Reflective Essay on Theme III, Issue No. 1: Image
and Visibility
A Brief Look at the Past
From its inception in the mid-1960s until the mid-1980s,
the image of CSUSB in the region was exceedingly limited.
The campus saw itself as the "Dartmouth of the West;"
that is, as a small public university focused on the liberal
arts. Located on what was then decidedly the "outskirts"
of San Bernardino, it was virtually unknown by the surrounding
community. It prided itself as being both the CSU's and
this area's "best kept secret" in higher education.
During those early years the CSU system prohibited spending
public monies on both institutional promotion and fund raising.
Private colleges and universities promoted themselves; public
institutions were simply to wait and take those students
who applied without actively recruiting students. The general
community looked upon CSUSB as the local "state teachers
college." A survey taken during 1984, for example,
found that more than half of the region's high school students
had never even heard of CSUSB.
That external image, and the institution's self-image,
began to change in the mid-1980s. Then-President Anthony
Evans worked to move the university's mission and self-image
from that of a small liberal arts college to a regional,
comprehensive university. He established CSUSB as among
the first of the CSU system campuses to have a University
Advancement Division. He and his top administrators joined
the local Chamber of Commerce and expanded the size and
the quality of persons serving on the University's Advisory
Board. By the early 1990s, the CSU system in general changed
its policy and many campuses began actively to raise funds,
recruit students, establish formal advancement divisions,
and generally become concerned with their reputation and
image in the broader communities they served. President
Evans, for example, established an Office of Government
Relations.
This change in image and focus did not occur easily. Many
faculty members resisted the direction of the mission from
that of a liberal arts college to a comprehensive, regional,
"full-service" university. Symbolic of the greater
institutional visibility that characterized the Evans years
was the institutional decision to engage in intercollegiate
athletics. In the fall of 1983, the student body voted to
increase student fees to help shoulder the costs. The first
Division III teams were fielded in AY 1984-85. In less than
a decade, the university moved into Division II believing
it would lead to even greater institutional visibility.
With these changes in athletics, the university jettisoned
its original domesticated mascot (St. Bernard) and instead
adopted the more free-ranging and aggressive Coyote.
Despite all the changes, many in the community continued
to view the campus as a state-teacher's college. In part,
significant change in the external image depended on the
gradual building up of the university's capacity to serve
the region as an intellectual and cultural center. That
capacity was limited in the early 1990s by inadequate funding
for advancement and public relations purposes, as well as
by a lack of appropriate facilities on campus to serve as
venues of "intellectual" and "cultural"
leadership for the region. Those capacities were greatly
expanded during the later Evans years, and especially after
President Albert Karnig was selected as the new President
of the University in 1997. Critically important to the changed,
and clearly enhanced, image was the expansion of physical
facilities to serve as the venues for cultural and intellectual
leadership to the region; especially the building of several
campus buildings, notably Jack Brown Hall (1993), an expanded
Student Union Building with an Events Center (1993); the
Coussoulis Arena (1995), the Visual Arts Center (1996) with
expanded large auditorium rooms, and the Fullerton Arts
Museum (1996). The Coussoulis Arena and Jack Brown Hall,
named after prominent local philanthropists and leading
businessmen, were especially important in raising the visibility
of the university within the region. Since 1996, for example,
the arena's attendance has ranged from 58,000 to over 70,000
annually. In AY 2001-2002, the library had over 100,000
visitors, over 30,000 used the Physical Education facilities,
over 20,000 attended events in the Commons, over 14,000
used the Yasuda Center, and over 5,000 attended events at
the Foundation Center.
President Karnig was given greater resources by the CSU
for university advancement activities--both for fund-raising
efforts and for "presidential initiatives" designed
to enhance the university's service and thereby its image.
The university is no longer a "best-kept secret"
in any sense. Every year it becomes more visible in the
region. The president significantly expanded the staff of
the Public Affairs Office and the activities of the Government
Relations Office. The University Advancement Office has
expanded in size and scope of activities, and each of the
Colleges in the University has added development officers
to its college office staffs. President Karnig has tripled
the budget allocated for advancement. He also identified
new goals in the university mission statement--to develop
activities that would be distinctive to the university,
and to enhance those things we were doing well to a level
that would make them outstanding. As a result of his efforts
and the work of others, the university has adopted a long-term
strategic plan that establishes key objectives and strategies
for engaging our region. (www.csusb.edu/theme3/president/strategicplan.htm)
The university recently negotiated new memorandums of understanding
with foreign universities, and such agreements now are over
a dozen world-wide.
Where Are We Now?
Changes in the faculty since the mid-1990s have also enhanced
the capacity of the university to serve as a truly "comprehensive,
regional" university. The faculty increasingly began
doing "applied" research and serving the region
in all types of leadership roles.
Each of the five colleges has played a central role in
making the campus the educational hub for internal and external
communities. The College of Education has been extremely
active establishing partnerships with K-12 institutions,
and in fact, the College has many partnerships, increasing
our visibility throughout the region. (thewasc.csusb.edu/theme3/evidence/Complete_COE_Partnerships_2002_.htm)
The College of Business and Public Administration, (thewasc.csusb.edu/theme3/evidence/CBPA_FOCUS-AREA_SUM_WRD.htm),
the College of Natural Sciences, (thewasc.csusb.edu/theme3/evidence/Inventory_SEM_Feb_2003.htm),
and the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences all have
been extremely active.
The university's Advisory Board was expanded and service
on the board increasingly became viewed in the local business
community as" prestigious." Both the number and
the caliber of persons serving on the Alumni Board increased.
The university's alumni are increasingly effective spokespersons
for the institution.
The Institute of Applied Research conducted an Educational
Needs Assessment study, researching what employers think
of CSUSB graduates and what the community "at large"
thinks of the quality of CSUSB. (http://thewasc.csusb.edu/edueffrev/thm3/appendix/i1/needsassess.htm)
A number of "projects" have enhanced the university's
service capacity: the California Arts Project; the RIMS
California Reading and Literature Project; Project Upbeat;
and the Community-University Partnerships (CUP) initiative,
the latter of which is the subject of a separate sub-committee
report.
A number of Institutes and Centers were initiated or enhanced
to serve as focal points of that changed emphasis in the
university's culture, for example: Institute of Applied
Research and Policy Analysis (established in 1985); Institute
for Applied Supercomputing (1998); Institute for Science
Education (1998); International Institute (2000); Water
Resources Institute (2000); Community-University Partnerships
Institute (1999). Centers include, by Colleges, the College
of Business and Public administration's Inland Empire Center
for Entrepreneurship (IECE), Center for Global Management,
and a newly proposed Transportation Resource and Analysis
Center; the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences' Center
for Corrections Research, Center for Economics Education,
Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism; the College
of Education's University Center for Developmental Disabilities,
Center for Equity in Education, Center for Research in Integrative
Learning/Teaching, Center for Environmental Education, Center
for the Study of Correctional Education; the College of
Natural Sciences' Center for the Enhancement of Math Education,
and Center for Applied Science; the College of Arts and
Letters' Center for Prose Studies; and the College of Extended
Learning's Center for Scholarship on Spirituality. (research.csusb.edu/Institute_and_Centers.htm)
The latter has hosted the Morrow-McCombs Jewish/Christian
Annual conference. Most recently, the Department of Theatre
Arts (College of Arts and Letters) has established the CSUSB
Coyote Conservatory for the Arts in downtown San Bernardino.
(thewasc.csusb.edu/theme3/evidence/conservatory.htm)
It's a partnership among the city, The Arts Council for
San Bernardino County, and other local organizations. The
conservatory provides a wide variety of cultural activities
and creative Arts programming while contributing to the
ongoing revitalization of downtown San Bernardino.
The enhancement of sports-related activity centered around
the new Coussoulis Arena (http://arena.csusb.edu)
focused upon improving the quality of competition in relatively
few areas. Currently the university fields Division II intercollegiate
competition in eleven sports. More than 200 students at
Cal State San Bernardino participate in 11 intercollegiate
sports sponsored by the university's Athletics Department.
The most visible sport on campus and in the community is
men's basketball which has won four consecutive California
Collegiate Athletic Association championships and two NCAA
Division II West Regional titles since ay1998-99. The women's
volleyball team has won the last two CCAA championships
and has reached the NCAA Division II Pacific Regional finals
three straight years. All told, CSUSB teams have won seven
CCAA titles in the past four years. The baseball team captured
its first conference crown in 2002. The school's eighth
CCAA title was won by men's soccer in 1991, the school's
first year in the CCAA and Division II. Upgraded facilities
for basketball and volleyball (the 4,100-seat Coussoulis
Arena) have produced increased attendance at university
athletic events and brought us local, regional and national
attention. (http://thewasc.csusb.edu/edueffrev/thm3/appendix/i1/courena9602.htm)
For example, in AY 2001-2002, the men's basketball team
was again the Western Regional Champion and for the first
time ever the campus hosted the Western Regional Basketball
playoffs, providing the campus with a lot of favorable visibility
in the region and boosting attendance to over 94,000. The
athletics department offers four men's sports (basketball,
soccer, baseball and golf) and seven women's sports (basketball,
soccer, softball, tennis, cross country, volleyball and
water polo) and makes every effort to meet Title IX requirements
and gender equity targets based on the demographic makeup
of the 16,500 students at CSUSB. In addition to solid performance
on the fields and courts of play, the student-athletes are
also performing well in the classroom. The 200-plus student-athletes
posted a cumulative grade point average of 2.93 for the
2001-02 school year. (For more information on Cousousslis
Arena events and attendance figures see http://thewasc.csusb.edu/edueffrev/thm2/appendix/i3/CoussArenaAttendRep.pdf
A number of our students have participated in academic
competitions in which teams of CSUSB students compete with
teams from other universities, and these teams have performed
exceptionally well, bring positive notoriety to the university
on a national basis. These represent an "external"
validation of the quality of the programs and certainly
have enhanced the university's academic reputation. Of particular
note to exemplify this are the Model Arab League teams which
have been awarded the top prize in the thirteen of thirteen
regional competitions in which they have participated; the
Model UN teams, which have been awarded the "Outstanding
Delegation" Award (the highest award presented) each
year for the past seven years continuously at the national
competition in NYC; and the Business Planning team competition
which has won the top award in the past two years in which
they participated.
As the campus student enrollment size has gradually expanded,
its student population has become increasingly "diverse."
Student dorm space has nearly tripled in room capacity.
As ever greater numbers of students live on campus, the
university has been able to enrich the number and variety
of events on campus to draw those students, and the external
community, to participate in those events. All the new buildings
have physical facilities that better enable the university
to serve as an intellectual and cultural center to the region.
New buildings have large lecture halls and auditoriums.
Several buildings have "patio" areas that serve
as sites for such activities. Newer buildings have been
designed to serve multiple uses rather than strictly academic
needs. Extended learning and outreach efforts have greatly
expanded with the building of the Yasuda Center. As the
campus enrollment has increased markedly in size, what "we
are able to do" has grown commensurably. Programs such
as the University's Ambassador Society are taking students
out into the community. The Public Affairs Office has expanded
and has developed an on-line capacity to link the service
to the region's external community. The university Speaker's
Bureau (with over 400 faculty and staff persons listed willing
to go out into the community to speak before local schools,
community groups, and the like on their areas of expertise)
is a key element in this expansion. (http://publicaffairs.csusb.edu/faculty_experts/index.html)
The enrollment of foreign students has steadily grown, despite
apprehensions caused by the events of September 11, 2001.
What Remains To Be Done?
The campus needs to continue its efforts to serve as the
region's intellectual and cultural center. This will occur
with additional programs, increased capabilities to deliver
such programs and services with new technologies to physically
distant places, and cooperation with the local community
media, community organizations, and political leadership
to enhance institutional visibility and recognition as an
intellectual and cultural center to the region. The new
Palm Desert campus (http://pdc.csusb.edu)
and Social and Behavioral Sciences building will increase
the campus' capacity, as will the new Anthropology Museum.
Outreach programs to the high desert (in the Victorville
area) also need to be expanded to serve those outlying areas
of our region. Expansion of external funding grant efforts
needs to be continuously promoted to help such efforts to
expand our service to the geographic region. The university
needs to continue its expansion, begun in 1989, of the consortium
between local educational institutions and public access
television stations in the region to provide the public
with information about educational and cultural programs
known as the Educational Roundtable. The university's theater
department in the 2002 academic year for the first time
staged performances off campus at the California Theater
in downtown San Bernardino. More than 3,000 attended its
various on-campus performances, and more such off-campus
performances need to be offered, and off-campus productions
delivered to local K-12 schools should be enhanced.
How Will We Do It?
The campus plans to increase its efforts at enhancing and
improving its visibility and its image in several ways.
It will expand its efforts by creating new Centers and Institutes.
It will greatly expand its capacity to serve as the region's
intellectual and cultural leader by forming the Inland California
Television Network (www.ictntv.tv),
expanding to a dozen cities a network to tie in to the following
community-based, public access, independent television operations:
Big Bear Lake, Colton, Grand Terrace, Fontana, Loma Linda,
Montclair, Ontario, Rancho Cucamonga, Redlands, Rialto,
San Bernardino-Highland, and Yucaipa. This consortium or
partnership operation will enable Cal State to "manage"
daily cable air time to each of these cities' Channel 3
operations during the prime-time hours of seven to eleven
p.m. http://thewasc.csusb.edu/theme3/evidence/The_Birth_of_the_Inland_Califor.htm)
This network has the immediate potential to reach a million
viewers in cable subscribing households. It will enable
the university to provide targeted, locally originated programming
and to tap into already well-established audiences in those
local communities with proceedings of their city councils,
school boards and other official meetings and activities.
The network will potentially serve as the conduit for orienting
new residents to the "inland area" region they
call home. It should not only enhance the university's visibility
in the community but also help enhance the community's own
awareness of itself. The focus and number of programs offered
to the region will greatly exceed local productions that
can be offered by PBS stations, which are committed to national
program scheduling. The university will be viewed as the
founder of the network, and its cable casts will feature
a number of programs focusing on cultural, educational,
and sporting events, among others, that occur at Cal State
San Bernardino. The network will open new avenues for applied
internships in the University's Communication Studies' practicum
classes. It will offer programs that inform citizens of
the area.
The university is ideally equipped to meet this goal due
to its central location in the region, its capability to
provide both creative and technical leadership, and its
technological and pedagogical capacity to deliver "state-of-the-art"
educational services to the region. Recently designated
as a "National Center for Excellence in Distance Learning,"
Cal State San Bernardino will develop tailored services
for the civilian workforce of the U.S. Navy and other clients
world-wide through state-of-the-art digital television equipment
funded through multi-million-dollar federal grants. Planned
programming for the network include regional news, a business/economic
development series, cultural and entertainment events offered
to the region, documentaries on local history, workforce
and employment development, health and nutrition programs,
sports, and educational and environmental trends in our
area. The network will evolve to offer the capability of
college courses to be delivered over the network for college
credit.
More long-term, the university expects the network to expand
to the High Desert and mountain communities, and eventually
to Riverside County as well. The university's Riverside
County-based satellite center in Palm Desert already is
the focus of regular monthly programming produced separately
by the Office of Public Affairs for Time-Warner's PEG channel,
and the university expects to feed additional public affairs
programming to the Low Desert communities as warranted.
It promises to become the ideal means with which to deliver
the three prongs of the university's strategic plan--advancing
the learning community, enhancing the campus environment,
and promoting community partnerships. In doing so, Cal State
San Bernardino looks forward to building its stature and
renown through this cable network both regionally and beyond.
Another major multi-million dollar federal grant has designated
the university as an Hispanic Serving Institution, bringing
greater visibility and a new role for the university to
play in a region with the fastest growing Spanish-speaking
population in the state. This factor, combined with all
of the other dynamic contributions noted in this report,
positions CSUSB as a veritable engine of positive social
change for the foreseeable future. Far more than concerning
only superficial appearances, the issues of "image"
and "visibility" recounted in this report address
the deepest purposes of public higher education in general
and the California State University system in particular.
Looking into the future, the CSUSB faculty envisions their
institution as one of the most progressive institutions
in the entire CSU system.
Appendix of Supporting Materials and Links for Theme
III, Issue No. 1
College of Education Partnerships: http://thewasc.csusb.edu/edueffrev/thm3/appendix/i1/Complete_COE_Partnerships_2002_.htm
College of Business and Public Administration Partnerships: http://thewasc.csusb.edu/edueffrev/thm3/appendix/i1/CBPA_FOCUS_AREA_SUM_WRD.htm
College of Natural Sciences Partnerships: http://thewasc.csusb.edu/edueffrev/thm3/appendix/i1/Inventory_SEM_Feb_2003.htm
College of Social And Behavioral Sciences Partnerships: http://thewasc.csusb.edu/edueffrev/thm3/appendix/i1/CSBSFOCUSSUMWRD.pdf
Community Survey of Educational Needs by Institute of Applied
Research 2000: http://thewasc.csusb.edu/edueffrev/thm3/appendix/i1/ENACommSurv.pdf
Needs Assesment Institute of Applied Research: http://thewasc.csusb.edu/edueffrev/thm3/appendix/i1/needsassess.htm
Employers Educational Needs Survey by Institute of Applied
Research 2000: http://thewasc.csusb.edu/edueffrev/thm3/appendix/i1/ENAEmplSurv.pdf
Needs Assessment of Region Final Report by Institute of
Applied Research 2000: http://thewasc.csusb.edu/edueffrev/thm3/appendix/i1/needsassess.htm
Centers and Institutes: http://research.csusb.edu/Institutes_and_Centers.htm
Coyote Conservatory: http://thewasc.csusb.edu/edueffrev/thm3/appendix/i1/conservatory.htm
Coussoulis Arena: http://arena.csusb.edu
Coussoulis Arena Attendance Report: http://thewasc.csusb.edu/edueffrev/thm3/appendix/i1/courena9602.htm
Inland California Television Network: http://www.ictntv.tv
ICTN Report: http://thewasc.csusb.edu/edueffrev/thm3/appendix/i1/The_Birth_of_the_Inland_Califor.htm
Public Affairs Speaker's Bureau: http://publicaffairs.csusb.edu/faculty_experts/sb.html
Palm Desert Campus: http://pdc.csusb.edu
Teacher Job Fair Survey: http://thewasc.csusb.edu/edueffrev/thm3/appendix/i1/TchrFairJobSurvRes0203.pdf
Wilkens Consulting Group Marketing Survey and Analysis
of University Image and Perceptions:
http://thewasc.csusb.edu/edueffrev/thm3/appendix/i1/MarkSurvAnaly.pdf
