President's evaluation, Press Democrat column exposes rift
David Abbott , Staff Writer

The recent evaluation of SSU President Ruben Armiñana by the CSU Chancellor’s office, and an ensuing ‘Close to Home’ article The Press Democrat has exposed a potential rift between SSU faculty and the Administration, and the tensions that are brewing just under the surface of the apparent calm of the campus.

According to an open letter from the office of the Chancellor that was sent out to the entire SSU campus in August, the annual evaluation was conducted during the Spring 2005 term. The review consisted of a summary of documents and letters “from a selection of the campus community, both internal and external,” and by culminated with a visit to the campus of a four-person team of evaluators in May.

The final review praised Dr. Armiñana as a “planner and visionary,” and an administrator who is “thinking five years ahead of everyone else,” but made only a passing reference to surprise at increased class sizes by “some individuals on campus.”

The ‘Close to Home’ column written by retired professor Philip Beard, entitled “President Armiñana’s ‘vision’ and academic decline” took issue with the findings of the evaluation, citing administrative growth, increased Student to Faculty Ratios (SFR), and states that Armiñana gave himself a $30,000 raise in 1998.

Armiñana would not address the implications of the column directly, but on the subject of SFR he described a very complex structure insisting that SFR only tell part of the story. He cited average class size as an important indicator of quality of education, as well as campus size.

“If you would measure with all other universities of our size, and how you pick size is always important,” he said. “Our average class size is right where all the other universities are in the CSU.”

A 2004 CSU study of statewide SFR ranks SSU second highest in the state ahead of CSU Monterey Bay, and right behind East Bay (formerly CSU Hayward). Comparable sized campuses include such schools as Dominguez Hills in Carson, which ranked thirteenth in SFR, and CSU San Marcos that came in seventh.

The formulas may be complex, but members of the faculty are not happy with the workload and believe that SFR does matter.

Dr. Kathy Charmaz of the Sociology department has been teaching at SSU since 1973.

“As classes get larger, the work goes back to the faculty,”Charmaz explained. “There’s far more paperwork as we try to maintain quality assignments.”

Charmaz hasn’t actually counted the number of hours she works every week, but said it seems as if she’s working “all the time.”

“Much of my weekend goes into pure teaching, and I spend a lot of time on my breaks (both summer and winter) developing my curriculum,” she said.

SFR has an impact on students in the CSU system as well. Nadir Vissanjy, president of Associated Students, thinks that it is important for freshmen to connect with an instructor their first year here. That is more likely with smaller classes.

“If they [freshmen] connect their first year, they are twice as likely to come back their second year,” Vissanjy said.

Regarding Beard’s column, Armiñana would not engage in a response to what he considered somebody’s opinion. He did wish to address the “major, glaring mistake” that he gave himself the raise.

“I don’t have the authority, no president has the authority to set their own salary or to add to their own salary,” Armiñana said. “That is strictly done by the board of trustees.”

The column also claims that the additional $30,000 of Armiñana ’s salary “was bled directly from SSU’s existing general fund,” though Armiñana refutes that claim.

“My salary does not get paid locally,” he said. “It gets paid by the central office.”

As to administrative growth, the ‘Close to Home’ column stated that since 1992 enrollment has grown by 20 percent, faculty by 14 percent, “but VP positions have swelled by 150 percent,” from two positions in the early 1990’s to five plus six associate VPs.

According to Armiñana, the additional administrative positions came as a result of a restructuring that changed the titles of several of SSU’s deans to Vice Presidents.

“When I came here, there were about 15 or 16 people who had the title of Dean,” he explained. “Now there are only six. I do think that is a very key, important and distinctive function that needs to be acknowledged.”

Armiñana cited state budget cuts as the cause of the inflated SFR. “If anybody can figure how you take out $12 million out of $70 million and expect things to be exactly as they were before is much better at doing mathematics than I will ever be,” he said.

The Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC), SSU’s accrediting institution, is scheduled to evaluate the school as a follow-up to its last visit in 1999.