fear of reprisal for having an opinion is not conducive to educating students to be good citizens, which is allegedly part of SSU’s mission.

Many have expressed ethical reservations about the AIG funding, but not Professor Glasgow. “That’s just the way it flows,” he said. This contention “has no standing as a moral argument; witness slavery, smoking, nuclear arms, human trafficking, etc.” writes retired Professor Philip Beard, who now works for GoLocal. He asserts that such a “shoulder shrug should itself be the target of an ethical investigation.”

“The Ethics Center has a basic challenge to speak to the ethics of taking money from AIG,” noted retired Political Science Professor John Kramer. “The goal of conservatives is to so starve the public-caring institutions of funding that they are overwhelmingly beholden to private and corporate interests. Now they are often intimidated about speaking their truth.”

“Any entity designated an ‘Ethics Center’ has a special responsibility to scrutinize the moral and ethical correlates of its own supporting foundation, structure, and functioning, especially its filtering of acceptable and unacceptable issues,” noted Sociology Professor Noel Byrne. “Such filtering merits close scrutiny,” added Professor Byrne. “Hay’s story suggests that this issue is lost in the fog of myopic oversight.”

“The implications of sacrificing academic freedom in the name of ethics are mindboggling,” wrote Tim Nonn, who has a doctorate in ethics, in an unpublished letter to the PD. “What if a corporation based in the South had provided a grant to a university’s history department, but forbade teaching the history of slavery in America? Would the grant make the surrender of academic freedom acceptable?

“I had always assumed that a university existed to free, not enslave, minds. In this case, I was wrong. The popular motto on the walls of many universities throughout the world, veritas vos liberabit (the truth shall set you free), will never adorn the walls of SSU,” Nonn added.

“What good is an Ethics Center that won’t discuss it’s own ethics?” asked Thomas Morabito of Occupy Sebastopol. “They want to discuss your ethics, but not their own. They preach ‘do as I say, not as I do.’”

Prof. Beard challenges “the morality of accepting money from ethically questionable sources” and poses the question, “Is there such a thing as ‘dirty’ money?” Others describe it as “blood money,” since so many people lost their homes, jobs, and even lives because of the money-hording actions of AIG and Weill.

“Aren’t we morally obligated to work toward changing all aspects of our communal life that cause unnecessary suffering, injustice, environmental devastation, violence, and generally the degradation of life?” Prof. Beard asks. Those seem to be the larger philosophical questions and issues that a genuine Ethics Center should address.

The Ethics Center’s first event will be Feb. 6. May its presentations become forums to discuss controversial issues and encourage critical thinking. The talk is free, but this semester SSU doubled parking fees to $5. This doubling sends a message that the public is less welcome at SSU, though it is funded primarily by tax dollars.

One SSU student involved in leadership on campus, who requested anonymity, commented as follows: “Regardless of the politics that surround the funding of the Ethics Center, I hope that it can ethically work towards sparking student interest in the important and pressing issues of our time, as well as empower them to be more involved. I believe that is something that Sonoma State needs.”

Two of the 23 California State Universities may be sold and go fully private, according to inside sources. SSU seems to meet most of the criteria for such as sale, as does Cal Poly.

The Center plans to deal with issues such as immigration, water use, food ethics, clean technology, and income inequality, according to director Glasgow. “I look forward to many years of hard-nosed, sometimes gut-wrenching discussion of thorny issues,” Prof. Beard hopes. We shall see. “Regardless of the politics that surround the funding of the Ethics Center, I hope that it can ethically work towards sparking student interest in the important and pressing issues of our time as well as empower them to be more involved. I believe that is something that Sonoma State needs,” commented one SSU student leader, who requested anonymity.

SSU is not known as a champion of free speech. One wonders how long Prof. Glasgow will survive as a teacher, since he is not on a tenure track, unless he strictly follows the administration’s directives.

What corporation or millionaire might be next at SSU? Wal-Mart? Monsanto, which funds the University of California at Irvine’s agriculture department and green-washes by saying that it is committed to “sustainability”? Then Irvine professors support genetically engineered foods (GMOs). The take-over of public higher education by corporations is a serious threat to our freedoms.

(Dr. Shepherd Bliss {3sb@comcast.net) has taught at three North Bay colleges, including Sonoma State University, and has run the organic Kokopelli Farm for the last 20 years.)

The creation of the Mario Savio Speakers’ Corner this semester was my favorite event during my five years at Sonoma State University. It was a good example of what is taught in SSU’s Foundations of Leadership course, UNIV. 238, which I taught for three years.

The dynamic Savio was a beloved teacher at SSU from 1990-1996. He is best known as a leader of the Free Speech Movement in the mid-sixties, while a student at the University of California, Berkeley. That movement galvanized students around the U.S. against the American War in Vietnam. The Savio memorial committee wanted to inspire people, as Savio did, “to act upon conscience to insure justice.”

The sixties student movement, inspired by Savio, helped convince me to resign my commission as a young military officer and dedicate my life to the study, teaching, and practice of social justice. I also taught SSU’s “War and Peace” course for three years, as well as “Identity and Global Challenges” for six semesters. I am indebted to Mario and his collaborators. I wonder how Mario would be treated at SSU today, in spite of being recently honored. A professor informed me that on the day before he passed away Mario was critical about how lecturers are treated by the SSU administration.

Public higher education in the U.S. today, especially in California, is in a mess, for a variety of reasons. Student fees continue to rise, as do class sizes. Students who do graduate have huge debts. It is being further privatized and corporatized to meet the financial goals of the super-rich 1%, rather than the needs of students and the society as a whole. I’ve taught college for most of the last 40 years and can report that it is much worse today for students and teachers than it was in the sixties. What follows is a first-person account and case study of what is happening at one college.

After the Nov. 15 dedication of Mario’s corner, it remains to be seen if SSU’s administration will improve its respect for free speech, even for free press. One example last year was when the student newspaper published articles on the ShameOnSSU protest against banker Sandy Weill buying an honorary doctorate by giving $12 million to the Green Music Center. The newspaper suspiciously disappeared from newsstands, which SSU staff were seen taking away. I helped organize the protest and then wrote about them. Students, faculty, alumni, Occupy activists and community members participated in the dignified protest.

SSU’s Leadership course is well designed and will fortunately be offered again this spring, after being cut last year. For two of the years I taught it, the course was cancelled, until students, staff and faculty bravely protested its elimination. I helped lead those successful struggles, which resulted in over 200 students being able to take the course in ten separate sections, thus improving student leadership on campus and beyond.

The course’s excellent text, “Exploring Leadership,” teaches the Relational Leadership Model. It advocates being inclusive and ethical, empowerment, and diversity. SSU administrators would do well to read and practice these principles, rather than violate them. Being a college administrator is not easy, which I know from being one at Harvard for a decade. This book could help not only students and teachers, but also their leaders–administrators.

I applied to teach the course again next semester. I was disappointed when informed in a terse, curt email (anything but “relational”) by a likeable administrator, whom I know well, that I would not be offered one of the seven sections. Perhaps he has not read the text about the importance of relationships with those that one manages, empathy, the appropriate use of power, and good communications. The trend in higher education, as well as in other social institutions, is for administrators to be “removed, impersonal, and unaccountable,” writes a colleague.

I have asked for the reasons for my rejection, to which I have received no real response. I deserve an explanation of why I was not re-hired, which would be the relational way to communicate, as well as provide some needed transparency. This is not the only time this part-time instructor–as well as others of us–has received an unfair or disrespectful communication from an administrator, which seems to be a pattern.

It is one thing to advocate critical thinking for students, and another for administrators to allow it to be practiced without retaliation. There might be lessons in my situation to understand the corporate culture of administrative leadership at SSU, as well as at other colleges. SSU teaches one thing and then does its opposite. “It’s an old-fashioned abuse of power that communicates ‘do what I say, not what I do,’” one colleague notes.

I wonder what selection criteria were used for Leadership faculty. It is usual to consider things such as having a doctorate, especially from a prominent university, experience teaching the particular course and teaching in general, rank, publishing, and student evaluations, in which I score high. Those chosen teachers did not all have better academic qualifications than mine, especially since the deadline, which I met, was extended to get enough applications.

The decision not to re-hire me does not appear to be an academic decision but a political one, various students have suggested and published letters about in the student newspaper. This is unfortunately common in colleges, which are highly politicized, especially now as public higher education is threatened by further privatization and corporatization.

SSU teaches one thing and then does its opposite. “False advertising” is what one colleague calls it. I’ve dared to exercise “academic freedom” and do the critical thinking that I am charged to teach. How much real “freedom” is there at SSU, even to practice what we are supposed to teach? It’s ironic that I actually might have been punished for implementing the Relational Leadership Model described in the course textbook.

I extend my appreciation to the capable staff that has guided 238 through the years, especially Julie Greathouse and Bruce Peterson. And best wishes to the instructors and Teaching Assistants who will be guiding it next semester, as well as to the some 200 students who are enrolled in it.

Education in the U.S. changed with the Industrial Revolution and became based on a factory model of obedience to bosses. The abuse of power is common, even at our beloved SSU, as well as elsewhere in higher education. The military’s “command and control” top-down approach to leadership prevails in colleges, producing corporate cultures that discriminate, especially against part-time instructors. Higher education tends to be organized around a rigid class system, with part-timers at the bottom of the teaching peck order.

One reason I was hired to teach certain courses at SSU was because I studied in Latin America with the Brazilian philosopher of education Paulo Freire. He wrote the book “Pedagogy of the Oppressed,” which affirms education for liberation and cultural action, which is the opposite of attempts to domesticate students. I love teaching undergraduates, using the Socratic Dialogue Method that I learned from Freire.

One of the saddest things is when an administrator comes up through the ranks of the teachers. Such administrators are sometimes more compassionate. Unfortunately, they are sometimes more harsh, as if they needed to prove something now that they are higher-up. That is what seems to have happened in my case, being hurt by a once-trusted colleague.

I may be gone as a teacher of the Leadership course, but not as a member of the SSU community. I plan to speak out at Mario’s Corner, even when it includes critical thinking about the administration and how it mistreats people. I welcome others to join me there and exercise free speech at SSU, even as it becomes more corporatized by the likes of banker Weill and MasterCard, prostrating public higher education to meet the financial goals of corporations, rather than the needs of students and our society.

(Shepherd Bliss teaches college, has contributed to two-dozen books, and continues the organic farming that he has done for the last 20 years. He can be reached at 3sb@comcast.net.)

The September 29, 2012 opening of the Green Music Center (GMC) at Sonoma State University (SSU) was nothing less than a grand celebration of wealth and privilege. Beaded dresses, tuxedos, and political elites blended in a glorious aristocratic coming out. The ceremonious inauguration was a joining of the regional symphonic upper elites in delusional expectations of continuing high-class cultural immersions.

Built in a time of an economic recession and including $47 million in public bonds, the $150 million GMC represents one of the most opulent expensive building projects in the history of Sonoma County. The website for the GMC claims it is “Destined to become one of the most sought-after music and arts venues in the world.” “All three floors of Weill Hall are filled with handcrafted, European steamed beech maple seats, which remain acoustically neutral whether occupied or empty.” An A level seat for the first eight concerts costs $626 and B level concerts are $459 for the same. A single ticket for the first concert was $81.00. Dinners at the GMC Prelude restaurant range for $31-50, not including wine.

One attendee was reported to have remarked, “the bathrooms were nicer than my whole house.”

Splendid indeed are the ten majestic 118-year-old olive trees, which grace the Green Music Center’s Trione Courtyard leading to Weill Concert Hall, which are old growth Sevillano olive trees dug up and transported on a flat bed truck from Corning, California.

Weill Hall is named after a semi-billionaire, whose wealth accumulation is directly linked to the impoverishment of millions of American families and home foreclosures in the thousands in Sonoma County.

While SSU is suffering tuition increases, declining student-faculty ratios, and widespread institutional cuts, the corporate media fell over itself with acclaim for SSU President Ruben Armiñana’s “vision”—vaunting magniloquently his personal drive. Presidents of state colleges, with the approval of the California State University (CSU) trustees, have total financial control over their institutions. Therefore, an administrative manager of a public taxpayer supported university can cozy up to the regional elites and pro-growth forces to build a Taj Mahal without any democratic process with the stakeholders inside the institution or the public at large. This unilateral control is as much about why 73.4% of the SSU faculty in May 2007 voted no confidence in President Armiñana as was the issue of allocation of resources to instruction.

I recently asked my Sociology class of some 45 juniors and seniors if fifteen years ago the SSU development office had said to the students and faculty that they plan to raise $150 million in support of new projects, what would you like to see done with the money—how many would have supported a world-class music hall? Zero hands went up and laughter filled the room. Sometimes we can only laugh at the folly of elites.

From a public perspective, $150 million could have had huge regional impacts on poverty, homelessness, home foreclosures, and human misery. The self-aggrandizement of the symphonic elites, many of whom are multi-millionaires and one percenters, manifests a folly so classist as to challenge the very notion of human rights and equal opportunity.

The extravagance of the GMC means SSU faculty, students, and staff will continue to suffer lost resources long into the future due to continuing expenses in excess of income. All due to the willingness of regional elites and the CSU trustees to support and accept the megalomania vision of a single individual with far too much power.

In a century where humankind faces possible extinction, and 2.5 billion people live on less that $2 a day with some 30,000 dying everyday from malnourishment and simply cured diseases, wealth concentration is sinful and the celebration of wealth with grandiose monuments is the mortal sin of the elite.

Someday, these monuments to wealth will be occupied, renamed and democratically modified to meet the needs of the people. In the meantime, we must continue to denounce classism and mobilize collectively for global human betterment.
________________________________________________________________________
Peter Phillips is a professor of Sociology at Sonoma State University and President of Media Freedom Foundation.

Letter to the Editor (SF Chronicle) dated August 20, 2012

A “LETTER TO THE EDITOR”
SUBJECT: Weill Hall

Dear Julian,

It’s time for one in the acoustics community to finally respond to the continuing hype surrounding the very generous Weills and their financial support of the Green Music Center at Sonoma State. It’s great that the school found the extra money it felt it needed.

The basic problem is that the University has confused spending a great deal of money with achieving the ultimate in acoustical performance. As a scientist in the field of architectural acoustics, my opinion is that cost and acoustical performance are however not always highly correlated. Gold-plating a project, at considerable extra cost to the University, is a practice employed by some designers to create the image of perfection, but the extra dollars don’t necessarily convert to increased performance although they do line a lot of pockets, from the consultants to the suppliers. If this approach was taken to create jobs in a poor economy, and to make the participants wealthier, I suppose, then, that mission has been achieved, whether the ultimate high performance has been achieved or not. A $120 Million hall is definitely not twice as good as a $60 Million hall.

The article further confuses the issue by repeating comments from famous people on how much they like the hall. It’s nice chit-chat society stuff, but is short on substance. A little Chopin, Bach, at midnight? How wonderful for cocktail party banter. By showing up with a well-known pianist to play in an empty hall, the Weills unfortunately accomplish little more than to display their wealth and show off their connections to famous people. So, Ling Ling plays the piano in an empty hall. What’s he supposed to say to his benefactor? With all that money and gold plating, of course it’s fantastic, right?

Technically, he can’t really tell us how great the hall is for the audience because 1) the performer hears an entirely different sound field than the audience, and 2) a hall can’t be judged by how it sounds when it’s empty, since it’s entirely too reverberant, among other reasons. Even my voice sounds great in the shower. Finally, his proclamation that it is “very similar to Tanglewood” is simply because it’s a replica of the Tanglewood hall. Is there any news here? They’ve gotten good press, feeding public opinion about the hall’s supposed quality, but there’s no substance to go with it. And who would know?

The project probably cost at least twice as much as it should have with, apparently, the approach that more money means greater quality. This isn’t usually true, and in my opinion isn’t likely to be the true in this case. If the Weills want to spend all that money and save the project, good for them and thank you, but the University and it’s President need to justify this huge waste of money to the faculty, students and tax payers.

Jerald R. Hyde
Physicist, Consultant on Acoustics
St. Helena, CA

__________

In economics, “opportunity cost” is commonly defined as the benefits you could have received by taking an alternative action (Henderson 2008). This research report will examine the opportunity costs of for the development of the Green Music Center (GMC) at Sonoma State University. The opportunity cost of a decision is usually based on what must be given up as the result of a decision to pursue a particular course of action. Any decision that contains two or more options within finite resources will result in creating opportunity cost (“Opportunity Cost”) to the option not selected.

As students at Sonoma State University, we feel the development of the Green Music Center has created controversy on campus. To better understand the real opportunity costs of the decision to build the GMC, we interviewed 16 SSU department chairs from a random sample of all department chairs. We then assigned each group member three possible department chairs to interview. If a department chair did not want to participate, they then moved on the next chair on the list. We made sure to inform each chair that the interviews would be anonymous, therefore protecting their identities. After completing our interviews, we then coded and analyzed our collected data for relevant information pertaining to our area of interest.

While conducting this research, we are determined to dissect the whole development process to learn more about its functions. As the decision to create the GMC has affected many people at Sonoma State University, our role is to raise awareness and gain knowledge into where else this $120 million might have been used in order to support the quality of education that students receive from Sonoma State University.

Background Review
The Green Music Center has been a fifteen-year construction project for Sonoma State University. Over the years, the money needed for its construction has increased rapidly adding up to over $120 million dollars.

Major Donors
Over the years of planning, there have been a number of wealthy individuals and organizations that have contributed funds to the GMC. Of this list of wealthy individuals, there are three donators that stand out at the top of donations: Donald and Maureen Green, Joan and Sanford Weill, and Charles M. Schulz.

The origins of these three donating families are as follows:

The Greens were originally from England and moved to Sonoma County in 1960. Donald Green was educated at the Institution of Electrical Engineers in London while Maureen Green is an alumnus from Sonoma State University; both hold honorary degrees from SSU. The origin of the Green’s wealth comes from Donald Green’s creation of a conglomerate of successful telecommunication companies known as the North Bay Telecom Valley. Donald Green is known as “The Father of Telecom Valley.” This group includes Digital Telephone Systems, Optilink, Advanced Fiber Communications, Black Kite Cellars, DMG Management, and Luna Investments (“2008 Alumni” 2008). The Greens are best known for their philanthropic ventures as they donate frequently to animal rights organizations, nature and wildlife efforts, social services, and predominately to art venues and music programs. The Donald and Maureen Green Foundation is the predominant non-profit organization that oversees and runs many of the philanthropic donations that the Greens put into the community (“2008 Alumni” 2008).

Sanford Weill was born in 1933 in New York and graduated with a B.A. in Government from Cornell in 1955. Soon after, He married his wife, Joan Weill and helped form a small brokerage firm that grew into the second largest securities brokerage firm, named Shearson Loeb Rhoades. Weill was hired by American Express in 1981 and became the president of the company. After resigning in 1985 from American Express, Weil became CEO of Commercial Credit in 1986. Commercial Credit, a financial and insurance firm, grew through acquisitions and mergers into Citigroup, Inc. by 1998. Weil retired as Citigroup’s CEO in 2003, but remained chairman until 2006. He is currently the Chairman of the Board of Carnegie Hall and is an avid champion of classical music in the United States (“Sanford I. Weill,” 2011). The Weills donated more than two hundred million dollars to Weill Cornell Medical College to ensure construction of a research building and it was donated to provide a more modern, competitive and research-focused institution. In addition, they donated five million dollars to the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan, in support of the construction of a new building to house the school. Furthermore, Joan H. Weill has donated $20 million dollars to the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater (Lewis 2006).

Charles M. Schulz is the creator of the Peanuts comic strip. On February 7, 2000, Charles died at his home in Santa Rosa at the age of 77. Because of his success with the comics, the Charles M. Schultz Museum and Research Center in Santa Rosa was planned out and began construction in June of 2000, and finished construction in 2002, when it was finally opened (“Time Line” 2012) Jean Schultz has managed the foundations and museums after Charles Schultz had died (Charles M. Schulz Museum 2012). Her most famous foundation is Habitat for Humanity Challenge. Sonoma County Gazette posted an article detailing the foundation; she made a ten thousand Challenge Grant to Habitat for Humanity of Sonoma County. They are currently building two homes for low-income families (Habitat for Humanity 2011). The other program she controls is the Jean Schulz Donor Advised Fund; in 2005, they granted Community Network money to buy computers used to help launch the Journey Project (Charles M. Schulz Museum 2012).

In terms of Sonoma State University, the Greens gave one of the single largest cash donations ever recorded in the CSU system of $11.5 million dollars to the development of the new music center. Joan and Sandy Weill followed this with a $12 million dollar donation to the college for the completion of a concert hall at the Green Music Center. The donation itself has taken the spot as the single largest donation in the university’s history (Pogrein 2011). Weil was also instrumental in arranging for MasterCard to donate $15 million to the GMC in the summer of 2012.

In 2007, Jean Schulz led the donations with $10 million given towards Sonoma State University, which filled the amount needed for construction (“Jean Schulz leads $10M …” 2007). The Press Democrat wrote then, “The center is expected to rival the finest concert halls in the world. Furthermore, the grassy hillside adjacent to the hall was targeted to become a venue for outdoor rock concerts accommodating up to 10,000 people (Press Democrat,” The Buzz” 2007) The speculation in 2008 was tickets and other surcharges were to bring in $842,860 revenue a year, but operational costs are expected to be $1,967,860 a year. The deficient will be supported by academic support and student instructional fee.” (Norberg 2008)

In 2009, an anonymous generous gift was later given to the GMC. A 9-foot Steinway Concert Grand Piano arrived thanks to an anonymous donor from somewhere in Sonoma County. The piano was slightly used but still extremely prestigious. Kamen Nikolov, operations manager for SSU’s School of Performing Arts, estimated that the three-year-old piano is worth about $170,000. Brand new, the piano would cost more than $200,000, he said (Peterson 2009).
Bonds and Increased Costs

In 2004, California State University approved $12.9 million dollar for the bonds Sonoma State University sold. This money went to education related buildings associated with the GMC. By 2006, $12.9 million revenue bonds were added to the previously sold bonds of $4.7 million. The Center was estimated to cost $47 million in 1998, but because of the rising cost of material and other factors, the budget was raised at that time to $87.7 million. The university needed $42.8 million in private donations, $25 million from state system, $18 million from bonds, and $1.8 from in-kind donations (Kindler 2006).

On February 25, 2009, The Vadasz Family Foundation established by one of the founders of Intel Corporation donated $500,000 to the GMC. On March 25, The San Francisco-based Koret Foundation also donated $500,000 to the Donald and Maureen Green Music Center at Sonoma State University (Loceff 2009). The California State University system’s capital program in the 2009-2010 budgeted $1.7 million for 1,400 custom chairs and $800,000 to finish the audio-visual system (Norberg 2009).
Faculty Concerns

In December of 2009, the SSU professor and chairwomen of the campus academic senate, Susan Moulton said, “I’m hoping we get some clarification on their (SSU Administrator’s) investment process” (Halverson 2009). In addition, she stated that the decision made on the GMC privileges some students over others in the sense that she and many others strongly believed that there were other priorities to be taken care of instead of creating a world-class music building (Halverson 2009).

Research Interviews
Our research group interviewed 16 department chairs from a random sample of all department chairs during the spring of 2012. We made sure to inform each chair that the interviews would be anonymous, therefore protecting their identities and ensuring that they do not have any repercussions from participating. After completing our interviews, we then coded and analyzed our collected data for relevant information pertaining to our area of interest.

Findings
The sixteen SSU Department chairs that we surveyed reported that during the period of building the GMC the faculty had experienced budget cuts eliminating many lecturers, increased class sizes, and more demanding work load for each faculty member. In additional Department Chairs felt an overall decline in the quality of education given to students because of the lack of tenure track professors, and diminishing supplies and administrative support. One department chair explains the severity of the issues, “Faculty should not have to use their own money- and often times we are. Because there are not enough faculty members, we each have a lot more work and our stress level is very high.”

The chairs felt that there was room for improvement in areas such as: more class sections, smaller classes, more “smart classrooms,” increased faculty, better internet connections, increased teachers assistants and graduate students, and funding for student and faculty research. They clearly felt that lack of resources resulted in teacher stress , burnout and resignations. The chairs were concerned that not only was the underlying issue of budget cuts detrimental financially, but also the cuts develop a debilitating image of the CSU system itself. According to one chair, “hiring more faculty members from the private sector is becoming increasingly difficult from not just a financial standpoint. As the CSU system flounders financially and fails to support its faculties, evidence of this negligence becomes apparent to potential faculty from outside the state and CSU system. The result is a lack of confidence in the educational standards and support, and as a result it is less appealing for individuals from the east coast or Midwest to apply for a job within the CSU system as a whole.”

In addressing our question on the “quality of education,” department chairs seemed to have similar ideas. One idea expressed widely was, “Quality education is a commitment to student’s academic resources and an overall philosophy of putting the student first. An increased budget from the CSU would help us provide this.”

Another chair explained, “ (Quality of Educations means) Excellent faculty in reasonably sized classes and who are sustained in their research. I think quality education also involves access to the university and to a broad range of classes, not just inside one major, for students.”
A broader view of quality education was stated as, “When professors have the drive and means to provide students with an expansive knowledge base.”

Some chairs felt that the student-teacher experience is being lost as they cannot afford more time for their students. In one interview, the department head stated that, “our education system is turning into a factory based system. Nowadays, students don’t attend college to learn or educate themselves; they attend college to achieve a degree for future employment. The fact that we have less time to help students outside class only further enforces this fact.”

We asked chairs if they thought they should attempt to raise money themselves. Regarding the issue of departments approaching donors for funding, we found that they were reluctant to answer because this is not allowed at Sonoma State University. When faculty members decide to discuss funding with donors, they can be subject to administrative action in the form of sanctions, fines, and the possibility of losing one’s job. Despite this notion, some chairs admitted that this would solve their problem regarding their department’s lack of funds. Of the sixteen department heads interviewed, eight said that they should approach donors; seven said that they should not approach donors, and one interviewee was unsure. Many of the interviewees, who said they should not approach donors, added that they perceive approaching donors for funding as more work and that they do not have the time to devote to it. One professor explains, “Perhaps department chairs should have the right to approach donors for funding, but they lack the time and expertise to do this effectively.”

One possible solution to the donor issue is the addition of an internal entity that is qualified to search for donors for purely academic purposes, and that is needed more than ever now. This fact is a dominant theme in one department head’s experience with donations and the administrative branch of SSU that handles incoming donations. One department head reported that they were approached by a donor who wished to contribute one million dollars to their educational department. When they discussed this with the administration, they were informed that the donation would be handled and that they shouldn’t talk to the donor again. Sometime later, it was revealed that the one million dollar donation, intended originally to their department had been used for the financing of the GMC. It is clear to us and most faculty chairs that the SSU administration is diverting potential donations to on campus education programs to support the finances to the GMC’s construction.

In regards to our questions has the Green Music Center has a positive impact upon education; thirteen out of sixteen department chairs felt that the Green Music Center did not necessarily help their department directly due to the fact that the new GMC classrooms are not available to their students. The classrooms and the facility are intended mostly for use by the music department and external music related activities.

A department chair shared, “We not only lose funds from Extended Education in support of it, but we do not usually have access to the facility classrooms for our courses.” Chairs over all felt the GMC is seem as detrimental to SSU’s education as a whole.

In relation to the GMC and its interference with other departments, fourteen of the sixteen department heads interviewed stated that the GMC development efforts direct funds away from the quality of education throughout Sonoma State. Many felt that if $120 million dollars spent on the GMC were dispersed across all departments, there would be an alleviation of the effect of CSU budget cuts on the quality of education.
Two of the sixteen interviewees believed that the GMC was an asset to education since the music department was benefiting from the music center. Though it does help the music students, most of the interviewees agreed that it detracted from the quality of education of the departments as a whole. Over all, department chairs felt that “somewhat large amounts of funding are being diverted away from education,” and that it “might not have been the best venture.”

One of the last questions that we asked the chairs was about whether the donation money for the GMC was used properly. Although the department chairs admitted that the donated money was intended for the GMC was likely distributed accordingly, they clearly felt that there were places where the money could have better been used.

One department chair expresses concern, “CSUs are on the brink of collapsing, and money needs to be put elsewhere.”
Conclusion

In the 16 interviews that we conducted with department chairs, we found that there were many issues at Sonoma State regarding budget cuts and the addition of the Green Music Center. The department chairs mentioned that they lacked resources, including supplies, professors, and class sections. Budget cuts to the CSU system have reduced the quality of education available to each student as well as the number of tenured faculty. It is proving difficult to attract new quality professors. This also has increased the amount of stress on teachers and students. Teachers are finding that they have too much work to grade and are not able to give the students all of the attention that they need. Some teachers are distressed at the fact that education is becoming primarily a “means to an end,” where students and faculty are finding it harder over the years to appreciate college for its education and knowledge.

Students are often finding that they are not able to add enough classes and are worried about graduation. The University continues to restrict the number of classes in which students can enroll.

Department chairs acknowledge the need to approach donors for funding; however, policy prohibits faculty from making such efforts. Department chairs felt that the funds used for the GMC could have been used for educational purposes, and would have prefer the development efforts focused on quality education. The chairs interviewed felt that the only department that was helped by the addition of the Green Music Center was the music department.

It was our impressing that the department chairs felt uneasy about being interviewed regarding the GMC. Some choose not to be interviewed and many hesitant to answer questions regarding the Green Music Center and donor money.

In addition to the budget cut issue, there is also a controversial issue amongst the donation process that is handled by the administration. We found that in some cases, donations were mishandled and sent to fund the GMC when they were meant for specific department financing.
Sonoma State University’s debt continues to rise—now over $300 million. In addition, tuition and campus fees continue to increase as well. At the same time, there has been an unfortunate reduction of teaching faculty and class sections offered at the university. It is the future generations of students at SSU, who pay these debts. The opportunity costs of a world-class music center will continue to plague the quality of education at SSU for decades to come.
________________________________________________________________________
Brian Angel, Daniel Enriquez, Joe Gibson, Kimberly Liaz, Kyle Honaker, Sean Kennedy, and Nicole Bettencourt were students in Sociology 336 Investigative Sociology Spring 2012 with Professor Peter Phillips Ph.D.

Works Cited
“2008 Alumni Community Achievement Award,” Sonoma State University, 2008: http://www.ssualumni.org/s/937/index.aspx?sid=937&gid=1&pgid=451
BusinessWeek: The Chronicle of Philanthropy and the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University, 2008: http://images.businessweek.com/ss/08/11/1124_biggest_givers/28.htm
“Charles M. Schulz Museum” Charles M. Schulz Museum, A non-profit organization, 2012: http://www.schulzmuseum.org/
Di Mento, Maria. “Recession Prompts Two Big Donors to Pay Charitable Pledges Early” Chronicle of Philanthropy 21 no. 13, 2009

“Habitat for Humanity Challenge for Healdsburg Families,” Vesta Publishing, 2011: http://sonomacountygazette.blogspot.com/2011/01/habitat-for-humanity-challenge-for.html
Halverson, Natahn. “SSU Braces for $4 Million Shortfall, Student Fee Hikes.” PressDemocrat, 2009.
Henderson, David R. 2008. “Opportunity Cost.” The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics. Library of Economics and Liberty. Retrieved April 16, 2012 from the World Wide Web: http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/OpportunityCost.html
“Jean Schulz Offers $2 Million Gift to Sonoma Land Trust to Advance $18 Million Land Protection Campaign”, Business Wire, 2009.
“Jean Schulz Donor Advised Fund” The Community Network for Appropriate Technologies web technology by Mathias Technology, 2004. http://caringcommunity.org/links/schulzfund
“Jean Schulz leads $10M in giving toward Sonoma State music center completion.” Press Democrat, 2007.
Kindler, Dorsey. “Sonoma State Secures Extra Funding for Green Music Center.” Press Democrat, 2006.
Kroll, Luisa and Lea Goldman ed. Forbes, 2005: http://www.forbes.com/static/bill2005/LIRHRFZ.html?passListId=10&passYear=2005&passListType=Person&uniquId=HRFZ&datatype=Person
Loceff, Jenna V. “SFÂ’s Koret Foundation Donates $500,000 to Green Music Center.”PressDemocrat, 2009.
Norberg, Bob “Green Music Center cost soars to $87 million.” Press Democrat, 2008.
Norberg, Bob. “SSU Hoping $1.7 Million Stays in Place for Music Center Chairs.”PressDemocrat, 2009.
Norberg, Bob “SSU music center projected to run deficit.” Press Democrat, 2008.
“Opportunity cost.” InvestorWords.com. Retrieved April 16, 2012, from InvestorWords.com website: http://www.investorwords.com/3470/opportunity_cost.html
Peterson, Diane. “Green Music Center Architects Named No. 1.” PressDemocrat, 2009.
Peterson, Diane. “Steinway Lands at SSU’s Green Music Center.” PressDemocrat, 2009.
Peterson, Julie. “Joan and Sanford Weill give $5M for Ford School building.” The University Record Online for Faculty and Staff at the University of Michigan, 2004.
Pogrein, Robin. “$12 Million Gift for Music at Sonoma State Hall.” New York Times, 2011.
“Sanford I. Weill” Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th Ed. 2011.
Sulzberger, A. G. “Weill Gives Cornell $170 Million, Well Ahead of Schedule.” New York Times, 2009.
“The Buzz.” Press Democrat 2007.
“Time Line” Charles M. Schulz Museum, A non-profit organization 2012: http://www.schulzmuseum.org/

Ruben Armiñana, president/CEO for Sonoma State University bequeathed an honorary doctorate in May of 2012 on Sandy Weill for his $12 million gift to Sonoma State University (SSU). Activists and protestors called it a Day of Shame for SSU
Sanford “Sandy” Weill (as he likes to be known), is the former chief executive officer (CEO) of Citigroup (you might remember that you gave Citigroup $1.8 trillion in taxpayer bailouts in 2009). For years, Citigroup has been accused and likened to a criminal enterprise and bankster cartel. As CEO, Weill steered Citigroup into the world’s largest ‘financial cartel’ before the whole racketeering enterprise ended in the financial deliquescence in 2008. Ironically this is also the year Sandy Weill resigned from Citigroup, evidently to spend more time with his family. Timing is everything in the gaming racket — that and knowing when to hold them and fold them.
Since then and even before his retirement, Sandy has presented himself as a ‘philanthropist’, much like Bill Gates, the Walton Family members, Warren Buffet and a host of white collar delinquents who, having amassed huge fortunes due to their exploitation of workers, their failure to pay overtime, the copyright protection afforded to them, larceny, fraud and deregulation, now seek to present themselves to the public as philanthropists instead of the rapacious monopolists, fraudsters and banksters they really are.
According to the Sonoma State University website, May, 2012:
“Joan and Sanford “Sandy” Weill’s lives can be characterized by their extensive business and philanthropic work in myriad of areas with a dedicated personal focus on education, healthcare, culture, and the arts. They strongly believe that the arts are a very important part of the growth and understanding of young people, and should always be a part of the fabric of their lives. The Weill’s involvement, experience, and generous gifts have made that possible for many and they believe it can help bridge cultural divides that exist throughout the world” (http://www.sonoma.edu/uaffairs/commencement/honorary.html).
It is not unusual that a public service announcement favorable to the rich and famous and paid for by taxpayers would appear on the Sonoma State University website. Amongst the “generous gifts”, that “Sandy” and his wife, Joan gave to US society was $12 million in hard cash to the Sonoma State University for the ‘Green Music Center’ (GMC). When you give that kind of money to a California State University campus of only 8,500 students, you expect something in return and it’s more than just a handshake, a personalized license plate and your own parking space.
Weill, of course is best known, if known at all, for helping to engineer the repeal of the Glass-Steagal Act. The repeal allowed investment bankers such as Weill to get his hands on depositor money so he could gamble it in the global casino markets. The story of the repeal of Glass-Steagal is not the subject of this article but it is essential in understanding just who Sandy Weill is and more importantly, allows readers to understand the grand corruption that is American politics and the economic structure that permits Wall Street ruffians like Weill and his cohorts to voraciously game the nation by turning the American economy into their own personal lavish casino and then get an honorary doctorate for their crimes. These men teamed up with others to pressure Bill Clinton, then president of the US, to speed up the repeal process while they secretly and privately planned mergers and back room deals they knew would profit them handsomely once the fix was in.
In order to engineer the repeal of Glass-Steagal, Weill recruited ex-President Gerald Ford to the Board of Directors of Citigroup and also Robert Rubin (Secretary of Treasury during Democratic Clinton Administration and head of Goldman-Sachs). Weill was personally intimate with all of them and they worked assiduously to politically corrupt the process figuring that with both Democrats and Republicans on their side, President Clinton would be in a pickle; he would do what Wall Street wanted him to do.
They were right; the repeal of Glass-Steagal would be accomplished in less than 2 years (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanford_I._Weill). It would take a few more financial bubbles to create the Great Financial Crisis of 2008 but without Sandy Weill and his one percent gaggle of carnies and croupiers, the greatest transfer of wealth in the history of the world could never have been accomplished.
As to Bill Clinton, well he was just the courtier that enabled the neo-liberal state but for his drive, ambition and close ties to the banking syndicate. On December 21, 2000, President Bill Clinton signed a bill called the Commodities Futures Modernization Act. This law ensured that derivatives could not be regulated, setting the stage for the financial crisis. Just two months later, on February 5, 2001, Clinton received $125,000 from Morgan Stanley, in the form of a payment for a speech Clinton gave for the company in New York City. A few weeks later, Credit Suisse also hired Clinton for a speech, at a $125,000 speaking fee, also in New York (http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/05/its-not-about-reelection-bill-clintons-80-million-payday.html). It is reported that Clinton has now made over $80 million in speaking fees from where? Banks and Wall Street, of course this is how the kickback works.
Bill Clinton still goes to bat for the banking industry, hungrily looking for speaking fees. As recently as April 12, 2012 Clinton urged Congress to put aside partisan differences and reauthorize the nearly 80-year-old U.S. Export-Import Bank, Eximbank, which he said was key to helping the United States expand job-creating exports (http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/04/12/usa-eximbank-idUSL2E8FC8JM20120412). Wonder what his fee was for that?
Alas, Weill’s Citigroup is no stranger to organized crime either, having paid huge fines for laundering drug money (http://globalorganizedcrime.foreignpolicyblogs.com/tag/citigroup/). Weill was the chief executive officer and chairman of Citigroup until October 1, 2003, and April 18, 2006, respectively, but officially retired in 2008.
On May 17, 2001, Michael Ruppert, a notable researcher and investigative journalist and a former LA cop, wrote:
“On May 17 Citigroup, America’s largest financial institution commanding some $700 billion in assets announced a $12.5 billion purchase of Banamex’s parent company controlling some $39 billion in assets. The move will place Citigroup in control of one of the major – and proven – money laundering institutions in Mexico and allow Citigroup (first time for a US company) to penetrate the Mexican stock market.
The Citigroup dirt descends to even the personal level as Marc Weill, 44, the son of Chairman Sandy Weill, was exposed in the AP last November as having a cocaine addiction which necessitated that he relinquish control of Citigroup’s $113 billion investment portfolio” (http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ciadrugs/053101_Citigroupandasa.html
Even California’s Governor, Jerry Brown, who before occupying his current post as Governor was the California Attorney General felt compelled to write that Citigroup “knowingly stole from customers, mostly poor people and the recently deceased” (http://www.sonomastatestar.com/opinion/big-banker-sanford-weill-s-honorary-degree-1.2869781).
The malevolence of the corporation and its ill-gotten gains is legendary, well known to the political and corporate media class and obviously not in the target of prosecutors for if anything, only fines are paid.
According to the Press Democrat:
“The Weills, whose primary residence is New York City, bought a 362-acre estate in the hills west of Sonoma for nearly $31 million last year, believed to be a record price for a real estate deal in Sonoma County.
‘We love to be involved in the communities where we spend time,’ Sandy Weill said in an interview Tuesday on the concert hall stage.
When the couple first toured the Green Center late last year and heard a student piano, violin and cello performance, Sandy Weill said they were impressed by the ‘sound of the music filling the hall.’” (SSU gets $12 million donation for Green Music Center, March 22, 2011, GUY KOVNER, http://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/20110322/ARTICLES/110329876).
How charming. Investigative journalist Will Parrish, writing for the Anderson Valley Advertiser (AVA) points out:
“The Weills purchased a grandiose $35 million, 362-acre estate in the hills west of Sonoma in 2010. The previous owners were a private equity investor family, the Shansbys, who had taken up tequila making as a hobby and who next wanted to become winemakers. The Shansbys eerily named their property Shanel, after the Shanel Pomo band who inhabited the area for many thousands of years. It’s no small irony that the Shanel Pomo were decimated first by the Spanish mission system, then by waves of Gold Rush-era settlers stricken with greed” (http://ukiahcommunityblog.wordpress.com/2012/05/11/will-parrish-wine-countrys-dr-sociopath/).
Parrish described the Weill’s new crib as a “13,162 square foot main residence, two-bedroom guest house and pool/cabana area you find something akin to your own national park”. It also has seven fireplaces, a lake stocked with bass and trout and filled by a winter creek. The home is surrounded by miles of mountain trails as well as an equestrian center complete with four paddocks, an immaculate five-stall stable, tack room, office and his and her locker rooms” (where they can post their new honorary diplomas!). The home also comes complete with over 6,000 square foot covered riding arena (ibid).
Parrish hits the nail stunningly on the mark when he writes:
“It is an economy of millionaire owners, a landed class with mansions surrounded by a sea of grapes, served by an army of dispossessed waiters, baristas, cashiers, and clerks, not to mention grapevine pickers, pruners, and tenders. Sales of premium wines have correlated strongly with rising income inequality between the wealthy few and the indebted majority (not to mention their mostly immigrant Mexican workers). The wine industry’s power and prestige have grown in parallel with the increasing inequality fostered by this get-rich-quick economy” (ibid).
I suggest readers view more on the Bill Moyer’s Show on PBS where he spells out in stunning detail the actual malfeasance and the horrendous ramifications of the Weill hustle: (http://billmoyers.com/episode/full-show-how-big-banks-are-rewriting-the-rules-of-our-economy/).
Robert Scheer, former journalist for the Los Angeles Times and now founder and editor for Truthdig.com, has written a very good piece entitled, “For He’s a jolly good scoundrel” on Weill and the looting of the American economy. Scheer quite correctly points out that Weill also was recently elected to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences for an “extraordinary accomplishment and a call to serve” ((http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/for_hes_a_jolly_good_swindler_20120418/). He is also on the Board of Trustees of Carnegie Hall and dozens more such boards (http://www.ssualumni.org/s/937/index.aspx?sid=937&gid=1&pgid=252&cid=1421&ecid=1421&ciid=3523&crid=0). While has been very busy inventing himself as a philanthropist, very busy indeed.
In an article in the New York Times back in 2005 correctly titled “Laughing all the way from the bank” we learn of “an enormous wooden plaque” in the bank’s headquarters that featured a likeness of Weill with the inscription “The Man Who Shattered Glass-Steagal.” (http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/11/business/11citi.html).

Ruben Armiñana, in tandem with irresponsible CSU administrators, have created the material conditions for the private take-over of public education
By Danny Weil,
Introduction
The mission of Sonoma State University (SSU) has been sacrificed on the altar of finances and more specifically, debt. 2012 promises to be a ‘debt laden’ and ‘cost shifting’ year for Sonoma State University, its students, faculty, and staff. As the misery index rises, it promises to be a rip roaring year for Wall Street and the rash of bivouacking billionaires and millionaires who have occupied the SSU campus and taken over the Green Music Center (GMC) as their own privileged symphony hall.
The opening of the Chronicle, January 20, 2012 number XXI, entitled: “New Year’s 2012 Forecast”, begins with this somber commentary:
“2012 promises stark contrasts between the haves and the have-nots. The Green Music Center (GMC) will open with much ado in September and the Student Center will follow shortly thereafter. Combined these two opulent buildings will have cost SSU over $192 million in construction alone. They leave a debt of over $200 million in their wake, which will take an annual $7 million off the top of SSU’s funding for the next 30 years. An additional, $3 million will be needed annually to fund GMC programming. Meanwhile, citing the Governor’s “budget trigger” the Administration is cutting classes for the spring term, increasing student graduation paths in the midst of massive fee increases. While hiring to ramp up the GMC, the Administration is not replacing retiring faculty and has capped student unit loads at 16” (Chronicle XXI, January 20, 2012).

Part one and two of this four part series itemized problems at the campus and attempted to contextualize them within the financialization of education. The major claims made in this section, part three, is relatively straightforward and simple: SSU President, Ruben Armiñana’s irresponsible management of SSU and appalling stewardship of the public commons has meant:

1). students cannot get into SSU;
2). students who are currently attending SSU cannot get out of the college (i.e. graduate); and,
3). feckless and irresponsible administrative stewardship of SSU has dealt a severe and crippling blow to the public commons and public education in the State of California, specifically evident at SSU.

Before substantiating these claims, it is important to first look at the dreadful state of the hemorrhaging CSU system, itself teetering on the edge of annihilation.

This article will also briefly discuss the despotic decision making of President Ruben Armiñana. We will look at how the administration autocratically conducted an illegal student election in an effort to raise $300 in student fees for the construction of yet another physical monstrosity – the $130,000,000 Student Center approved by Armiñana with groundbreaking already underway. He pioneered the project, itself fueled by debt, knowing the depressive state of the American economy and the impoverished lives of our nation’s students.

The current state of the California State University system
We start with the current fiscal state of the entire California State University system (CSU). On April 1, 2012 The Press Democrat, the local corporate newspaper for the Sonoma County area, reported that 2012 would be a record year for applications to the California State University (CSU) system and the University of California (UC) system. A flood of about 600,000 applications to the nine-campus University of California and 23-school California State University systems have been received for spring 2012. CSU’s 472,000 2012 freshman applications are a record, topping 426,000 for the fall of 2011, of which 219,000 were accepted (http://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/20120401/ARTICLES/204011045?p=1&tc=pg).
Unfortunately, the California State University (CSU) system has announced that it will accept no new admissions for the spring semester of 2013 — with few exceptions. Turning away record students from public institutions is all part of a drastic austerity, cost-cutting strategy to intentionally reduce enrollment by about 16,000 students by spring of 2013. Another 20,000 to 25,000 qualified students might be barred from attending CSU in the 2013-14, academic year if California voters reject some sort of tax measure to increase revenue for the cash strapped public institutions of higher education. (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/03/19/BAPL1NN1KR.DTL#ixzz1tFxKvWox)
CSU officials stated in March of this year that all admissions decisions for the campuses will be frozen pending the outcome of the 2012 election to raise California state taxes for higher education. This is not too long in the future, for the admissions process for the following fall begins in October. San Francisco State University, for example, expects to turn away more than 1,500 students in spring 2013.
The only exception to new CSU admission policies adopted to bar the educational door to students will be 500 students who are part of a graduation-track transfer program authorized by the Legislature in 2011. Those students, currently in community colleges, will be allowed to transfer into eight CSU campuses only: San Francisco, Cal State East Bay, Sonoma, Channel Islands, Chico, Fullerton, Los Angeles and San Bernardino (ibid). For students wishing a public education, the imposed austerity and attrition is devastating.

Those hurt the most by shifting the crimes of the one percent onto the backs of working people and the poor will be the thousands of students (mostly working students) — typically transfers from community colleges to four year state university systems. These are students who characteristically flood CSU’s 23 campuses each spring to finish out their college education, acquire internships for medical, police or fire programs and hope to eventually graduate and start their careers. The grim state of CSU affairs has created a quagmire for students who wish to receive a public education. There are 260,000 community college students in California. What options are open to them given this current climate? Their choices are vastly limited if not altogether curtailed. Something is rotten in the state of California.

SSU stumbles into 2012 with a self-inflicted wound coupled with CSU woes
It would be easy to read and digest the statistics above and then pivot and blame the current state of economic crisis wholly on the CSU system and the dire economic situation the State of California finds itself in. But that would miss the point of what has happened at SSU under the mini-investment bank authority of CEO Ruben Armiñana.
Using magician deflection techniques, Armiñana would like to redirect criticism from his administration and the myriad problems that plague the college and deflect them squarely onto the back of the Governor of the State of California or chalk the whole situation up to the retched financial situation of the California State University system. But anyone who has figured out the magician’s hoax won’t be fooled. SSU is caught between an admission freeze and mounting debt that has delivered a self-inflicted wound to the college that could see it go bankrupt.
Authors of the Chronicle concur with this claim, writing at the beginning of this year:
“Here, internal crises are obscured under statewide budget cuts as an excuse to shift additional funds from the Academic side to University-wide use in development. At SSU, new space, utilities, employee benefits, and GMC debt service are added to the budget cuts. The only “new space” at SSU are the GMC and the dorms. Both of these should reimburse the University Directly for their Costs as these are not “general fund” buildings” (the Chronicle XXI, January 20, 2012).

All of this subterfuge, the financial shell game and budget finagling on behalf of the upper echelon of the college are not having the desired effect of convincing a faculty, who voted overwhelmingly for a vote of no-confidence in the current SSU administration, that all is well at SSU. The message that the current mess plaguing SSU can be relegated only to federal and state budget cuts flies in the face of the cacophony of dirt movers and the incessant jingle of back up bells from the university’s perpetual, debt-ridden construction site.
1.
Students can’t get into Sonoma State University: Debt drives admission and curriculum as freshman are prioritized to pay off Wall Street
A preference for freshman as commodities to pay-down debt
The onerous implication of all of this is that Armiñana has, through the corporatization and financialization of the college, set up a pecuniary and discriminatory quota system for privileged admission to the university based on debt levels. The Armiñana corporate business plan for SSU, Inc. has meant that the most covetous bodies are those of freshmen and the freshmen class at SSU has grown by leaps and bounds. So, for example, in 2012, 1,779 of the SSU students being admitted, or 24 percent, were freshmen, compared to 11 percent in 1996. http://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/20120303/ARTICLES/120309821).
Armiñana himself went so far as to publicly concede the inordinate number of freshman enrollees:

“Currently SSU has approximately 8,500 students, with the largest ever freshman class of 1,800. There are approximately ten applications for every seat available” (Foundation minutes, 9-23-11, as quoted in the Chronicle XXII: State of the University, 2012, March 19, 2012).
From a legal point of view this quota system may be unlawful and could subject SSU to lawsuits if the practice of institutionalized inequality in admissions due to fiscal quotas persists.
In their 2012 New Year’s report on the state of SSU, the Chronicle reported that the bulk of SSU’s new enrollees were indeed primarily freshman:

“SSU appears to receive a greater share of freshman applications than the system and SSU certainly enrolls a greater percent. In Fall 2011, 63.4% of SSU’s new enrollees were freshman (italics mine); system wide averaged 46.7% freshman (CSU New Student Applications and Admissions, November 30, 2011)” as quoted in Chronicle XXII: State of the University, 2012, March 19, 2012).

The authors go on to note in the same report:

“Until State appropriations rise and allow for an increase in enrollment, SSU will be in a downward spiral—over enrolling large classes of freshmen to fill the dorms(italics mine), then unable to field sufficient classes to enable 4-year graduation paths, making more students each year with fewer classes. …… Full dorms and meal plans generate revenue. No one should doubt that at SSU debt drives curriculum” (The Chronicle, Chronicle XXII: State of the University, 2012, March 19, 2012).
What the authors are basically claiming by their statement that “debt drives the curriculum” is that debt service and payment on the principal owed in bonds is to be paid with future revenues derived from students. This is a way of pointing to the fact that prioritized admission at SSU depends on the college filling its dormitories with mostly freshman. Why? Simple: Armiñana pledged ‘phantom’ future revenues in the form of prospective freshman dormitory sales (which include the mandatory purchase of full-meal tickets), parking and general food sales at the campus to pay bondholders. SSU is now little more than a petty hustler campus on the prowl for deep-pocketed freshman to pay the never ending ‘vig’ on the capital construction bonds.
Clearly students are mere commodities in this financial farce fueled and perpetrated by pompous ignorance and delusions of power; the only value students have for the new vassals of the neo-feudal arrangement of debt peonage is mere ‘exchange value’. They are thought of as heads of cattle, ‘meat in the seat’ to be used by the one percent to pledge as future revenues and thereby secure or service debt for the banks and for the bond holders. Education is simply what is sold; the real business is in issuing, managing and servicing debt and deriving exorbitant salaries as a coordinating class for doing so.
The problem that students face is not simply the exorbitant fees and tuition that keeps them from entering SSU or many other institutions of higher learning, it is also employment. The dilemma: there is no employment.
The official “seasonally adjusted” unemployment rate for Black youths between 16 and 19 years-of-age in the United States increased from 34.7 to 40.5 percent between February and March 2012; while the “not seasonally adjusted” jobless rate for Latino youths between 16 and 19 years-of-age increased from 27.5 to 30.5 percent during the same period, according to recent Bureau of Labor Statistics data. In addition, the “seasonally adjusted” unemployment rate for white youths between 16 and 19 years-of-age increased from 21.3 to 22.5 percent between February and March 2012; while the official jobless rate for all U.S. workers between the ages of 16 and 19 years-of-age increased from 23.8 to 25 percent during the same period (http://wherechangeobama.blogspot.com/2012/04/black-youth-unemployment-rate-increases.html).
Armiñana would argue that the problem lies with the state budget, but even if the budget was intact SSU would have to look for more and more incoming freshman bodies to pay debt. The college and the students that it serves seem to be all laced to debt peonage while Armiñana and his crew rake in outlandish salaries; but no one seems to notice other than a few vocal and concerned faculty.
The problem, of course, is that students not only don’t have jobs or money to fill their pockets to even be considered as ‘revenue numbers’, for they too have excruciating and crushing debt. Though many of their parents help with all or partial payment of dormitories, meal tickets and tuition and fees at SSU, as the so-called middle class continues a death spiral downwards, this will be harder and harder for parents to sustain. The highly compensated throng of administrators at SSU knows this and sensing that their positions might be in jeopardy, they are busy manufacturing new schemes in an effort to concretize their coveted seats and highly paid positions. One can be sure these new innovations planned for SSU involve further financialization, privatization and corporatization of the college to the detriment of its constituencies.
Santa Rosa Junior College transfer students locked out by SSU’s financial quota favoring freshman students

The consequences of all of Armiñana’s short term thinking on behalf of his edifice fantasies is that as SSU concentrates on implementing a financial quota for admissions by admitting freshman wholly for debt service, fewer transfer students from the community colleges, and especially from Santa Rosa Junior College (which lies just eight miles north of SSU) are able to attend the university. Where once the California Master Plan for California’s UC’s, state colleges and community colleges set up tributaries for students to assure all students could get an education, SSU has now all but closed them (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Master_Plan_for_Higher_Education). Sonoma State University simply fails to meet the needs of the community it is anchored in, dumping and leaving local students by the side of the educational road.

The local paper, the Press Democrat, confirmed all of this, reporting back in January of this year that delayed transfers at Santa Rosa Junior College are preventing students from transferring to universities (http://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/20120123/ARTICLES/120129808). ‘Delayed transfers’ mean that a limited number of classes would be available for students to graduate at the local junior college, which would then ‘delay their transfer’ to state colleges and universities. Because required classes are vastly limited, students now take three years to complete a two-year degree and five years to complete a four-year degree. But arguably, even if there were a plethora of classes, Armiñana has guaranteed that it is much harder to transfer from the local junior college due to policies that favor freshman. This is all good news for the financial institutions that sell student loans.

Greg Sheldon, a long time student counselor who works with science students at the local junior college (where the need for classes is the greatest), pinned the blame partially on the CSU system. He said the problem of lack of classes at Santa Rosa Junior College is compounded because the California State University and University of California systems have dramatically curtailed spring transfers (ibid).

Sheldon’s certainly right. But again, this is only a partial portrait of the problem and obscures a large ingredient of the story, the part Armiñana wants to cover up or at least keep ambiguous. With SSU favoring the admission of freshman for financial reasons (debt), transfer students from all community colleges throughout the nation have been locked out of SSU. Many of the classes once offered at Sonoma State University have been cancelled or are over-subscribed. This means that more and more students compete at both Santa Rosa Junior College and at Sonoma State University for an education. Add to this the class and racial bias in admissions at SSU and we can see that the ‘State of California’ is being used as a convenient whipping boy to allow Armiñana to escape culpability.

Classism, racism, white privilege and the New Jim Crowe all collaborate to prevent students from being admitted into SSU

The situation with capital construction and debt at SSU has been even more insidious for what it has meant for racial diversity of the campus. Students of color and working students by and large cannot get into SSU, not only as a result of financial concerns favoring freshman students, but also as a result of campus admission policies that favor a white, affluent student body. SSU President Armiñana has managed to accomplish what no other CSU campus has been able to do: he has managed to segregate SSU by race and class. SSU’s student body is now the richest and whitest of any state university in the 23 strong CSU system.

Peter Phillips of Project Censored and a professor at Sonoma State University wrote about the segregation, both by race and class, at the college back in 2009:

“An example of white privilege is how Sonoma State University (SSU) has recently achieved the status of having the whitest and likely richest student population of any public university in the California. Research shows, that beginning in the early 1990s, the SSU administration specifically sought to market the campus as a public ivy institution—offering an Ivy-League experience at a state college price. Part of this public ivy packaging was to advertise SSU as being in a destination wine country location with high physical and cultural amenities. These marketing efforts were principally designed to attract upper-income students to a Falcon Crest-like campus.

To achieve the desired outcome of becoming a wine-country public Ivy-league school, SSU’s administration implemented special admissions screening processes that used higher SAT-GPA indexes than the rest of the California State University (CSU) system. According to Lani Guinier and Gerald Torres in The Miner’s Canary, high SAT scores correlate directly to both race and income with little relationship to actual success in college.

SSU also conducted recruitment at predominately white upper-income public and private high schools throughout the west coast and Hawaii. Consequently, SSU freshmen students with family incomes over $150,000 have increased by 59 percent since 1994 and freshmen students from families with incomes below $50,000 declined by 21 percent (2007 dollars). The campus remained over three-quarters white during this fifteen-year period, while the rest of the CSU campuses significantly increased ethnic diversity”

Building a Public Ivy, http://www.projectcensored.org/top-stories/articles/building-a-public-ivy/

Campus Discovery reported that 67% of all students are considered Caucasian at SSU, 2% are African American, 1% are Native American, 11% are Latino, 5% are Asian and 14% declare something ‘other’ (http://www.campusdiscovery.com/colleges/profile/sonoma-state-university-campus#school-explorer).

Walking through the campus today one hardly sees America reflected in the racial or class composition. Armiñana’s policies have reduced diversity at the campus at a time when it is racial diversity that is needed in our divided nation. Not surprisingly, racism reared its head in 2008 at the mostly white campus (http://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/20080420/NEWS/804200425/1033/NEWS&template=kart).

Clearly, the debt connection and the need to have full-dormitories, and students paying for food services and parking, has favored the admission of more white, affluent, freshman students. Add to this over-enrollment at the college of an inordinate amount of freshman coupled with an inability to offer a wide breadth of classes and we see that SSU simply cannot meet the needs of a diverse population of students.

2.

Students cannot get out of SSU: debt and the reliance on freshman means fewer upper division classes, faculty and classrooms in which to teach
Sonoma State University graduation rates are abysmal and especially when it comes to people of color. Only 55% of all students graduate within four years, 50% graduate within five years and 25% graduate within six years. Tracking students of color, we find that SSU graduation rates are much worse for this segment of the population. Less than 50% of African Americans and less than 50% of Latinos graduate within four years. Overall four year graduation rates for Caucasians hover around 30% and for Asians the rate is less than that of African Americans. Fifty percent of Native Americans graduate within four years (http://www.campusdiscovery.com/colleges/profile/sonoma-state-university-campus#school-explorer).
As the Chronicle authors were quick to note in their March 19, 2012 communiqué, Armiñana is over-enrolling freshman students and plucking the commodified freshman from the pie to pay and service debt. Merit has nothing to do with admission at SSU, for as Chronicle writers indicate:
“No wonder, there were fewer classes to go around in the spring than in the fall last year. Over enrollment fills dorms and provides revenue that helps SSU’s Administration make debt payments; over enrollment hurts the Academic side that does not receive adequate income from the State to provide classes. It also hurts students by limiting their access to classes and extending graduation paths. Who decides which of the 1200 students in the headcount above the FTES cap do not get to take the full load many expected when they paid their fees?

The CSU can assess fines to campuses that exceed their enrollment targets. SSU was 4.5% over target for fall 2011, which could have resulted in a hefty fine. To avoid the fine, SSU limited the number of units students could enroll in for spring 2012 (PBAC minutes, 12-8-11). SSU imposed an enrollment cap and controlled registration by restricting units to nine during first pass and ramping up to 18 units by the add/drop period (all campus email, 2-13-12).

SSU students of all colors and stripes are faced with a daunting dilemma. Seventy-five percent either graduate in five or more years while they wait for phantom classes that may never appear, or worse, they are forced to purchase the classes they need from predatory for-profit colleges and universities. This is partially owed to Armiñana’s reliance on a numerically strong freshman class to pay capital construction debt.

3.

Armiñana has helped create the material conditions for the decimation of the public commons and the takeover by force of the private ownership of the educational means of production

It is the contention of this part of the series that poor stewardship over the public commons by ‘CEO’ Armiñana has helped, in conjunction with the failure of the political forces in Sacramento, ineffective ‘business union leaders’ and admittedly years of public budget tightening and neglect, to create the material conditions for the rise of for-profit colleges and universities which threaten public institutions of higher learning by forcefully muscling into the community college ‘market’. Like private pike in a public lake these for-profit colleges have always lobbied to weaken the public sector. They are now literally sitting back on their laurels reaping the benefits of a public crisis they and their crony politicians helped to create.

Armiñana, it will be argued here, through his reckless and feckless actions, acted as the ‘wheelman’ for privatization efforts, steering the college into an economic abyss and helping to undermine not just SSU, but public education and thus the public commons in general. By transforming the public sector into a vestige of privatization and through turning SSU into a mini-investment bank for his pet construction projects, CEO Armiñana betrayed the educational mission of the college and the trust of students, faculty, staff and the community.
The crisis facing higher public education and indeed all education is financialization, corporatization and privatization
The socio-political crisis facing public education at all levels is arguably the worst it has been in modern history. It is a time when bold leadership and massive organizing by the working class, students, faculty and citizens is needed to staunch decades of public institutional bloodletting and prohibit the forces of reaction from privatizing, fianancializing and commodifying all education. Unfortunately, at SSU bold leadership has been abandoned by a state university president prolifically hunched over architectural blueprints for more and more debt-driven construction projects. It seems that SSU president, Ruben Armiñana, fiddles while Rome burns.
Armiñana serves as public pall-bearer
By failing to perform competent and responsible stewardship of Sonoma State University as a public institution, it is contended that Ruben Armiñana has contributed to students’ inability to attend or graduate from SSU and in so doing, has inflicted a severe gash to not simply SSU, but on the body politics of public education. Corporatizing and privatizing the university in the interest of self-aggrandizement, neo-liberal public policies, financialization, and veritable delusion; pouring every last penny possible into capital construction projects fueled by debt; tendering questionable multi-million dollar endowment loans to scandalous and dubious land developers; acting like the CEO of a mini-investment bank, chasing down high risk yields in the equity market and passing the begging bowl to the one percent for pet projects like the Green Music Center have all orchestrated themselves in ‘concert’ to destroy the educational public commons at SSU.
The austerity attacks and dismantling efforts aimed at the public commons is having its desired effect: as to higher education it is providing for the takeover of the educational market and pushing working class students into indebtedness by selling them needed classes they cannot get at public institutions such as SSU.
So you want to be a nurse?
To best concretize what has happened at SSU and at other public institutions, think of yourself as a young aspiring student living at home and wishing to become a nurse. You apply to your local community college, in this case, Santa Rosa Jr. College, down the street from Sonoma State University, only to find that the junior college classes you need are oversubscribed, upper division classes are difficult, if not impossible, to get into, and what you thought would be a two year stint that might launch you into a state college or even a UC, is now going to be a three or four year stretch due to a lack of classes and waiting lists.
Not to be chagrined, you decide to enroll at your community college anyway, just to get some of the generic sixty units you will need to transfer to a four year university. After procuring most or all of the sixty units you need to transfer, you now plan to apply to Sonoma State University to finish any upper degree classes necessary to get your B.S. in Nursing and finally begin work to start paying off some of your student debt.
You apply, but find out that SSU is not admitting any new students. There is an admission freeze in place well into the future. Santa Rosa Junior College does not offer the upper division classes you need, so you are forced to look elsewhere. Your panicked investigation reveals that the public education you need to complete your nursing program is not only unavailable, but you now discover that education is no longer even a human right as you were led to believe. It is, in fact, just another commodity or product for sale, like detergent or toothpaste.
So, here you are as a nursing student looking for a future that is not foreclosed to you and you cannot get an education. Frustrated, you seek an alternative to the dirge of available classes at SSU and elsewhere. You spot an advertisement in a campus newspaper, a glamorized and glitzy commercial on TV, or at a campus ‘News Stand’ a colorized flyer hocking a for-profit college that promises that you not only can get $50,000 in student loans to enroll in their nursing program, but the classes you want are available right now, or next week at latest, and you can finish them in much less time than at any public institution.
Welcome to for-profit college: Everest College
Located in Southern, California, Everest College is just one for-profit college that preys on stranded students searching for credited classes. (To be fair, there are many such parasitic colleges and universities and they trade on the New York and NASDAQ stock exchanges (http://archive.truthout.org/neoliberalism-and-for-profit-predatory-educational-industry-you-cant-regulate-a-criminal-enterprise6).
While the program at for-profit Everest costs nearly $60,000 in tuition and the college degree is Fools Gold in most job markets, for the most part students don’t know this (ibid). Nor are students aware of the fact that just last year more than 90 percent of the nursing students at community colleges located nearby Everest College, passed state licensing exams required to become credentialed and practice nursing in California. Meanwhile, fewer than 70 percent of Everest students passed these exams, registering the lowest success rate of all nursing programs in the state. Of course the sock-puppet corporate press that receives lucrative ad money from the for-profit predatory colleges like Everest will not disclose any of this to the public.
As far as having to take out exorbitant loans to pay sub-prime colleges like Everest the ridiculous prices they charge for classes, on the surface, might seem more practical than waiting semester after semester to get into a public college or university. This is true even if the cost of the for-profit college is as much as 20 times the amount one would pay at a community college or state university, which it is at Everest. You have to do what you have to do, right? This is the logic of false dichotomy that now faces students struggling to get an education by any means necessary.
The tragedy of the commons: The illegal election that approved a $130,000,000 SSU Student Center at a time when college funds hemorrhage is indicative of despotic rule, the law of modern enclosure and plunder

The Student Center, for years a source of controversy, is too long to report in detail here. However, it is relevant to Armiñana’s almost maniacal decisions to continue to build in face of lack of funds.

The following is a brief chronology of the events that culminated in the illegal approval of a $130,000,000 Student Center during a time of fiscal crisis and forced austerity:

• In mid January 2011, the CSU issues a new Executive Order on student fees (#1054) and raises SSU mandatory fees by $300—an increase for SSU students totaling $800 or nearly 12% from the previous year.

• In a flyer entitled, “Top Ten Reasons to Vote No on the Student Center”, contained in Chronicle XVIII: State of the University, February 10, 2011 gives reasons why opposition to the $65 million dollar Student Center (the project is estimated to cost $130,000,000 million with debt service) is essential. The opposition comes hard and fast from both students, faculty and even activist members of the surrounding community — to no avail.

• The controversy over the Student Center boil over into an illegal election in early April when the administration of Sonoma State University work ruthlessly to control a student vote authorizing the center under new rule #1054. Students were eventually said to have voted 58% in favor of the new Student Center, while two thirds of students didn’t even bother to vote.

• On May 19, 2011, the SSU Academic Senate pass a Resolution requesting a third party investigation of the Student Center Referendum election but foot dragging and a commitment to sweeping the whole thing under the rug dominate the agenda.

• In August 2011, a group of civil rights attorneys, in a letter to CSU Chancellor Reed and President Armiñana, question the election for legal and procedural improprieties. The attorneys allege serious voting irregularities which violate SSU students’ due process rights under the Fourteenth Amendment. Neither Armiñana, nor anyone in the SSU Administration, comment on the allegations of an illegal election other than to state that they would go forward with the groundbreaking ceremony after the CSU Board of Trustees approved the project in late September of 2011.

• Chronicle authors reveal that on November 16, 2011, the same day that the CSU trustees voted to raise student tuition by $498 in a closed-door session, they approve the Student Center project based on President Armiñana’s personal request

The consequence of the entire Student Center fiasco, combined with decades of unimaginable and perpetual construction, is that SSU has exceeded its credit limit with the CSU system and the State of California. With the president able to dip into and use General Funds for debt service on the monumental capital construction projects at SSU, this budgetary practice translates into less money for classes, instruction, student services, students and faculty. Of course Armiñana says that the Student Center and the Green Music Center will be self-generating ‘enterprises’. But this is hardly possible given the size of the debt and the enrollment caps due to state budget crisis. Add to this the despicable state of the economy and less and less money is available for conspicuous consumption.

Armiñana and his administrative cohorts knew all of this when they authorized the Student Center. They had a perfect excuse for pulling out of the project when the Great Financial Crisis of 2008 descended. They also had an ‘out’ when opposition to the Student Center reared its head in late 2011 over the illegal student election. Yet Armiñana refused to take the opportunity to rethink his decision in light of the economic state of the union and the opposition. He forged ahead anyway.

One can only wonder why; whether this was simply a case of callous disregard for the economic facts coupled with hubris, or if there is some other more sinister financial reason the community is unaware of. Either way, the decision to build a $130,000,000 Student Center at a public state university in the middle of the Great Financial Crisis of 2008 when it is obvious that state budget cuts will impact SSU’s ability to operate a public institution is madness.

As authors of the Chronicle sagaciously stated in 2011, before the Student Center was officially authorized and out of the legal woods:

“A loan for $128,000,000 is incomprehensible. Yet students who are deemed by society to be too young to purchase a can of beer are being asked to approve a building that will still be being paid for when they are facing retirement and grandparenthood” (Chronicle XIV, Student Center update, October 17, 2011).

The authors could have added the mere fact that the cost of student loans, or $36 billion in current outstanding, unpaid student loans, is owed by Americans 60 years and older with 10% of the debt past due (The Press Democrat, Retirees burdened by student loans, April 2, 2012).
The fact that Armiñana would muscle through a $130,000,000 Student Center using an illegal or at best questionable student election is not only unconscionable, it is perhaps testimony to a much larger psychological problem of delusional thinking. Either way, comparisons to Easter Island aside (it cannot be stated loud enough that one and one half million square feet of construction has been built for a public campus with a student body of 8,500) both president Armiñana and the CSU system has remarkably put SSU deeply into debt.
California’s Neo-liberal Master plan for privatized higher Education scrapped in favor of financialization and privatization
The 1960 master plan for public higher education in California provided for full, no cost, universal access to higher education for all qualified students. The plan is crumbling now, owed to decades of right-wing assaults on public education and public unions under the canopy of neo-liberalism; the drafting of policies that favor the underfunding of public education and the failure of effective leadership and theoretical imagination at all levels, from unions to politicians. Inarguably, the lack of public funding for public institutions is among the most devastating economic and social forces creating new material conditions for privatization and driving the deluge in enrollment at the corporate, for-profit disaster colleges (http://deltacostproject.org/data/state/pdf/ca.pdf).
The 1960 public California Master plan for higher education is an anathema to the for-profit educational industry; it always has been. The Master plan gave rise to one of the most prestigious public state university and UC systems in the nation, eventually emulated by myriad states and making up the bulk of school systems throughout the nation. For-profit colleges and universities, just like their counterparts, for-profit health care companies, hate what they call “the public option” or public education and public provided services. Removing public education not only opens up the market to financialization, it opens up the market to monopolization as competition is removed and neo-liberalism and financialization add the finishing nails to the privatization of education.
It is important to keep in mind that under the original California Master plan, the state subsidized every resident who came through the system and wanted an education. The subsidy for universal public education eliminated out-of-pocket costs for students, save for a few affordable fees for specialized coursework such as labs. This has changed now and is why the recklessness of Ruben Armiñana’s regime is unconscionable.
Just to pay for a public bachelor’s degree nationwide in 2009, at any public institution of higher learning (leaving aside for a moment the dire situation at SSU), the cost of tuition not only went through the roof, but during the same time the amount of public subsidies available to students plummeted. This meant more out of costs for education in face of shrinking government assistance — all good news for enrollment increases for the for-profit colleges and universities, which grew by a whopping 235%, just from 2000 to 2010 (ibid).
Perhaps more importantly, the growth of the sub-prime colleges and universities is coming on the heels of an opportune economic and political headwind driven by the failure of capitalism without the gloves. As economic austerity becomes the mantra translated into public policies of slashed budgets by reactionary and even liberal politicians, what better opportunity for the for-profit colleges and universities to set the new public policy agenda for higher education — a Privatized National Master Plan for the New Millennium.
All of this is tremendous news for the for-profit colleges that many thought would simply go away after the Department of Education assiduously labored to regulate them. In fact, the opposite is true. Economic hardship from the Great Financial Crisis of 2008 actually increased the industry’s market share as public institutions barreled fiscally downward.
Kathryn Ryder, a contributor to CNN, reported in early April 2012:
“At a recent conference at the marbled University Club in New York City, the caveat-filled headline said it all: “Private Equity Investing In For-Profit Education Companies: Despite grumbling from activists & politicians, the industry is getting good results” (http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2012/04/10/for-profit-and-undeterred/).
Given years of attacks on public education and chipping away at the public commons has meant damaging and disfiguring public education with virulence.
We see the same attacks on K-12 education as privatization threatens to gobble up these systems as well. All of these decade long attacks on public education (arguably attacks throughout the entire 20th century), against students, workers and unionized faculty are now paying off big time as a result of the economic blowback from years of neglect. Cash strapped states wield the budget cutting knife going after education and unionized teachers first; they always have.
In what can only be termed weakness, indifference, inability to critically think about social issues, complacency, a lust for power and just the downright failure business trade unionism and liberalism, teacher unions are not only less effective than they were historically, but the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and the National Education Association (NEA) are often actually collaborators in the destruction of education. The teacher’s union leadership is an embarrassment, coddling billionaires such as Bill Gates and basically failing to wage strategic and well thought out battles to protect public education. By concentrating solely on salary packages and fighting reactionary politics aimed at undermining public education with a tepid fleshy liberalism, the unions and their political representatives have helped create the material conditions for the private takeover of education through ineffective strategies and tactics.
Due to lack of public education frustrated students flock to for-profit predatory colleges
“Every day I sit in my math classroom, there’s something on the wall either telling me to join the Marines or go to the University of Phoenix,” said Joey Reynoso, student vice president at Riverside City College, one of the 112 junior or what were once called “community colleges” ((http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/30/community-college-for-profit-college_n_1174243.html).
Navigating the world of higher education under the neo-liberal regime has become nearly impossible for students and especially low-income working students. State colleges and community colleges, stalwart public educational institutions that for decades have provided affordable conduits to student careers and an educated citizenry have been decimated by budget cuts, social policies designed to minimize education and overloaded by skyrocketing demand. State and local support for community colleges on a per-student basis declined by 8 percent in 2009, down significantly from a decade earlier, according to Department of Education statistics compiled by the Delta Project, a nonprofit research group that studies higher education spending (http://deltacostproject.org/data/state/pdf/ca.pdf).
Community colleges, like Santa Rosa Junior College, are essential for career training, but they also provide a logical course for transfer students to the California State University system. Statistics reveal that more than half of all CSU graduates started at community colleges. For the UC system, it is nearly a third (ibid).
Presiding over crisis and sensing the collapse of the public sector, for-profit colleges have been more than usually aggressive, placing marketing notices on bulletin boards at community colleges, taking out full-page ads in student newspapers and offering SAT and ACT tests at campuses like SSU, where students are unable to enroll in classes. In this way, the for-profit colleges place their proverbial ‘privatized nose under the public tent’ which gives them marketing exposure and social legitimacy (http://dailycensored.com/2011/11/24/black-friday-cyber-monday-sale-at-kaplan-test-prep/).
In the eyes of those who support the growth and expansion of public education, sub-prime, for-profit colleges are the inevitable, outgrowth of a hustler society, one that simultaneously rewards those with ‘degrees and diplomas’, while eliminating support for public institutions and more importantly for public education.
Michele Siqueiros, executive director of the Campaign for College Opportunity, a state of California higher education advocacy group put it this way:
“The reality is that there is huge demand, and we’ve not supported our public colleges and universities to meet this growth in demand. Students are in dire need of making sure that colleges can offer courses at a time that’s feasible for them, and colleges that give them a very clear prescription for particular career pathway. Many of these for-profit colleges and universities advertise just that (ibid).
In testimony on Capitol Hill and in media interviews, the for-profit disaster colleges and universities have emphasized that its schools welcome the least advantaged, hardest-to-educate students: people from low-income households, minorities, veterans and first-generation college students. They actually say they are providing needy students a favor. While for-profit colleges do indeed educate more low-income and minority students than other institutions, this is due to the decimation of the public commons and specifically, opportunities for enrollment and completion at state colleges and universities.
So just who will attend the nation’s public institutions of higher education and pay down the massive debt? Selling seats to out of state students pay debt at SSU
There is something even more insidious about the failed policies and sickening stewardship of SSU by Ruben Armiñana, laced as they are to the dismal economic situation facing the CSU system at whole. Not only can American students not get into SSU, the CSU system, community colleges and public universities, but to make up for the shortfall in short term thinking, the trend we see now is the sell-off of admission to the burgeoning Asian middle and upper classes. These constituencies pay full out of state resident fees and they never ask for low-income waivers to avoid the cost of paying fees that perpetually escalate. Happy to have the imprimatur of say, Sonoma State University on their resume, eager to live in beautiful California climate sipping locally made wine with less than one hour drive from San Francisco, the opportunity is breathtaking.
Sonoma State University currently accepts 4% of students from other countries. This can be expected to rise dramatically as the school house doors close permanently on unemployed, debt ridden, housing-challenged and health care bereft American students. Simply said: American students are a bad investment from universities. They cannot pay out of state tuition and they can’t pay back the money they borrow for an overpriced college and university education.
The highly paid public administrators are conducting fire auctions to sell seats so they can keep their coveted positions and perks. They also see tremendous profits to be made at what are called public universities.
Out of state students pay many times more than in state residents. At SSU tuition for non-resident students, in addition to the cost of sundry registration fees which totals thousands of dollars, is $372 per unit (http://www.sonoma.edu/registration/fees#nonres). With freshman seats for sale, tuition rising, debt service as the priority of the school and American students saddled with student debt well into their senior years, selling seats like hot cakes to out of state students is where the money is. You can be sure that not only does debt drive the curriculum; it drives student admissions and especially the admission of deep-pocketed out of state students.
A list provided by College Express, online, is truly remarkable and really says all that needs to be stated about the dire state of public higher education in the United States. The percentage of out-of-state students attending public community colleges, state universities and even high end private colleges like the University of California or Harvard has exploded now that local students can’t afford the escalating tuition at colleges and universities in America (http://www.collegexpress.com/lists/list/percentage-of-out-of-state-students-at-public-universities/360/, Wintergreen Orchard House). * You can see a list of colleges and the percentage of out of state students paying out of state tuition at the end of this article
Will SSU sell seats to the international community and the burgeoning Asian middle class as well?
A recent article in the 2012 January edition of Business Week reported that the University of California system is enrolling record numbers of out-of-state and international students, who pay almost twice that of in-state residents. Why? Cuts in the state budget, mal-stewardship of the public commons and of course ever growing debt.
Business Week also went on to note that among those being squeezed out are high-achieving Asian-Americans, many of them children of immigrants (http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-01-04/lure-of-chinese-tuition-squeezes-out-asian-american-students.html). These are students who for decades flocked to the state’s elite public colleges to move up the economic ladder in the land of ‘social mobility’. Now they find the social mobility, like most working Americans and the poor, is hurdling steadily downward.
Hollowing out America by asset stripping the public commons and selling it off to those who can buy it is now the end game for America. Our grandparents and parents built these public commons over one hundred years ago and now the asset stripping is showing up at our institutions of higher education where seats are sold for the highest buck. It seems that everything is now being outsourced, everything is now being privatized and everything is now sold for profit.
The game plan is not even secret anymore now that massive numbers of jobs have been privatized or shipped overseas or both. Business Week also reported that in 2009, University of California administrators told the San Diego campus admissions director, Mae Brown, to reduce its number of in-state freshmen by 500 to about 3,400 and fill the spots with out-of-state and international students, said. California residents pay $13,234 in annual tuition while nonresidents pay $22,878. So why not use publicly paid university personnel to set up a toll booth for students that favor the most affluent?
The international Chinese community got the message and those affluent enough, almost 200 freshmen from China enrolled in public institutions of higher learning in 2011, up from 16 in 2009; that’s a 12-fold increase (ibid). These are precisely the freshman Armiñana is looking for. He can claim diversity in enrollment, an international presence in a rapidly changing global world, expand the local business community opportunities as affluent Asians have more to spend than credit card carrying students with little future. More importantly, by selling seats at SSU to the burgeoning Asian upper classes as well as rich subsidized Saudis and other international affluent students, Armiñana can pay the ‘vig’ on the debt bonds.
If non-resident fees provide an impetus for admission at SSU then the revenue gained by admitting international students could be part of the debt service plan as well. It makes sense. For international students wanting to go to SSU, the cost is 33,379.00 for one year or 24 units, including fees and tuition (http://www.sonoma.edu/is/prospective/fees.html). Clearly from a business perspective and this is the perspective that Armiñana seems to cares most about, recruiting non-resident freshman and international students is where the money is.
In 2009 CBS News reported that:
The number of international students attending colleges in the United States climbed for the third straight year, according to the Institute of International Education. Roughly 671,600 international students attended colleges and universities here during the 2008-2009 school year. First-year enrollment jumped almost 16%.

According to an article in The Chronicle of Higher Education today, the United States continues to be the top destination for international college students. It remains the alpha dog despite efforts by Australia, Canada and other countries to attract more international students. Great Britain is the second most popular college destination for foreign students with close to 341,800 studying there (http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505145_162-37241036/12-most-popular-universities-for-international-students/).
The Chronicle of Higher Education reported that in 2010:

The number of Chinese students attending U.S. colleges rose by more than 23 percent in the 2010 academic year”
Meanwhile, Saudi students, while coming in much smaller numbers, benefited from generous government scholarships, expanding their presence by 44 percent. In all, the numbers of foreign students in the U.S. grew by nearly 5 percent, compared with 3 percent a year earlier (http://chronicle.com/article/International-Enrollments-at/129747/).

China is the leader in sending students to study abroad at American universities is and colleges. According to the Huffington Post of May 10, 2012:
“China sent nearly 160,000 students to U.S. universities last year, more than four times the number 15 years ago and more than any other country, according to the U.S.-based Institute of International Education. Chinese students account for nearly 22 percent of international students, who contribute more than $21 billion to the U.S. economy through tuition and living expenses (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/12/shaken-by-usc-shooting-ch_n_1420171.html).
Peggy Blumenthal, senior counselor to the president at the Institute of International Education stated it best:
“There is a whole new wave of middle-class parents in China who want the best education they can get for their child. And they can pay for it” And pay they do at schools like University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, which has 7,223 foreign students enrolled as undergraduates and graduate students in the current school year. In the 2009-2010 school year, China surpassed South Korea as the biggest exporter to the state’s flagship university (http://www.suntimes.com/news/education/4266771-418/chinas-new-crop-of——-exports–students.html).
The sad thing is that due to the theft of working class wealth, American students cannot pay for education. Much like banks that won’t lend to American consumers for they have no savings, are in debt or have no money, more state colleges and universalities are looking to shuck American students in favor of foreign students, and especially the growing Asian middle class, to subsidize their decades of privatization, corporatization, financialization, debt, profligate spending (Ruben Armiñana), and high administrative salaries.
What many Americans do not know, due to the deplorable state of what is called “news” in this country, is that in corporate America where profits always come before people, everything is for sale and this means everything from bridges and roads to American higher education.
Obama travels to India in 2010 with a gaggle of University Presidents: The vast new international market for America’s public universities
Perhaps the lights should have gone on back in 2010 when President Barrack Obama made his trip to India. Reported in the corporate press as an economic trip designed to support India the corporate press, as usual, concealed more than it revealed. Obama was there to sell the rancid Race to the Top to the India ruling class (http://dailycensored.com/2010/04/04/india-adopts-no-child-left-behind-agenda/) (http://dailycensored.com/2010/04/05/world-bank-leads-privatization-reforms-in-india/). But he was also there on behalf of cash strapped colleges and universities.
As I wrote back in 2010 in an article for Daily Censored and which I will reproduce in part here, for the Indian story is no different than that of the Chinese who are flocking to American public universities in search of an education and diplomas:
“Want to Sit on the Same Bench with America? The US needs to tap into the Indian education market to bail out its broke colleges, November 8, 2010, Tehelka, Anil Sadgopal, http://www.tehelka.com/story_main47.asp?filename=Ne131110Want_to.asp).
All over the world the move towards privatization of education discloses its ugly colors and roams the earth like locusts. Americans must understand that the privatization of education is not simply a national phenomenon, but a global one.
In a little-noticed but important part of U.S. President Barrack Obama’s India visit, a delegation of U.S. education officials is trying to push India to speed up its acceptance of foreign universities. This requires an Indian government initiative that has been promised but appears at the moment to be stalled. That is why the delegation is accompanying the Commander in Chief of Privatization, President Barrack Obama.
At issue, are India’s current regulations that govern education such as regulations on education that legislate aspects such as tuition fees, teacher salaries and curriculum. All this, of course, is a punch in the face to colleges and universities in the US that favor ‘market fundamentalism’, meaning no regulations at all. This certainly is true for the for-profit predatory colleges and universities that see the global landscape as a training ground for ‘human capital’ – and for hefty profits for Wall Street and CEO’s.
American universities have made clear to Mr. Sibal, the minister of human resource development in India that they can’t operate in India under such government regulations and Mr. Sibal has repeatedly said he hopes not only to allow foreign universities to operate in India without the burden of such regulations but to liberate the entire higher education system from these outdated rules. What this means is full spectrum privatization. Of course whether Sibal will be able to do so remains in question, in part because many Indians fear what most Americans have suffered – tuition fees, unregulated, that would soar out of the reach of the average Indian, in the absence of substantial student loan programs. India is now in the process of setting up student loan programs and vocational programs that would run on debt, much like the US.
The sad truth of the matter is that US state universities and colleges are broke and the spiraling tuition fees unsustainable for US students. Making a buck off of India would allow some of these colleges and universities to shore up their own debt and bail out their own broken institutions.
According to the Wall Street Journal:
“The group of about a dozen U.S. officials, including representatives from Duke University, Rutgers University and Arizona State University, will make its case Tuesday to senior officials from India’s Human Resource Development ministry, which covers higher education.
The ruling Indian National Congress party introduced a bill in March that would allow foreign universities to set up stand-alone undergraduate and graduate-degree programs here. Foreign institutions are now allowed to set up only programs in India that are part of degree programs based elsewhere (Geeta Anand U.S. Officials to Press India on Education The Wall Street Journal, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703514904575602070793685064.html?mod=WSJ_newsreel_world)
The issue is now outsourcing American university seats to the rising middle classes in third world countries, especially as their cost of education for students in this country is rising sharply with year to year tuition increases assuring that US students will have no chance to go to any major university without the help of the Banksters on Wall Street ready to loan them the money to mortgage their futures for an Empire literally sitting on the precipice of collapse. Skyrocketing tuition means more need for capital and this is where the foreign educational market comes in.
Add to this the fact that the US universities themselves are broke, teetering on a sea of capital construction loans and other for-profit ventures such as Wall Street derivatives and debt that could leave them bankrupt. Yet India, with more than half of its 1.1 billion people under the age of 30, represents a vast new market for U.S. universities. Duke University, for example, aims to set up a campus in India, starting with a business degree program. However to get their hands on students in India requires passage of the foreign universities bill, according to Jaivir Singh, an adviser to Duke in Delhi who is part of the delegation (ibid). And it is this hustle that is allowing Obama to bring with him the insidious ‘captains of training’ that have financially ruined US higher education.
Kapil Sibal, minister of human resource development for India stated that he wanted to encourage foreign universities to establish undergraduate and graduate degree programs in India as part of a broader plan to substantially increase the quality and quantity of higher education programs in India. Sibal noted that India can’t meet the demand of its growing economy for better educated workers unless its higher education system is substantially expanded and improved.
This of course is where the educational industry in the United States comes in and where the need to de-regulate India’s educational rules are a necessity for their involvement. Public universities are eager to grant admission to foreign students for the high tuition and fees and they are equally interested in operating like a corporation, opening up educational retail franchises in India, Asia and DuBai. And don’t think this will be limited to state universities; look for the for-profit predator colleges like Kaplan, Capella, DeVry and the University of Phoenix to be wetting their lips to snake further into the ‘global educational market’” (http://dailycensored.com/2010/11/08/the-us-needs-to-tap-into-india%E2%80%99s-educational-market-and-other-foreign-markets-to-bail-out-its-financially-broken-state-colleges-and-universities/).
As the public and private for-profit predatory colleges look to expand market share (Kaplan reported an increase in its international division of for-profit universities and other educational products), America is now facing a permanent state of surplus labor — disposable youth who may never work; youth who may never own a home or even rent one; youth who will forever remain in debt in a capitalist economic system and commercial culture that simply cannot give them health care, education welfare or a civic life. With work sent overseas for 70 cents an hour labor, America simply cannot compete — except on a trajectory downward.
There are many more educational articles to reference regarding selling seats in American public state universities to out of state or international students and I have listed some of them in the reference section for readers. These articles supply the evidence needed to see that the financialized business plans of the once public institutions of higher education that now operate like corporations or better yet, mini-investment banks putting profit before people, are or have been corporatized, privatized and financialized.
It seems clear that unless there are radical changes to American economic and social life that put people before profit, the future for American students not members of the lucky sperm club will resemble a semi-feudal life of debt peonage, permanent war, a life of no work or low paid work, no health care or corporatized health care, no education or privatized education, and virtually no public commons as America privatizes more and more public services, much as Britain did some decades ago when they outsourced them to other countries like Dubai.
Clearly capitalist global economics is not serving the needs of the 99%. Youth, all over the world, from Quebec to Chile, from the US to England, from Spain to France and beyond all see that under the new regime of post mortem capitalism there is no future, no education — only debt and austerity.
Summary
A shortage of rational, long term thinking coupled with hubris and delusion have all clamored together with the failure of capitalism to orchestrate the current crisis at Sonoma State University. Sadly, the university is becoming less and less accessible to our nation’s young students. As a public university it is failing our young people and the workers who labor within its walls. With dormitory occupancy and full-paid meal tickets determining who is admitted into the college, fewer numbers of working class students, students of color and local transfer students can attend the debt-ridden university. With a plethora of lower division classes being offered to secure the needed freshman classes, a scarcity of upper division classes means that fewer students can complete their degree and studies within a four year window.
The revenue that Armiñana is counting on from the dormitories and various meal ticket sales may not be forthcoming (unless he sells seats to international and out of state students); just as the one trillion dollars in student loan debt can never be paid back. The revenues pledged for student loan debt is the students’ future employment or earning capacity. The revenues Armiñana has pledged for debt are students’ financial lives.
Armiñana has also created an over-enrollment trap for the school that means that it will not be possible to admit large numbers of freshman each year and remain under the enrollment cap if existing students are not able to complete their studies and graduate. Even if the campus could increase enrollment to ten thousand, which it cannot, it has no classrooms to educate students and there is no money to build any, Armiñana having squandered the funds on favored capital construction projects that serve business and the millionaire ‘Green Music Center’ pack, as we will see in part four.
Armiñana could have served as a public steward for the university during a time of economic crisis, investing in educational facilities, faculty and student programs. He chose not to, assuming capitalism actually provided needed services for people and preferring to use public money to gamble like mini-investment bank, Goldman Sachs. He chose construction over instruction.
Armiñana has created a situation whereby the only way to pay down debt at SSU is to cut student programs, decimate faculty and workers’ salaries, hire adjunct professors to replace tenured labor, pitch the college to the Asian middle and ruling classes, use the internet as a Distance Learning ruse, raise fees on such things as mental health for students and Student Centers and slash classes and academic programs. This is the ‘austerity’ crisis that Armiñana has left as his legacy — one of his own making — a virtual pedagogy of plunder.
With America hollowed out by policies like NAFTA that assured the outsourcing of tens of thousands of manufacturing jobs, we were told that service jobs would be part of the ‘new economy’ that would replace industrial America. Not so. With service centers for everything from call centers to placing product orders sent overseas in a mad dash to keep wages down, avoid working condition disputes and completely do an end run around environmental and other regulations, America has now asset stripped its economy. In doing so, the captains of capital have assured that our nation’s cities’ once reliant on a vibrant economy, are now circling the drain along with all the services they once provided. And now they want to outsource our colleges and universities while our citizens are forced to accept a new Digital Dark Ages.
This virtually means that there is no productive capacity in the country and with the rich avoiding taxes and corporations hiding unreported income overseas, there simply is no money to fund or operate the public commons. What great day to be a for-profit college or better yet, a CEO or major shareholder of one. As the market for public education continues to deliquesce due to intentional domestic and international policies designed to benefit the rich and impoverish the poor, public education, as life itself, is now a commodity on the auction block. The best education students can achieve now is through resistance to a capitalist system that has and will continue to fail them — it must be an organized resistance to a new neo-liberal Master plan for a post-modern system of serfdom that is administered by a Gulag carceral state where punishing and policing an exploited and disenfranchised population becomes the norm.

References

*

• Alcorn State University (Alcorn State, MS): 16%
• Appalachian State University (Boone, NC): 17%
• Arizona State University (Tempe, AZ): 23%
• Arkansas State University (Jonesboro, AR): 10%
• Auburn University (Auburn, AL): 30%
• Ball State University (Muncie, IN): 8%
• Bemidji State University (Bemidji, MN): 7%
• Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania (Bloomsburg, PA): 10%
• Boise State University (Boise, ID): 8%
• Bowie State University (Bowie, MD): 7%
• Bowling Green State University (Bowling Green, OH): 6%
• CUNY — Baruch College (New York, NY): 3%
• CUNY — Hunter College (New York, NY): 3%
• CUNY — Medgar Evers College (Brooklyn, NY): 3%
• Cal Poly — San Luis Obispo (San Luis Obispo, CA): 4%
• California State University — Chico (Chico, CA): 1%
• California State University — Dominguez Hills (Carson, CA): 2%
• California State University — Fresno (Fresno, CA): 1%
• California State University — Fullerton (Fullerton, CA): 1%
• California State University — Long Beach (Long Beach, CA): 3%
• California State University — Los Angeles (Los Angeles, CA): 4%
• California State University — Northridge (Northridge, CA): 4%
• California State University — Sacramento (Sacramento, CA): 1%
• California University of Pennsylvania (California, PA): 5%
• Cameron University (Lawton, OK): 7%
• Christopher Newport University (Newport News, VA): 2%
• Clarion University of Pennsylvania (Clarion, PA): 4%
• Clemson University (Clemson, SC): 30%
• Coastal Carolina University (Conway, SC): 41%
• College of Charleston (Charleston, SC): 32%
• College of William and Mary (Williamsburg, VA): 35%
• Colorado School of Mines (Golden, CO): 21%
• Colorado State University (Fort Collins, CO): 20%
• Coppin State University (Baltimore, MD): 10%
• Delta State University (Cleveland, MS): 7%
• Edinboro University of Pennsylvania (Edinboro, PA): 10%
• Emporia State University (Emporia, KS): 8%
• Evergreen State College (Olympia, WA): 24%
• Fashion Institute of Technology (New York, NY): 31%
• Fitchburg State College (Fitchburg, MA): 8%
• Florida A&M University (Tallahassee, FL): 25%
• Florida Atlantic University (Boca Raton, FL): 9%
• Florida International University (Miami, FL): 11%
• Florida State University (Tallahassee, FL): 19%
• Fort Hays State University (Hays, KS): 6%
• Fort Lewis College (Durango, CO): 34%
• Framingham State College (Framingham, MA): 8%
• Frostburg State University (Frostburg, MD): 12%
• George Mason University (Fairfax, VA): 10%
• Georgia State University (Atlanta, GA): 1%
• Grambling State University (Grambling, LA): 36%
• Humboldt State University (Arcata, CA): 4%
• Illinois State University (Normal, IL): 4%
• Indiana State University (Terre Haute, IN): 7%
• Indiana University Bloomington (Bloomington, IN): 28%
• Iowa State University (Ames, IA): 19%
• Jackson State University (Jackson, MS): 22%
• James Madison University (Harrisonburg, VA): 29%
• Kean University (Union, NJ): 5%
• Keene State College (Keene, NH): 53%
• Kent State University (Kent, OH): 7%
• Kutztown University of Pennsylvania (Kutztown, PA): 9%
• Lamar University (Beaumont, TX): 2%
• Lincoln University (Lincoln University, PA): 53%
• Lock Haven University of Pennsylvania (Lock Haven, PA): 9%
• Louisiana State University — Baton Rouge (Baton Rouge, LA): 8%
• Marshall University (Huntington, WV): 16%
• Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts (North Adams, MA): 16%
• McNeese State University (Lake Charles, LA): 9%
• Mesa State College (Grand Junction, CO): 8%
• Miami University — Oxford (Oxford, OH): 27%
• Michigan State University (East Lansing, MI): 9%
• Michigan Technological University (Houghton, MI): 18%
• Middle Tennessee State University (Murfreesboro, TN): 8%
• Millersville University of Pennsylvania (Millersville, PA): 4%
• Mississippi State University (Mississippi State, MS): 21%
• Montana State University (Bozeman, MT): 27%
• Montclair State University (Montclair, NJ): 2%
• New College of Florida (Sarasota, FL): 25%
• New Jersey Institute of Technology (Newark, NJ): 4%
• New Mexico Highlands University (Las Vegas, NM): 9%
• New Mexico State University (Las Cruces, NM): 19%
• North Carolina School of the Arts (Winston-Salem, NC): 52%
• North Carolina State University — Raleigh (Raleigh, NC): 8%
• Northern Illinois University (DeKalb, IL): 3%
• Ohio State University — Columbus (Columbus, OH): 11%
• Ohio University (Athens, OH): 10%
• Oklahoma State University (Stillwater, OK): 12%
• Old Dominion University (Norfolk, VA): 8%
• Oregon Institute of Technology (Klamath Falls, OR): 16%
• Oregon State University (Corvallis, OR): 12%
• Pennsylvania State — Erie, The Behrend College (Erie, PA): 7%
• Pennsylvania State University — University Park (University Park, PA): 23%
• Portland State University (Portland, OR): 10%
• Purdue University — Calumet (Hammond, IN): 7%
• Purdue University — West Lafayette (West Lafayette, IN): 21%
• Radford University (Radford, VA): 12%
• Ramapo College of New Jersey (Mahwah, NJ): 16%
• Richard Stockton College of New Jersey (Pomona, NJ): 3%
• Rowan University (Glassboro, NJ): 4%
• Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey — New Brunswick (Piscataway, NJ): 8%
• SUNY — Albany (Albany, NY): 4%
• SUNY — Binghamton (Binghamton, NY): 4%
• SUNY — Purchase College (Purchase, NY): 19%
• SUNY — Stony Brook (Stony Brook, NY): 2%
• SUNY — University at Buffalo (Buffalo, NY): 3%
• SUNY College — Potsdam (Potsdam, NY): 3%
• Salisbury University (Salisbury, MD): 18%
• Sam Houston State University (Huntsville, TX): 1%
• San Diego State University (San Diego, CA): 3%
• San Francisco State University (San Francisco, CA): 1%
• San Jose State University (San Jose, CA): 1%
• Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania (Shippensburg, PA): 6%
• Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania (Slippery Rock, PA): 4%
• Sonoma State University (Rohnert Park, CA): 4%
• South Carolina State University (Orangeburg, SC): 22%
• Southern Illinois University—Carbondale (Carbondale, IL): 20%
• St. Mary’s College (Notre Dame, IN): 14%
• Stephen F. Austin State University (Nacogdoches, TX): 2%
• Temple University (Philadelphia, PA): 22%
• Texas A&M University — College Station (College Station, TX): 4%
• Texas A&M University — Galveston (Galveston, TX): 24%
• Texas Tech University (Lubbock, TX): 6%
• Towson University (Towson, MD): 18%
• Truman State University (Kirksville, MO): 25%
• University of Akron (Akron, OH): 1%
• University of Alabama (Tuscaloosa, AL): 21%
• University of Alabama, Birmingham (Birmingham, AL): 5%
• University of Arizona (Tucson, AZ): 24%
• University of Arkansas — Pine Bluff (Pine Bluff, AR): 31%
• University of California — Berkeley (Berkeley, CA): 14%
• University of California — Davis (Davis, CA): 4%
• University of California — Los Angeles (Los Angeles, CA): 3%
• University of California — Riverside (Riverside, CA): 1%
• University of California — San Diego (La Jolla, CA): 3%
• University of California — Santa Barbara (Santa Barbara, CA): 5%
• University of California — Santa Cruz (Santa Cruz, CA): 6%
• University of California, Irvine (Irvine, CA): 2%
• University of Central Florida (Orlando, FL): 8%
• University of Colorado — Boulder (Boulder, CO): 33%
• University of Connecticut (Storrs, CT): 23
• University of Delaware (Newark, DE): 59%
• University of Florida (Gainesville, FL): 5%
• University of Georgia (Athens, GA): 10%
• University of Hawaii — Manoa (Honolulu, HI): 17%
• University of Houston (Houston, TX): 2%
• University of Idaho (Moscow, ID): 19%
• University of Illinois — Urbana–Champaign (Champaign, IL): 7%
• University of Iowa (Iowa City, IA): 31%
• University of Kansas (Lawrence, KS): 24%
• University of Kentucky (Lexington, KY): 12%
• University of Louisiana — Lafayette (Lafayette, LA): 6%
• University of Louisville (Louisville, KY): 11%
• University of Maine (Orono, ME): 14%
• University of Mary Washington (Fredericksburg, VA): 35%
• University of Maryland — Baltimore County (Baltimore, MD): 8%
• University of Maryland — College Park (College Park, MD): 26%
• University of Maryland — Eastern Shore (Princess Anne, MD): 26%
• University of Maryland — University College (Adelphi, MD): 29%
• University of Massachusetts — Amherst (Amherst, MA): 23%
• University of Memphis (Memphis, TN): 9%
• University of Michigan — Ann Arbor (Ann Arbor, MI): 32%
• University of Minnesota — Twin Cities (Minneapolis, MN): 25%
• University of Mississippi (University, MS): 35%
• University of Missouri — Columbia (Columbia, MO): 12%
• University of Montana (Missoula, MT): 30%
• University of Nebraska — Lincoln (Lincoln, NE): 14%
• University of Nevada — Las Vegas (Las Vegas, NV): 20%
• University of New Hampshire (Durham, NH): 40%
• University of New Mexico (Albuquerque, NM): 19%
• University of North Alabama (Florence, AL): 17%
• University of North Carolina — Asheville (Asheville, NC): 11%
• University of North Carolina — Chapel Hill (Chapel Hill, NC): 18%
• University of North Dakota (Grand Forks, ND): 42%
• University of North Texas (Denton, TX): 10%
• University of Northern Colorado (Greeley, CO): 11%
• University of Oklahoma (Norman, OK): 18%
• University of Oregon (Eugene, OR): 24%
• University of Pittsburgh (Pittsburgh, PA): 13%
• University of Rhode Island (Kingston, RI): 38%
• University of South Carolina — Columbia (Columbia, SC): 13%
• University of South Dakota (Vermillion, SD): 22%
• University of Tennessee (Knoxville, TN): 14%
• University of Texas — Austin (Austin, TX): 5%
• University of Utah (Salt Lake City, UT): 7%
• University of Vermont (Burlington, VT): 61%
• University of Virginia (Charlottesville, VA): 29%
• University of Washington (Seattle, WA): 12%
• University of Wisconsin — Madison (Madison, WI): 38%
• Utah State University (Logan, UT): 31%
• Virginia Commonwealth University (Richmond, VA): 5%
• Virginia Tech (Blacksburg, VA): 27%
• Washburn University (Topeka, KS): 2%
• West Chester University of Pennsylvania (West Chester, PA): 11%
• West Virginia University (Morgantown, WV): 38%
• Western Carolina University (Cullowhee, NC): 9%
• Western Michigan University (Kalamazoo, MI): 6%
• Western Oregon University (Monmouth, OR): 6%
• Western Washington University (Bellingham, WA): 7%
• William Paterson University of New Jersey (Wayne, NJ): 3%
• Winthrop University (Rock Hill, SC): 11%
• Youngstown State University (Youngstown, OH): 9%

** A small collection of articles on accelerated international student admissions to US colleges and universities:

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2016769522_international15m.html

http://www.king5.com/news/local/UW-taking-more-out-of-state-students-to-offset-budget-cuts-118401624.html

http://www.insidecollege.com/reno/Percentage-of-OutofState-Students-at-Public-Universities/360/list.do

http://chronicle.com/article/Why-Community-Colleges-

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-12-28/lure-of-chinese-tuition-squeezes-out-asian-americans-at-california-schools.html

http://www.seattlepi.com/local/article/Access-Denied-College-education-increasingly-out-1335748.php#page-2

http://opb.washington.edu/content/tuition-and-required-fees

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2015470722_uwtuition01m.html

http://blog.thenewstribune.com/politics/2011/01/19/faced-with-cuts-universities-may-look-to-nonresident-tuition/

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/03/20123514594267704.html

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-schneider-community-college-graduation-rates-20120411,0,2732111.story